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edge-lorde · 4 years

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the religion of the galactic horde

“You seem reluctant to help me. But I only wish to use your weapon to bring peace to the darkest corners of the universe. (Glimmer: Peace? If you activate the Heart of Etheria, there will be no one left.) Yes. No war, no pain. Old worlds swept aside, a new beginning for the universe.” --Horde Prime explaining his motivations to Glimmer

the horde in shera was definitely inspired by Christianity and uses a lot of its imagery, the most iconic being the baptism scene. it certainly gives off the vibes of a christian or christian adjacent cult, but what is its actual doctrine? i have some thoughts about that.

first here are what i consider to be the 3 main differences between real christianity and the horde:

Their jesus didn't ascend to heaven. He's still with them.

They don't have a larger creator god. They worship horde prime like he is a living god but they don't believe that he created the universe.

They have no focus on the afterlife

this is going to be long.

before i begin heres the sparknotes version of christianity for anyone not familiar. I am not evangelizing this, just think of it as LORE.

Once upon a time there was a guy named Jesus. He was the son of the one true god, who both created everything in the universe, is everywhere and knows everything, and controls the afterlife. Jesus is god born as a mortal person, sent by god to teach all of humanity the errors of their evil ways so they can repent and go to the good afterlife when they die. There're two afterlives, a good one and a bad one, heaven is the good one and its run by god and his army of angels, which are divine beings that god can send to earth to do things. The bad one is called hell.

Anyway, in his time on earth jesus was the only person ever to never do anything bad ever (called sin). He tried to teach people how to be good but was Too Good for this Cruel World and was killed. 3 days later he came back from the dead, proving his divinity. Some time after that however, he ascended into heaven without dying, telling his followers to spread the word because hes going to be coming back. Christians today are still awaiting his return. In the meantime, christians follow his teachings left behind in holy texts.

The crux of christianity is to get to heaven when you die, and this can only be done by following the teachings of jesus christ, believing in god, and believing that jesus was the son of god. Its a given that everyone will do bad things at some point in their lives so you're supposed to pray to god and ask for forgiveness regularly and if you really mean it then god will forgive you.

thats the basics.

to my first main point from above, if we posit that horde prime is the jesus equivalent of the horde religion, because hes treated as a living god, his goal is to spread his philosophy throughout the universe, then in the horde religions jesus never ascended into heaven. this would be like if jesus in our world rose from the dead and just picked up where he left off, and never died after that and was alive today. that would be pretty good proof of divinity.

to my 2nd point, theres nothing in the show that suggests that horde prime thinks that he created the universe. this means that he did not get his divinity from anywhere but inside himself, hes not claiming that hes the rightful ruler of the known universe for any other reason besides his ideas are the best.

the 3rd point is that the show does show horde prime or the horde caring one bit about the afterlife, save for one line from wrong hordak.

"Brother, I hope you, too, are full of only love for Horde Prime and have no crippling doubt eating at your soul."

meaning that they have the concept of the soul. which is very interesting and ill get to it, but on the whole the hordes focus seems to be on the here and now. this is a huge departure from christianity because chrisitanity is all about getting to the afterlife. that is the reason that christians are supposed to follow christ and recruit as many people as possible to do the same, because if they dont, they or other people will supposedly go to hell when they die. i say supposedly because at funerals, even if the person who died wasnt a believer, in my experience no christian would ever ever ever insinuate that someone went to hell.

but the difference still stands. following real christian ideology is supposed to have benefits for the individual in the afterlife, while in the horde religion salvation seems to only be found by submitting to prime in this life and being either a tool that he can use to further his goal of purifying the universe or by letting him remove you from it.

on top of all that, horde prime has the hive mind, which he uses to control the thoughts of all his followers. this means that theres no room for a bible study, no need of a holy text at all in fact, and no room for interpretation. horde prime delivers orders to your brain directly and can tell if you think anything out of line. real Christianity does have the idea that a sin that you just think about doing is as bad as actually doing it, but in the horde these thoughts can be easily discovered and punished.

the horde religion seems to me to be a strangely secular version of christianity with only the bad parts remaining; the control, the blind faith, the certainty that you are right and everyone else is wrong, the not questioning authority. with none of the good aspects like community, and good deeds. it is a cult in the truest sense of the word, a religion that begins and ends with one person only, that person being horde prime.

so, if you take horde prime out of the equation, what, if anything, would be left?

i find the plight of the horde clones here to be the most interesting. we know that they do have thoughts about their religion, as it was hordaks belief that he could earn his way back into horde primes god graces that kept him going all those years in despondos, and wrong hordak is distraught when he discovers that horde prime lied about krytis.

unlike both the chipped people we see in the show and real religious converts, the clones were born into this cult that values blind obedience only, and have no prior ideology or cultural identity to fall back on when they are taken out of it.

so to answer this question, i must add some conjecture to horde primes backstory and how the clones see themselves in horde primes universe. I already wrote up a brief backstory idea for horde prime/the clones and have it posted on here somewhere. I'm not going to dig it up but you could probably find it in the #horde prime tag on my blog if you dig hard enough.

To summarize it though, I have it as horde prime was once a regular (bad) dude who became a cult leader under the premise of preaching peace --> he becomes disillusioned with people and even his own followers because he doesn't actually like people, he likes manipulating them. --> this and the power of being a cult leader go to his head and he starts to think that he is the only person in existence capable of living a moral life and everyone else needs to be saved from themselves, the world would be a better place if he could just make everyone's decisions for them. --> he somehow gets a hold of the technology needed to set up the hive mind, be it by inventing it himself, stealing it, finding it, or being gifted it.

I'll pause here to address the theory that horde prime was originally an eldritch being that simply possessed a dude who would become the template for the clones. I think there's enough stuff in the show that this is a valid read and might even be canon but i don't really care for it. For me, what makes horde prime a compelling villain is that he's a very human evil, so having him actually be an evil demon thing instead of a really bad but believable dude who got near ultimate power weakens his character. BUT, i’m not going to address it in my comic so i'll leave it open as to whether he's got that going on or not. If he is, the clones don’t know about it and neither they nor the other characters have any way of discovering it. IF he is though, it would happen here. I could see it being a cool idea for him to get the hive mind from the eldritch being that would then possess him and haunt his lineage for time immemorial as a deal with the devil sort of thing, but he has to be a bad person before that.

Anyway he gets the hive mind--> he gets all of his followers to chip themselves --> gets those people to chip everyone else on his home planet --> use his planet wide army to harvest all resources on the planet and build his first space fleet and take to the skies and start his conquest--> realize that if he is to succeed hes going to need to both become immortal and find a steady source of new followers because chipped people die eventually and he doesnt care about people enough to figure out a way to keep a self sufficient population of followers alive, he just wants people around to adore him and do his bidding--> invents his cloning system-->

and heres the big one,

his original body has to die so he can upload his consciousness into a new clone.

and THAT, to the clones, would be the moment that horde prime becomes a god.

his reliance on the hive mind and vast network of followers are what give him his godly abilities, but just as the horde clones could not exist without being cloned from horde prime, so too could horde prime not exist as he does in the show without them.

i see it as both a christlike sacrifice and a cyclical system of debt and sacrifice. horde prime dies for our sins, so that he might continue to purify the universe so that there will be no more death and more clones will be born, while the clone hes possessing has to essentially die by giving himself up entirely to become the new prime so all this can happen too, and to repay primes death. not all clones can become the next prime however, but all must be ready to die for him, hence horde prime having clone infantries despite also having robots he could send instead.

i dont have clear thoughts about what the green goo is, but horde primes words about his brothers lending him their life force go along with this idea. the clones give him theyre life force, so he can give it back to them.

another interesting aspect of this is that prime always portrays himself as a brother to his followers, never a father as christ is portrayed as in christianity. i know this is from hordak and horde prime being actual brothers in the 80s show but ive seen this trope come up a few times in media before, where a man raises a kid but has them call him their brother instead of dad. it seems so deliberate. because a parents job is to take care of you, but a sibling, might take care of you sure, but thats not their job. its like hes deliberately trying to place himself on the same level as his ‘sibling’ so he can demand the same amount of respect you would give to a parent without taking on the responsibility to not... ya know... screw them over in the head? idk it seems very slimy to me. but that says more about prime as a character than how the clones see him.

and we still have the concept of the soul to fit in here somehow, and do they have an afterlife? im going to say no to the afterlife. theres just not enough in the show to go off of and everything that we do know about horde prime points to him only caring about himself in life. HOWEVER, there is nothing more quintessentially christian than the concept of hell and i think that will be of use here.

since the creation of the clones is tied with the creation of their religion, this would put the clones themselves less as allegories of people who need to be saved and more as the horde version of angels. in my telling here, horde prime views all people who do not submit to his will as net negatives to the universe who have to be removed for peace to exist, so by this view the chipped people are the saved, the people that horde prime kills are the sinners, and his military campaign is one long apocalypse slowly working its way through the universe, with the clones carrying out his righteous judgement. but the afterlife isnt involved in this, so even if some chipped people are left alive, eventually they will all die out, and then it will be just horde prime and is clones in a perfect, peaceful starless sky, and thats what heaven is.

getting to heaven is the main goal of real christianity and it is the same in horde religion, but heaven isnt a place in the horde cosmology, its a physical goal that has to be created. not all clones will make it to heaven of course, because most will die before they reach total destruction of the universe but the clones arent supposed to think of themselves as individuals anyway. they have to be willing to die for horde prime and die for the cause or be cast out and thats hell.

i dont see prime as someone who would kill his own followers outright too often even though he could. plus they arent supposed to value their individual lives the same way normal people do anyway it doesnt seem like a real punishment, they need something worse than simple death to fear. so by my view hell for the clones is separation from prime. it can be in life or death. no matter how bad it is in the horde being on the outside of it has to seem worse, and thats where the concept of the soul comes in. when one is a part of the hive mine, their soul is with prime. they are not supposed to have a will or any thoughts beyond love for prime, its essentially the same as not having a soul but they think of it as being at peace. being cast out is to be never at peace and would be told to them as being the worst possible thing that could ever happen to someone because it corrupts the soul.

“a lot of unpleasant things happen in the horde so just imagine how terrible it must be outside of it! you cant because i protect you from that. now get in the goo, this is for your own good” - horde prime probably

this is why outsiders are so resistant to submitting to primes light and also why its ok to kill them, in the hordes view.

so, to start wrapping thigs up, there is no horde without horde prime. the religion starts and ends with him. because he is supposed to be the only person ever to be able to make true moral and just decisions, without him is followers cant take any actions without worrying that they are going against primes will. since they have no holy text they cant extrapolate and try to figure it out either. its up in the air whether or not they are going to find a way to get the horde to make the jump from cult to regular religion.

its late i got to go to bed now

#shera #spop #the horde #the galactic horde #horde prime #horde clones #horde #rambling #Thoughts #this is really long and rambly but i think most of my thoughts got in there #im falling asleep as i type this #might redo this if i can think of a more concise way to say it

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dramarising-replacement · 4 years

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About the Crow drama...

...I am really getting annoyed by the people clamoring that it's racist and so on. I am throwing my hat in the ring and trying to see it from both sides but I truly find the whole thing one big problem of co-opting r*cism to harass people. But that is my opinion, everyone is allowed their own but I find it highly problematic that this whole thing has led to people actually faking screenshots to claim they are at fault. This is not ok. Neither is harassing. Please stop.

Either way, onwards. Keep in mind, this is my view on the whole thing and I just want to give a perspective of someone who is fairly removed from the whole thing and decided to use critical thinking. I will state that I have had not much interaction with any person involved, I shared spaces in discord in the past and of course also on FR but not to say that any side is my friend.

Do you know what my biggest problem with the aforementioned statement is? That it's mostly made by the non-Asian people that are stuck on Orientalism. You are projecting your racist stereotypes on a subspecies that was created by actual Asian people. What is the problem with people having fun with their own cultures? I can understand if some Asian people (and I am using Asian because I do not know enough about the subspecies to say which ethnic/culture it is mostly based on) do not like it. That is normal, everyone has different likes and dislikes. Using slurs is not ok but honestly, I haven't seen any proof of these alleged slurs so I can't say anything about it. Show me actual slurs thrown around and it would be different but for now the only thing I could find was the rat thing and honestly? Looking at those screenshots given showed rat used in the context of a beloved character. Who here has never talked about their bastard character being some kind of trashy raccoon or rat before?

Back to the fact that some people of the same nationality say they don't like it. Like I said, that happens, god, there are many times I don't like what people are doing with my culture. But guess what? I don't say that they are forbidden from playing with it. What gives one person of a culture the right to demand from others to stop how they interact with it? If you start doing that, we have to apply that to everything and imagine how uniform everything would be. For example Christianity: there are so many different branches and they have often problems with their different interpretations of the bible and their practices. Would you say we have to stop all Christian beliefs now? Sounds kind off dumb, right?

If you do not like how these people interact with their culture then stop interacting with them and the subspecies. It is that easy. FR is not here to take you by the hand and make everything go away that you don't like. It doesn't work like that, we are a pluralistic world with many many different views on things. And that is great. But it also means in spaces like FR we have to moderate ourselves. See something that doesn't confirm your view? Block it or, in case of truly problematic things like outright r*cism/r*pe/m*rder/p*dophilia or whatever else, report. Saying that you don't like how some people interact with your culture while they are of the same culture does not give you the right to call these people racist. Turn it around and these people could call you also racist because you interact differently with your culture. This does not help anyone.

Now, to my biggest problem with this mud throwing (I would love to call it a discourse but let's be honest here: the people starting to falsify information made this into some kind of contest to harass some people):

the fact that most people involved are espousing their own racist views under the veneer of "calling out" racism.

Like I said, I have not specially much knowledge about the subspecies but I did take a look at it, so here we go. But what I read is quite away from that "fetishing" you guys are accusing the people playing around with the dragons. For me it seems like they mixed bird facts, plague aesthetics and cultural aspects together. If you start interpreting r*cism into everything you read, congrats, then you should really think about what that says about yourself.

For me this seems much more a problem of co-opting anti-racist movements to harass specific people. You use the "right" language to make the "right" accusations and take advantage of white/western ignorance. I am specifically harsh here because this is all that I am currently seeing from all these people: they call members of the subspecies out, in the recent cases C specifically, C actually answered and showed proof that there were actual lies used and so someone decided they needed to remove authenticy from C so they created fake screenshots that say they are from Korea. This whole interaction screams of someone calling r*cism only to realize that, oh no, C actually is Chinese, so they did their best to make it seem like C lied. This is insidious and bullying. I do not know the people involved, I have only written a few times with C and shared discord spaces so I found the Korea screenshot very weird, it's just not how C normally writes.

I think this isn't about r*cism anymore, this is all about power. This is manipulation at its finest. Really, take the claims of r*cism away and then look at the subspecies again. What is your first thought? Man, that subspecies screams of Plague.

Here is a thought for all of you: there is unfortunately much r*cism to be found since we are living in a world that is flooded with r*cistic undertones. This means we have to educate ourselves on these issues and to think critically about them. This does not mean "to criticize" but to actually analyze, evaluate and examine so we can reconstruct our perspectives on these issues. And I beg of the people just going after these "call-out" posts, think about this again. Did the subspecies really scream r*cism to you or did you maybe rather think Plague aesthetic before you read these posts? If so, you really have to examine why your view changed.

One more thing, we have here two groups in the recent posts, one side is "calling" out C and C answers, making sure to openly discuss their culture and background as much as they did. So we have one side seemingly manipulating "evidence" to further their story and one side giving as much information as they can about their background without revealing their whole identity. Yeah, sorry, but I think I know who is more genuine here. Instead of making FR a more informed space it seems it was easier to use progressive language to further their own ideas of what r*cism is. (I am still more sure that this is all about power than anything else.)

This whole thing makes me very salty because it seems like everyone in the notes threw out their critical thinking just so they would not appear as r*cist.

As an older person that had to take more than one class on colonization and Orientalism this whole thing just makes me wish more people would use critical thinking. Please stop blindly following pretty "progressive" words without seeing the actual problem here. This is actually my biggest problem here, I do not claim to be knowledgable enough to know where the subspecies furthers stereotypical views but for me all the posts I was shown and then read myself speak of different problem.

If you read until now, congratulations, feel free to discuss my points but I am honestly so tired about seeing people just ignoring the bigger issues. I won't answer to anything because I do not want to spend my time here arguing about these things but seeing that my major during my studies involved big chunks of literature and cultural sciences this whole thing just rubbed me wrong when someone told me about it.

#Drama #Rant #Long post #Petty #User #submission

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phynali · 4 years

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Canonization and Fandom Purity Culture

I wrote a 1k-word twitter thread (as proof that I am Not made for Twitter and it’s goddamn 240-character limit) and am pasting it here with edits and updates (it’s now 2k words).

I have thoughts to share (which I know have been stated more eloquently before by others) about this trend of demanding/obsessing that certain ships become "canon" and how it overlaps with the rise of fandom purity culture.

Under the cut.

Here in 2021 there is a seemingly large and certainly loud and active contingent of online fandoms who desire (or even demand) "canon validation" for a given interpretation of a source material. This is more true with shipping than anywhere else.

First, it is important to note that the trend is not limited to queer ships or to any single fandom. In the past few years I've seen it for Riverdale, Voltron, Supernatural (perhaps most extreme?), The 100, etc., and less recent with the MCU, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, Hawaii 5-0, etc. It is a broad trend across ships, fandoms, and mediums.

So if it is more common for queer ships, it is hardly unique to them. Similarly, pretending that it is about queer representation is a clever misdirect to disguise the fact that it is most often about ships and shipping wars. If you ever need proof of that, consider that a character can be queer without being in a given relationship or reciprocating another character's affections. Thus a call for more/better queer rep itself is very different than a call for specific ships to be made canon.

Also note that when audiences frame it as wanting to recognize a specific *character* as queer, it is almost always in the context of a ship. Litmus test: would making that character queer but having them *explicitly reject* the other half of the ship be seen as a betrayal?

(Note: none or this is to say we shouldn't push for more queer rep and more *quality and well-written* queer rep! Just that that isn't what I'm talking about here, and not what seeking canon validation for a specific interpretation or a specific ship is almost ever about.)

Why does this matter?

the language of representation and social justice should not be co-opted to prop up ship wars

it is reciprocal with a trend toward increasing toxicity in transformative fandom spaces

Number 1 here is self-explanatory (I hope). Let's chat about 2.

Demands for canon validation correlate with a rise in fanpol / fandom purity culture. What is fandom purity culture (and fandom policing)? This toxic mentality is about justifying one's shipping preferences and aiming to be pure (non-problematic) in your fictional appetites regarding romance and sex.

Note that this purity culture is so named as it arises linearly from American Protestantism, conservative puritanical anxiety around thought crimes, and overlaps in many ways with terf ideologies and regressively anti-kink paradigms.

It goes like this: problematic content is "gross" and therefore morally reprehensible. Much like how queer sex/relationships get labelled as "gross" (Other) and thus morally sinful, or how kink gets labelled as "harmful" and thus morally wrong. The Problematic label is applied by fanpol to ships with offset age or power dynamics, complicated histories, and anything they choose to label as "harmful". As such, they would decry my comparison here to queerphobia itself as also being harmful, because their (completely fictional) targets are ~actually~ evil.

(The irony of this is completely lost on them).

This mode of interacting with creative works leaves no room to explore dark or erotic themes or dynamics which may exist in fiction but not healthily in reality. Gothic romance is verboten. Even breathe the word incest and you will be labelled a monster (nevermind Greek tragedy or GoT).

As with most puritanical bullshit, fanpol ideology only applies these beliefs to sex and never to violence/murder/etc, proving what lies at its core. It also demands its American-based values be applied to all fictional periods and places as the One True Moral Standard. It evangelizes – look no further than how these people try to recruit others to their cause, aim to elevate themselves as righteous, and try to persuade (‘save’) others from their degenerate ways of thinking.

“See the light” they promise “here are our callouts and blog posts to convince you. Decry your past sins of problematic shipping, be baptized by our in-group adulation and welcome, and then go forth and send hate to others until they too see the light.” In many ways “get therapy” by the antis is akin to “I’ll pray for you” by the Christian-right (and ultimately ironic).

(Although it has been pointed out to me that these fans are likely not themselves specifically ex-evangelicals, but rather those who have brushed up with evangelical norms and modes of thinking without specifically being victims of it. In many ways they are more simply conservative Christian in temperament and attitude without necessarily being raised into religion by belief).

What this has to do with canon validation is that these fans look to canon for approval, for Truth. On the one hand, if it is in the canon then it must be good / pure or at least acceptable. The authority (canon) has deemed it thus. It is safe and acceptable to discuss and to enjoy watching or consuming. In this way, validation from canon means a measure of safety from being Bad and Problematic.

For example, where a GoT fan could discuss Cersei/Jaime's (toxic, interesting) dynamic in depth as it related to the canon, fans who shipped Jon/Sansa (healthy, interesting) were Gross and Bad. The canon as Truth provided a safety net, a launch point. "It's GRRM, not me, who is problematic." It wasn’t okay to ship the problematic bad gross incest ship, but it being in the canon material meant it was open for discussion, for nuance, for “this adds an interesting layer to the story” which is denied to all non-canon ships labelled as problematic.

(Note: there are of course people who have zero interest in watching GoT for a whole slew of very valid reasons, including but not limited to the incest. That’s a different to this trend. A less charged example might be The Umbrella Academy, where a brother canonically is in love with his sister and antis still praise the show, but if you dare to ship any of the potential incest ships then you are the one who is disgusting).

On the other hand, a very interesting alternate (or additional) explanation for this phenomenon was raised to me on twitter. (These ideas aren’t mine originally, but I wholly endorse them as a big part of what is likely going on): Namely, as with authoritarian individuals in general, they see themselves as right and correct, but the canon (which has not yet validated their ship) is not correct, and is in fact problematic, and so they can save the canon from itself.

As mentioned, these fanpol types see their interpretation as Good and Pure. So if they can push (demand, bully) the canon into conforming to their worldview and validating their interpretation, then they have shown the (sinful) creators the light and led them to the righteous path. This only works if the canon allows itself to saved though, otherwise the creators remain Evil for spurning them.

How is this different from fans simply hoping for their ship to be canon?

For a second here, let’s rewind to the 90s (since Whedon has been in the news recently). This “I want it to be canon” thing isn’t 100% new, of course. We saw this trend then for the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it was different then. At the time, fans who hoped for a ship to be canon might have been cheering for a problematic one to begin with (Buffy/Spike). So shipping was still present, minus vocal fanpol.

(And Buffy fans learned that canon validation...can leave a lot to be desired. A heavy lesson was learned about the ways that fan desires can play out horrifically in canon, and how some things are best left out of the hands of canon-writers).

These days, this is still largely true. Many fans hope for their ships to go canon, as they always have. There are tropes like “will they/won’t they” that TV shows may even be designed around, which a certain narrative anticipation and a very deliberate build up to that.

But while shipping *hopes* occur for many fans, almost all ships fans that *demand* to go canon and obsess over are now the ones deemed as Unproblematic, or as Less Problematic. I’m talking here about the ships that aren’t necessarily an explicit will/won’t they dynamic but do have some canon dynamic that leads them to being shipped, but which the creators aren’t necessarily deliberately teasing and building up a romantic end-game for.

These ships often have fans who are happy to stick to fandom, but there has also been a huge uptick in the portion of fans who are approaching shipping with an explicit lens of “will they go canon?” and “don’t you want them to be canon?” and now even “they have to go canon” and “the canon is wrong if they don’t make this ship canon”, to a final end-point of “if the ship doesn’t go canon, the source material is Wrong and Bad.”

These latter opinions are the one we see more by extreme fans (‘stans’), hardcore shippers, but especially by fanpol-types, the ones who embrace fandom purity culture at least to some extent.

Why them?

In pushing for canon validation, fanpol types seek to elevate their (pure) interpretation of canon. As mentioned above, it’s validation of their authority, a safety-net, and a way to save the canon from itself if only they can bully the canon into validating their right and good interpretation.

There’s also another reason, which is that canon validation is a tool to bludgeon those seen as problematic. They can use it to denounce other (problematic) ships as Not Being Canon and therefore highlight their own as Right and Good, because it is represented in the True Meaning of the Work.

Canon validation then is a cudgel sought by virtuous crusaders to wield against their unclean enemies. It is an ideological pursuit. It is organised around identity and in groups sometimes as insular as cults.

How does this happen?

Fanpol tend to be younger or more vulnerable fans, susceptible to authoritarian manipulators. As many have highlighted before, authoritarian groups and exclusionary ideologies like terfs are very good at using websites like tumblr to mobilize others around their organizing beliefs. Fanpol tend to feel legitimate discomfort, but instead of taking responsibility for their media engagement, ringleaders stoke and help them direct their discomfort as anger onto others; “I feel ashamed and uncomfortable, and therefore you should be held accountable for my emotions.” Authoritarian communities endorse social dominance orientations, deference to ringleaders, and obedient faith to the principles those ringleaders endorse.

As these fans attach more and more of their identity to a given media (or ship), and derive more and more validation and more of their belongingness needs from this fanpol community, they also become more and more anxious about being excluding from this group. This is because such communities have rigid rules and very conditional bases for social acceptance. Question or "betray" the organizing ideology and be punished or excommunicated. If that is all you have, you are left with nothing. Being labelled problematic then is a social death.

What this means is that these fans cannot accept all interpretations of a media as equally valid: to do so Betrays the ideology. It promises exclusion. And, in line with a perspective around ‘saving’ canon and leading others into the light – forcing and bending the canon to their will is what will make it Good (and therefore acceptable to enjoy, and therefore proof of them as righteous by having saved others). As was also pointed out to me on twitter, endorsement from canon or its creators also satiates that deep need they have for authority figures to approve of them.

Due to all of this, these fans come to obsess over canon validation of their own interpretation. In a way, they have no other option but to do so. They need this validation -- as their weapon, as their authority, as their safety net, as their approval, as their evangelical mission of saviorship.

Canon validation is proof: I am Good. I am Right(eous). I am Safe.

(In many ways, I do ache for some of these people, so wrapped up in toxic communities and mindsets and so afraid to step out of line for fear of swift retribution, policing their own thoughts and art against the encroaching possibility that anything be less than pure. It’s not healthy, it’s never going to be healthy.)

In the end, people are going to write their own stories. You are well within your rights to critique those stories, to hate them, to interpret them how you will, but you can never control their story (it's theirs).

Some final notes:

This trend may be partially to do with queer ships now being *able* to go canon where before so no such expectation would exist. Similarly, social media has made this easier to vocalize. Still, who makes these demands and the underlying reasons are telling. There are also many legitimate critiques of censorship, queerbaiting (nebulous discussions to be had here), and homophobia in media to be had, and which may front specific ships in their critique. But critique is distinct from asking that canon validate one's own interpretation.

#fandom purity culture #antis #discourse

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menalez · 3 years

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Those anti-immigration asks have devolved into blanket criticism of leftists, no surprise there. I know most of radblr ignored that blog like they did the other gossip blogs, but it frustrates me to see women I previously respected in the notes of some of those "Muslim moderates are worse than Christian moderates because they're taught to never question their faith" anons. This shit is insidious even where it's not plainly spoken by non-feminists. But my question to you, since I am not an immigrant and I am American, at what point does calling this out feed the trolls? I engaged with almost all of the anti-immigrant/pro-Christianity submissions because I didn't want them to go unchallenged, when they were blatantly lying. But was I contributing to the discourse in a negative way by engaging the right wing trolls to continue their rants on that blog? How do you know what to respond to and what to let go?

when you engage with such people, you need to be very careful and mindful of what you say and how you say it. your statements are sometimes used to discount and dismiss one side and to support their own arguments. before engaging, you need to understand their argument and adequately pick it apart. figure out what they're arguing, what their basis is, why they're arguing it. then you can try to challenge it. otherwise, there is a chance you'll play into their rhetoric and be used as proof of them being Right somehow. as an example, when we bring up that a lot of immigration today is a result of the destruction caused by colonialism, they will twist it to mean "immigration is the way poc get back at white people for colonialism". you need to ensure with the way you word it that it does not even slightly imply that, otherwise theyll find a way to twist it and make it seem like that's what you're saying. if you talk about how moc are hyperpoliced and how crime stats are skewed based on the fact that white men are less likely to be held accountable, less likely to be caught, less likely to be charged, etc they might take it as you saying "moc should get away with rape more often" or smth. basically u just need to make sure ur careful with ur wording and with ur approach. make yourself familiar with their arguments if you want to engage for that very reason.

beyond that, i think im not the best person to ask when to know if ur feeding into the trolls LOL but if u get the sense that its not productive, that youre speaking to someone dishonest and intentionally misrepresenting u despite ur best efforts, and notice constant goalpost switching... for me, thats when i usually quit. might throw in a few "youre an idiot and need to be less intellectually dishonest" or something short that displays their ignorance & move on. theres at least one of those xenophobic anons (if there are mutliple) that has repeatedly sent me anon msgs on my blog & tried to debate me for like a week. that person refused to leave me alone and was dishonest the whole way through, constantly spewing altright conspiracies even when disproven and twisting shit to fit their agenda. in the end, i simply blocked & that person used VPN to message me further until i pointed out how pathetic that is of them. thats when they finally stopped and i got peace. so if your hope is to get through to the person sending those anons, give that hope up, if youre thinking maybe you can sway other people, that may be possible but as i said.. if thats your goal you need to be careful. + the blog ur doing it on isnt exactly neutral and clearly is more on the xenophobic side

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jazajas · 4 years

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okay so i finished love, victor a while ago and i saw some other reviews and thoughts about it here so now i've got a pretty good list on my thoughts and feelings.

tl;dr: it has some issues, yes, but im gonna hold out and hope it gets better later on because the same thing happened with the first few eps, i wasn't that into it but then it got good, and nothing is ever great with the first season, because at that point we're getting used to those characters.

⚠️caution: spoilers ahead (im on mobile, i cant get an under-the-cut)⚠️

1. while a leah on the offbeat movie would have been amazing movie sequel (even tho i havent read the book yet, im just here for the wlw content) i am kind of glad we got this instead. mostly because I've seen book series where one movie was good, so they decide to do the rest, turn out bad (hunger games? divergent? percy jackson? the hobbit?) because so much was cut from the book-to-first movie writing, that other scenes wouldn't make sense to future movies if they had those in while cutting others. however, i am sad that i didn't get to make the choice of deciding whether what was cut was wrong etc. about future movies, but i'll take what i can get.

2. LGBTQ+ POC as a lead! that's amazing! as a ace/bi lantina that's close to home (it also is great that victor's from texas and so is ya gorl) and even then it's a mixed latinx family! i think pilar mentioned that at least the grandmother left Colombia and i saw the Puerto Rican flag in victor's room. also the salazar's are definitely from small town texas, even without knowing the name. (church barbeques, the use of the words "such a diverse city" in regards to atlanta)

3. a lack of actual lgbtq+ main storylines (so far) is kind of sad for a show like this. i was getting serious bi/pan vibes (as a lot of other people) from victor from the beginning, and when it was implied that victor was actually gay (while great, not shaming) as it has been brought to my attention, there was a lot of looking at a lot of straight relationship problems (please let us know more about benji)- edit 6/18: upon further consideration, it very much is a show about questioning your sexuality, I'm speaking about the other straight relationship issues, not mia and Victor's, its just the first season.

4. let us talk about cheating for a sec. never okay, in any circumstance. i feel sorry for mia that she saw victor making out with benji and the fact that he was doing any of that in the first place. victor made a choice to lie about the espresso machine and then kissed benji at the hotel and then when benji was fighting with derek, basically confessed his love and mistakes, then proceeded to makeout with benji after he broke up with derek, he built that grave and now he must lie in it. i get having feelings for a guy when you are in a relationship with a girl, and not accepting yourself enough to end that relationship but you really want it to work so you can be "normal". really, he should have told mia after he got back from the trip tho. i get being in highschool and doing stupid stuff and making dumb decisions, but for a show aimed at teens i think we should also remind said teens to make good choices even if we have to lose some realism within the character choices.

4. pilar and her decisions based off her brother pissed me off. because i honestly think that if she'd kept her mouth shut about what she knew or confronted victor about it in the first place we could have avoided a LOT of mess. did she not learn from snooping around her mother's business about her relationships that going behind a person's back doesnt end well? i did, however, like the pilar/felix friendship and was really kind of hoping that they'd get together during their coffee hangout (although now im glad that didn't happen) because they had a deeper understanding of each other. same with wendy/felix, although they do seem to much alike to work out in the long run but i still feel bad for wendy.

5. i don't know how i feel about lake and andrew, as people separate from each other. both seem to be the way they are from their upbringing (not confirmed why andrew is such an ass, but if his comment about his dad is anything to go by i bet it's got something to do with attention) but andrew seems to be less, idk, superficial? like he turned down mia because he didn't want to be a rebound, he didn't out victor, he actually stood up to early teasing the other dudes in the lockerroom were doing at victor (with teasing of his own obviously but that interaction had him on my nice list until much later). lake? lake. i honestly don't have an opinion of her? not really. i mean after hanging out with pilar i was hoping felix wouldn't go back to lake. is her name laken? i feel like her full name is laken. but they also played the "im only like this because my mom is really superficial about stuff and i do like the geeky nice guy but appearances" to "actually screw the norms im gonna makeout with him infront of the whole student body". i honestly thought she was gonna be bi because she kept hitting on mia when she was helping set up for her "date" and "big night" and there was one point where i saw her face fall at something mia said in relation to her and idk i was hoping she'd be bi (i figured early on that victor/mia wasnt gonna work and was like "oh mia/lake would be cute" but now idk.

6. okay on to the "big night", i have one word. NO. i didn't like the peer pressure into having sex. i agreed with felix when he said "your body your choice" but im also disappointed that victor made out with mia and when lake was talking to felix after victor left he didn't try to stand up for victor.

7. on to age gaps because i hadn't really thought of this at first. we'll start with benji/derek: WHAT GRADE IS BENJI?! because that determines my thoughts. if he's a sophomore that meant that he and Derek started dating benji's freshman year and thats eugh, don't do that, don't care if its a gay couple that shouldn't be happening because the maturity of the two characters is DRASTICALLY different (this is also a reason i am not a fan of cmbyn) but that would explain why they were so rocky. hoping the event at the gay bar was open to anyone not just for drinking, but not liking that fact that not one of the adults with victor were like: hey, this is a 16 year old, that's kind of wack when that dude was hitting on victor. that made me question some stuff. although i figure it might be making up for the lack of a gay bar scene in love, simon. but even then, in svthsa it's a restaurant with a bar that some people go to just to drink at, it wasn't just a bar, simon could be there but should NOT have accepted drinks from college kids, not matter how attractive.

8. i loved how bram and simon and their friends helped victor out though. i like how bram was like: hey i know my friends are a lot so here's a gay basketball league becaue there's no one way to be gay. i like how Simon talked about needing help himself just to help victor and how he said his friends were cool with it because it's a community. i like of justin(?) mentioned how being what his parents wanted was putting on a mask and pretending, not him doing drag. my favorite lines from that ep are: "and before you ask my pronouns are they/them/theirs" "'they're all gay? even that guy? he's like [insert really tall number]' 'yeah. you should see him in heels'" "or in simon's case: really unathletic" "and also because bram said that if i wore [the jean jacket] one more time he'd burn it". also katya was there. and the group hug too!

9. the back hand homophobia in relation to family is sad, but realistic and i sincerely hope his parents are kind enough not to be too harsh on victor because of it. anything they say that isn't positive or supportive of victor is bad but i hope they realize that there is more to him than that and that they can come to terms with it because it's not always that hard to be a part of that community and super religious. i am biromantic and catholic. and while there are some things i wont agree on my mom with, i know that it's more of a strike against God for kicking out gay kids from families than it is to be gay, because those parents were given trust by GOD to love those kids no matter what, and be good parents. so in the end, the parents are wrong and harmful and in the case of christians against jesus's teachings to love everyone.

10. this is fan speculation but dont think simon/bram are going through a rough patch? i honestly think it'd be a little cruel to the characters to have on of their actors be producing but then not have that relationship stay. and while it's not set in stone and obviously things happen in the real world, we have no proof script wise about there being a rift. all we have are bad photoshopped ig photos and scenes where two characters are never standing next to each other probably beccaue schedules never link up correctly for minor characters. who knows, maybe nick robinson was filming for a movie where is does have an even more major role than victor's gay guru in a series about victor so his filming time was around that. im gonna keep hope that things are okay.

11. that being said: we need more mainstream wlw content, because someone said it earlier and it really does seem to be catering to straight girls. i'll admit i did freak out when benji played call me maybe which is something i associated with him and victor but then kissed a guy because who wouldn't? we get that serenade and sweetness and then it'a ripped from us. but i did mellow out. if i flipped later it was because victor was making dumb decisions and i had to give myself a moment of compsure before i continued.

in the end, i'd say that there is a lot of growth this series needs to go through, but i also know that some people just aren't going to like it and i get that. but i also know that sometimes the best of stories have rocky starts, nothing is ever perfect from the beginning. and besides, further seasons are on hold until we figure out this covid thing, which means that you bet they're gonna be looking at our feedback. they saw what we thought before, they can do it again

i really did like it but we need more ACTUAL lgbtq+ relationship stuff from this series and better decisions on what we are teaching the younger generations, as well as what we want to focus on and realism within characters. i'm giving it an 8/10, because there is always room for growth and i really hope we get better things out of this than what we have been given in season 2.

edit: someone mentioned it really seeming like it was meant for Disney+ and i felt that. also to anyone who reaches the tags agter reading ALL OF THIS: i am sorry

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lotusik · 4 years

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How I became passionate about folk magic. (July 23, 2020)

I hadn’t had very much interest in folk magic previously. I was always more interested in theurgy, everything to do with uniting with the divine, and I suppose I thought I didn’t need any other sort of magic. Or perhaps that as long as I was working hard on a spiritual path, nothing more was necessary. I admit that attitude is an awfully good example of the privilege experienced by a white woman born in Canada. Many others that came to North America, particularly those with brown skin have had a much different story to tell. How I did finally develop an interest in folk magic was actually through genealogy. My family lines come from various places in Europe, and one day doing research I discovered that one of those lines landed smack in the middle of the Pennsylvania Deutch (Dutch) community. Until then I hadn’t even known of any ancestors in America, I thought they had all come from Europe straight to Canada. Luckily for me that lineage was already well researched in books and the like due to the historical import of that community so I had much to delve into. At some point an 1820 book by Johnn Georg Hohman (John George), a member of that Pennsylvania Dutch community, came into my awareness. It was titled in the original German; Der Lange Verborgene Freund, oder, Getreuer und Christlicher Unterricht fur Jedermann, Enthaltend: Wunderbare und Probmassige Mittel und Kunste, Sowohl fur die Menschen als Das Vieh (The Long Hidden Friend, or, True and Christian Instructions for Everyone. Comprising Wonderful and Well Tested Remedies and Arts, for Men as well as for Livestock.) Later titles would incorporate the term pow-wow and the practice often was called pow-wowing (or powwowing), though it has nothing to do with the Indigenous peoples of America. The name was appropriated from the Algonquian languages and given negative connotations by the Puritan missionaries, becoming a sort of general term for magical workings. The book is often now published as ‘The Long Lost Friend’ or as ‘Pow-wows or The Long Lost Friend’.

This book contained spells, charms and all sorts of herbal and home remedies. Some of the spells in the book came from a German spell-book called das Romanus-Büchlein, (The Little Book of the Gypsies), along with some contributions from Albertus Magnus, or more accurately, pseudo-Albertus Magnus (works attributed to Albertus but more likely written by disciples). Other items in the book were quite unique to the oral tradition of the Pennsylvanian Dutch community itself. The healers that use those practices are called Braucherei, a female practitioner is called a Braucherin and a male a Braucher. They may also be known as a powwow doctor or a powwower. And yes, they absolutely still practice today! I’ve seen hexmeister used as well, or hex-doctor and that seems to be synonymous in some places with powwow but as far as I can see that was not very popular as it more specified working against illnesses caused by grudges and malicious intent. I’ve also seen the term used more often in relation to the painters of hex signs on barns and I am not entirely clear if that is part of Braucherei or something somewhat separate. There are some excellent books on hex signs but I’ve not been able to get copies sadly. All of this really got me thinking a lot about how perhaps my own ancestors may have practiced this form of folk magic and healing. Further, I started thinking how folk magic may well have been part of my own family’s traditions through my other ancestry lines also; Slavic, Celtic & Scandinavian. And thus, a real interest in these practices became sparked. Unfortunately due to the way Christianity swept across the world absorbing what it chose to and wiping out the rest, I have found it very difficult to find very much about original beliefs and practices in Slavic countries. Sometimes I find more in neighbouring countries rather than the ones I am most interested in due to my own ancestry. Though looking at the big picture, there is so much influence in individual countries from elsewhere anyways, for example the influence of the Celts is absolutely huge in many parts of the world. Borders in so many places have often moved many times, countries have been ruled by various different rulers and migration often imports new beliefs and systems into established cultures as well. The more I’ve looked at all these lines of history, the more convoluted it becomes to me. Researching about Hohman’s book I learned a lot of interesting history about it as well as about the influence it had on inhabitants of the Appalachians and on Hoodoo as well. The book was originally published for the Pennsylvania Dutch themselves, but later English editions ended up being marketed through Jewish mail order catalogues. For African-Americans in need of supplies for their magic, they had to be resourceful and make do with what they could access. Jewish suppliers soon found out selling Jewish religious items and hoodoo supplies to African-Americans was great for business. This led Hoodoo to be influenced by a variety of sources and practices. And one of those sources was Hohman’s Long Lost Friend. Learning about the influence of ‘The Long Lost Friend’ on Hoodoo led me to, obviously, learning as much as I could about hoodoo! There is a lot of incorrect information out there, but there is a lot of accurate stuff as well that can be found digging around on the internet thanks to some amazing practitioner-teachers. Just before Covid-19 started spreading across the world, I decided to take a chance on something called a “Steady Money Service” offered by The Hoodoo Queen in Mobile, Alabama. [The website is linked below.] All I had to do was send my $10 and I was in! I can’t say I was super expectant of results, though I was hopeful. I had watched many of Queen Co.’s videos and the information shared in them really rung true as authentic to me. Besides, it was only $10 and I figured it it well worth it as a first foray into hoodoo. But alas, Covid struck, and so I really thought there wasn’t any hope at all this ‘steady money’ service had even the slightest chance of working. In fact I thought the exact opposite was going to occur. So I felt pretty discouraged. Still, I did exactly what was detailed out to do on my end after the service when I received my ‘dirt’ in the mail (including laying dirt at the threshold of my house and burying an American dollar bill in my back yard after fastening it down with nails) and sure enough, I have had nothing but steady money since that time! While I am an open minded person, I have always been someone that wants some ‘proof’ as well. Even if that proof is only my own intuition or ‘knowing’, I need there to be something. And this to me, was my proof. I am very sure this service from Queen Co. helped open a pathway for money for me. Since that time, I have been studying everything I can of various folk magic practices from all over the world, and I have found they have so much in common. Yet in so many other ways they are marvelously unique. Tied to the cultures they come from but connected through all by the need we all have to get by on this planet the best way we can. I enjoy so much the creativity in these practices, and the amazing resilience of the people they came from. ----------------- For Queen Co. The Hoodoo Queen, go here! https://conjuresouth.com/ For a lot more information on the Pennsylvania Dutch and powwowing please check out this link which has an astounding amount of research by Patrick. J. Donmoyer and also contains some really amazing images of artifacts as well. It’s where much of what I shared here came from as he has the best research I’ve seen. : https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56829c58a2bab87f93ee4d6a/t/58c178ef3e00be4c00782168/1489074429798/Reduced+Size+File+-+Exhibition+booklet+-+Powwowing+in+Pennsylvania.pdf Further I’d recommend the works of Don Yoder as well as the book The Red Church by C.R. Bilardi. For a more extensive history on Hoodoo and the contribution The Long Lost Friend had to those practices, please check out cat yronwode’s website luckymojo.com, its well worth your time!These two pages specifically: https://www.luckymojo.com/powwows.html https://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoohistory.html#admixtures

#german #pennyslvaniadeutsch #pennyslvaniadutch #thelonglostfriend #hoodoo #appalacianmountains #folkmagic #witchcraft #geneaology

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cursed-and-quirkless · 3 years

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Chapter 1 - The Curse

Hello all! Welcome to my first MHA fic! This is the first part of a series about if Izuku was a quirkless vigilante, because I really love that trope.

TW: This fic, the first part especially, has some themes of injury, death/being on the verge of death, and ideas of suicide. No suicide is attempted, however. If these ideas bother you, please be cautious. To skip the first part, do not read until the first “~” symbol. There is also weird church stuff (that’ll make sense when you read), so if that makes you uncomfortable please be cautious. Thank you, hope you enjoy!

Ao3: queenofliterature

They say before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Izuku never thought that was accurate until now.

There had been plenty of times he had almost died. When a shot rang and the muzzle of a gun flashed, the only thing Izuku thought was run, dodge, never anything about who he was, or how he got here.

Now though, now he understood.

Izuku blinked his tired eyes, focusing on the grey sky. The city was surprisingly peaceful, though maybe that was the falling snow coating the sounds of the bustling life under him. Or the ringing in his ears.

Eyes swollen with exhaustion refused to close for too long. If he fell asleep now, he would never wake up. And as much as he lied to himself, Izuku wasn’t ready for that, not yet.

Hypothermia was settling quickly into his bones, his shallow breaths obvious against the cold night. But the gentle flakes tickled his nose, and all he felt was relief when they touched his fevered skin. Besides, he wouldn’t be dying of the cold tonight, the pools of blood gathering steadily underneath him was a testament to that.

Maybe if Izuku tried hard enough, he could roll off the edge. The rooftop had no railing, and if he stretched his arm just enough, he could dangle his hand over the streets below. But that wouldn’t do, he wanted to see the sky when his body finally let go, and his eyes closed and never reopened. Besides, Izuku could barely even move his fingers, let alone roll his entire body. No… he was stuck here.

It wouldn’t be long now.

Perhaps it was the fact that his blood was sluggishly trailing out of his body this time instead of the threat of instant death but…

His mind began to drift.

He was happy.

The middle class apartment he lived in with his mother and father always had the drapes thrown open, rays of sun keeping the apartment a comfortable temperature and bathing the bright green house plants.

His mother would playfully yell and scream, the damsel in distress. His father and him were the heroes.

He doesn’t remember much of his father, but he remembers the warm feeling of his chest, of the hot and smoky breath that would tickle his ears and ruffle his hair.

His father’s hands would hold him in the air as he flew to rescue his mother from the villains that had taken her.

Most of his peers probably wouldn’t want to spend their 5th birthday in the doctor’s office, but to Izuku it was the best present his parents could give him. He should have had a quirk by now, Kaccan said so. But if it was taking this long, it should have been cool and powerful! Just like Kaccan’s!

Izuku buzzed in excitement as the doctor read his file and looked at the x-rays they had taken in the big machine they put him in. Maybe he’d get telepathy, or fire, or a combination! Kaccan and him would grow up and be an unstoppable team and they’d share the rank for Number One hero (no matter what Kaccan said) and they’d save people and fight villains and-

“Quirkless.”

And just like that Izuku’s world shattered. The doctor’s uncaring drawl barely pierced his mind as his stomach lurched.

“W-what?” His mother questioned tearfully. His father simply sat there, eyes clouded with something Izuku would never understand. Sure 20% of the world was quirkless, but most were old and that number was dying out everyday. Only .01% of Japan’s population remained quirkless. And Izuku was now one of them.

When Izuku awoke the next day, his father was gone, and his mother wasn’t surprised.

There was no explosion, no shouted words, no hits or screams. His father was simply gone, any traces of him lingered like a ghost. Sometimes Izuku thought he had made up his father, the only proof he had that the man existed were the pictures Mom had kept in the trunk beside her bed.

It was raining the night he got diagnosed, as if the heavens were weeping for the shattered dream of a crushed child. He sat for hours watching the video of All Might saving all those people at the factory, hitting the replay button until his fingers hurt.

“Because I am here! Because I am here! Because I am here!”

Izuku heard the door creek softly behind him, but he didn’t turn around, he didn’t need to. “S-see that Mom?” Izuku’s tiny voice cracked, and he finally turned around. His mother already had tears springing to her eyes, and Izuku would realize later that’s the moment he would never see his father again.

“He always has a smile on his face, no matter how bad things get.” Izuku’s voice was slowly breaking down along with the little boy. “Even when things seem impossible, he never gives up.” Izuku will never forget the look on his mother’s face, the pain and the sorrow.

“Do you think… I could be a hero too?” Izuku already knew the answer to that question, he saw the answer in his mother’s eyes. His mother rushed forward, gripping him tightly and nuzzling into his hair, murmuring apology after apology. Her touch burned and the ache in his chest choked him, but Izuku didn’t bother to fight her off.

Izuku doesn’t even remember his father’s last words to him.

Izuku and his mother went to church the next day.

His mother was aching for a sense of normalcy, and some foolish part of Izuku believed his father would be there waiting for them.

His father was half japanese, but he never told Izuku what his other half was. Hisashi’s parents and siblings chose to follow the Christian faith, though what branch Izuku also didn’t know, he never paid attention. There was a small church half an hour away from the Midoriya apartment, and Hisashi thought it would be good for the small family to have a sense of community.

His mother must have opened up that day to the pastor before Sunday Service, because that was the first time Izuku was called a curse to humanity.

The little boy sat in the pew, hunching over as every word the pastor said pierced his heart.

“The quirkless are a scourge, a curse, a remnant of the days of old. They are a reminder of the sins of man!” Izuku’s eyes pricked at the cheers coming from around him. “We must stay strong in the face of adversity!” The cheers were stronger this time. Whatever his mother told the pastor must have sunk deep into the man’s skin, because they spent the next hour listening to the talks of plagues and scourge and punishment that were the quirkless population, all while he looked at the little green-haired boy.

After the service, all Izuku wanted to do was disappear. Going home would mean facing the unnatural quiet that now suffocated the once bright household, and staying here meant facing the lingering glares and whispers. His mother was in the restroom preparing for the semi-long trip back when Izuku heard footsteps approaching.

“Hello, Izuku.” The pastor greeted with a soft smile. He supposed it should be comforting, but all Izuku felt was fear.

“H-hello.” A meek voice greeted back.

“Your mother told me of your condition. I just wanted you to know I meant every word I said. But I can help.” The pastor offered, and despite the dangerous glint in the man’s eyes, Izuku perked up.

“You can?” Izuku asked cautiously. Maybe this would make Dad come back! And he could make Mom happy again! Izuku’s heart clenched when a hand grabbed his wrist.

“Come, child, it's not your fault. The children of God are innocent, you are being punished for the misgivings of your ancestors.” The gentle words of the pastor did nothing to ease the bile growing in Izuku’s throat. The more Izuku fought, the tighter the bruising grips became.

“W-wait.” Izuku protested as he was dragged away from the restroom. “My Mom! She’ll wonder where I am!”

“It will be a nice surprise for her, don’t you think?” The pastor ignored the protests and continued dragging the boy through the church.

“What-what’s gonna happen?”

“Simple, child. We’ll get the Devil out of you. It may hurt but I promise you’ll be better for it.” The pastor reassured. Thi wasn’t right. Mom and Dad said never go with strangers! But… the pastor wasn’t a stranger, he said he could help?

“Can we ask my Mom, p-please?” Izuku gave a powerful tug, and that seemed to be the last straw.

“Foolish child! Your mother does not understand what needs to be done! I do!” The others in the church startled at the noise, but turned away when they saw what was happening.

Izuku didn’t know what was happening, but he didn’t like it! In a last attempt, Izuku lashed out and bit the man’s hand, pulling away with a gasp when the pastor yanked his hand back.

“You evil child!” The pastor screamed as Izuku ran as fast as his little legs could carry him. He remembered the way to the restrooms, he just hoped his mother would be there. He wanted to go home! He wanted to play hero and be held by his dad and be tucked in by his mom when he fell asleep on the couch!

“Mom!” Izuku screamed when he spotted green hair. The woman quickly turned around from the couple she seemed to be frantically talking too. Izuku’s own eyes matched the tears that were streaming down his mother’s face.

“Izuku!” Inko yelled in relief as her little boy crashed into her. “Baby, where were you? I was worried sick!” Inko cried.

“M-mom, the p-pastor, h-he, a-and-” Izuku couldn’t get any of the story through the spasming of his little lungs. Through hiccuping sobs, Izuku heard the frantic footsteps of the pastor approach him, and he buried himself further into his mother’s neck.

“Pastor? What-what happened?” Inko hesitated at the teeth marks on the hand of the pastor. Her little boy wouldn;t do that for anything.

“H-he said.” Izuku’s little sobs broke her heart.

“Said what, Baby?” Inko coaxed, ignoring the man above them.

“G-gonna get the Devil out.” Inko’s heart dropped, knowing the implication.

“You were gonna beat him?” The horrified whisper reached the poster’s ears and he scoffed.

“Not him, the scourge. The boy may feel pain, but it would make him better.” The pastor declared. Perhaps if Inko hadn’t already been in pieces, she would have yelled at him. Perhaps if her husband hadn’t left and her son wasn’t falling apart she would have defended her son, but for now she had enough.

“Izuku, we’re leaving.” She said to the pastor just as much as her son, and Izuku saw the glance towards his blackened wrist.

It was the first time his mother ignored a bruise, but it would not be the last.

The drive home was quiet, and Izuku didn’t think he would ever get used to the silence that now permeated his new life.

“Mom?” Izuku spoke up, his timid voice uncomfortable with breaking pure silence. “Everything is going to be okay, right?” He just needed to hear those words as his world was crumbling beneath him, ‘It will be okay’.

“Izuku, my baby, there will be many more like him. From now on I want you to walk to and from school with Katsuki. No detours, nothing.” Izuku nodded at his mom’s serious voice. “We’re gonna get you a phone, I want you to text me everyday at lunch, and before and after school, and when you get home.” Izuku nodded again, and kept doing so as more rules were given to him.

When they got home that afternoon, his mother shut down. From afternoon till night, Inko Midoriya held an empty tea cup, not having the energy to fill it. She sat at the table, and tried to remember the deep voice of her husband that floated around the kitchen like embers, and the light and airy voice of her child that bounced against the walls.

Now all she heard was the stone cold silence of a shattered household.

Meanwhile, Izuku sat at the computer. Mom didn't bother to enforce computer time. So he watched the video, over and over again until it somehow pierced the unfeeling void that was beginning to set in. It never did.

“Because I am here! Because I am here! Because I am here!”

He realized that night with a bitter numbness he was already forgetting what his father’s laugh sounded like.

Izuku was finally beginning to understand, he knew he was a plague on his mother and father’s life, an infestation in his own skin.

He knew he was a curse.

~~~

Disclaimer: Nothing against any religion. Just as long as you don’t use it to hurt others I don’t care what religion you are/aren’t, this specific church, however, was very radical and was based loosely on unfortunate experiences I had in churches with some personal issues of mine. I just thought it would be interesting to explore how radical groups like this would see quirklessness.

I don't usually do this, but each chapter is gonna have a song I think that fits it!

Chapter Song: i can't breathe by Bea Miller

I have a Discord, and this fic has a channel! Same with Tumblr

Discord: https://discord.gg/UpWvDzKC5R Tumblr: cursed-and-quirkless

#quirkless midoriya izuku #quirkless deku #quirkless discrimination #quirkless izuku #quirkless au #cursed au #please read warning #izuku will be adopted eventually #its a surprise who #not Aizawa #although I love those stories #vigilante deku

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sneakyneighboururchin · 4 years

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Genuinely asking here bc maybe I've missed/forgotten some stuff but... when homo- and transphobic stuff is said in DA, it's addressed in game as being bad, isn't it? Like Dorian's first personal quest is about his dad acknowleding his homophobia and apologizing to Dorian. And with Krem, Krem and Bull both correct the Inquisitor pretty sternly if you misgender him, and Bull explains how gender identity is respected under the Qun. Not trying to fight you on this, nor do I think DA is by any means perfect, I just don't recall seeing homophobia or transphobia that isn't quickly shut down by the player or other characters. Don't feel pressured to answer tho, I know it's not your job to pull receipts for every shitty thing in a video game lol

Well first off thanks for being so polite and nice in this message, I appreciate it. I'm gonna try and cover the stuff that I've seen myself and have had pointed out to me by other people but keep in mind that I'm not trans, most of what I'll say here on the transphobia issue is me parroting other trans fans who've said this sort of thing before. I am gay though, so I guess we're clear on that front. It's also been a while since i played any of the games so if i get stuff wrong, I'm sorry. This is gonna be long so sorry for that in advance.

So homophobia and transphobia in our world. Why is it a thing? A combination of humanity hating and fearing what it doesn't understand (which Dragon Age also has) and religion, specifically in my experience Christianity (which Dragon Age does not have). Yes the Chantry and Andrastianism is heavily based off of Christianity and Catholicism but it doesn't have any of the bullshit about sexuality and gender that Christianity does. Neither in it's holy texts or it's teachings. The in universe writing about sexuality, a codex by Brother Genitivi, is also kinda homophobic and doesn't explain why this is a thing in Thedas at all. Queer relations and relationships are aparently viewed by most of Southern Thedas as 'peculiar' but no explanation is given as to why. Now I'm gonna go into specific instances.

First off, let's look at some of the stuff you've mentioned. Dorian and his dad. Yeah that whole situation hit me pretty close to home as a queer person who's pretty much accepted at this point that my dad will never accept who I am and my mother died still not having accepted me. What Halward did is definitely portrayed as a bad thing, that is correct. The narrative kind of subtly pushing the reconciliation being the good option is a bit iffy. What Halward tried to do to Dorian is straight up abuse and I really don't like plotlines that push making nice with the abuser and forgiving them as a good resolution. This is kind of more personal feelings than straight from the script fact but I wanted to say it anyway.

Second issue: Krem's treatment. So many trans people have talked about this before me, if you want some more in depth analysis of this you should go check out some of their stuff, it won't be hard to find. The basics though: Krem is voiced by a cis woman. This immediately sets a shitty precedent on the side of the devs lending proof to the theory that they don't care about uplifting trans people, just making money off them. Krem should have been voiced by a trans actor. In the actual conversation with Iron Bull you get the opportunity to be extremely transphobic. And if you do this you get told off, and that's kind of it. The fact that your character even has the option to do that is a) gross from an out of character writing perspective, and b) makes no sense in character. Why would your character have these views? There is no in lore reason for any of the potential groups your character comes from to be transphobic. Also, and this is just my opinion, but if you're transphobic to Krem (even though it makes no sense in universe) the Iron Bull's reaction shouldn't be a bit of disapproval, he should send you through the fucking wall. Seems more in character. Also, gender roles under the Qun also have a lot of potential to be transphobic, they are by no means an improvement on ours imo. Under the Qun your gender is essentially decided by your role. So if you're a fighter you're male. If you care for children you're female. Not only is that pretty hella sexist and reliant on our dumb ideas of gender roles (that again aren't supposed to be a thing in Thedas) it also has potential to be hell for trans people. Yes it would work for someone like Krem, but for someone who was AMAB and good at fighting but they were a woman? Being shoved into male gender roles and treated as a man would not be good. If the writer's intent was to create a society with an entirely different concept of and approach to gender they've done it wrong because of how much of it is reliant on the audience's perception of gender which (going by general gaming demographics) is pretty cis and het normative.

Now I'm gonna talk about the transphobia that doesn't get challenged. Sera makes a couple transphobic comments throughout the game I believe, the one I can remember in detail is in the Winter Palace when she says someone presenting a certain way isn't actually that. And without any further context the only way the audience can really interpret that is that the writers decided to take a cheap shot at someone cross dressing in a bad attempt at comedy.

Sera's writing in general is super homophobic because she was written by a homophobe. I'm not gonna go into all of that in this cos this is already too long and I could write essays about it. Other people already have! But basically, she's the only out and out lesbian romance we have in the series, and her writing in that respect is really not good.

So how about the other games? Well. In origins you can hire sex workers at a brothel. The 'special' on offer is a very masc presenting dwarf in a poorly fitting dress. This was a very transphobic attempt at humour. Zevran, much as I love him dearly, is a walking bisexual stereotype, made worse by feeding into the 'sexy Latine' stereotype on top of that, which isn't an in universe problem so much as it is proof that the writers are guilty of prejudices whether they know it or not. I suspect there's more instances in origins but I can't remember right now.

In Dragon Age 2 Seneschal Bran has a relationship of some kind with a sex worker named Serendipity, a feminine presenting elf with a very deep voice. This is played as something that Bran should be ashamed of. At least I think so, it could be that he's ashamed of having a relationship with a sex worker. Not that far fetched considering Aveline's weaponisation of the word 'whore' against Isabela. But this is also something that doesn't make sense honestly. Why is sex work taboo in thedas? Christianity isn't around to make it so and Andrastianism doesn't have purity culture going except for their clergy ( which also is never explained why and makes no sense.) Additionally, Uncle Gamlen is super homophobic. Why? There is no reason culturally or religiously for him to be that way? Yes he's an asshole but why is he an asshole in that manner? And you don't even get to challenge him on it! It's passive dialogue that you trigger when walking into his house and you don't immediately get the option to fucking fight him about it? Why put it in then?!

A good amount of this is off topic from the actual question so sorry about that but TLDR there's a lot of in universe homophobia and transphobia, most of it is not handled well in or out of universe. I do believe that they're trying to do better in this respect, inquisition was a step up from previous games it just wasn't enough of one.

If you want more stuff like this go check out @dalishious cos they have a ton of very good meta on subjects related to this.

#dragon age critical #homophobia #transphobia

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tinyshe · 3 years

Text

Pure, Unalloyed Evil Masked as a Pandemic Analysis by Mike Whitney

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Mike Yeadon is a soft-spoken microbiologist and a former vice-president of allergy and respiratory research at Pfizer. He spent 32 years working for large pharmaceutical companies and is a leading expert on viral respiratory infections.

He is also a man on a mission, and his mission is to inform as many people as possible about the elite powerbrokers that are using the pandemic as a smokescreen to conceal their real objectives. Here’s Yeadon in a recent interview:1

“If you wanted to depopulate a significant portion of the world, and to do it in a way that wouldn’t require destruction of the environment with nuclear weapons, or poisoning everyone with anthrax or something, and you wanted plausible deniability, whilst you had a multi-year infectious disease crisis; I don’t think you could come up with a better plan of work than what seems to be in front of me.

I can’t say that’s what they’re going to do, but I cannot think of a benign explanation for why they are doing it.”

“Depopulation?” Who said anything about depopulation? Isn’t it a bit of a stretch to go from a mass vaccination campaign to allegations of a conspiracy to “depopulate a significant portion of the world?” Indeed, it is, but Yeadon has done extensive research on the matter and provides compelling evidence that such a diabolical objective may, in fact, be the goal.

Humans Are Capable of Unimaginable Viciousness and Cruelty

Moreover, it is not for lack of proof that people are not persuaded that Yeadon is right, but something more fundamental; the inability to grasp that men are capable of almost-unimaginable viciousness and cruelty. Here’s Yeadon again:2

“It’s become absolutely clear to me, even when I talk to intelligent people, friends, acquaintances … and they can tell I’m telling them something important, but they get to the point [where I say] ‘your government is lying to you in a way that could lead to your death and that of your children,’ and they can’t begin to engage with it.

And I think maybe 10% of them understand what I said, and 90% of those blank their understanding of it because it is too difficult. And my concern is, we are going to lose this, because people will not deal with the possibility that anyone is so evil …

But I remind you of what happened in Russia in the 20th century, what happened in 1933 to 1945, what happened in, you know, Southeast Asia in some of the most awful times in the post-war era. And, what happened in China with Mao and so on … We’ve only got to look back two or three generations. All around us there are people who are as bad as the people doing this.

They’re all around us. So, I say to folks, the only thing that really marks this one out, is its scale. But actually, this is probably less bloody, it’s less personal, isn’t it? The people who are steering this … it’s going to be much easier for them. They don’t have to shoot anyone in the face.

They don’t have to beat someone to death with a baseball bat, or freeze them, starve them, make them work until they die. All of those things did happen two or three generations back … That’s how close we are. And all I’m saying is, some shifts like that are happening again, but now they are using molecular biology.”

People ‘Cannot Imagine Anything so Demonic’

He’s right, isn’t he? Whereas, a great many people know that the government, the media and the public health officials have been lying to them about everything from the efficacy of masks, social distancing and lockdowns, to the life-threatening dangers of experimental vaccines, they still refuse to believe that the people orchestrating this operation might be pushing them inexorably toward infertility or an early death.

They cannot imagine anything so demonic, so they stick their heads in the sand and pretend not to see what is going on right beneath their noses. It’s called “denial” and it is only strengthening the position of the puppet masters that are operating behind the scenes. Here’s more from Yeadon:3

“… In the last year I have realized that my government and its advisers are lying in the faces of the British people about everything to do with this coronavirus. Absolutely everything. It’s a fallacy this idea of asymptomatic transmission and that you don’t have symptoms, but you are a source of a virus.

That lockdowns work, that masks have a protective value obviously for you or someone else, and that variants are scary things and we even need to close international borders in case some of these nasty foreign variants get in.”

Many readers may have noticed that this interview appeared on a small Christian website called Lifesite News. Why is that? Shouldn’t the informed observations of a former Pfizer vice president appear on the front pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post? Wouldn’t you expect the big cable news channels to run a hot-button interview like this as their headline story?

Of course not. No one expects that, because everyone knows that the media honchos reflexively quash any story that doesn’t support the “official narrative,” that is, that COVID is the most contagious and lethal virus of all time, which requires a new authoritarian political structure and the wholesale evisceration of civil liberties.

No One Is Allowed to Refute the Official Propaganda

Isn’t that the underlying storyline of the last year? COVID skeptics and naysayers, like Yeadon, are not allowed to refute the official propaganda or debate the issue on a public forum. They’re effectively banned from the MSM and consigned to the outer reaches of the Internet where only a scattered few will read what they have to say. Here’s more:4

“Everything I have told you, every single one of those things is demonstrably false. But our entire national policy is based on these all being broadly right, but they are all wrong. But what I would like to do is talk about immune escape because I think that’s probably going to be the end game for this whole event, which I think is probably a conspiracy.

Last year I thought it was what I called ‘convergent opportunism.’ That is, a bunch of different stakeholder groups have managed to pounce on a world in chaos to push us in a particular direction. So, it looked like it was kind of linked, but I was prepared to say it was just convergence.

I [now] think that’s naïve. There is no question in my mind that very significant powerbrokers around the world have either planned to take advantage of the next pandemic or created the pandemic. One of those two things is true because the reason it must be true is that dozens and dozens of governments are all saying the same lies and doing the same inefficacious things that demonstrably cost lives.”

Let’s pause for a minute, and ask ourselves why a modest, self-effacing microbiologist who operated in the shadows for his entire professional career has thrust himself into the limelight when he knows, for certain, he will either be ridiculed, smeared, discredited, dragged through the mud or killed.

In fact, he openly admits that he fears for his safety and assumes that he could be “removed” (“assassinated”) by his enemies. So, why is he doing this? Why is he risking life and limb to get the word out about vaccines?

A Moral Obligation to Warn People

It’s because he feels a moral obligation to warn people about the danger they face. Yeadon is not an attention-seeking narcissist. In fact, he’d rather vanish from public life altogether.

But he’s not going to do that because he’s selflessly committed to doing his duty by sounding the alarm about a malign strategy that may well lead to the suffering and death of literally tens of millions of people. That’s why he’s doing it, because he’s an honorable man with a strong sense of decency. Remember decency? Here’s more:5

“You can see that I am desperately trying not to say that it is a conspiracy, because I have no direct evidence that it is a conspiracy. Personally, all my instincts are shouting that it’s a conspiracy as a human being, but as a scientist, I can’t point to the smoking gun that says they made this up on purpose.”

Many of us who have followed events closely for the last year and have searched the internet for alternate points of view are equally convinced that it is a conspiracy, just as Russiagate was a conspiracy. And while we might not have conclusive, rock-solid proof of criminal activity, there is voluminous circumstantial evidence to support the claim.

By definition, a “conspiracy” is “an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons.”6 What is taking place presently across the western world meets that basic definition.

Just as the contents of this article meet the basic definition of a “conspiracy theory,” which is “an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.”7

We make no attempt to deny that this is a conspiracy theory, any more than we deny that senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA, DOJ and U.S. State Department were involved in a covert operation aimed at convincing the American people that Donald Trump was a Russian agent.

That was a conspiracy theory that was later proven to be a fact. We expect that the facts about the COVID operation will eventually emerge, acquitting us on that account as well. Here’s more from Yeadon:8

“I think the end game is going to be, ‘everyone receives a vaccine’ … Everyone on the planet is going to find themselves persuaded, cajoled, not quite mandated, hemmed-in to take a jab.

When they do that every single individual on the planet will have a name, or unique digital ID and a health status flag which will be ‘vaccinated,’ or not … and whoever possesses that, sort of single database, operable centrally, applicable everywhere to control, to provide as it were, a privilege, you can either cross this particular threshold or conduct this particular transaction or not depending on [what] the controllers of that one human population database decide.

And I think that’s what this is all about because once you’ve got that, we become playthings and the world can be as the controllers of that database want it.”

Mass Vaccination a Pathway to Absolute Social Control

So mass vaccination is actually the pathway to absolute social control by technocratic elites accountable to no one? Are we there yet? Pretty close, I’d say. Here’s more:9

“And they are talking the same sort of future script which is, ‘We don’t want you to move around because of these pesky ‘variants’ — (but) ‘don’t worry, there will be ‘top-up’ vaccines that will cope with the potential escapees.’ They’re all saying this when it is obviously nonsense.”

Is he right? Is the variant hobgoblin now being invoked to prolong the restrictions, intensify the paranoia and pave the way for endless rounds of mass vaccination? Judge for yourself, but here’s a sampling of articles that appeared in recent news that will help you decide:

1. Reuters — South African Variant Can ‘Break Through’ Pfizer Vaccine, Israeli study says10

“The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa can ‘break through’ Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is low and the research has not been peer reviewed …

We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group. This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine’s protection,” said Tel Aviv University’s Adi Stern. (So, according to the article — the vaccine doesn’t work.)

2. The New York Times — Rise of Variants in Europe Shows How Dangerous the Virus Can Be11

“Europe, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, has once again swelled with new cases, which are inundating some local hospitals and driving a worrisome global surge of Covid-19.

But this time, the threat is different: The rise in new cases is being propelled by a coronavirus variant first seen in Britain and known as B.1.1.7. The variant is not only more contagious than last year’s virus, but also deadlier.

The variant is now spreading in at least 114 countries. Nowhere, though, are its devastating effects as visible as in Europe, where thousands are dying each day and countries’ already-battered economies are once again being hit by new restrictions on daily life …

Vaccines will eventually defeat the variants, scientists say. [So, they don’t work now??] And stringent restrictions can drive down cases of B.1.1.7. [So, don’t leave your home.] …

‘We’ve seen in so many countries how quickly it can become dominant,’ said Lone Simonsen, a professor and director of the PandemiX Center at Roskilde University in Denmark.

‘And when it dominates, it takes so much more effort to maintain epidemic control than was needed with the old variant.’” [In other words, we are effectively dealing with a different pathogen that requires a different antidote. It’s an admission that the current crop of vaccines doesn’t work.]

3. Cell — SARS-CoV-2 Variants B.1.351 and P.1 Escape From Neutralizing Antibodies12

“… our findings indicate that the B.1.351 and P.1 variants might be able to spread in convalescent patients or BNT162b2-vaccinated individuals and thus constitute an elevated threat to human health.

Containment of these variants by non-pharmaceutic interventions is an important task.” [Note — In other words, the new vaccines don’t work against the new COVID strains, so we might need to preserve the onerous lockdown restrictions forever.]

How can people read this fearmongering bunkum and not see that it is designed to terrify and manipulate the masses into sheeplike compliance?

Variant Being Used to Fuel COVID Hysteria

There’s no denying that the variant is being used to fuel the COVID hysteria and perpetuate the repressive social restrictions. So, the question we should be asking ourselves is whether we can trust what we are being told by the media and the public health officials?

And the answer is “No,” we cannot trust them. They have repeatedly misled the public on all manner of topics including masks, asymptomatic transmission, immunity, infection fatality rate, social distancing and now variants. According to Sunetra Gupta, who is professor of theoretical epidemiology in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow:13

“… some of these variants could be more transmissible, but the truth is … even with a marginal increase in transmissibility … that does not have much of a material effect or difference in how we deal with the virus. In other words, the surge of the virus cannot be ascribed to a new variant …

The other question is are these variants more virulent, and the truth is we don’t know, but it is unlikely because the data don’t seem to say so despite the scary headlines … Pathogens tend to evolve toward lower virulence … because that maximizes their transmissibility … It is much more probable that these strains will not be materially so different that we would have to alter our policies.”

So, according to Gupta, even if the new strains of COVID are more transmissible, it is highly unlikely that they are more lethal. Here’s more on the topic from diagnostic pathologist Dr. Clare Craig, who provides a more technical explanation:14

“SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence has ~30,000 letters. Alterations in a handful of letters will not change it’s shape much — if it did it wouldn’t function properly anyway. Fear mongering about immune escape is not needed and is irresponsible especially when no evidence to support the claims.”

In essence, Craig is saying the same thing we said earlier, that the slight mutations to the infection will not impact the immune reaction of people who already had the virus. Thus, the current crop of “variants” should not be a cause for alarm. If you have already had COVID or if you already have prior immunity due to previous exposure to similar infections, (SARS, for example) the new strain should not be a problem.

It should also not be a problem if the new vaccines provide the type of broad-based immunity that one should expect of them. Again, the mutations represent only the slightest change in the composition of the pathogen (less than 1%), which means that — if the vaccines don’t work — they are, in effect, useless.

Media Misstating Science to Terrify the Public

Here’s a longer explanation that some readers might find overly technical and perhaps tedious, but it’s worth wading through in order to see that the media is deliberately misstating the science to terrify the public. This excerpt is from an article by Yeadon. Here’s what he said:15

“The idea is planted in people’s mind that this virus is mutating in such a way as to evade prior immunity. This is completely unfounded, certainly as regards immunity … (that is) gained naturally, after repelling the virus … It’s important to appreciate that upon infection, the human immune system cuts up an infectious agent into short pieces.

Each of these short pieces of protein are presented to other cells in the immune system, like an identity parade … These have a range of functions. Some make antibodies & others are programmed to kill cells infected by the virus, recognized by displaying on their surface signals that tell the body that they’ve been invaded.

In almost all cases … this smart adaptive system overcomes the infection. Crucially … this event leaves you with many different kinds of long-lived ‘memory’ cells which, if you’re infected again, rapidly wipe out any attempt at reinfection.

So, you won’t again be made ill by the same virus, and because the virus is simply not permitted to replicate, you are also no longer able to participate in transmission … The general ‘direction of travel’ (for viruses) is to become less injurious but easier to transmit, eventually joining the other 40 or so viruses which cause what we collectively term ‘the common cold.’

What generally doesn’t happen is for mutants to become more lethal to the hosts (us). But the key point I wanted to get across is just how large SARS-COV-2 is. I recall it’s of the order of 30,000 letters of genetic code which, when translated, make around 10,000 amino acids in several viral proteins.

Now you can see that the kinds of numbers of changes in the letters of the genetic code are truly tiny in comparison with the whole. 30 letter changes might be roughly 0.1% of the virus’s code. In other words, 99.9% of that code is not different from the so-called Wuhan strain.

Similarly, the changes in the protein translated from those letter code alterations are overwhelmed by the vast majority of the unchanged protein sequences. So your immune system, recognizing as it does perhaps dozens of short pieces … will not be fooled by a couple of small changes to a tiny fraction of these.

No: your immune system knows immediately that this is an invader it’s seen before, and has no difficulty whatsoever in dealing with it swiftly & without symptoms. So, it’s a scientifically invalid …

… even if mutations did change a couple of these, the majority of the pieces … of the mutated virus will still be unchanged & recognized by the vaccine-immune system or the virus-infected immune system & a prompt, vigorous response will still protect you.”

Why Are Public Health Officials and the Media Lying?

Let’s summarize: We have presented the informed views of three reputable scientists all of who explicitly refute the idea that the so called “variants:”

Are more lethal

Have the potential to reinfect people who have already had COVID

Have mutated enough to reinfect people who have already been vaccinated (unless, of course) the vaccine does not provide broad-based immunity to begin with (which is possible since Phase 3 long-term trials were never conducted).

So, why are the public health officials and the media lying about this matter, which is fairly clear-cut and uncontroversial? That is the question.

Yeadon concludes that there is something flagrantly diabolical about their denial. He thinks they are lying in order to dupe more people into getting injected with a substance that will either render them infertile, cause them great bodily harm or kill them outright. Take your pick. Here’s more:16

“The eugenicists have got hold of the levers of power and this is a really artful way of getting you to line-up and receive some unspecified thing that will damage you. I have no idea what it will actually be, but it won’t be a vaccine because you don’t need one. And it won’t kill you on the end of the needle because you would spot that.

It could be something that will produce normal pathology, it will be at various times between vaccination and the event, it will be plausibly deniable because there will be something else going on in the world at that time, in the context of which your demise, or that of your children will look normal.

That’s what I would do if I wanted to get rid of 90 or 95% of the world’s population. And I think that’s what they’re doing.”

“The eugenicists have got hold of the levers of power?” Has Yeadon gone mad?

Has the pressure of the global pandemic pushed him off the deep end or is he “on to something” big, something that no one even dares to even think about; a plan so dark and sinister that its implementation would constitute the most grievous and coldblooded crime against humanity of all time; the injection of billions of people with a toxic elixir whose spike protein dramatically compromises their immune systems clearing the way for agonizing widespread suffering followed by mountains of carnage?

There are others, however, who see a connection between the current vaccination campaign and “the eugenicists.” In fact, Dr. Joseph Mercola points to the link between the lead developer of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Adrian Hill, and the Eugenics movement. According to Mercola:

“Hill gave a lecture at the Galton Institute (which was known as the U.K. Eugenics Society) in 2008 for its 100-year anniversary. As noted in Webb’s article:17

‘Arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK eugenics movement.

The latter organization, named for the ‘father of eugenics’ Francis Galton, is the renamed U.K. Eugenics Society, a group notorious for over a century for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to ‘improve racial stock’ by reducing the population of those deemed inferior.

The ties of Adrian Hill to the Galton Institute should raise obvious concerns given the push to make the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine he developed with [Sarah] Gilbert the vaccine of choice for the developing world, particularly countries in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, the very areas where the Galton Institute’s past members have called for reducing population growth …

Emeritus professor of molecular genetics at the Galton Institute and one of its officers is none other than David J. Galton, whose work includes ‘Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century.’

David Galton has written that the Human Genome Mapping Project… had ‘enormously increased … the scope for eugenics … because of the development of a very powerful technology for the manipulation of DNA.’

This new ‘wider definition of eugenics,’ Galton has said, ‘would cover methods of regulating population numbers as well as improving genome quality by selective artificial insemination by donor, gene therapy or gene manipulation of germ-line cells.’ In expanding on this new definition, Galton is neutral as to ‘whether some methods should be made compulsory by the state, or left entirely to the personal choice of the individual.

… The Wellcome Centre regularly cofunds the research and development of vaccines and birth control methods with … a foundation (name withheld) that actively and admittedly engages in population and reproductive control in Africa and South Asia by, among other things, prioritizing the widespread distribution of injectable long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs).

The Wellcome Trust has also directly funded studies that sought to develop methods to ‘improve uptake’ of LARCs in places such as rural Rwanda…’ LARCs afford women in the Global South ‘the least choice possible short of actual sterilization.’

Some LARCs can render women infertile for as long as five years, and, as Levich argues, they ‘leave far more control in the hands of providers, and less in the hands of women, than condoms, oral contraceptives, or traditional methods.’

… Slightly modified and rebranded as Jadelle, the dangerous drug was promoted in Africa … Formerly named the Sterilization League for Human Betterment, EngenderHealth’s original mission, inspired by racial eugenics, was to ‘improve the biological stock of the human race.’”

Does Eugenics Factor Into the mRNA Vaccine?

So, how does “eugenics” factor into the creation and distribution of the mRNA vaccine? Is there a link or are we grasping at straws? We can’t answer that question, but a recent article by Mathew Ehret at Off-Guardian provides a few interesting clues. Here’s what he said:18

“The fact that the organizations promoting the rise of this eugenics policy throughout Nazi Germany and North America included such powerhouses as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Human Sterilization League for Human Betterment … which have all taken leading roles in the World Health Organization over recent decades is more than a little concerning.

The fact that these eugenics organizations simply re-branded themselves after WWII and are now implicated in modern RNA vaccine development alongside the Galton Institute (formerly British Eugenics Association), Oxford’s AstraZeneca, Pfizer and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation should give any serious thinker pause as we consider what patterns of history we are willing to tolerate repeating in our presently precarious age.”

We’ll end this piece with an excerpt from a 2010 article by Andrew Gavin Marshall at Global Research, who presciently noted that:19

“Eugenics is about the social organization and control of humanity … (particularly) population control …

The ideas of Malthus, and later Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin were remolded into branding an elite ideology of ‘Social Darwinism,’ which was ‘the notion that in the struggle to survive in a harsh world, many humans were not only less worthy, many were actually destined to wither away as a rite of progress. To preserve the weak and the needy was, in essence, an unnatural act.’

This theory simply justified the immense wealth, power and domination of a small elite over the rest of humanity, as that elite saw themselves as the only truly intelligent beings worthy of holding such power and privilege.

Francis Galton later coined the term “eugenics” to describe this emerging field. His followers believed that the ‘genetically unfit’ ‘would have to be wiped away,’ using tactics such as ‘segregation, deportation, castration, marriage prohibition, compulsory sterilization, passive euthanasia — and ultimately extermination’ …

Sir Julian Huxley was also a life trustee of the British Eugenics Society from 1925, and its President from 1959-62 … ‘Huxley believed that eugenics would one day be seen as the way forward for the human race,’ and that, ‘A catastrophic event may be needed for evolution to move at an accelerated pace’ … It is much the same with ideas whose time has not yet come; they must survive periods when they are not generally welcome.

The 21st-century technologies are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups.

They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them … I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

… Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system.

If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite …

A horrifying vision indeed; but one which builds upon the ideas of Huxley, Russell and Brzezinski, who envisioned a people who — through biological and psychological means – are made to love their own servitude. Huxley saw the emergence of a world in which humanity, still a wild animal, is domesticated; where only the elite remain wild and have freedom to make decisions, while the masses are domesticated like pets.

Huxley opined that, ‘Men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown.’”

We must ask ourselves whether the current mass vaccination campaign is a science-based effort to relieve sickness and disease or a fast-track to a dark and frightening dystopia conjured up by evil men seeking to tighten their grip on all humanity?

SOURCE

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ill-will-editions · 4 years

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THE FUNERAL OF SALVATORE RICCIARDI: Celebrating a friend and comrade, while taking over public space again

WU MING

A final farewell to Salvo, to the songs of Su, communists of the capital! "This rebellious city, never tamed by ruins and bombings…"

Of all the measures taken during this emergency, the ban on funeral services is among the most dehumanizing.

In the name of what idea of "life" have these measures been taken? In the prevailing rhetoric of these past few weeks, life has been reduced almost entirely to the survival of the body, to the detriment of any other dimension of it. In this there is a very strong thanatophobic connotation (from the Greek Thanatos, or death), a morbid fear of dying.

Thanatophobia has permeated our society for decades. Already in 1975, the historian Philippe Ariès, in his landmark History of Death in the West, noted that death, in capitalist societies, had been "domesticated", bureaucratized, partly deritualized and separated as much as possible from the living, in order to "spare [...] society the disturbance and too strong emotion" of dying, and maintain the idea that life "is always happy, or at least must always look like it”.

To this end, he continues, it was strategic "to shift the site where we die. We no longer die at home, among family members, we die at the hospital, alone [...] because it has become inconvenient to die at home". Society, he said, must "realize as little as possible that death has occurred". This is why many rituals related to dying are now considered embarrassing and in a phase of disuse.

Even before the state of emergency we are experiencing, the rituality of dying had been reduced to a minimum. That is why we have always been so impressed by the manifestations of its re-emergence. Think of the worldwide success of a film like The Barbarian Invasions by Denys Arcand.

Forty-five years ago, Ariès wrote: "no one has the strength or patience to wait for weeks for a moment [death, Editor's note] that has lost its meaning". And what does the 2003 Canadian film depict if not a group of people waiting for weeks - in a context of conviviality and re-emerging secular rituality - the passing of a friend?

Eight years ago we undertook, together with many others, to set up an environment of conviviality and secular rituality around a dear friend and companion, Stefano Tassinari, in the weeks leading up to his death and in the ceremonies that followed. Much of our questioning on this subject dates back to that time.

If the rituality linked to dying was already reduced to a minimum, the ban on attending the funeral of a loved one had finally annihilated it.

Back on March 25th we shared a beautiful letter from a parish priest from Reggio, Don Paolo Tondelli, who was dismayed at the scenes he had to witness:

"And so I find myself standing in front of the cemetery, with three children of a widowed mother who died alone at the hospital because the present situation does not allow for the assistance of the sick. They cannot enter the cemetery, the measures adopted do not allow it. So they cry: they couldn't say goodbye to their mother when she gave up living, they can't say goodbye to her even now while she is being buried. We stop at the cemetery gate, in the street, I am bitter and angry inside, I have a strong thought: even a dog is not taken to the grave like this. I think we have exaggerated for a moment in applying the rules in this way, we are witnessing a dehumanization of essential moments in the life of every person; as a Christian, as a citizen I cannot remain silent [...] I say to myself: we are trying to defend life, but we are running the risk of not conserving the mystery that is so closely linked to it".

This "mystery" is not the exclusive prerogative of the Christian faith nor of those possessing a religious sensibility, since it does not necessarily coincide with the belief in the immortal soul or anything else, but something that we all ask ourselves, when we ask, 'what does it mean to live?' 'What distinguishes living from merely moving on or simply not dying?

That said, those who are believers and observers have experienced the suspension of ritual ceremonies - including funeral masses - as an attack on their form of life. It is no coincidence that among the examples of clandestine organization that we have heard about these days, there is the catacombal continuation of Christian public life.

We have direct evidence that in many parishes the faithful continued to attend mass, despite the signs on the doors saying they were suspended. One finds the "hard core" of the parishioners in the refectory of the convent, or in the rectory, or in the sacristy and in some cases in the church. Twenty, thirty people, summoned by word of mouth. In particular last Thursday, for the Missa in coena Domini.

The same can be said of funerals. In this case as well we have direct testimonies of priests who officiated small rites, with close family members, without publicity.

In the past few days, we have identified three types of disobedience to some of the stupidest and most inhumane features of the lock-down.

Individual disobedience

The individual gesture is often invisible but occasionally it is showy, as in the case of that runner on the deserted beach of Pescara, hunted by security guards for no reason that has any epidemiological basis. The video went viral, and had the effect of demonstrating the absurdity of certain rules and their obtuse application.

Continuing to run was, objectively and in its outcome, a very effective performance, an action of resistance and "conflictual theatre". Continuing to run distinguishes qualitatively that episode from the many others which offer "only" further evidence of repression. As Luigi Chiarella "Yamunin" wrote, the video brings to mind,

"a passage from Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti on grasping, which is indeed a gesture of the hand but also and above all is 'the decisive act of power where it manifests itself in the most evident way, from the most remote times, among animals and among men'. Later, he adds - and here comes the part pertinent to the episode of the runner - that 'there is nevertheless a second powerful gesture, certainly no less essential even if not so radiant. Sometimes one forgets, under the grandiose impression aroused by grasping, the existence of a parallel and almost equally important action: not letting oneself be grasped". The video [...] reminded me how powerful and liberating it is not to let yourself be caught. Then I don't forget that if you run away you do it to come back with new weapons, but in the meantime you must not let yourself be grabbed."

Clandestine group disobedience

These are the practices of the parishioners who organize themselves to go to mass on the sly, of the family members of a dearly departed person who agree with the parish priest to officiate a funeral rite... but also of the groups who continue in one way or another to hold meetings, of the bands who continue to rehearse, and of the parents who organize themselves together with a teacher to retrieve their children's school books. It's an episode that happened in a city in Emilia, which we recounted a few days ago.

In order to retrieve the books from a first grade school that had been left at school for the last month, a teacher came to the school, took the books out hidden in a shopping cart, and entrusted them to two parents who live near a baker and a convenience store respectively, so that the other parents could go and pick them up with the "cover" of buying groceries, avoiding possible fines. The books were given to the individual parents by lowering them with a rope from a small balcony and stuffed into shopping bags or between loaves of bread, as if they were hand grenades for the Resistance. In this way those children will at least be able to follow the program on the book with the teacher in tele-education, and the parents will be able to have support for the inevitable homeschooling.

After a phase of shock in which unconditional obedience and mutual guilt prevailed, sectors of civil society - and even "interzone" between institutions and civil society - are reorganizing themselves "in hiding". In this reorganization it is implicit that certain restrictions are considered incongruous, irrational, indiscriminately punitive.

Furthermore: at the beginning of the emergency, parental chats were, in general, among the worst hotbeds of panic, culture of suspicion, toxic voice messages, calls for denunciation. The fact that now some of them are also being used to circumvent delusional prohibitions - why shouldn't a teacher be able to retrieve the textbooks left in the classroom? why should a dad or a mom have to resort to subterfuge, self-certification, etc. to retrieve those books? - is yet another proof that the "mood" has changed.

Provocative group disobedience

The performance of the trio from Rimini - a man and two women - who had sex in public places and put the videos online, accompanied with insults hurled at the police, is part of this rarefied case history.

The police have since held a grudge against the case, as exemplified by their official social channels.

The only thing missing from this catalog of disobedience is, of course...

Claimed group disobedience

Here we have in mind visible, and no longer merely clandestine collective disobedience.

For a moment we feared that the fascists would be the first to bring it into play. Forza Nuova attempted to leverage the dismay of believers in the prospect of an Easter “behind closed doors,” and without the Via Crucis. However, when leaflets circulated calling for a procession to St. Peter's Basilica tomorrow (Sunday 4.12), accompanied by mottos such as "In hoc signo vinces" and "Rome will not know an Easter without Christ", they were dismayed to find that it wasn't the Fascists who were behind them. Instead, it was our comrades and friends from Radio Onda Rossa and the Roman liberatory movement who, this morning, in S. Lorenzo, greeted Salvatore Ricciardi with what in effect became the first political demonstration in the streets since the beginning of the emergency.

Salvatore Ricciardi, 80 years old, was a pillar of the Roman antagonist left. A former political prisoner, for many years he was involved in fights inside prisons and against prison conditions. He did so in a number of books and countless broadcasts on Radio Onda Rossa, which yesterday dedicated a moving four-hour live special to him. He continued to do so until even a few days ago, on his blog Contromaelstrom, writing about imprisonment and coronavirus.

Headlines about this morning's events can already be read in the mainstream press. A precise chronicle, accompanied by some valuable remarks, can be heard in this phone call from an editor of Radio Onda Rossa [here]. Among other things, our comrade points out: "here there are rows of people standing in front of the butchers shop for days and days, yet we cannot even bid farewell to the dead? [...] We're in the open air, while in Rome there's not even a requirement to wear a mask and yet many people had masks, and there were only a few people anyway"...Yet the police still threatened to use a water cannon to disperse a funeral ritual. The part of the district where the seditious gathering took place was closed and those present were detained by police.

During this emergency, we’ve seen so many surreal scenes - today, to offer just one example, a helicopter took to the sky, wasting palates of public money, in pursuit of a single citizen walking on a Sicilian beach - and even still, this morning's apex had not yet been reached.

For our part, we say kudos and solidarity to those who run, and are out running great risks to claim their right to live together - in public space that they have always crossed with their bodies and filled with their lives - out of pain and mourning for the loss of Salvo, but also out of happiness for having had him as a friend and companion.

"Because the bodies will return to occupy the streets. Because without the bodies there is no Liberation."

That's what we were writing yesterday, taking up the “Song of el-'Aqila Camp”. We reaffirm our belief that it will happen. And the government fears it too: is it by chance that just today Minister Lamorgese warned against "hotbeds of extremist speech"?

In her telephone interview, the Radio Onda Rossa editor says that the current situation, in essence, could last a year and a half. Those in power would like it to be a year and a half without the possibility of protest. They are prepared to use health regulations to prevent collective protests and struggles. Managing the recession with sub iudice civil rights is ideal for those in power.

It is right to disobey absurd rules

We should point out once again that, whilst keeping a population under house arrest, while prohibiting funerals, and de jure or de facto preventing anyone from taking a breath of fresh air - which is almost a unique phenomenon in the West, since only Spain follows us on this - and while shaming individual conduct like jogging, going out "for no reason", or shopping "too many times"...while this whole little spectacle is going on, Italy remains the European country with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate. Good peace of mind for those who spoke of an "Italian model" to be imitated by other countries.

Who is responsible for such a debacle? It is not a hard question to answer: it was the people who did not establish a medical cordon around Alzano and Nembro in time, because the owner asked them not to; it was those who spread infection in hospitals through an impressive series of negligent decisions; those who turned RSAs and nursing homes into places of mass coronavirus death; and lastly, those who, while all this was happening, diverted public attention toward nonsense and harmless behavior, while pointing the finger at scapegoats. This was blameworthy, even criminal behavior.

Everywhere in the world the coronavirus emergency has presented a golden opportunity to restrict the spaces of freedom, settle accounts with unwelcome social movements, profit from the behavior to which the population is forced, and restructure to the detriment of the weakest.

Italy adds to all this its standard surfeit of irrational ravings. The exceptionality of our "model" of emergency management lies in its complete overturning of scientific logic. For it is one thing to impose - for good (Sweden) or for bad (another country at random) - physical distancing as a necessary measure to reduce the possibility of contagion; it is quite another to lock the population in their homes and prevent them from leaving except for reasons verified by police authorities. The jump from one to the other imposed itself alongside the idea - also unfounded - that one is safe from the virus while "indoors", whereas "outdoors" one is in danger.

Everything we know about this virus tells us exactly the opposite, namely that the chances of contracting it in the open air are lower, and if you keep your distance even almost zero, compared to indoors. On the basis of this self-evidence, the vast majority of countries affected by the pandemic not only did not consider it necessary to prevent people from going out into the open air generally, as they did in France, but in some cases even advised against it.

In Italy, this radius is, at best, two hundred meters from home, but there are municipalities and regions that have reduced it to zero meters. For those who live in the city, such a radius is easily equivalent to half a block of asphalt roads, which are much more crowded than in the open space outside the city, if it could be reached. For those who live in the countryside, however, or in sparsely populated areas, a radius of two hundred meters is equally absurd, since the probability of meeting someone and having to approach them is infinitely lower than in an urban center.

Not only that: we have seen that very few countries have introduced the obligation to justify their presence outdoors by authorizations, certificates, and receipts, even calculating the distance from home using Google Maps. This is also an important step: it means putting citizens at the mercy of law enforcement agencies.

We have recorded cases of hypertensive people, with a medical prescription recommending daily exercise for health reasons, fined €500; or people fined because they were walking with their pregnant partner, to whom the doctor had recommended walking. The list of abuses and idiocies would be long, and one may consult our website for further examples.

Legal uncertainty, the arbitrariness of police forces, the illogical limitation of behavior that presents no danger to anyone, are all essential elements of the police state.

Having to respect an illogical, irrational norm is the exercise of obedience and submission par excellence.

It will never be "too soon" to rebel against such obligations.

It must be done, before it’s too late.

Translated by Ill Will Editions

#Italy #COVID19 #defiance #coronavirus #state of exception

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