#notably evangelical

[americanrecord]

Hi Kelsey!! How was yesterday? I hope today is nice 🥰

hi, ashley! happy tuesday! even though it's semi-approaching it's end...!

yesterday was fine!! i just worked. nothing really interesting there. and then i got home and established that it was time to start another book, so...i started the ground research for that!

today, similar. just worked <3. i went to the library and picked up some books on catholicism today so, lol, i'm making my way through those. i'm just skimming and jumping through so i can form a foundation and give things flesh so nothing comes off as an info-dump and/or procedural. this is interesting to nobody but me, but i'm excited !!!

how are you? how was yesterday? i hope today has been nice!!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

MLK at 95.

January 15, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born 95 years ago on January 15, 1929. As a Baptist minister, he advocated non-violence while promoting civil rights. He spoke for the poor, the oppressed, and the disenfranchised. While he was imprisoned in a Birmingham jail for protesting segregation, he responded to eight white ministers who had criticized him for participating in protests that they described as “unwise and untimely.”

Dr. King’s famous reply to the white ministers explained why he traveled to Birmingham from Atlanta to protest:

I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

While Dr. King was keenly aware of the racism that served as the understructure of the Christian church in the old South, he would be shocked by the virulent, mean-spirited, anti-Christian message that animates many (not all) evangelical congregations in America today. They form the backbone of Donald Trump's support in Iowa and beyond. They have adopted Trump's message that treats the poor, oppressed, and disenfranchised as “outsiders” and “others” who do not belong in America.

Over the last several days, we have learned that members of the Texas National Guard physically blocked federal Border Patrol agents from responding to reports of immigrants in distress in the Rio Grande. The bodies of a mother and two children were later recovered from the river in the area where immigrants were reported to be in distress.

Texas, of course, denies that its cruel actions caused the drownings—a denial that should be viewed skeptically from a state whose governor—Greg Abbott—recently commented Texas troopers could not shoot immigrants crossing the border because the troopers would be charged with murder by the Biden administration. Texas governor criticized after comment about shooting migrants | The Texas Tribune.

Similar animus underlies the recent comments of Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, who withdrew Mississippi from a federal program to provide food to school children during summer breaks. Governor Reeves said Mississippi withdrew from the program to fight “attempts to expand the welfare state.”

Blocking efforts to rescue a drowning mother and her children? Regretting the inability to shoot immigrants because it would be murder? Denying food to poor children out of spite? Who are these people? How do they look at themselves in the mirror?

Ninety-five years after Dr. King’s birth and fifty-five years after his death, it is difficult to believe that people who identify as upstanding members of the Christian church can support such actions.

Another section from Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is relevant to this moment in our nation’s history:

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I meet young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust.

Dr. King’s words were prophetic. See Pew Research (10/17/19) In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.

And, of course, as Dr. King recognized, “there are some notable exceptions” among church leaders who supported his work—just as there are exceptions today. Several readers have recommended Faithful America as an antidote to Christian nationalism. The organization’s helpful FAQ page explains why “Christian nationalism” is not Christian. See Resisting Christian Nationalism: FAQ + Resources | Faithful America.

On this day commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth, we can see how far we have come—and how much further we must go. He didn’t despair. Neither should we.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

[ranminfan]

St. Anthony of Padua, the Evangelical Doctor

An educated Augustinian turned Franciscan priest, one of his most notable achievement is his deep knowledge of the scriptures and his faith in the words of Christ.

.

I love when watching documentaries about him from Franciscan orders, he was looked up as a "big brother", and now I can't stop thinking about it.

[elbiotipo]

The US does support Israel for ideological reasons, and there is an evangelical and zionist movement that supports it for ideological and religious reasons this is true, but there are also very clear material interests involved. Israel is an eager and hungry buyer for the US military-industrial complex. The incredibly expensive gold-plated F-35 fighter jets are bought by Israel to bomb defenseless refugee camps and targets all over the Middle East. And those are only the most expensive and notable example. All sorts of weapons, from "crowd control" (read: police brutality) to munitions for all of Israel's extremely expensive military systems are bought from the US and ocassionally other militaries (though the US is by FAR the largest seller) in multi-billion dollar contracts.

There is BIG, BIG money in supporting Israel, big fat contracts, incredibly delicate and complex supply chains with lots of people involved. And of course, these military-industrial corporations get practical testing of their weapons when they're openly used by Israel, which the US can use to refine its own military. There are also a lot of other material benefits the US gets by supporting Israel, from intelligence in the wider Middle East to using it as a base to implement US interests in the region from the economic to the political and access to a high-tech economy completely aligned with their interests (all of course, supported by the US and the Israel apartheid system)

When we see the US bending over backwards to support Israel, it's not that they're controlled by it like dumb anti-semitic conspiracies, in fact, it's Israel which is dependent on the US: Israel is a VERY useful asset to the US, in a very real way a gigantic military base for the US and a way to support with money and "experience" its military-industrial complex which it uses to implement Usamerican interests around the world. Israel even does it too like a tiny United States, selling weapons and training militaries and police around the world.

All Usamerican presidents have in one way or other supported Israel, even if Biden's administration is exceptionally callous and fanatical on its blind support for it. But Biden, Trump or whoever, the material interests I've mentioned are still standing. It will take a lot of effort to dismantle them, but it needs to be done, for the freedom of Palestinians and in that way too, the freedom of the rest of the world, because what is done in Israel is what is later used by the US military and its allies to enforce the current imperial system. Always keep in mind this, behind the suffering we see today there is a lot of racist supremacist ideology and human cruetly, but also and more importantly, geopolitical reasons and hard cash. This is not done because of sheer evil, even if the results are indeed evil by any measure of the word. It's done because of the cold logic of empire, and we must understand it to bring it down.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

you’re thoughts on teaching younger children sex ed are so correct. do you think it has to do with the Christian like “purity culture” that seems so deeply ingrained into our society or some other factors too? I’ve noticed ppl only think teens can be abstinent, so much so that conversations around teen shows always seem to involve how if the characters are having sex, they could have been aged up or not included those types of things, leading to this whole “puriteen” phenomenon. But I’ve always thought it was realistic to show it, cause it happens.

okay lotta ideas here let me chunk these up

do you think it has to do with the Christian like “purity culture” that seems so deeply ingrained into our society or some other factors too?

if by "our society" you mean the United States then yeah absolutely. this country has a deep and pervasive vein conservative Christianity in our culture that's soaked into everything from politics to education to art and entertainment (which are not things that can be meaningfully disentangled from each other anyway). sex education in schools used to be a fairly bipartisan issue in the earlier half of the 20th century, but the modern backlash largely stems from the republican party adopting abortion and sexual conservatism as the party standard in order to align with evangelical Christians (this is, of course, a very streamlined version of events). which is not to say that only republicans have been complicit in defanging sex education; notably it was Bill Clinton who incentivized abstinence only education during his presidency and fired his surgeon general appointee Joycelyn Elders for stating that she believed children should be taught about masturbation in schools. (look up Joycelyne Elders, she's incredible.)

I’ve noticed ppl only think teens can be abstinent, so much so that conversations around teen shows always seem to involve how if the characters are having sex, they could have been aged up or not included those types of things, leading to this whole “puriteen” phenomenon. But I’ve always thought it was realistic to show it, cause it happens.

I don't think it's, like, an inherently sex negative act to be unimpressed with the overabundance of TV shows about teens getting naked and fucking each other senseless. there's a pretty wide gap between wanting real actual teens to have information and opportunity to safely explore their sexuality and the TV and film industry profiting from the fantasy of promiscuous teens played by 20-sometthings. like, I don't think anyone who cranked it to the girls from Riverdale is a child abuser or whatever, because those were in no way real children and anyone with eyes can see that, but given how rife the entertainment industry is with sexual violence and abuse towards real child and teen actors I do think it gets like. extremely skeezy.

like to be clear I DO agree that people who are surprised when teens are anything but 100% abstinent are clowns, especially because this attitude hurts no one so much as teens who are made to feel like there's something wrong with them for being horny during the Being Horn period of their hormonal development. and I do agree that we're seeing ramifications of this backlash against sexuality showing up in young people who are worryingly squeamish about sex and intimacy. but I don't think the expectation that teens are supposed to be abstinent is the sole factor behind people criticizing hypersexual teen shows. most things aren't just one thing.

[theshadowsingersraven]

this nyxlin drama lowkey reminds me of the time a zutara artist was run off tumblr because they drew aged up katara/zuko romantically, but I think it was actually angry kataang’s or e/riel’s -because they also drew gwynriel and e/riel’s were jealous- who were stirring up shit 😭

That would honestly make a lot of sense for how/why I didn't see many posts from them or overall in the Nyxlin tag when I was catching up on what happened. Pretty much every person (notably largely Elriels) who supported Elain Week's censorship got an insta-block from me if they weren't already. And I'm sure a decent amount of people blocked me from my stance on Elaingate, Rhys Week, and Nyxlin Week.

And good! You should block me. Seriously. Art has the right to be celebrated and appreciated, especially in the circumstances designed to do that for a specific character and dynamic! Character appreciation and celebration will never look the same to everyone, and just because it's not what you enjoy doesn't mean it stops being appreciative or celebratory. If you can't grasp that, you don't deserve access to my art anyway. You certainly don't deserve to be in my space, that's for damn sure. Kindly, get out.

Honestly, it kind of makes sense considering the overlap of canon rigidity, purity culture, and morality policing of fiction coming from sides of the fandom that generally can't accept criticism about their faves, or even things that go against what they want for their faves. They are terrified of creativity that doesn't give them what they want and it shows. It's the most Evangelical-ass shit ever, and it's fucking weird.

Like...for all intents and purposes, Nyx is an OC in any works that feature him. And I'd know, because I wrote an adult Nyx for my ongoing ACOTAR D&D campaign set 20 years after ACOSF. So yes, Nyx is twenty in my timeline, because it's writing and I can do what I want lol. I have no basis to write Nyx off of other than Rhys and Feyre. Which means...I'm still doing my own character-building to only less than I would for a completely new OC.

Let's compare, shall we?

Writing my OC Solara's backstory: Writing her parents from scratch ✔️ Writing her early childhood ✔️ Writing her trauma ✔️ Writing her adolescence and relationships ✔️ Writing her interests and adventures as she became an adult✔️ Writing her dynamic with her love interest and how she interacts with Prythian as a whole ✔️

Now obviously these are all at minimum influenced by/will be derivative of aspects of ACOTAR because, y'know, transformative works. But still, I made her.

Writing Nyx's backstory and how he is as a twenty-year-old adult: Writing his parents from scratch ❌ Writing his early childhood ✔️ Writing any trauma he might have ✔️ Writing his adolescence and relationships ✔️ Writing his interests and adventures as he became an adult ✔️ Writing his dynamic (collaboratively) with his love interest and how he interacts with Prythian as a whole ✔️

And this is a version of Nyx that I made. Yes, it's still influenced by canon, but if I put in 90% of the same effort to write him as an adult as I did a complete OC, we can acknowledge they're functionally the same.

It's not that people look at Baby!Nyx and instantly think he's perfect to be shipped with someone and there's something to be gleaned from canon about him in particular. We know nothing about Nyx as an individual. That applies to any Nyx ship.

The appeal, at least in my experience, to Nyx ships, including Nyxlin, is the dynamics at play around Nyx, i.e., his role as an eventual leader and powerful figure in the Night Court, the dynamics that affect Rhys and Feyre also extending to him, how the rest of Prythian/Illyria might view the first offspring of High Fae, Illyrian, and Made parents. It's about his circumstances, not him as a character because he is not a "character yet", he just exists!

People are just creative enough to consider those long-term effects on who he could become and how that interplays with other characters. I don't mean to be cruel, but genuinely, have these people never created an OC before? Have they never shipped anything outside of canon? Have they never read any fics featuring time travel, for example, as a plot point to get characters in the same era at the same time when otherwise the ship would not be able to happen? Are they that unfamiliar with making circumstances outside of SJM's canon to allow things to happen for fun?

Genuinely, the lack of creativity for all of us being in this for reading and writing is concerning.

Even just saying this and advocating for Nyxlin's right to be celebrated as well as Tamlin as a whole pretty much puts me in the position of having to tag this as pro-Tamlin. And I wouldn't even describe myself as anything other than Pro-Azriel and probably Pro-Nesta and Pro-Elain because I don't really dislike any characters. I'm equally as critical to all of them and if their good parts just sort of cancel out the bad or are only a bit outweighing one or the other...I don't actively dislike them, I'm just neutral about them.

But this fandom is so fucking polarized because of the toxicity and the Us v.s. Them, Morality Policing culture that's been festering, people can't even neutrally address something. People are harassed so quickly just for not understanding or being familiar with something, and then in the other court people do the harassing because they don't understand or aren't familiar with something the other party likes/dislikes. If don't utterly despise Tamlin, it's somehow considered supportive enough to qualify as "pro" to antis.

Too many people in this fanbase create this parasocial-adjacent attachment to these characters like they're real and have real feelings/boundaries that need to be protected. They are not! Characters can't be hurt by anything happening outside the narrative. Just because you personally do not like something/don't find it appealing or even find it discomforting does not mean it's morally objectionable. It's just not for you, and understanding that experiencing content not made for you is not an attack on you is kind of a necessary life skill.

This rant ended up way longer than I expected it to be, but anyway...y'all stay safe out there.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

The generally accepted — and oft-repeated — narrative about Trump is that he is a cult-leader who can bend the Republican base to his will. On issues like free trade and foreign policy, he broke with long-standing Republican orthodoxy and faced no repercussions. He attacked Republican stalwarts like the Bush family and John McCain. Not only was there no blowback, Trump also made these folks' personas non-grata in the Republican Party. Whether it’s indictments, his sexual assaults, or his dalliances and dinner dates with Nazis, Trump could force the Republican Party to go along. The GOP is Trump’s party and what he says goes. Trump is a man accountable to no one. This has benefited him politically and brought in folks who hate politics and distrust institutions. But that image became fuzzy last week when Donald Trump bent to the will of anti-abortion extremists in a stunning flip-flop on abortion that tells us everything we need to know about Donald Trump. He poses an existential threat to reproductive freedom for tens of millions of Americans.

The Flip-Flop to End All Flip-Flops

I have written about Trump’s abortion flip-flop a couple of times in the last week, so if you are a regular reader of Message Box, please feel free to skip ahead. If not… In an interview with Dasha Burns of NBC News, Trump implied that he would vote for the amendment on the Florida ballot guaranteeing access to abortion and effectively overturning the state’s six-week ban. Trump is now a Florida resident and many are unsure how he plans to vote on the amendment. Trump’s stated position on abortion is that it's up to the states. For crass political reasons he has been critical of Florida’s extreme ban. A day ago, Trump flip-flopped, telling Fox News that he would vote NO on the amendment. So what happened in the subsequent twenty-four hours?

Well, the evangelical community and anti-abortion activists went ballistic. They blew up the phone lines to Mar-a-Lago or wherever Trump  was laying his head last week. They argued that Trump’s new stance would depress turnout from his base. Ever since Dobbs, Trump cannot get it right. He watched his slate of hand-picked candidates get mowed down in 2022 and he sees the polls showing large majorities oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the sorts of state and national abortion bans of which Republicans have long dreamed. Trump thought his “leave it to the states” policy would help. It didn’t. Floating the idea of voting for the abortion amendment was another desperate effort to get on the right side of the issue that has cost Republicans nearly every election. This time, Trump crossed a line. The anti-abortion faction of the party told him to reverse course and he did so immediately. One of the core tenets of Trump’s political philosophy is to never, under any circumstances admit to wrongdoing. Heck, Trump doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on defending and dining with Nazis. So the fact that Trump changed course so quickly and with so little resistance on abortion is quite notable.

[...] These folks will be calling the shots in a Trump Administration. They will influence policy and staffing decisions and that should scare the shit out of anyone who cares about reproductive freedom. Dobbs was the beginning — not the end — of the Far Right’s efforts.

Donald Trump being made to cry “uncle” and say that he is voting no on Florida Amendment 4 after being heavily criticized by anti-abortion commentators when he stated that he would initially consider voting in favor of Amendment 4 is proof that the anti-abortion extremists still call the shots in the GOP.

[fdelopera]

A Jewish Analysis of Moon Knight Online as We Approach Hanukkah

So, I am a Jew. I am a Moon Knight fan. And I need to address an elephant in the room.

Over the past month on Tumblr, I have seen people making some of the most blatant antisemitic statements I’ve ever seen in all my life.

And I say this as a Jew who lived through a Nazi mass shooting on my Jewish community back in 2018. I say this as a Jew who used to have Evangelical Christians call me “Christ-killer” when I was younger. I say this as a Jew who grew up in the Midwest near a chapter of the KKK. The KKK would hold regular rallies against Jews, only a few miles from my house.

So when I tell you the antisemitism online has been bad, I’m saying it’s as bad as what the KKK does during their rallies.

Unfortunately, some of the antisemitism I’ve seen online has come from some people who are in the Moon Knight fandom, a community built around celebrating a Jewish system.

And as a Jew, I need to address this directly, especially as we approach Hanukkah.

I am putting this next section under a Read More, with a Trigger Warning for antisemitic language and mentions of SA.

This may be painful to read. But I am asking you to please read it.

Let me preface what I am about to say by reminding you that antisemitism is NEVER okay. Full stop. No matter the situation, no matter the conflict, antisemitism is NEVER justified. Antisemitism solves nothing. All it does is gets Jews harassed, attacked, and killed. If your response to any conflict is to respond with Jew-hatred, all you are doing is exposing yourself as an antisemite and a bigot.

And yet, I have seen people in the Moon Knight fandom reblog and say the most horrific, antisemitic things about Jewish people.

I have seen people in the Moon Knight fandom say that Jewish people deserve to be raped and murdered, specifically because we are Jewish. .

I have seen people in the Moon Knight fandom say that they think we Jews are like Nazis. This is called Holocaust-inversion. It is an antisemitic canard that started with the KKK (one of the major white supremacist hate groups in the US), and it is a form of Jew-taunting. Antisemites find the thing that is the most hurtful to Jewish people, and then they compare Jews to that. The Holocaust is our greatest tragedy. So by comparing us Jews to Nazis, you are intentionally degrading us. .

I have seen people in the Moon Knight fandom call Jews slurs that originated with the KKK and Neo-Nazis. Some people in the MK fandom have called Jewish people “Zios,” “Zio scum,” and “Zio rats” (among other slurs). These are antisemitic slurs from white supremacists. .

I have seen people in the Moon Knight fandom harassing me and other Jews to demand, “Are you a Zionist?” This is the “Good Jew/Bad Jew” antisemitic canard (or more accurately "Useful Jew/Bad Jew"), most notably used by the Nazis. You are sorting Jews into camps of “Good Jews” and “Bad Jews,” which puts ALL Jews in danger of attack. Antisemites use the "Good Jews" to attack other Jews, and then eventually antisemites label ALL Jews "Bad Jews" to justify attacking and even murdering us. This is what happened in my Jewish community in Pittsburgh, where a Nazi murdered eleven of us. He barged into Tree of Life synagogue and opened fire on two different congregations of Jews who were there for Shabbat. .

I have seen people in the Moon Knight fandom desecrating the Magen David and comparing it to a swastika. Again, this is another form of antisemitic Holocaust-inversion and Jew-taunting. You are comparing one of our most sacred symbols (the Magen David, or Star of David) to the swastika, the symbol of the Nazis. .

I have seen people in the Moon Knight fandom say that they want millions of Jews to die.

Let me put this clearly. If in some hypothetical scenario, you met Steven Grant on the street, would you go up to him and say, “Fucking die, you Zio rat!" or "Hitler should've killed more of you!” or “You’re a fucking Nazi!” Of course you wouldn’t. So don’t say this to REAL LIFE Jewish people, either.

If you are treating a FICTIONAL Jewish character with more respect and care than REAL LIFE Jewish people, you need to do some serious soul searching.

There is a term for the act of obsessing over a fictional Jew while at the same time disrespecting and harassing actual Jewish people: It’s called fetishizing Jewish people.

Here’s the thing that you maybe fail to understand. This is a VITAL lesson we Jews learned from the Holocaust: If you are a Jew, you are a Jew. Our fates are linked. It doesn’t matter what country we were born in. It doesn’t matter if we are Orthodox or non-practicing. It doesn’t matter what our political stance is on anything. Antisemites don’t care. They want us all dead.

There are only 16 million of us in the entire world. We’re 0.2% of the world’s population, and we were nearly all murdered several decades ago by the Nazi Holocaust in Europe and widespread ethnic cleansing by Arabs in the Middle East. Not to mention widespread pogroms in Eastern Europe a generation before (that is when my family came to America). And the 2000 years of antisemitic persecution and mass murder before that.

An attack on one Jew is an attack on all Jews. This is why Jews collectively mourn the eleven Jews who were murdered by a Nazi in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Jews across the US and around the world say Mourner’s Kaddish for them.

And if you say you want Jews thousands of miles away to be mass murdered, you are saying that about me, too. You are telling me that you want me to be killed in the most brutal, vile, degrading way possible.

.

And now, Hanukkah is coming up. And there is about to be #MKCember (an art challenge like Inktober) within the Moon Knight community. And some of the art prompts relate to Hanukkah and to Shabbat.

And I think I’m one of the only Jews still involved in any capacity within the Moon Knight fandom on Tumblr.

Most of you in the Moon Knight fandom are gentiles (people who are not Jews). And you are about to create art that will relate to a Jewish holiday about Jewish perseverance in the face of annihilation. Hanukkah celebrates Jewish hope when all seems lost.

You are about to create art that relates to the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BCE, after Jews fought a bloody war for Jerusalem against the Seleucid Greek Empire. The Seleucids had defiled the Jewish Temple by slaughtering pigs on the altar, so the Jews, led by Judah Maccabee, had to purify the Temple. That is where the origin of the Hanukkah tradition comes from.

You are about to create art that relates to the Hanukkah Miracle, the Miracle of the Oil, that is recorded in the Talmud, one of our most sacred texts.

Hanukkah is NOT a communal holiday. It is NOT a gentile holiday. Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday. It is for Jewish people. Gentiles can participate, but only if you are respectful. And some people in the Moon Knight fandom have been horribly disrespectful to Jewish people.

And I remember last year, when many gentile artists created weird, culturally insensitive approximations of Hanukkah. Things like the hanukkiah (Hanukkah menorah) having the wrong number of branches, and being lit incorrectly. Things like MK System being dressed up in a Christmas sweater. Things like the Magen David (Star of David) having 5 points instead of 6.

Last year, I could laugh it off as people being ignorant.

But this year, after seeing the barrage of antisemitism that has come from some people in the Moon Knight fandom, this kind of poorly researched Hanukkah art will feel like a slap in the face.

So, what are some things that you can do if you are a Moon Knight artist, and you want to draw Hanukkah-related Moon Knight art for this challenge?

Here are 5 very strong recommendations:

NUMBER 1:

FIRST AND FOREMOST. If you are NOT going to be respectful of Jewish holidays, culture, and traditions, DO NOT make ANY art that depicts Hanukkah, or any Jewish holiday.

If you cannot respect Jewish people, you are NOT QUALIFIED to make art that relates to Jewish people.

I do NOT want to see someone posting Moon Knight art they’ve drawn next to a post comparing Jews to Nazis. In the words of Gene Wilder, a Jewish actor, “You get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir.”

Draw something else.

And if I see any antisemitic art posted online by supposed Moon Knight fans, you best believe I will be calling you out, and so will other Moon Knight fans.

NUMBER 2:

If you are prepared to be respectful of Jewish people and Jewish traditions, DO YOUR RESEARCH. For instance, there are lots of videos on YouTube where Jewish people show you how to light a hanukkiah (Hanukkah menorah).

MyJewishLearning.com, for example, has an explanation of Hanukkah candle lighting: click here.

These are two simple tutorials of how to light the hanukkiah (Hanukkah menorah): click here, and here.

This is an artistic example from last year of how to draw MK System lighting Hanukkah candles: click here.

Since there are also artistic prompts relating to Shabbat, this is a page that describes the blessings and customs for Shabbat: click here.

NUMBER 3:

Don’t depict Moon Knight using Christian symbology. Don’t depict MK System as a Catholic knight. Don’t depict MK System wearing a Christmas sweater, or opening presents from under a Christmas tree. This is antisemitic. It is Jewish erasure.

If you are going to depict MK System in a holiday-related context, honor their Jewishness.

This is an artistic example from last year of how to depict MK System festively, without erasing their Jewishness: click here.

NUMBER 4:

If you are friends with a Jewish person, you might have the idea to ask them to review your art. BUT. Big caveat here. We Jews have just been through a month of utter HELL. Judging at least from my inbox, each of us has likely received dozens of death threats and hateful messages from antisemites over the past few weeks, just because we are Jewish. We are EXHAUSTED. So if you are friends with a Jewish person, do not be offended if they tell you that no, they don’t have the spoons to help you. And really, it’s best to just do your own research, and not ask Jews to do any more emotional labor than we already are doing.

NUMBER 5:

MOST IMPORTANT. Again, Be respectful. If you are a gentile, Hanukkah is not a holiday that belongs to you. It belongs to Jewish people. It celebrates thousands of years of Jewish perseverance. It celebrates all the times Jewish people were driven to the brink, but managed to hold on by the skin of our teeth. It reminds us that we are still here. It tells us that we will survive.

Respect Jews. Respect our holidays. Respect our culture. Respect our traditions.

Thank you.

[boreal-sea]

So let's actually talk about the West Bank. Or rather, watch John Oliver do it:

This is how to criticize Israel without being antisemitic! Palestinians living in the West Bank do not have equal citizenship. They are abused. Their homes are literally stolen from them. It is entirely fair to call the situation in the West Bank apartheid. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank have always been against international law.

This is bad! Israel should be criticized for this. It should cease building new settlements immediately. It should stop giving military support to the illegal settlements (meaning, the ones Israel considers illegal). It should extend Palestinians in the West Bank equal representation under the law.

Notably, Oliver mentions that a very large group of supporters for these settlements are American evangelicals.

Then he gets into how corrupt and far-right Netanyahu's government is, and how he has allied himself with the hardline settlers.

And, critically, his proposed actions are actually helpful. He suggest putting conditions on the billions of dollars we give in military aid, stopping vetoing UN Security Council resolutions that are critical of the Israeli government's actions, and officially stating that the Israeli West Bank settlements are more than illegal, they are immoral.

[kemetic-dreams]

All Abrahamic religions claim to be monotheistic, worshiping an exclusive God, although one who is known by different names. Each of these religions preaches that God creates, is one, rules, reveals, loves, judges, punishes, and forgives. 

However, although Christianity does not profess to believe in three gods—but rather in three persons, or hypostases, united in one essence—the Trinitarian doctrine, a fundamental of faith for the vast majority of Christian denominations, conflicts with Jewish and Muslim concepts of monotheism.

Since the conception of a divine Trinity is not amenable to tawhid, the Islamic doctrine of monotheism, Islam regards Christianity as variously polytheistic.

Judaism and Islam have strict dietary laws, with permitted food known as kosher in Judaism, and halal in Islam. These two religions prohibit the consumption of pork; Islam prohibits the consumption of alcoholic beverages of any kind. Halal restrictions can be seen as a modification of the kashrut dietary laws, so many kosher foods are considered halal; especially in the case of meat, which Islam prescribes must be slaughtered in the name of God. Hence, in many places, Muslims used to consume kosher food. However, some foods not considered kosher are considered halal in Islam.

With rare exceptions, Christians do not consider the Old Testament's strict food laws as relevant for today's church; see also Biblical law in Christianity. Most Protestants have no set food laws, but there are minority exceptions

The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) embraces numerous Old Testament rules and regulations such as tithing, Sabbath observance, and Jewish food laws. Therefore, they do not eat pork, shellfish, or other foods considered unclean under the Old Covenant. The "Fundamental Beliefs" of the SDA state that their members "are to adopt the most healthful diet possible and abstain from the unclean foods identified in the Scriptures".

Proselytism

Judaism accepts converts, but has had no explicit missionaries since the end of the Second Temple era.

Judaism states that non-Jews can achieve righteousness by following Noahide Laws, a set of moral imperatives that, according to the Talmud, were given by God[k] as a binding set of laws for the "children of Noah"—that is, all of humanity. It is believed that as much as ten percent of the Roman Empire followed Judaism either as fully ritually obligated Jews or the simpler rituals required of non-Jewish members of that faith.

Christianity encourages evangelism. Many Christian organizations, especially Protestant churches, send missionaries to non-Christian communities throughout the world. See also Great Commission. Forced conversions to Catholicism have been alleged at various points throughout history. The most prominently cited allegations are the conversions of the pagans after Constantine; of Muslims, Jews and Eastern Orthodox during the Crusades; of Jews and Muslims during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, where they were offered the choice of exile, conversion or death; and of the Aztecs by Hernán Cortés. Forced conversions to Protestantism may have occurred as well, notably during the Reformation, especially in England and Ireland

[socialjusticeinamerica]

The old dude with his finger pointing to the air is Rafael Cruz (Sr), wait for it…..Ted’s father.

He’s been a major player in the RepubliKKKlan party since working to get Reagan elected. He’s been a liaison between the Republicans and the evangelical community. He’s highly paid and popular on the right-wing speaking circuit.

Ok atheists, wait for it….he’s one of the leading DOMINIONISTS in the country.

He openly lies to his audiences telling them fantasies about forced transgender conversion surgeries in public schools and other similar anti-LGBT propaganda. Much of his hateful rhetoric on the subject is disseminated through various MAGA Congressmen, most notably Marjorie Trailer Queen.

It’s a brief article and well worth the read. Here’s a snippet;

“Nevertheless, when Rafael Cruz — a pastor and the father of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas — preached on the subject in April at a church-based rally for conservative school board candidates in McKinney, Texas, he falsely claimed that students were being forced to change genders and being “mutilated” inside public schools. (The elder Cruz did not respond to interview requests.)The moral downturn began six decades ago, Cruz told his followers, when the U.S. Supreme Court banned mandatory prayer and Bible readings from schools. To do that, Cruz said, “we need to make sure that we have strong, committed Christians in every position in every school board in America.”

👆

[themonsterblogofmonsters]

Thanks for the slide-rock bolter stuff. On another note, and forgive me if you’ve already explained this to someone else, which gods in general would you consider most likely to be especially powerful wixes in the Harry Potter universe and which ones in general would you believe to be magical animals/creatures?

That would vary entirely depending on the story I was trying to tell and the relevance of god impersonation to the story. I've seen some fics which like to claim all gods were just wizards and/or creatures, and a few which claim they're amalgams of multiple wixes over many years but...

I think it's boring if every god was just a person or animal,

I think that risks claiming that certain faiths were based on a lie, in much the same way that excluding a culture from magical creatures risks the implication that their mythic figures "aren't real" compared to those of Western cultures. Like I've seen this more done with ancient and/or indigenous faiths, with often an exception made for Christianity due to Jesus' resurrection and how "no magic can reverse death", which is just... feels a bit evangelical to me, and I don't care for that, personally. And lastly,

I think that ignores just how many versions of gods there were? There were multiple forms of Aphrodite just within Greece, for example, and Dionysus changed over time. There were innumerable localised versions of Zeus. You could use these local interpretations to reinforce the idea that the gods were just various people sharing the job but... I think that's a bit shallow.

There's a very good video by OceanKeltoi - came out recently actually, wonderful timing, DracoLeon - about Mythic Literalism in Norse Paganism. The idea is that, sure, the myths talk about the gods walking about and meeting people, but that is a story and was likely a story even to most people who believed in those gods! Sure, the clouds are giant brains in Norse myth, but that doesn't mean that people actually believed that the clouds were Ymir's brains.... but they still believed in the gods.

People aren't stupid. People have had ideas of magic for basically ever. There is a distinction in multiple cultures between what gods do and what mortal magicians do; I think muggles would be able to tell if their "god" was doing magic the same way the old lady down the hill did!

While I think wixes may have impersonated gods at various points and for various reasons, there's also just... magicians and wizards and sorcerers and mystics and witches and seers and oracles in multiple myths and legends. We know that both still exist in HP - Circe and Cliodna sharing names with gods (minor goddess and goddess respectively), yes, but also Merlin who's just a cool wizard. And in myth, Circe was a relative of Medea, a mortal sorceress.

So I think it's more likely that for the most part priesthoods for gods were magical, and thus gave credence to the existence of the god by casting magic appropriate to the deity's domains. Occasionally, one of those priests may have then impersonated a god to deliver a message, or for political reasons, and certain minor gods may just be based on especially notable wixes (Circe, for example) and then grown into a tall tale. One could then say that every god was at some point impersonated by a wizard... but I don't think that any gods were only and exclusively wizards or creatures.

Because, even within the magical world, there's the inexplicable. The power of love, shielding Harry. Grims in canon are implied to not actually exist, but be largely a superstition that is deadly more due to belief than anything real. Luna's creatures are just made up - but she and Xeno seek them for the mystery. Even the magical world has mysteries.

And people want to explain them! Most myths, especially creation myths, are people trying to understand how the world came into being and how it works, and I don't think magic would necessarily erase that! It'd just mean wixes are more likely to go "well obviously everything was made by a really big wizard" rather than just "a really big person".

Like... outside opinion maybe, but I do think there are magicals of faith. I don't like the fanon "mother magic" idea, and I'm sorry, I studied archaeology and history and just... modern paganism was recreated up by later theorists, and the idea of an ancient witch cult is pure invention - I highly doubt there would be somehow extant pagan wix cults (and if there were I highly doubt they'd so closely resemble modern Wicca as magical faith seems to in certain fics), especially because the religious syncretism throughout Europe happened long before the statute. There is a ghostly Friar at Hogwarts! There are wizards who were courtesans (The Elizabethan Malfoy ancestor; Nearly Headless Nick) who would likely have been Christian and attended church services at court! I think there are Christian wixes, and Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian-

And I think they may have some slightly different texts to the non-magical versions of the faiths (which themselves vary so much within themselves!) but... people like having something to believe in. It's why even though we figured out the big bang, that hasn't stopped people from believing in gods.

This all to say:

I think you could make an argument that every god was impersonated by a wix at some point, but the connection of those impersonations to the myth may be nothing at all.

It is also very likely that some gods were invented long before any wix impersonated them.

It's also possible that some gods were based on muggles...

and that others were based on inexplicable phenomena.

At the end, it should always depend on the story you want to tell, and the relevance of the idea to that plot.

Also, I highly recommend that OceanKeltoi video. It's a very good look at ways to approach both reconstruction of historic faiths, and how we often kind of implicitly assume people in the past weren't as clever as people today.

[humbledragon669]

Script to Screen comparison: Episode 2 – The Book P1 – large changes

Standard Intro

Having followed the episodes through with the Script Book, I've tried to break the differences between the original script and the end result on screen into a couple of different categories:

Large changes (whole scenes/multiple lines of script). This blog post will cover these only (for brevity) – the other categories will be covered separately.

Things that are in the original script but not in the finished episode (I'm calling these deletions).

Things that aren't in the original script but are in the finished episode (I'm calling these additions).

Things that have been changed (I'm calling these ones amendments).

Not all of the changes fit neatly into one category or the other (there are shades of grey...). The first three of the differences will be presented within bullet lists, with a description. The last of the categories will be presented in a table. I'll make comments about anything I find particularly notable after each category.

Large changes

Scene 204 has been cut from the finished episode. This would have served as an additional introduction to War, and provides details of the paper that she works for (which is apparently a very trashy supermarket tabloid), as well as the opinions of other journalists about her writing, which is mysteriously “a la minute” when it comes to global conflicts.

There’s a small exchange between Crowley and Ligur (with the latter communicating through the television), where Crowley points out that there shouldn’t be trust between demons. Ligur threatens Crowley with some of unnamed methods of the Spanish Inquisition that Crowley has identified in his reports to Hell.

Scene 207, the signing of the peace treaty, was originally set to take place in a hotel conference room (with the participants seated at individual tables), instead of a tent in the middle of the desert (with the participants standing in front of a single table). The participants are described as being “happy and at ease”.

A small handful of lines about the process of the signing of the peace treaty are missing from the finished episode.

An exchange between the peace treaty participants about the credibility of the newspaper that War writes for have been cut.

The ordering of the scene showing Agnes being burnt has been changed for the finished episode. Originally, there was a scripted to be a shot of Adultery Pulsifer realising that things were about to end badly before Agnes’s second pyre speech. This was to be combined with the shot of the barrels of gunpowder and nails, which has been relocated to the middle of the following scene. Lastly, Adultery’s cursive was originally placed before Agnes’s knowing smile.

There are two lines from Anathema (as a child) where she expresses her disgust at having to “do kissing” (including the prophecy this takes place in – 1401) that have been cut.

Scene 220 showing Anathema (as a grown up) and her mother discussing Anathema’s packing and saying goodbye before she leaves LA is missing from the finished episode.

A small exchange between Newt and Tompkins (the office manager) where Newt is fired in front of the whole office has been cut.

An exchange that Shadwell has with a passer-by during his evangelical rant has been cut. In it is a thinly veiled accusation that the passer-by is a witch.

The original script covered a lot more detail of Anathema unpacking at Jasmine Cottage.

Part of Scene 107 (from episode 1) has been inserted after the scene where Crowley terrifies his houseplants. The only part of the scene that remains, which is of a telephone conversation Aziraphale has with an unknown customer, details the history of Agnes Nutter’s book.

The original exit from the scene showing Newton’s induction into the Witchfinder Army included a shot of a “gentleman caller” arriving for Madame Tracy, and some preparations she was making for his arrival.

Aziraphale’s assertions that there will be records available are missing from scene 233 (the journey through London in the Bentley).

There is a short exchange between Aziraphale and Crowley in scene 233 that have been cut. In it, they discuss the possibility of claiming asylum with the other’s side should they be unable to find the Antichrist.

Scene 238 is missing several components from the finished episode:

Anathema was scripted to be wandering from the village green towards Hogback Wood.

She is also supposed to be scribbling in a notebook.

She was described as annotating a map.

Pepper and Wensleydale were seen walking past her.

Scene 240, showing Aziraphale and Crowley approaching Tadfield Manor is considerably different in the finished episode:

It was scripted that the Bentley would be seen pulling up to the Manor (not already parked).

There are three shots described as taking place through a rifle sight: one without Aziraphale and Crowley, one with both, and the final one focussing in on Aziraphale (there is only one in the finished episode, focussing in on Crowley).

Crowley and Aziraphale were only afforded a single footstep towards the Manor in the original script.

The paint spatter on Crowley is described as being on his shirtfront, not his bare chest.

Crowley and Aziraphale both hit the floor in the original script (as in the book).

Crowley both sniffs and licks the “blood” before realising it’s actually paint.

Scene 242, showing Tompkins coming to, has been repositioned to cut into the previous scene. It was originally placed after God’s voiceover speech about the history of the Manor.

There is a small exchange between two of the office workers about the “people from Purchasing” that is missing from the finished episode.

Scene 245, an exchange between Tompkins and an IT man, has been cut.

Norman’s battlefield speech has been cut considerably. It’s largely more of the same bitter tripe he’s spouting about his colleagues.

Scene 246, containing Norman’s battlefield speech, has been repositioned to cut into the discussion between Crowley and Aziraphale about the morality of the demon’s actions in giving the conference attendees real guns. Its original position was immediately before the same discussion.

There is a chunk of police activity, including sirens, flashing lights, and an announcement made over loudhailer, that has been cut from the finished episode.

Crowley’s dismissal of Aziraphale’s insistence that he is ethereal (not occult) and the following shot of a policeman realising that the gun he’s holding is fake are both missing.

Scene 254, showing Anathema taking observations by moonlight, has been repositioned to take place after Crowley’s proclamation about the consequences of failing to find the Antichrist. It was originally placed immediately before the conversation between him and Aziraphale in the Bentley as they drive through Tadfield’s country lanes.

Scene 256, showing Anathema cycling along a dark country lane, has been repositioned to cut through Aziraphale’s statement about flashes of love. It was originally positioned immediately before his assertion that there’s something “very peculiar” about the area.

The stage directions in the script provide a lot more detail about Anathema’s belongings and how she sits with them in the Bentley.

The script suggests Anathema’s exit from the Bentley should have been a much more chaotic affair, with her trying to scoop all of her belongings up from the seat. The camera panning down to reveal the book left on the floor has been added to the finished episode.

There are a few lines from Mr. Young about his trying to report Dog as missing to the relevant authorities that are missing from the finished episode.

A small exchange between Mr. and Mrs. Young about what she is doing getting out of bed late at night (checking on Adam, which she covers up) that have been cut.

The beginning of scene 267, showing Adam settling down to sleep, has been repositioned to the end of the scene showing Mrs. Young’s POV into his bedroom as she checks on him. It was originally placed after Mrs. Young has returned to bed. There are differences here too – it was originally scripted that we would see him close his eyes, and that Dog would be lying on the pillow beside his head. We also get an additional shot where the camera pans over the shelves in Adam’s room.

Scene 269, showing Anathema returning to the site of the accident to look for her book, is missing from the finished episode.

A miniature spat between Crowley and Aziraphale about whether they should have taken Anathema’s address after the accident has been cut.

There are several details showing Aziraphale’s preparations to read Agnes Nutter’s book in the script that didn’t make it to the episode: making cocoa, getting a pad of paper and a pen, and repositioning a lamp.

Scenes 272 and 273 have been cut. The former of these is a simple establishing shot of the outside of Crowley’s flat, but the latter showed his dishevelled emergence from his bedroom after sleeping.

There are a few of Crowley’s lines missing from his telephone conversation with Aziraphale, recapping Hell’s current position with the Antichrist, complete with his insistence that the angel “chill” after calling him “dude”.

There are quite a few major sets of changes in this episode, with some of the larger ones consisting of the restructuring of entire scenes or scene sequences. With both instances of the restructured scenes, I feel that the revised structure is hugely effective in delivering the desired tone for the respective scenes: maintenance of mystery for Agnes’s burning, and a general feeling of chaos for Tadfield Manor. I really enjoy the change of venue for the signing of the peace treaty – there’s something cheeky about the idea that something as important as a peace treaty would be signed in those conditions, but it’s probably closer to the truth than a hotel conference room is. I’m also quite glad that so many of the supporting lines about the peace treaty have been cut – the shorter scene sequence is really successful in showing how quickly the shit can hit the fan, and that might not have been conveyed so effectively if the dialogue had been more extensive.

There are two of these changes that I am very sorry we lost (no, it’s not Crowley calling Aziraphale “dude”, I’m incredibly pleased that one didn’t make the final cut). The first is the exchange between Crowley and Aziraphale about seeking asylum of the other’s side.

CROWLEY:  I suppose […] your people wouldn’t consider giving me asylum?

AZIRAPHALE: I was going to ask you the same thing…

These two lines speak worlds to me about their respective state of minds, not least that they’re both prepared to give up what they have to switch sides, which would of course make it much easier for them to spend time together. Ultimately though, whilst I think Crowley probably would consider seeking asylum from Heaven in order to save his own skin, I don’t feel like Aziraphale is in a place where he would ask the same from Hell, so I wonder if these lines were cut because they didn’t fit with the angel’s character development at this point in the storyline. I also wonder if the two of them would have considered the possibility that the other was thinking the same thing, and whether that would have changed their mind on the whole thing.

The second of the list that I very desperately regret not seeing is the removal of this scene:

Aside from the fandom having missed the opportunity to see the house plants trying to look impressive for the demon, who wouldn’t want to see a dishevelled Crowley freshly roused from bed?! Why, why, WHY did this get cut?! I’m really hoping it finds a place in season 3, because it genuinely feels like a delightful piece of characterisation that we were robbed of.

I was intending on only doing one of these posts per episode in these script to screen comparisons, but this one is already running pretty long, and I don’t want these very wordy posts (i.e. not many pretty pictures of GIFs) to run to epic novel length. I was actually quite surprised to see how many more notes I made for this episode (50% more than for the first) as I thought it might be the case that the first episode of the series would have had a lot more background/scene-setting information that would be ripe for cutting, but that didn’t prove to be the case, not for any of my so-called “categories”.

As always, questions, comments, discussion: always welcome. See you in the next one!

[g00ngala]

hopefully this is the last long post i will ever have to make about hit disney show the owl house but I am so sick of people posting paragraphs of lukewarm takes on philip's death so. one last rant for the road, i suppose.

belos's death wasn't unsatisfying, nor was it purely physical. first of all, philip is a representation of greater societal problems (which are notably still there, remember, there's people who want to reestablish his order for their own gain). he is a plague and parasite on the world and a demonstration of humanity's worst cruelties, and his pathetic death by boiling rain and stomping as the most true and good character, who does her best to do right by everyone and believes in second chances, in the entire show, looks at him with no emotion in a way that directly parallels the way caleb's ghost looks down upon him, and he claws at her feet in a desperate attempt to use another person's good nature once again to get what he wants, and fails and dies, is INCREDIBLY symbolic.

and TWO. the point ISN'T that philip is an Evil Liar Who Lies and his backstory is being shafted for simple evil, he is an incredibly realistic depiction of how many people are consumed by their fear of what they don't understand and their hatred, let it fester into a desire to harm, and then elaborate lies to not only manipulate others but trick themselves by their own rhetoric so they don't have to feel bad for it

throughout the show philip is paralleled to cult leaders and militaristic dictators, and he is LITERALLY a puritan colonizer. philip is white man ego in its purest form. yes, the awful society is 75% the fault of Just One Guy, but this is a cartoon. he represents every man who has tried to build a world like this, who burns what he doesn't understand and makes up lies to justify it and trick his own guilt into not eating him alive.

people keep bitching that philip didn't truly face his own lies and realize how awful he was before he died, or that he wasn't given any chance to change, but philip has run the fuck out of chances. the point is he will never learn because he chooses not to. philip had to die because he'd rather lie and rot and take everyone down with him than EVER admit he's wrong. he killed his brother because he tricked himself into believing that caleb betrayed him, romanticized the idea of Caleb in his head and delusionally convinced himself that he tried to save him, while his knife hangs over his brother's ghost eternally, symbolizing the shoved down guilt he'll never truly outrun.

he made hunter believe it was his fault that philip repeatedly harmed him, he told the people of the isles after slaughtering them over and over that it's better if he rules them because he is better than them, he eternally victimizes himself over and over because he is an abuser. his lies are not just to others but to himself. he makes himself believe that the ends justify the means, when the ends are nonsensical rhetoric and the means are horrific violence. because philip is a person who may have had the capacity for good, but he chooses to live in his own hatred and rot everything around him, taking advantage of hunger for power and good natured kindness in the same breath, and he chooses to turn away from the mirror every time, to refuse to acknowledge the monster he's become because he's a coward.

the titan said it themself. his motives aren't genuine, not because he's evil for evil's sake but because he'd do anything to continue to live in his own delusion of heroism and perpetual victimhood. philip is someone you can find in the behaviors of dictators and colonists and evangelical christians and run of the mill abusers all throughout history. this doesn't make him a cookie cutter villain, it makes him a REALISTIC villain, or as realistic as you can get in a cartoon on the disney channel. he wants power and he wants admiration and he wants death and suffering to the people he's scared of, and he'd rather kill himself and take everyone down with him than ever face who he is.

not all villains need a redemption arc to be complex. he doesn't love to rub his hands together cartoonishly and watch the world burn, but some people do actually enjoy harming others. but the realism comes from how he lies to himself and others about it.

sometimes someone can be truly evil, not because they were born that way, but because they choose to be, and because they choose to live in denial about it until they're rotting in the ground.

[whencyclopedia]

Weapons of the Conquistadors

The Iberian conquistadors ("conquerors") were the first military men to explore, attack, and conquer territories in the Americas and Asia that would then become a part of the Spanish or Portuguese Empire. Indigenous peoples could not match the conquistadors' weapons of cannons, swords, crossbows, and lances or, most devastating of all, their armoured cavalry.

The superiority of conquistador weapons was combined with disciplined tactics and significant aid from indigenous allies, which meant they lived up to their name time and time again from Mexico to Peru, India to the Philippines. Once the conquistadors had swept through a territory like a plague, the colonization process proper was undertaken by settlers and officials sent by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns to 'pacify' a region and begin the systematic and prolonged exploitation of people and resources.

Vanguard of the Empire

The conquistadors of the 15th and 16th centuries were the vanguards of the Portuguese and Spanish empires as they expanded outside of Europe. Men who had gained military experience and a taste of victory in such conflicts as the Reconquista and Italian wars, the conquistadors had dubious morals and were motivated above all by dreams of personal riches. Incidental for most were the goals of exploration, trade, colonization, and evangelism that preoccupied the Spanish and Portuguese authorities. Some conquistadors, notably the leaders, may have entertained more lofty goals of exploration and 'civilizing' the peoples they encountered, but the rank and file were utterly ruthless invaders who would stop at nothing, not even at murdering their fellow Europeans, in order to satisfy their thirst for wealth and, above all, gold. The conquistadors were such a liability that European monarchs were ever eager to replace them with more controllable colonial officials as soon as possible in any new territory.

The major obstacle that stood between a conquistador and the wealth with which they could retire back in Spain was the indigenous peoples. Naturally, local tribes, as soon as they realised these visitors from another world were invaders set on conquest, put up the best resistance they could to hold on to their land, resources, and even their very cultural survival. Unfortunately for the indigenous peoples of the Americas and elsewhere, although many were greatly accomplished at warfare, they were not just centuries but eons behind the Europeans in terms of weaponry. Such was the superiority of the weapons of the conquistadors, the Europeans had no qualms about taking on an army far larger than their own small force, and their countless victories made them seem invincible.

Continue reading...

[darkrpfinders]

— 🕊️🤍 .ᐟ

26 she/her iso 18+ discord roleplay partners for fandomless oc × oc plots

open to writing m, f, or nb muses in any pairing except m × m

interested in smut-heavy storylines backed by an engaging plot

dead dove elements highly encouraged but by no means necessary

vague roleplay ideas include childhood best friends reuniting at pivotal points in their lives, a small midwestern town with a evangelical cult at its core, incestuous political drama in a medieval noir fantasy setting, and a questionable relationship developing between a young woman and a notably older man in the apocalypse ; very open to other ideas as well

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