#it actually is really a strikingly consistent metaphor

[pyrrhicprose]

Hey guys so I was rewatching OPLA and uh.

They really carried that well theme through huh?

[thebandcampdiaries]

Mou5EmO is back with a one-of-a-kind  piece of music titled "Lonely Drive" (Featuring Mou5ZyZZ)

May 2023 - Mou5EmO is an artist with a focus on creating music that sets the bar higher in terms of genre variety and compositional creativity. The pulsating beats and hypnotic rhythms will undoubtedly transport the audience to another world, where people can lose themselves in the music and dance the night away. This song has a distinctive psychedelic quality, with trippy sound effects and swirling synths that add to the otherworldly atmosphere, perfectly resembling the mood of driving alone, perhaps at night, with nothing but the road, the faraway lights of the city, and the music blasting out of the speakers.

"Lonely Drive" is energetic and uplifting, but there is still a very immersive, very ethereal side to the arrangement. The sound of this track is characterized by its fast tempo and driving bass line. In addition to the driving beat, the song offers soaring melodies and ethereal pads that add so much texture and atmosphere to contrast the speed and intensity of the groove. The pulsing bassline and intricate percussion create a very strong yet surprisingly mesmerizing groove.

The big sawtooth-style synth leads, in particular, soar through the instruments beautifully, establishing themselves as the leading component in the mix bit without overpowering the rest of the song. At the same time, the instrumental is also very balanced, showcasing some incredibly dynamic parts and a melodic backdrop that really adds more ambiance and personality to this track overall. The composition consists of many layers of electronic sounds and captivating melodies that are strikingly cinematic. This makes for a very rich and dynamic sonic landscape. 

There's something undeniably liberating about taking a solo drive. The open road spreads out ahead of you, offering a sense of freedom and possibility that's hard to find anywhere else. As you leave your worries behind and hit the gas, it's like shedding the weight of the world and embracing the present moment. Of course, driving alone isn't just a physical act - it's also a powerful metaphor for leaving behind the things that hold us back. Whether it's a toxic relationship, a dead-end job, or just the weight of our own anxieties, sometimes we need to step away from it all and just breathe. This powerful song actually captures the feeling of absolute perfection! "Lonely Drive" will hopefully leave the audience feeling inspired and invigorated because it packs so much punch and a lot of fantastic energy.

To add to that, the collaboration with Mou5ZyZZ is also really spot-on, as it actually feels like a perfect match with the overall mood of this track. In addition, there is something mysterious at play here, as Mou5ZyZZ might or might not be Mou5EmO's trance alter-ego! Maintaining two different musical identities can be overwhelming: When you have a musical alter ego, it means that you have two different musical identities to uphold, so the idea of creating a collaboration with the alter-ego project is nothing short of genius! It really shows all the hard work, dedication, and talent that drives the artist's endeavors. "Lonely Drive" is indeed an amazing example of everything will fall into place when artists like Mou5EmO (and his Mou5ZyZZ) alter-ego put complete trust in the creative process of the production and simply let the music flow out of the soul tap in a very spontaneous and creative way.

In conclusion, "Lonely Drive" is a truly outstanding piece of music that should definitely be right up your alley if you do enjoy the work of artists such as Ghost Rider, Ranjii, and Astrix, only to mention a few. This track is really all about creating a high-energy and immersive experience for the listener. Whether you're dancing at a music festival or just listening at home, this "Lonely Drive" is going to take you on a journey you'll never forget!

Find out more about Mou5EmO, and do not miss out on "Lonely Drive." This release is now available on Spotify and many of the best digital music streaming services.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6VJ5DA0sXotKWn7Ea1uCqw?si=842ffac0a7434c66

https://instagram.com/mou5emomusic

https://instagram.com/mou5zyzz

We also had the chance to catch up with the artist for a full-on interview! Keep reading to learn more!

I love how you manage to render your tracks so personal and organic. Does the melody come first? Answer: YES! THE MELODY USUALLY COMES FIRST WHEN I START TO CREATE A NEW SOUND. I HEAR THE SOUNDS IN MY MIND FIRST. THEN I START TO LAY OUT INSTRUMENTS AND BUILD MY TRACKS IN MY STUDIOS. Do you perform live? If so, do you feel more comfortable on a stage or within the walls of the recording studio? Answer: I PERFORM LIVE WHENEVER A CLUB OR FESTIVAL HIRES ME. I LOVE PLAYING LIVE HONESTLY. ITS ONE OF THE BEST NATURAL HIGHS BEING ON STAGE PERFORMING FOR FANS. If you could only pick one song to make a “first impression,” which would it be and why? Answer: I LOVE "🎵 Mou5EmO & Mou5ZyZZ - DOCTOR" BECAUSE OF ITS MELODIC SOUND AND VIBE. "WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HAPPY". What does it take to be “innovative” in music? Answer: HAVING AN OPEN MIND TO FORSURE. I HAVE "ADHD" SO MY MIND IS ALWAYS CREATING VERY INTRICATE SOUNDS AND IDEAS, WITH MULTIPLE LAYERS. Do you have any upcoming release or tour coming up? Answer: I AM NOT CURRENTLY TOURING, BUT I GET SMALL GIGS EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, LIKE "UNGROUNDED SHOWS". ALSO NEW MUSIC ALWAYS COMING AND MY NEXT TRACK WILL BE "🎵 Mou5EmO & Mou5ZyZZ- TAKE ME OR LEAVE ME". What is the best way for fans to connect with you online? Answer: FANS SEND ME EMAILS ALL THE TIME TO MY EMAIL @ mou5zyzz@gmail.com YOU CAN ALSO REACH MY ON MY INSTAGRAM OR LINKTR.EE

[comicreliefmorlock]

#WomenInHorror - Relic - Oh, the Thoughts

I bet you thought @tlbodine would get to this first, huh? HAH!

So as part of our ongoing quest to inflict doctorate-level studies of horror film on ourselves for... the sake of doing it, Wuffie and I have been watching a lot of horror movies. Having finished our #HorrorThruTheDecades quest, we moved on to #WomenInHorror, focusing on horror films directed by women.

She's written quite a bit about the movies we've been watching. However, this last week, we watched a film that inspired me into a long-winded post-mortem after we finished it.

Relic is a 2020 Australian horror film directed by Natalie Erika James, focusing on a three-generation family struggle between a grandmother, a mother and a daughter.

Edna, the grandmother, has been missing for several days when her daughter Kay and granddaughter Sam arrive to check on her. We get a little from Kay hinting that her relationship with her mother has been strained, and alternatively, defense of Edna by her granddaughter Sam who has a completely different relationship with her. (As tends to happen with grandparents and grandchildren.) Clues are laid out to hint that Edna may be succumbing to Alzheimer's and quite honestly, the movie does a very good job in showing how absolutely difficult it is to deal with that. Especially in the family situation involving the shift in power dynamic that happens when a parental figure suddenly needs a lot of careful, supportive care.

And Robyn Nevin as Edna? Fantastic. Sympathetic and terrifying all at once.

I won't spoil the film's ending here--you've got to go below the cut for that--but it's at once poignant and plays fair emotionally with the film's overall tone.

Now, for what I went off at great length at Wuffie about... [#triggerwarning for child abuse discussion]

Relic is pretty clearly intended to be a film about grief, aging, the inevitability of death and how part of dealing with health issues in older generations involves facing that you yourself one day may be in that exact situation.

What it also does really, really well--albeit unintentionally but strongly enough that it hit me across the face with a shoe--is create a solid metaphor for intergenerational child abuse.

Fairly early on in the film, the granddaughter Sam discovers a black mold staining a wall inside of a cluttered closet. This black mold becomes a consistent visual element that shows in nightmares, in the house and on Edna herself, staining her skin like a bruise. This mold, through the nightmares, is visually tied to a now-demolished smaller house that'd once stood on the family grounds and was the home of a "great-grandfather" mentioned once directly and alluded to in several nightmare sequences.

This mold grows on stained glass windows that were transplanted from the former house, spreads across the interior of the house itself and spreads across Edna's skin.

Several visual cues tie the black mold to the "great-grandfather" who, in one nightmare sequence, is shown sitting on the edge of a narrow bed before collapsing forward, out of sight. When the camera pans over, a human figure is etched in black mold on the floor.

At the end of the film, after Edna's transformation--you really ought to watch the movie to know what I mean--and the joining of three generations of women in silence together, Sam spies a black spot on her mother Kay's back, hinting at that same mold that destroyed Edna.

Incestuous child abuse is insidious and yet, from the memoirs I've read, always seems to be something the family "knows about" and simply doesn't discuss. A grandparent, a cousin, an aunt or uncle is abusing the family children--sometimes singling out one child, sometimes abusing every child--and the family is aware of this, but no actual steps are taken to bring the abuser to justice.

The cycle of abuse is fairly commonly known, but the long-term effects of child sexual abuse aren't always as easily identified by the public. Alcohol and drug abuse are extremely common amongst child sexual abuse survivors, as well as an inability to develop healthy, trusting relationships with other adults. Difficulties in parenting can also arise as the person who suffered abuse may fear the same thing happening to their child or be struggling emotionally and not able to show their child the affection they need.

Much like the insidious spread of black mold in out-of-sight places, causing illnesses that can't be immediately identified and threatening the structural integrity of a house, incestuous child abuse absolutely threatens and even destroys lives. It's hard to spot at a glance, hides in plain sight--in closets, cupboards, under stairs, behind furniture--and causes illnesses that can be attributed to more "acceptable" causes.

With the clear visual tie to the once-mentioned "great-grandfather" that isn't mentioned between the family members again, it's not hard to go a bit further and consider him the unmentioned, unnamed family abuser. His actions tainted the house he lived in, the remnants brought from it--Edna says later in the film how much she hates the stained glass windows, how cold and scared she feels when she passes them--and spread not only through the house but through the family itself.

And this mold--and the effects of intergenerational incestuous abuse--hits all three women in this family differently.

Edna, theoretically the member of the family who suffered direct abuse, is physically tainted by the black mold to the point it literally degenerates her body. Aspects of her behavior--disliking having "help" or needing to ask for it, offering a token to her granddaughter one day, demanding it back the next, trying to save photo albums from 'the house' by burying them--seemed strikingly like a woman whose coping mechanisms are now failing her.

She mentions believing someone is breaking into her house, stating it only began after the death of her husband. Alone in a massive house with visual, physical ties to the location of her abuse, feeling vulnerable and struggling to push away memories, Edna's actions feel like a cry for help that she can't verbalize because to do so would be to admit not only the vulnerability she feels now, but the fact that it's equivalent to how vulnerable she was as a child, being abused.

Fairly early on in Relic, Kay makes it clear that she and her mother are not particularly close. She makes attempts to stay in contact, but isn't invested in her mother's day to day life and has actually distanced herself to a degree. Her daughter Sam has a closer and more openly affectionate relationship with Edna. Kay mentions her mother threatening to lock her in the old house "when she was a brat" and seems to want a comfortable distance between herself and her mother.

A parent who has endured abuse as a child can have profound difficulty in bonding with their own children. Healthy sexual intercourse and adult relationships are tainted by child abuse experiences, and some memoires have mentioned being pregnant making them feel "dirty" as if they'd committed some great sin. Bonding with an infant while struggling with those emotions can lead to distant parenting and leave a child with an insecure emotional attachment.

Sam, the granddaughter, is the least damaged by the intergenerational abuse at the beginning of the film. She has an affectionate relationship with her grandmother, seems actively interested in doing what she can to help Edna and scolds her mother for not taking a more prominent role. When Sam finds a sketchbook with a sketch of the 'great-grandfather's' house, she doesn't know what it is or to whom it belonged. The cycle of abuse has been broken; Sam isn't even aware that abuse happened.

What she does is learn of it through a visual metaphor for unearthing family history. Discovering the black mold in the closet and pursuing a ghostly figure into what becomes a nightmarish labyrinth that has echoes of the home she'd always felt safe in plays very well as the realization for an unabused member of a family learning about the abuse that happened. What was loving and familiar is suddenly alien and terrifying, threatening and tainted.

By the end of the film--rather an emotionally poignant moment--all three women have been hurt by this black mold (i.e. incestuous abuse) and have come together in a moment of quiet rest. Edna, completely altered into a shell of who she once was, with Kay, accepting that what happened is fact and had effects on her as well, and Sam, who now understands a great deal about her mother and grandmother.

Every generation in the family has been affected to some degree, even if the cycle of abuse was fortunately broken. The black mold not only completely transformed Edna internally, expressed in a striking visual moment, but also tainted her daughter. Even the granddaughter, although physically unharmed by the mold, has been permanently changed by learning about what happened in her family and feeling her perceptions twist (frighteningly so) from what she once held to what she now knows.

While I don't think the film intended to be such a great visual metaphor for the horrific effects of incestuous family abuse and the intergenerational damage it causes, it did an incredibly good job of being one.

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: a deeper dive into one of the most underrated early synth-pop acts. You’ve heard “Fade to Grey” by now, I’m sure, but this record is weirder and wilder than you might imagine! Find out more by watching the video or reading the transcript below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be discussing one of the first opening salvos of the New Romantic movement: the 1980 self-titled debut album by Visage. You could be forgiven for assuming that Visage was the alias of a single person, presumably the dapper fellow all over their brand, but Visage were, indeed, a group!

That “face of the band” figure was Steve Strange, who was less of a musician and more of a tastemaker and aesthete, and the club promoter for London’s famous nightclub, The Blitz. The Blitz’s DJ, Rusty Egan, was also a percussionist, and had previously played in the punk band Rich Kids, where he became acquainted with Midge Ure. Famous for his many connections and skill at leveraging them, Egan put together a sort of dream team out of the many musicians he knew at the time: Ure, who’d been orphaned by the dissolution of Rich Kids, Billy Currie, one-time synthesist of Ultravox before their group split apart, and several members of Buzzcocks alumnus Howard Devoto’s band Magazine. A bit of a motley crew, for sure...but one can’t argue with the success Visage would achieve.

Music: “Fade to Grey”

“Fade to Grey” is surely one of the most iconic songs of early 80s synth-pop, and its music video pushed forth a bold new aesthetic for the new decade: sophisticated, futuristic, androgynous. While Steve Strange would consistently reject the “New Romantic” label for his own work, his influence on the scene was undeniable. “Fade to Grey” strikes a balance between being debonair and mysterious, with its ghostly vocal reverb, and being a straight-up club classic, with an absolutely massive synth riff. The inclusion of a French-language translation of the main lyrics gives it a lot of European panache, and may well have been one of the main factors propelling it to international success--“Fade to Grey” was actually an even bigger hit in markets like France and Germany than in Visage’s native UK. That aside, though, as is so often the case with these famous 80s songs, the rest of this album is not to be missed! If you’re looking for another song with a bit of a similar vibe to their famous hit, I think you can’t go wrong with its opening track and final single, also titled “Visage.”

Music: “Visage”

There’s something really satisfying about a track, artist, AND album all having the same name--the triple threat! Still, I think this album’s title track stands well enough on its own, with a soaring refrain that’s quite easy to sing along to. While this album doesn’t get quite as “baroque” as Ultravox would, on tracks like their famous hit “Vienna,” the dry piano used throughout this track really classes the place up. Thematically, the title track seems to assert the importance of fashion and style, as well as the importance of innovating in those fields--“New styles, new shapes, new modes.” While lots of electronic acts were fixated on the future, Visage were one of the first to center aesthetics to such a dramatic degree. Plenty of people, both at the time and more recently, would criticize New Romantic acts of the MTV era for being “style over substance,” as though their embrace of the parallel art form of fashion inherently made their music worse. I’ve never understood that criticism myself, since it’s perfectly possible to care about, or excel at, more than one creative pursuit at once. At any rate, the title track’s focus on novelty contrasts quite strikingly with the preceding single, “Mind of a Toy.”

Music: “Mind of a Toy”

“Mind of a Toy” is a surprisingly high-concept song in comparison to the album’s other singles, narrating the thoughts of a plaything that’s lost its lustre, and has been discarded in favour of newer and better diversions. It feels like a pointed criticism of the consumerist obsession with novelty, and a counterpoint to the apparent thesis of the title track. It’s perhaps also a sort of critique of the way popular music disposes of so many of its once-loved idols--who, like puppets, are often controlled by unseen outside forces. You’ll also find several tracks that push into more experimental territory on the album, to a degree that may be surprising if you’re only familiar with the big hit. The eerie, cinematic instrumental “The Steps” is perhaps the most striking example, and closing the album on this note is certainly a bold decision!

Music: “The Steps”

The album’s cover features Steve Strange dancing with a woman, in a starkly lit, greyscale composition that recalls early photography. In the background, we can see the shadows of several instrumental musicians--perhaps a nod to the composition of the band itself, in which the composers and instrumentalists happily hid behind the facade of Strange’s attention-grabbing persona. What’s perhaps most interesting about it is the fact that despite having a dance partner, Strange’s attention seems to be focused entirely on us, the viewers. He seems to meet our gaze, with a vigour and intensity that borders on confrontational.

Before “New Romantic” took such a strong hold as the term for this movement, one of the contenders for its name was “peacock punk.” I’ve always liked the way that alternative phrase communicates the brash, almost macho nature of its seemingly fey male frontmen, whose gender-bending style was often rooted in self-confidence that bordered on bravado. I think Steve Strange’s fixed gaze on the cover of this album embodies this principle of “peacocking,” and lavishing attention on one’s personal aesthetic in a daring, perhaps even aggressively counter-cultural manner. While a lot of this music, and its associated visual culture, has been dismissed as some sort of yuppie frippery, it takes some serious balls to transgress ideas about gender as much as the New Romantics did, and I’d say it’s pretty damn punk.

This album is, of course, self-titled, which I suppose could be seen as a sort of throwaway non-decision. But I think the use of “Visage” for the title calls attention to the idea their name represents. A “visage” is, literally, a face, but the connotation of the word is certainly a bit loftier and more refined than that. A visage is less likely to be an everyday face, and more likely to be a metaphorical or symbolic “face”--a front for something, a representation of some greater idea. While Strange and company couldn’t see the future, they of course ended up being the representative front for the coming wave of stylish, synthesiser-driven pop, even if they weren’t at the crest of it for too long.

After their debut, Visage would go on to release one more LP with their original line-up, 1982’s The Anvil. Less experimental, and more indebted to disco and dance music, The Anvil would produce two more charting singles, “Night Train” and “The Damned Don’t Cry,” though neither of them would reach the same heights of international success as “Fade to Grey.”

Music: “Night Train”

Later in the 1980s, Billy Currie and Midge Ure would become increasingly committed to their work with the re-formed Ultravox, and they left Steve Strange and Rusty Egan to continue the Visage project on their own. The two of them released one more album under the Visage name in 1984, but when that was panned, they went back to running the Blitz Club together.

In 2013, Steve Strange decided to return to making music, and revive the “Visage” name. While his untimely death in 2015 would cut this era short, Strange released one full album, and recorded enough material for a followup that it could be released posthumously. Though Strange is no longer with us, Rusty Egan has become quite keen on the idea of a Visage reunion of some sort in the past year or two, possibly involving Midge Ure, Billy Currie, and/or fellow New Romantic heartthrob Zaine Griff, who I think could fill Strange’s shoes better than just about anybody. It sounds quite promising, so we’ll have to stay tuned.

My favourite track from this album is “Tar,” which was actually released ahead of the album, in 1979, but failed to attract much notice. It was love at first listen for me, though--I love the way the chorus rises so triumphantly, only to fall back down into its screwy, glitchy synth hook. Besides that abrasive touch, the theme of the song is also a bit out there: it’s a somewhat patronizing number all about the repulsiveness of cigarette smoking. Perhaps now that fewer people are smokers, this premise will come across as less alienating than it did at the time! That’s all I’ve got for today, thanks for listening.

Outro: “Tar”

[ferusaurelius]

Playlist ask

I was tagged by @rosenkow on pairing playlists but since I write majority genfic, I’ll be a bit more broad.

I tag: @vampirepunks @dr-ladybird @neonbutchery @datsonyat @rosebud1773 @danypooh80 @cosmicallium

No obligations of course! I’m just working hard on my wips today (obviously >_>) and in the mood to gush about some background.

Below the ‘read more’ tag: four songs for two fics.

Two for Air Needing Light (in progress). - My Blackwatch!Saren longfic wip.

Two for ‘This will have no bearing on your evaluation.’ - A Nihlus/Saren oneshot that may(?) turn into a few more oneshots.

Air Needing Light Playlist (aka: Blackwatch!Saren No Reapers AU) - Excerpt of what I use as background/writing music.

ALPHA - Layto: I like this song for AU-Saren on multiple levels. One of the reasons he passes Blackwatch selection and gets put on a team, despite being fantastically inexperienced, is his overall “get shit done” personality. He’s not the biggest, strongest, or fastest anything -- but he’s creative, near-fanatical about being prepared, and strikingly observant and calm under pressure. Creative pragmatism is a rare trait. My preference is to write Saren as someone who can get things done as an individual when required but who is (growing into and learning to be) a valuable force multiplier when on a team. I feel like this song covers both the attitude and the occasional self-doubt of trying to live up to who you’re trying to be. I’m treating the lyrics here as more of a metaphorical conversation. Also the beat SLAPS.

Violin Duel - “Taste” - DSharp feat. Rhett Price: I’m a slut for violin covers, but this song covers my soon-to-be-introduced biotic Kabalim OC Vallen. He’s unflappable and methodical, and I like the “duel” element of the song because he’s fundamentally who ends up taking charge of strategy on the ground. There’s no other option for him or the team. It turns into a duel between the Hierarchy military and the Alliance forces on Shanxi. This is really how I want to write the FCW -- two elite opponents doing everything in their power to test and outmaneuver each other. Really? Both forces are fighting for survival in this dynamic, awful situation. The “brighter” tone of the violin keeps me even-keeled in mood while also thinking about the overall structure of the fic’s plot.

-

This will have no bearing on your evaluation. - (aka: Bar!fic!) Nihlus/Saren

don’t mind - Kent Jones (Sickick Version): I love the beat and the sheer audacity. I listen to this one fairly often, but drunk Nihlus embodies this attitude. Sober Nihlus has the same energy just with more inhibitions.

head first - Christian French (Young Bombs remix): This is pretty much sober Nihlus realizing how much shit he’s in. And fortunately/unfortunately (entertainingly?) this version of Saren has no idea what to do about this, since the whole mentoring experience is fairly involved as it is. Mostly they don’t talk about it and Nihlus goes on Having Emotions and trying to keep anything too personal to himself. Saren takes QUITE a bit longer to come around to this and go from appreciating Nihlus and his ability on a purely professional level (where he’s still excellent!), to allowing that OKAY maybe this is platonic and they’re friends (aka: Nihlus keeps predictably respecting Saren’s boundaries and being consistent in behavior to the point where Saren feels like he has a steady read on Nihlus, despite the frequently unpredictable tactics related to literally every other assignment and situation), to finally allowing the possibility that he might also care about Nihlus on a personal level. Aka: Saren is fanatic about personal boundaries and Nihlus spends time navigating those until “complacency is dangerous, Nihlus” Saren Arterius is actually comfortable around him. Unstoppable force meets immovable object for the two years of Nihlus’s training. While that kind of relationship would have been against Saren’s ironclad principles during those two years, Nihlus is stubborn as fuck, and since nothing about his intentions has changed even AFTER those two years, Saren eventually allows the possibility that Nihlus’s interest is genuine. ROFL.

[autumn-in-phandom]

A review of "How WHITE is Dan?!- DNA TEST RESULTS"

I was riding in the car on the way to the store when I heard a familiar alert coming from my phone. I wondered aloud “Ooo is that Dan?” He was due to have a video out today or tomorrow, but it could be one of the few other channels I’m subscribed to. I’ve been psyched out before. I opened my phone and yes it was Dan and what was more, the word DNA was there. “They were right!” Those psychic IDB members with their “strong feelings” were right. 

I for one didn’t think Dan would make this video. Mainly because he said so himself during a liveshow in the spring, shortly after Phil had posted his. He had admitted to taking the test as well, but the results were so vague and he was disappointed. I could relate, having bought DNA kits for my parents and getting very broad results, particularly for my mother’s side, which we wanted to know more about. 

However, one shouldn’t take Daniel Howell at his word. He could be lying, or in this case he might just change his mind with the seasons. He wasn’t feeling it back then, but there was a hint in his last solo liveshow that he was thinking about ancestry again. The chat asked about “the grandma tweet” and he pulled up the photo of someone’s distant relative who had a strikingly similar face to his. Someone said it could be his great-grandmother, after all his own grandma was adopted. So reasonably, someone on IDB predicted that Dan would work this photo into his DNA video. After all Dan often sits on ideas for videos and then decides to make them when he feels the “the time is right” (or the topic is relevant). 

Dan did indeed choose to make this video now for a specific reason, and while the photo may have inspired him, it didn’t make an appearance or get a mention. Apparently the driving force behind this video was current events. Current events that some fans were disappointed that Dan and Phil had not mentioned. The heated protests in Charlottesville, Virginia were mentioned in the first eight seconds: 

“Hello Internet, in these times when apparently (camera zooms in on his lips) *some people* find it difficult to tell the difference between protesting racism and *racism*, I thought it would be relevant and mildly interesting to make a video about the shared genetic history of all humans by finding out *the origins of my ancestors*.“ (Cue the soft grey filter with fake lens flares, zen music and calm hand movements from Daniel). 

I was immediately intrigued, but a bit skeptical. How was a video entitled "How WHITE is Dan?!” going to positively address racism? Especially knowing that his results were boring, so probably not that diverse. Well, he did it by following through on his topic sentence and actually showing the shared genetic history of all humans through maps of human migration. He also did some historic research into his small percentage of West African DNA. Of course the little sign in the background reading ‘AYY FUCK NAZIS’ and his black shirt with red Cyrillic letters that translate to “equality” were nice aesthetic touches. 

Mind you, the actual factual human migration information comes later in the video. First we have sarcastic philosophical Dan waffling on about lizard people on Pangea slowly drifting apart “metaphorically and physically, until the inevitable nuclear apocalypse blows our planet into tiny chunks floating infinitely into the abyss of space” with a starry falling through space effect. Woah there nihilistic Dan, stay with us. 

It’s okay, there is a quick jump cut that changes the tone immediately. It’s a mention of Phil and his DNA video, complete with a clip of “Science!Phil”. What’s more, Dan says that Phil ordered the DNA test kit for him. Perhaps, it’s just to set up his own reluctance, as he goes on to do just that. For some of us, the idea of Phil ordering DNA testing for both of them (even if it is to use in a video) paints a pretty domestic picture. Though in Phil’s video he says he was given his for free by a friend of the family who is a doctor, thinking it would make a cool video. Perhaps this is why neither of their videos seem to be sponsored by the DNA testing company, 23andMe. Or are they?

Cue relatable slightly paranoid Dan with some sharp humor about “laboratories” and being cloned and replaced “by a compliant artificial intelligence” by Mark Zuckerberg (thanks for knowing the correct spelling of that iPad) or “Zuck”, with a Stephen Hawking like voice saying “I’m coming for you Danny”. Dan of course gave a fake name for his DNA profile (as did Phil), but kept his date of birth. However he admits there isn’t really any point in trying to protect his identity on the internet. Okay, John Johnson. 

“Are you ready! Am I ready? I have no idea what to expect to be honest.” Here’s the part where I have to suspend my disbelief and just accept that Dan pretending to react to these results as if he didn’t view them several months ago does make for a better video. Just like Dan pretending to play Bubble Bobble for the first time on the gaming channel in 2016, when in reality he tweeted about reaching level 100 with Phil back in 2009, did result in a very sweet gaming video. 

 Add a being related to a giraffe joke to the lizard one. I’m not sure if this is really helping the “one human race” thing, but it’s a pretty harmless joke. “Wow. Looking pretty white. That is one blue circle there, isn’t it JJ?” (the blue being European ancestry). Dan is 98.2% European and he jokes that this is the end of the video only a minute and half in. 

Dan drags his ancestors for “literally” sticking to four countries (Britain, Ireland, France and Germany) when in reality those results are lumping Britain and Ireland together because they share so much common DNA, the same for French and German. He is also ignoring that 33.8% of his Northwest European genetics is broadly undefined and he hasn’t gotten to the Southern European, Scandinavian or West African parts yet. But I still found “really got out there and saw the world” quite funny. “Okay someone saw the sun at least” was a good one, though I wish he would have addressed his ability to tan darkly in this video, perhaps in the fair skin section. More on that below. 

More relatable humor about not wanting to hike or get on a boat gets worked in to Dan finding out that he is not the least bit Asian or American. I vaguely recall a rumor about him being part Asian, let’s lay one that to rest. And I remember him hoping years ago that he might be part Native American because his grandma was adopted, but I found that extremely unlikely. Probably just a bit of wishful thinking perhaps brought on by being Team Jacob. 

Now here is the part that interests me the most. On the Ancestry DNA test I gave to my parents, 1.8% was considered a “trace amount”, but in this 23andMe service they give a specific timeline for when each genetic group cropped up and the West African and Scandinavian both span from the late 1700s to mid 1800s, not that long ago. Dan concludes that “a ‘Scandi’ and a West African got it together” (insert graphic of the two countries coming together with a smooching sound effect). I’m not sure if that timeline is definitively saying they were a couple, but Dan’s Wikipedia research supports it and it is an interesting bit of history. 

Segue into a brief farming family reunion story. 400 cousins, I’m sure. Shift to black and white and cue the unexplained mysteries music for Dan’s adopted grandmother mention. Dan “feels like there’s some epic adventure story there for another time”. Sign me the frick up! In fact please just bring your grandma onto one of your YouTube videos. She has always been the one Dan has been most comfortable talking about and even sharing pictures of. (Oh 'helo ther’ unflattering selfie from the Tinder spon on Dan’s computer). 

I appreciate Dan showing the Haplogroup migrations of his paternal line, but in true Dan fashion it included commentary about “presumably wrestling mammoths and getting frozen or something” in Asia and “then buggered off to Europe to get bitten by a rat or something”. “And consistently had sex for thousands of years. Well done ancestors (Dan applauds) truly incredible story. Lord of the Rings. Ten out of ten. Would read again.” Lovely sarcastic Dan. 

 And as he hypes up “the fun stuff”, “weird things about your personality, health and biology”, and “intimate specific information” that he probably shouldn’t share with the Internet”, but he will because he’s “just a piece of meat”, I get hit with a mid video ad of Gwen Stefani applying mascara, because the cheeky bastard made this exactly ten minutes and one second long. (To be fair Phil did the same thing recently). 

Dan has 300 Neanderthal variants, more than 82% of their customers. This is the same percentage as Phil, who talked about his head and brow shape and nasal chambers, but Dan uses this to relate to his “dank cave” dwelling habits (never opening the curtains of his bedroom). Based on his genetics, Dan is not likely to be a deep sleeper. “As I always say, why bother sleeping when you can stay awake thinking about stuff that makes you anxious. Right! Woo!” Dan addressing his mental health with humor, is always appreciated. I can actually see the power athlete possibility. He could be a big strong guy, but “wasted potential” and all that. (Personally my lazy self recoils at the idea of people dedicating so much of their time to training up their bodies to be these perfect machines, but hopeful D&P are spending some time at the gym for their general health.) “Looking at memes and talking about myself” is a great self-aware one liner. 

 Alright “cheek dimples”! Flop. What does this test know anyway? Stop referring to them as a deformity Dan, everyone loves your dimples! Okay I just did a bunch of reading on dimples and I guess they are considered a genetic deformity now a days. However on a social-biological level they may have all sorts of benefits, from being able to read emotions more clearly, to people wanting to procreate with you and not abandoning their cute babies. Dan has also been saying lately that he’s double deformed, but it is actually quite rare to have one side of your cheeks dimpled. (I used to have dimples as a child and all of a sudden they are back, but they are closer to my mouth than my smile lines and may just be from fat. Who knows.) 

 Alright good thing this isn’t a spon, calling the results “garbage”, “pseudoscience” and a “farce” even in jest, might not fly. Dan’s distrust of blonds Tweet is (at least partially) explained. I still think it might also relate to Dream Daddy and it is a mighty coinkidink that it was posted on the one year anniversary of Frank Ocean’s album. Promos all around? We just need to accept that Dan is a multilayered creature we will never fully understand. My husband will appreciate being compared to a unicorn though. 

Dan’s pain kink and weird enjoyment of the dentist makes a resurgence! Please make a full video out of this Dan. We promise not to shame… much. “Scrape me Dad-”. Interestingly enough Phil has an average sensitivity pain but thought it would be higher, hates having his gums scraped and implied his dentist might be a sadist. 

Dramatic build up and disclaimer for genetic health and increased risk of disease section. Feeling very relieved for the low risk of Altzheimers after reading that tear jerking dementia phanfic the other day (though it was Phil with the disease and I don’t think he mentioned it in his video). Dan was clearly worked up as well. He rests his face in his palm and is visibly pink and blotchy. 

He balances the seriousness with an over the top dramatic reaction to being a carrier for red hair, complete with a black and white fake sobbing scene. I’ll admit I found his pause at “So you’re telling me that there’s a chance that I could have children— born with red hair” a bit distracting, though I’m sure it wasn’t mean that way. “There was no disclaimer for this one.” Ha. I case you didn’t know he’s just joking “you beautiful sunset heads, rub those freckles all over me.” Dan has made his love of ginger people quite clear in the past and this tends to start a discourse about Phil’s natural hair color. 

I’ll weigh in on this. Phil was clearly ginger as a young child, just as Dan was blond when he was little. Both of their hair darkened quite a bit as they grew up, each becoming increasingly more brown. It’s harder to tell with Phil because he has denied his natural hair color for so long and seemingly makes up things about old photographs. Did he actually dye his hair before his first day of secondary school? Perhaps it was a bit of bleach that brighten it up and brought out the yellow/orange tones. In Phil’s Tinder spon he did admit to his hair getting a bit ginger during the summer. However by the time of his graduation, early university years and his appearance on 'The Weakest Link’ he had light-medium brown hair that I have a hard time considering a shade of auburn. You might call it nutmeg, but not cinnamon. I have medium auburn hair that has dulled with age, but does get more copper in the sun. But I don’t think Phil can be considered ginger anymore, especially as he chooses not to embrace it, so Dan’s love of ginger people seems completely separate from his fondness for Phil (except perhaps the freckles). 

Moving on to skin pigmentation and the title of his video, “How white is Dan Howell?” He laughs at his genetically light skin. 39% Very fair, 32% Moderately fair and “at most 25% Light beige” and acknowledges his privilege. It would have been a great chance to maturely talk about his ability to tan when he was younger, relating to his Southern European and West African ancestry without making problematic 2010/2011 era jokes. However it seems paleness is part of Dan’s branding now (since Phil has clearly turned him into a vampire). Or it’s just the “never go outside”, “cave dwelling” schtick. We’ve all seen your freckles Dan. 

In conclusion he hopes that people took something away from this be it “the possibility that [he] will have a ginger child in the future, that no one believes is [his], or that humanity has so much in common and we shouldn’t be divided by fascism, or that in the near future 'Zuck’ will be able to target ads to us based on our genetic code.” I sure hope it’s the middle one. “Ayy fuck Nazis”. Still, Dan gives us 20 years before society implodes. Finally he turns a joke about exercise into a confession about crying while reading the news. Seriously, well done Mr. Howell. (Nice promo for the casual and intimate liveshows too.) 

This was a great contrast to Phil’s light hearted DNA results video with Science!Phil, CushionStack.com, buff kangaroo attraction, naked mole rats, Buffy Summers alias, “top of the morning to ya”, Phil’s French ear, German elbow, Swedish eyebrow and Sardinian freckle, alien jokes, celebrity haplogroups, testing out his photic sneeze reflex and short-term memory and talking about asparagus urine detection. Bless Phill. I love him, truly. 

Both Dan and Phil’s videos do inspire me to send off the raw data of my parents DNA to a better company that can give me more detailed results. Maybe 23andMe. I’ve heard good things about the Human Genome Project as well. Ancestry DNA was pretty rubbish. 'Zuck’ and his wife should give these boys some money (if they haven’t already).

[thedoubteriswise]

The Vesuvius Club: everything in the world is exactly the same

So I just finished The Vesuvius Club, which is a book by Mark Gatiss that was published in 2004. It’s not incredible literature and has exactly the problems you’d expect something written by Mark Gatiss in 2003 to have, but it was definitely entertaining, and holy SHIT has it reminded me how certain I am that BBC Sherlock is a gay show and that John and Sherlock are going to be gay in it. Why? Well:

First of all, this thing is dripping with references to canon Holmes and an overall gothic-horror vibe. It is very clearly an early prototype of what Sherlock turned out to be.

This becomes especially obvious if you compare it to TAB. I cannot stress this enough: this is the TAB-iest thing I’ve ever seen that wasn’t the episode itself. The imagery, segments of the plot, hell, even whole scenes.

Oh, you want an example? Okay. How about, “I dreamt of burst-open coffins and straw men staggering from within them, of a coach-chase through the landscape paintings on Miracle’s walls and of a monstrous regiment of veiled women, unwinding the stained bandages which encircled their heads in some horrid Salome-like bacchanalia. Blinking awake what seemed like months later I found the room around me cool and dark. One of the veiled women seemed to have followed me through from my dreams...” Like. Holy shit.

The central plot device of the Adventure of the Devil’s Foot makes an appearance in this story, as well as drugged paper that incapacitates anyone who smells its fumes. A cult in which members wear robes and do weird shit in basements is a central plot point, as are two ladies wearing veils to obscure their faces with the intention of hiding the fact that they are not the same person. There is a character who is absolutely, without a doubt, Mrs. Hudson. I could go on, but I think you get the point. This book is heavily influenced by the original Holmes canon and contains oodles of material that Mark liked enough to work into his dream job project more than a decade later.

Here’s why this matters: The first half of this book had the protagonist, Lucifer Box, chasing women so persistently that I almost assumed Mark was just writing a satire of fictional male heterosexuality. Then, halfway through the book, immediately following a moment with a metaphorical blowjob on a pistol (yes, just like TAB again), Lucifer screws a cute male servant, spends the rest of the book mostly ignoring women, and takes every possible opportunity to keep screwing the cute servant. I have never seen such magnificently aggressive heterobaiting in all my life.

The aforementioned servant, Charlie, is Lucifer’s Watson. In case that wasn’t clear.

It’s uh. It’s really fucking clear.

Oh, and the woman that Lucifer does show some sustained interest in? A beautiful, charming, very forgiving and competent lady who at the very end of the book turns out to have been plotting against him and waiting for a chance to kill him the entire time. Charlie helps him take her out. The book ends with Lucifer and Charlie snuggling and flirting. Have I heard this song before? I feel like I have.

I know there are a zillion other things worth noting in this book, but I was mostly reading it at work when there was nothing to do and therefore didn’t take notes, so I’m definitely forgetting stuff. All I know is that I was yelling “wow, FUCKING REALLY?” the whole time.

tl;dr: You don’t necessarily need to read The Vesuvius Club, because it’s not actually good, but it is an early prototype of BBC Sherlock and you should just know that I’m putting it firmly on the pile marked “Evidence that John and Sherlock are Probably Gonna Bone On-Screen.”

[bellumu-ec-lida]

This is a REALLY long theory; you can read it under the cut!

Before I can answer any of these questions--if you don’t already know about it, you need to learn about the Dream Sequence.

This comes up again in the game waaaay later, after Sora defeats Riku at Hollow Bastion. Sora goes back to Traverse Town, talks to Kairi, gets a badass keyblade, and then a mural in the Underground Cavern changes from a sun to a moon. This switch from “dawn/midday” to the “dead of night” symbolizes a switch in the player’s leveling pace.

*Note: This Dream Sequence stuff isn’t part of my theory. It’s certified canon.

Okay, now that we’ve got that squared away, we can partially answer one of the questions: what do the Hotel Paintings mean?

In the Second District of Traverse Town, there’s a Hotel with 5 cryptic paintings adorning its walls. If you click ‘X’ next to the paintings, the game tells you their titles, which are:

• Midsummer Dawn • Midday Jungle • The Autumn Dusk • Bald Mountain -7:00am- • 18:00 in the Past -Time Flies-

Hmm, dawn? Midday? Some of these paintings’ titles are strikingly similar to the Dream Sequence. Sure enough:

Pretty interesting parallel! It seems each of these paintings represent a part of Sora’s adventure from the first game.

It also implies that Sora’s journey begins in midsummer and ends in autumn, which is probably more metaphorical than literal. Seasons are often portrayed with symbolic meanings by poets and writers; I’ve listed some of the most common ones below:

So we’ve figured out the meaning behind three of the five Hotel Paintings. That just leaves Bald Mountain -7:00am- and 18:00 in the Past -Time Flies-. I can’t explain these two without outlining some other points, though, so we’ll come back to them later.

The Hotel Paintings point out a seasonal metaphor within Kingdom Hearts, as well as one other metaphor--one relating to the time of day.

Dawn = beginning of the journey Midday = midway through the journey Dusk/Dead of Night = climax of the journey, ‘the beginning of the end’

A lot of things throughout the game exemplify this metaphor, including the Dream Sequence, the Underground Cavern mural, and even the Disney worlds’ skylines. You may notice, by looking at the skylines, that it looks like it is midnight in Traverse Town, roughly noon in Deep Jungle, and night by the time you get to Halloween Town. This indicates the passage of a full day:

Note that Sora isn’t literally traveling through all of the Disney worlds in a single day. This is merely one huge metaphor that shows the progress of his journey.

This symbolism is REALLY cool imo, because it also ties into the “light” and “darkness” theme of the game. In general, the “daytime/light” parts of the game tend to be easier and more lighthearted, while the “nighttime/darkness” parts of the game are harder and more serious. Also, remember when the game gives you this iconic line during the tutorial?

As you progress through the story, you go from dawn to midday, and the sun gets closer to setting, which brings out more “shadows.” You confront the ultimate darkness (Ansem) in the dusk/dead of night when it is completely dark out. And then you get a new sunrise at the end of the game—a new light. (“I KNOW NOW, WITHOUT A DOUBT.....THAT KINGDOM HEARTS IS LIGHT!!1!”)

This metaphor is also supported by clocks scattered throughout the Disney worlds, which roughly indicate the passage of a full day:

Some of these times are approximated. And this is NOT all of the clocks found throughout the game; I’ll spare you a list of all of them. But for the most part, with very few exceptions, the clocks fit nicely within the time metaphor.

(One exception, for instance, is the White Rabbit’s clock in Wonderland, which displays a time of 5:00. This doesn’t make any chronological sense, since by that point we’ve already seen a clock during the Wonderland opening cutscene that says 7:00. But in traditional depictions and illustrations, the White Rabbit’s clock often says 5:00...so it’s merely a design element and is not counted as part of the time metaphor.)

The season/time metaphor is elaborate and pretty awesome imo, and Kingdom Hearts hints at in a lot of subtle little ways throughout the game. It adds some nice flavor to Sora’s story.

Bear with me here, because now we’re going to delve into the stuff that will end up explaining the meaning of the remaining two Hotel Paintings, the Gizmo Shop clock, and the Green Room clock.

If we expand upon the “world skylines” idea, we can actually lump Kingdom Hearts into a journey of 7 metaphorical days:

Days 1 and 2 take place on Destiny Islands. They are pretty straightforward, as you can literally see the passage of time with the skyline and Sora going to bed and whatnot. These days are what the Hotel Painting Midsummer Dawn is referring to.

Day 3 encompasses the bulk of Sora’s journey, with the Hotel Painting Midday Jungle marking the midway point of the day. You can see the world’s skylines progress from morning to midday to evening to night. (I included the coliseum tournament skylines in the timeline above to help exemplify this.) Sora gets to Big Ben, which displays a time of 12:00am, announcing the end of Day 3.

Tons of major plot stuff happens during Day 4, which takes place mostly in Hollow Bastion. The Riku fight, portrayed in the Hotel Painting Autumn Dusk, occurs on this day. This day concludes when the Underground Cavern Mural switches to “dead of night.”

Off-topic a bit, but this is also the day Roxas is born. Kind of fitting that it occurs during the “twilight” of Sora’s adventure, eh? ;)

Day 5 is a day of tying up loose ends before the final showdown. Sora returns to Hollow Bastion to seal the Keyhole, which unlocks the long ass 50-seed Hades Cup--which is so dang lengthy it spans the entire day (as you can see with the changing tournament skyline, from dark to light to dark again). Sora hunts down remaining trinities and puppies, does last-minute item synthesis stuff, and fights whichever optional bosses his heart desires.

This day ends when Sora travels to The End of the World, which is evidenced by the Bald Mountain -7:00am- Hotel Painting. (I’ll explain that soon.)

Day 6 is lots of plot plot plot plot. It consists of traversing through The End of the World, battling Chernabog, and shoving a Keyblade up Ansem’s ass. It ends when the door to light is opened, revealing the “light” of a new day.

Day 7 is “the end” of the game as well as the epilogue. We finally see the Mickey Mouse cameo we’d been waiting for, and then Sora runs down some strange path chasing Pluto.

So there you have it, the 7 metaphorical days of Sora’s journey. This theory is supported by the synergy between Hotel Paintings, the world’s skylines, and the world’s clocks.

The timeline also fits well with the seasonal metaphor. It might be a bit of a stretch, but you could even argue that most of the Disney worlds you visit are “summer-like.” Halloween is an autumn holiday, so visiting Halloween transitions us into Autumn. And then eventually you get to the End of the World, which is winter-like with its snowy fragments of landscape (pictured below). And finally, the epilogue, with its bright blue sky and lush greens, brings us into “spring.”

With all of that explained, we can get back to the Hotel Paintings. We can fit Midsummer Dawn, Midday Jungle, and Autumn Dusk on our metaphorical 7-day timeline:

Where does that leave the remaining two paintings, Bald Mountain -7:00am- and 18:00 in the Past -Time Flies-?

Bald Mountain -7:00am- refers to the battle against Chernabog in the End of the World. We can deduce this because “Night on Bald Mountain,” composed by Modest Mussorgsky, plays in the background during the Chernabog battle. -7:00am- tells us that this happens chronologically at the beginning of this new day. It tells us this is “morning” occurring after the “Dusk/Dead of Night,” building up to yet another climax in Sora’s journey.

18:00 in the Past -Time Flies- is talking about Sora’s fight against Ansem. 18:00 is about 6pm in military time, so it is referring to some point in the “evening” of the game. In the Past represents Sora going back to where he lived in the Past--in other words, Destiny Islands. -Time Flies- is like, “Wow, I’m back here on Destiny Islands? Seems like only yesterday I was dreaming about getting off this island. Man, time sure flies.”

With that being said, both of these Hotel Paintings denote events that occur on Day 6 of our timeline:

So that’s what the Hotel Painting titles mean! They highlight some of the key points in Sora’s journey and establish a metaphor about seasons and the passage of time.

Go on to PART II to learn about the meanings behind the Gizmo Shop clock and the Green Room clock. (Part II is shorter, I promise.)

[leftpress]

This Is Not a Dialogue

Not Just Free Speech, but Freedom Itself

CrimethInc | 01-26-2017

Anarchists have defended freedom of speech for centuries now. This is important in principle: in an anarchist vision of society, neither the state nor any other entity should be able to determine what we can and cannot say. It’s also important in practice: as a revolutionary minority frequently targeted for repression, we’ve consistently had our speeches, newspapers, websites, and marches attacked.

But we aren’t the only ones who have taken up the banner of free speech. More recently, the right wing in the US has begun to allege that a supposed failure to give conservative views an equal hearing alongside liberal views constitutes a suppression of their free speech. By accusing “liberal” universities and media of suppressing conservative views—a laughable assertion, given the massive structures of power and funding advancing those views—they use First Amendment discourse to promote reactionary agendas. Supposedly progressive campuses reveal their true colors as they mobilize institutional power to defend right-wing territory in the marketplace of ideas, going so far as to censor and intimidate opposition.

Extreme right and fascist organizations have jumped onto the free speech bandwagon as well. Fascists rely on the state to protect them, claiming that racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-gay organizing constitutes a form of legally protected speech. Fascist groups that are prevented from publishing their material in most other industrialized democracies by laws restricting hate speech frequently publish it in the United States, where no such laws exist, and distribute it worldwide from here. In practice, state protection of the right to free expression aids fascist organizing.

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If defending free speech has come to mean sponsoring wealthy right-wing politicians and enabling fascist recruiting, it’s time to scrutinize what is hidden behind this principle.

Despite the radical roots of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union that advocate for state protection of free expression, this form of civil liberties empties the defense of free speech of any radical content, implying that only the state can properly guarantee our ability to express ourselves freely and thus reinforcing the power of the state above the right to free speech itself.

The Rhetoric of Free Expression

There appears to be a broad consensus in the US political spectrum in favor of the right to free speech. While opponents may quibble over the limits, such as what constitutes obscenity, pundits from left to right agree that free speech is essential to American democracy.

Appeals to this tradition of unrestricted expression confer legitimacy on groups with views outside the mainstream, and both fascists and radicals capitalize on this. Lawyers often defend anarchist activity by referencing the First Amendment’s provision preventing legislation restricting the press or peaceable assembly. We can find allies who will support us in free speech cases who would never support us out of a shared vision of taking direct action to create a world free of hierarchy. The rhetoric of free speech and First Amendment rights give us a common language with which to broaden our range of support and make our resistance more comprehensible to potential allies, with whom we may build deeper connections over time.

But at what cost? This discourse of rights seems to imply that the state is necessary to protect us against itself, as if it is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde split personality that simultaneously attacks us with laws and police and prosecutors while defending us with laws and attorneys and judges. If we accept this metaphor, it should not be surprising to find that the more we attempt to strengthen the arm that defends us, the stronger the arm that attacks us will become.

Once freedom is defined as an assortment of rights granted by the state, it is easy to lose sight of the actual freedom those rights are meant to protect and focus instead on the rights themselves—implicitly accepting the legitimacy of the state. Thus, when we build visibility and support by using the rhetoric of rights, we undercut the possibility that we will be able to stand up to the state itself. We also open the door for the state to impose others’ “rights” upon us.

The Civil Liberties Defense

In the US, many take it for granted that it is easier for the state to silence and isolate radicals in countries in which free speech is not legally protected. If this is true, who wouldn’t want to strengthen legal protections on free speech?

In fact, in nations in which free speech is not legally protected, radicals are not always more isolated—on the contrary, the average person is sometimes more sympathetic to those in conflict with the state, as it is more difficult for the state to legitimize itself as the defender of liberty. Laws do not tie the hands of the state nearly so much as public opposition can; given the choice between legal rights and popular support, we are much better off with the latter.

One dictionary defines civil liberty as “the state of being subject only to laws established for the good of the community.” This sounds ideal to those who believe that laws enforced by hierarchical power can serve the “good of the community”—but who defines “the community” and what is good for it, if not those in power? In practice, the discourse of civil liberties enables the state to marginalize its foes: if there is a legitimate channel for every kind of expression, then those who refuse to play by the rules are clearly illegitimate. Thus we may read this definition the other way around: under “civil liberty,” all laws are for the good of the community, and any who challenge them must be against it.

Focusing on the right to free speech, we see only two protagonists, the individual and the state. Rather than letting ourselves be drawn into the debate about what the state should allow, anarchists should focus on a third protagonist—the general public. We win or lose our struggle according to how much sovereignty the populace at large is willing to take back from the state, how much intrusion it is willing to put up with. If we must speak of rights at all, rather than argue that we have the right to free speech let us simply assert that the state has no right to suppress us. Better yet, let’s develop another language entirely.

Free Speech and Democracy…

The discourse of free speech in democracy presumes that no significant imbalances of power exist, and that the primary mechanism of change is rational discussion. In fact, a capitalist elite controls most resources, and power crystallizes upward along multiple axes of oppression. Against this configuration, it takes a lot more than speech alone to open the possibility of social change.

There can be no truly free speech except among equals—among parties who are not just equal before the law, but who have comparable access to resources and equal say in the world they share. Can an employee really be said to be as free to express herself as her boss, if the latter can take away her livelihood? Are two people equally free to express their views when one owns a news network and the other cannot even afford to photocopy fliers? In the US, where donations to political candidates legally constitute speech, the more money you have, the more “free speech” you can exercise. As the slogan goes, freedom isn’t free—and nowhere is that clearer than with speech.

Contrary to the propaganda of democracy, ideas alone have no intrinsic force. Our capacity to act on our beliefs, not just to express them, determines how much power we have. In this sense, the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor is strikingly apt: you need capital to participate, and the more you have, the greater your ability to enact the ideas you buy into. Just as the success of a few entrepreneurs and superstars is held up as proof that the free market rewards hard work and ingenuity, the myth of the marketplace of ideas suggests that the capitalist system persists because everyone—billionaire and bellboy alike—agrees it is the best idea.

…So Long as You Don’t Do Anything

But what if, despite the skewed playing field, someone manages to say something that threatens to destabilize the power structure? If history is any indication, it swiftly turns out that freedom of expression is not such a sacrosanct right after all. In practice, we are permitted free speech only insofar as expressing our views changes nothing. The premise that speech alone cannot be harmful implies that speech is precisely that which is ineffectual: therefore anything effectual is not included among one’s rights.

During World War I, the Espionage Act criminalized any attempt to “cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, [or] refusal of duty” or to obstruct recruiting for the armed forces. President Woodrow Wilson urged the bill’s passage because he believed antiwar activity could undermine the US war effort. Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman were arrested under this law for printing anarchist literature that opposed the war. Likewise, the Anarchist Exclusion Act and the subsequent Immigration Act were used to deport or deny entry to any immigrant “who disbelieves in or who is opposed to all organized government.” Berkman, Goldman, and hundreds of other anarchists were deported under these acts. There are countless other examples showing that when speech can threaten the foundation of state power, even the most democratic government doesn’t hesitate to suppress it.

Thus, when the state presents itself as the defender of free speech, we can be sure that this is because our rulers believe that allowing criticism will strengthen their position more than suppressing it could. Liberal philosopher and ACLU member Thomas Emerson saw that freedom of speech “can act as a kind of ‘safety valve’ to let off steam when people might otherwise be bent on revolution.” Therein lies the true purpose of the right to free speech in the US.

Not Free Speech, but Freedom Itself

Obviously, anarchists should not organize against free speech. But the stranglehold of the state on the discourse of free speech seems to set the terms of the debate: either we condone censorship, or we condone state protection of our enemies and their right to organize against us and others. This results in paradoxes, such as radicals being accused of opposing freedom for shutting down a fascist speaker.

In contrast to state protection of KKK rallies and the like, there are models of free expression that neither depend upon the enforcement of rights from above nor sanction oppressive behavior. Anarchists might judge speech not as something fundamentally different from action, but as a formof action: when it harms others, when it reinforces hierarchies and injustices, we confront it the same way we would confront any other kind of abuse or oppression. This is simply self-defense.

When a xenophobic politician comes to speak at a public university, his honorarium is paid with tax money extorted from workers and given to universities so it will continue to circulate among the rich and powerful. Regardless of right-wing whining about the marginalization of conservative opinions, the fact that he is powerful enough to secure lucrative speaking engagements indicates that his views are hardly suppressed. As a wealthy white citizen and public figure, his opportunity to express himself can’t reasonably be compared to the opportunity of, say, the immigrants he scapegoats. If their voices and agency actually held equal weight, the politician could say whatever he wanted, but would be powerless to subject others to his schemes.

When we confront him directly rather than politely disagreeing, we’re not attacking his right to express his opinions. We’re confronting the special advantages he is accorded: taxpayer money, police protection, an exclusive soapbox. We’re confronting the power he wields over our lives through institutions built on violence, a power he means to extend by using speaking events to gain wealth, legitimacy, and recruits to his racist endeavors. Confronting him is a political practice that does not reduce freedom to rights, but challenges the privileges of the state—that makes no false dichotomy between speech and action, but judges both by the same standards—that does not enable the state to frame itself as the defender of free speech, but asserts that we are the only ones who can defend and extend our own freedom.

Less civil, more liberties!

Appendix: Free Speech FAQ

Stopping fascists from speaking makes you just as bad as them.

You could just as easily say that not stopping fascists from speaking makes you as bad as them, because it gives them the opportunity to organize to impose their agenda on the rest of us. If you care about freedom, don’t stand idly by while people mobilize to take it away.

Shouldn’t we just ignore them? They want attention, and if we give it to them we’re letting them win.

Actually, fascists usually don’t want to draw attention to their organizing; they do most of it in secret for fear that an outraged public will shut them down. They only organize public events to show potential recruits that they have power, and to try to legitimize their views as part of the political spectrum. By publicly opposing fascists, we make it clear to them—and more importantly, to anyone else interested in joining them—that they will not be able to consolidate power without a fight. Ignoring fascists only allows them to organize unhindered, and history shows that this can be very dangerous. Better we shut them down once and for all.

The best way to defeat fascism is to let them express their views so that everyone can see how ignorant they are. We can refute them more effectively with ideas than force.

People don’t become fascists because they find their ideaspersuasive; they become fascists for the same reason others become police officers or politicians: to wield power over other people. It’s up to us to show that fascist organizing will not enable them to obtain this power, but will only result in public humiliation. That is the only way to cut off their source of potential recruits.

History has shown over and over that fascism is not defeated by ideas alone, but by popular self-defense. We’re told that if all ideas are debated openly, the best one will win out, but this fails to account for the reality of unequal power. Fascists can be very useful to those with power and privilege, who often supply them with copious resources; if they can secure more airtime and visibility for their ideas than we can, we would be fools to limit ourselves to that playing field. We can debate their ideas all day long, but if we don’t prevent them from building the capacity to make them reality, it won’t matter.

Neo-Nazis are irrelevant; institutionalized racism poses the real threat today, not the extremists at the fringe.

The bulk of racism takes place in subtle, everyday forms. But fascist visibility enables other right-wing groups to frame themselves as moderates, helping to legitimize the racist and xenophobic assumptions underlying their positions and the systems of power and privilege they defend. Taking a stand against fascists is an essential step toward discrediting the structures and values at the root of institutionalized racism.

Here and worldwide, fascists still terrorize and murder people because of racial, religious, and sexual difference. It’s both naïve and disrespectful to their victims to gloss over the past and present realities of fascist violence. Because fascists believe in acting directly to carry out their agenda rather than limiting themselves to the Rube Goldberg machine of representative democracy, they can be more dangerous proportionate to their numbers than other bigots. This makes it an especially high priority to deal with them swiftly.

Free speech means protecting everyone’s right to speak, including people you don’t agree with. How would you like it if you had an unpopular opinion and other people were trying to silence you?

We oppose fascists because of what they do, not what they say. We’re not opposed to free speech; we’re opposed to the fact that they advance an agenda of hate and terror. We have no power to censor them; thanks to the “neutrality” of the capitalist market, they continue to publish hate literature in print and the internet. But we will not let them come into our communities to build the power they need to enact their hatred.

The government and the police have never protected everyone’s free speech equally, and never will. It is in their self-interest to repress views and actions that challenge existing power inequalities. They will spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on riot police, helicopters, and sharpshooters to defend a KKK rally, but if there’s an anarchist rally the same police will be there to stop it, not to protect it.

Anarchists don’t like being silenced by the state—but we don’t want the state to define and manage our freedom, either. Unlike the ACLU, whose supposed defense of “freedom” leads them to support the KKK and others like them, we support self-defense and self-determination above all. What’s the purpose of free speech, if not to foster a world free from oppression? Fascists oppose this vision; thus we oppose fascism by any means necessary.

If fascists don’t have a platform to express their views peacefully, it will drive them to increasingly violent means of expression.

Fascists are only attempting to express their views “peacefully” in order to lay the groundwork for violent activity. Because fascists require a veneer of social legitimacy to be able to carry out their program, giving them a platform to speak opens the door to their being able to do physical harm to people. Public speech promoting ideologies of hate, whether or not you consider it violent on its own, always complements and correlates with violent actions. By affiliating themselves with movements and ideologies based on oppression and genocide, fascists show their intention to carry on these legacies of violence—but only if they can develop a base of support.

Trying to suppress their voices will backfire by generating interest in them.

Resistance to fascism doesn’t increase interest in fascist views. If anything, liberals mobilizing to defend fascists on free speech grounds increases interest in their views by conferring legitimacy on them. This plays directly into their organizing goals, allowing them to drive a wedge between their opponents using free speech as a smokescreen. By tolerating racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, so-called free speech advocates are complicit in the acts of terror fascist organizing makes possible.

They have rights like everybody else.

No one has the right to organize violence against our community. Likewise, we reject the “right” of the government and police—who have more in common with fascists than they do with us—to decide for us when fascists have crossed the line from expressing themselves into posing an immediate threat. We will not abdicate our freedom to judge when and how to defend ourselves.

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