#they have in the west/internationally

[takeutothemoon]

i wouldn't take this as gospel but there is a lot of truth to it

[moonsprings]

maybe it's because i've been through it these last two years with a shit ton of personal shit that happened (family deaths, friend with illness) that everything feels a lot more... more but this news of lee sun kyun's death has been shocking. it feels odd because i'm a lot more sad about it than i expected to be, just from a human perspective of not wanting other people to feel the kind of despair necessary to take your own life. i wasn't a die hard fan but a casual fan nonetheless (cue self callout about liking middle aged men with nice voices... lol.) and while admittedly i've been more of a fan of lee sun kyun's wife (actress jeon hye jin, who is famous in her own right) in recent years, he was undoubtedly an actor i watched growing up. coffee prince was the hit drama when i was in grade school, back when my family used to watch korean cable/broadcast tv at home. then pasta, then my mister which i consider his representative work, more so than parasite. it's a horrible thing that's happened.

there's a lot of context that's missing on the western side of the news, mostly to do with the whole hostess/escort blackmail situation that had been unfolding on korean news in the last 2-3 months which likely compounded the entire scandal and his decision to do this sadly. imo this entire thing has far less to do about drugs than people actually think though it's still a significant factor. lee sunkyun has always had a 'family man' image on kor tv and the revelations about him and the alleged hostess/escort who had been blackmailing him who supplied and took drugs with was a madame/hostess from a VIP (basically rich people only) room salon/hostess bar he appears to have been having an affair with for a while which irreparably damaged his image and reputation and likely his marriage and family. rumors had been circulating that his in-laws were urging jeon hyejin to divorce him, they supposedly sent their kids to an overseas boarding school because they were getting bullied in korea over lsk's scandal, and he was facing millions in won in contract violations penalty fees from cancelled CFs/advertisements and tv and film work that was delayed because of the scandal (also fucking hell, just saw the news report saying he left a message to his company's rep apologizing for the penalty fees right before his death). the same penalty fee situation happened to actor yoo ahin after he was convicted of drug charges and is now reportedly millions in debt. that is an incredible amount of pressure, even if part of it was the consequence of his actions. and to be clear, these were stupid choices he made but the reaction was so wildly disproportionate to what he's been accused of.

i feel like if it had "just" been drugs, or "just" been the hostess scandal, he could have made a come back after a few years as many other korean celebrities have (way more than people think, and he has more leeway as a critically celebrated, middle aged male actor who is not an idol), but it's the combination of the drugs, the 'room salon'/hostess club situation that just exploded, and the corrupt police placing this level of constant pressure and publicity on him that caused this imo. his private phone calls and messages he made with the hostess were leaked yesterday from a known r/ight wing kor youtuber before his suic-de. having seen it reported in the kor news, it's difficult to describe the contents of it other than being very personal and frankly, embarrassing (and i mean this as neutrally as possible. think adam levine-esque) in a country as conservative as korea when he's telling a s-x worker he 'really likes [her]' in the sense that he has feelings for her. and again, his wife is a prominent actress and their public images are tied together. given the timing, it likely wasn't just about the drugs. and i know the whole room salon/hostess bar thing is incredibly common in korea, in older stats some say something like 70% of korean men have frequented one (though it's increasingly becoming less acceptable and therefore less common, which is why the public reaction been harsh) and i really don't approve of the cultural aspects that have allowed this to be permissible (as a korean-american) but i feel like that's a personal issue that should have been handled by him and his family. if it was one or the other he could have made a return but i think the pressure of it being this public and detailed due to police likely being the ones intentionally leaking information from the investigation was just too much for him to handle. it feels like the police purposefully went out of their way to humiliate lee sun kyun in the press and public to try and get him to admit to the drug charges because g-dragon, the other celebrity that was implicated, proved his innocence rather conclusively and the police didn't have anyone else to use to get some high profile publicity.

...so we started the year with a suic-de and ended it with a suic-de. it's telling, i think. obviously i don't know any of them, they're 'just' celebrities who literally don't know i exist (as it should be) but honestly my chest feels heavy watching dark coats and emotionless faces walk into the university hospitals, the smiling portrait pictures atop the bed of flowers at the ceremonial funeral rooms, the whole lot - i don't know how many more times people can see this and not feel like anything's wrong. image is everything and the pressure to perform, be perfect, be successful is too much. i'm not even half as talented as any of them and i still felt it, a sea away, in a watered down version from immigrant korean parents and an immigrant community. everyone is way too damn casual about admitting their suic-dal thoughts but not really offering any real solutions and it's just so common. i've heard far too many interviews from kor celebrities who had scandals (and when i say scandals i mean in the asian sense again, dating, secret marriages, divorces or drugs or whatever shit that would barely even qualify as a line in the news in the west most of the time and not more serious crimes) who admitted years after the fact that they were considering suic-de because of the public reaction. or more mundane shit like 'i felt suicidal in school because of academic pressure' stuff i've heard a million times from korean friends, classmates. a lot of it gets dismissed as 'puberty' or 'everyone feels that way'. and again i ask why it's so normalized.

then even those celebrities that have died from suic-de are treated like virtual boogeymen afterwards, their names never mentioned even in places where it should be. the eggshells, the sidestepping because it could be considered 'sensitive' and thus they're erased because the only context their lives can be in is in position to their suic-des. other people who knew them, friends, acquaintances, coworkers they had - past the initial condolence messages, it's like they never existed because everyone is scared of controversy from saying the wrong thing, or not being serious enough, or whatever the hell people want to nitpick that week. people have literally been criticized before for being too sad or not being sad enough when a death from a suic-de has happened so i'm not surprised this was the end result, that literally no one talks about the deceased now outside of a very select few. if they are talked about, it's more so alluded to in an extremely vague manner usually not mentioning them by name, and they rarely, if ever say the actual word suic-de. they usually say that it was an "안타까운 사건" ('an unfortunate incident') even in official news reports, including of LSK's death, and it just bothers me that it's this taboo, everything from making stupid decisions and stupid mistakes (bullying, drugs, cheating, whatever the fuck) or just plain having mental illness, to ending their lives because of it, to having their friends and family not speak about them publicly because it's 'shameful' and they'll get judged.

i don't know what the point is, just that i'm really increasingly frustrated with the state of things. the police shouldn't have pushed him to the brink. this entire situation straight up should not have happened at all.

[hotshotriot]

thinking about the western comics industry again and can i just say i'm Shocked there has yet to be a major equivalent to manga magazines here. like i would kill to be able to pump out comic chapters to a big crowd without having to worry about 1. coloring 2. the publisher imploding on itself before i'm done

[gwyoi]

the ccp 😭 like genuinely who are they preforming for here by honoring Toriyama’s passing….. the Japanese? they don’t like them because of ww2 and in current affairs Japan is allied with American interests. There’s no way they’re preforming for the western world because they genuinely don’t care about soft power like Korea or Japan does

[lesbiansagainsttheatre]

kinda loathe the way broadway (and the west end as well) handles long running shows.

[sayruq]

I want everyone to understand that even if Israel wins this (I mean it won't but just imagine), it won't recover from this. It won't recover from getting caught off guard on Oct 7th. The government and the IDF spent days unable to have a strategic response to the Palestinian fighters while their own soldiers deserted and their allies openly questioned the wisdom of a ground invasion in Gaza. That's why they're bombing Gaza, it is the only way to project strength to the world but it is also alienating billions of people. The world has never been more pro Palestine than this moment in time.

Just like how America being forced to flee Afghanistan led to a series of Ls globally, Israel struggling against Hamas, PFLP, Islamic Jihad, and other groups will have disastrous effects locally and internationally. I mean, the political class is already falling apart with Netanyahu blaming government officials for this disaster. The Israeli government have no unity or cohesion which is not a great sign to put it lightly. War usually binds people, even rival political groups, and especially allies. America has been hinting that it doesn't approve of some of actions taken by Israel. It could be just Biden and his people trying to softly distance him from the genocide in Gaza but you also have former and current military leaders disapproving of Israel's military strategy.

The thing is you don't see Iran openly questioning the Palestinians. You don't see Hezbollah running to the press to let them know they think Hamas' strategy is weak. Every single Palestinian militia group, including the ones in the West Bank, are working together. Iran, Hezbollah and the Palestinians are all coordinating. In the past week, they would attack Israeli settlements and military bases and American bases in Iraq and Syria at the same time. They've even managed to get new support from the Yemeni Ansar Allah group.

Israel's main export is security- meaning weapons manufacturing and training. How many countries will rush to have their police or soldiers train with the IDF after witnessing them fold while in battle (in the latest ground incursion, the IDF lasted only 15 minutes inside Gaza according to Al Jazeera)? How many countries will line up to buy Israeli tanks after seeing them get taken out easily by guerilla fighters? How many countries and individual investors will want to invest in Israel when it can't go 5 years without a war or genocide?

I believe with all my heart we will soon see a liberated Palestine.

[fans4wga]

Strike Support Declining - Here's how you can continue to support the writers

Since the WGA strike started on May 2, the public has shown immense support for the writers—sending food, snacks, drinks, and encouragement from across the world all the way to Los Angeles, New York, and other picketing locations.

But loud and vocal strike support—in the news and in public spaces—is notably declining the longer the strike goes on. So we're bringing you a few ways to show writers, studios, and fellow fans: we're still here, and we still stand with the WGA.

1. Post on Twitter (and other social media sites)

You might think social media noise won't be noticed by the studios, but it CAN encourage individual WGA members—and slowly but surely put pressure on the studios to make a fair deal.

If you follow WGA members such as Adam Conover (Adam Ruins Everything), John Rogers (Leverage, Librarians), Gennifer Hutchison (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost, The Witcher) [and many many more you can find through their following lists], tell them you support them! Hashtag #IStandWithTheWGA #DoTheWriteThing and tell them that you and your fandom are prepared to support them as long as the strike lasts; that they deserve to have their demands met and you're with them all the way. Boost morale however and whenever you can!

Likewise, actively push back against misinformation/disinformation. See a TikTok claiming that all Hollywood writers are filthy rich and we shouldn't vocally support them? Correct it with well-sourced citations from the WGA, published news articles, and stories from those affected (like the time a writer on FX's The Bear attended the an awards show with his bank account balance in the negative, only to then win an award for Best Comedy Series—proving that good writers on award-winning shows still cannot make a living!)

Remember you can always link to Adam Conover's excellent explanation of WGA demands versus studio refusals, tweeted here.

2. Donate or boost fundraisers

You might be surprised to learn that the picketing locations are not always parties! Sometimes themed pickets are fun, and fandoms and celebrities occasionally are able to fundraise for a food truck or ice cream truck at picketing locations. However, that is the EXCEPTION and not the norm. Writers are asking for food & drinks at many locations.

There are many funds to donate to, and it can be overwhelming to pick one! But one that could use your support RIGHT NOW is the CBS Radford picket line:

-If you're in LA, you can bring food and snacks directly to that picket line (or get food deliveries sent there, with instructions to be given to the strike captain on duty.) Strike locations are available on the WGA West website and are updated there.

-Or there's a pizza fund for the strike locations (unfortunately Venmo is a US-only donation option)

-If you're not in LA, donate to the Entertainment Community Fund to support TV and film workers affected by the strike.

-More tips on donating to the strike in this great article!

-Lots of fandoms are organizing donations on their own, for instance the Our Flag Means Death fundraiser on Paypal (updated 30 July 2023 with new link) (available internationally). Check to see if your fandom has started a fundraiser... or start one yourself to show your support! We're happy to give tips on organizing your fandom!

As always, please boost this post and any and all well-sourced information that comes from the WGA or its members. We're happy to fact-check anything you send our way too.

[former-leftist-jew]

“Jews are willing to give up land for peace.” Bull fucking shit!!! Have you seen what’s happening to the West Bank??? Are you aware of how many Palestinians have lost their homes to Israeli settlers? In settlements that are internationally recognized as illegal!!! This isn’t just an Israeli thing either. Diaspora Jews are being recruited to move to the West Bank but Israeli real estate agents.

“We are NOT willing to bare our necks before the executioner's axe just because Islamists demand it.” But you expect Palestinians to bare their necks for the executioner’s axe because Israel demands it.

Jews are not the fucking victims here. I know Jews have been the victims of a lot of violence throughout history but the situation in Palestine is perhaps the one time in history Jews are the perpetrators.

I see you didn't read or watch a single source I gave to back up my claims, and didn't cite any sources to back up your claims either.

Since you're not going to bother to read, I'll keep it brief:

Are you aware of how many Palestinians have lost their homes to Israeli settlers?

And are you aware of how many Jews were violently driven out of their homes due to Islamic aggression after WWII--mostly in retaliation for Israel being formed?

Are you aware that Jews were living in and around the "West Bank" (historically Judea and Samaria) for centuries before Arab Jordinians invaded and violently expelled all the Jews living there in 1948?

Are you aware that most so-called "illegal settlements in the West Bank" are places where previous Jewish communities were forcibly expelled by Arab armies or militia, and many "Israel? (Or slaughtered, like Jewish community of Hebron in 1929?)

Are you aware that about 2 out of 9 million Israeli citizens are Israeli Arabs--most of whom are descended from Arabs who chose not to leave to make it eas

Meanwhile, most of Israel's current 2.2 million Israeli Arabs are descended from Arabs who chose not and annexed

But you expect Palestinians to bare their necks for the executioner’s axe because Israel demands it.

No, I just want them to stop attacking and trying to kill all Israelis/Jews already.

Like the so-called "moderate" Palestinian Authority's infamous "pay to slay" Martyr Fund, which incentivizes West Bank Arabs to attack and kill Israelis/Jews, since they get more money for every act of violence they commit against "the state of Israel."

Like Hamas firing rockets Israel non-stop after the latter completely withdrew from Gaza and effectively gave them a Palestinian state to run as they please, without Israeli.

Jews are not the fucking victims here. I know Jews have been the victims of a lot of violence throughout history but the situation in Palestine is perhaps the one time in history Jews are the perpetrators.

I want you to stop and think about that for a moment.

What logical sense does that make? "Yeah, Jews were victims of violent persecution throughout history, but THIS TIME all the evil things people say about you and do to you are totally justified!!"

a) Isn't that what antisemites say every time they attack Jews?

b) Have you ever considered that maybe the said extensive history of violent antisemitism might have contributed to Palestinian Arabs being complete hostility towards and refusal to accept a Jewish homeland?

For example: After the Ottoman Empire lost against the European Allies in WWI and ceded territory to the victors, France gained control of "Greater Syria" while Britain gained control of Palestine and Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

About the same time that Britain thought about dividing Mandatory Palestine into an Arab State for the Arab Muslim majority to the east and a Jewish state for the (existing) Jewish minority to the west...

France was ALSO dividing Greater Syria into a larger Arab State for the Sunni Muslim majority, and a smaller state for the Maronite Christian and Druze minority.

Yet, no one ever questions why Arabs grudgingly accepted a state for the Maronite Christian/Druze minority, but threw a raging bitch fit against a homeland for the Jewish minority?

No one ever accuses Maronites/Druze of "stealing Syria land!" but they do constantly accuse Jews of "stealing Palestinian land!"

Speaking of, roughly 3/4 of the original Mandate for Palestine became what is now Jordan, yet no one ever accuses Jordan of "stealing Palestinian land"?

IF NOTHING ELSE, I would like you to AT LEAST read this detailed and well-researched article about historical attitudes and treatments towards Jews in Islamic lands, and how those same attitudes and treatments carried over into the Islamic world's reaction to Jews emigrating to and eventually creating Israel.

[khizuo]

(this article was published on Nov. 3, 2023. I highly recommend reading the whole thing to get a good overview of conflict in the DRC as of that date.)

Almost seven million people have been internally displaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — the highest number on record— amid an escalation of fighting in a war that has been ongoing for two decades.  The country’s eastern provinces have been the worst-affected following a resurgence of attacks by the M23 rebel militia, internationally acknowledged to be a proxy force backed by neighboring Rwanda, in 2021. The DRC currently also has over 100 armed groups operating within its territory. 

In Masisi for instance, there has been a “worrying increase” in the cases of severe acute malnutrition, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Reduced trade amid the ongoing conflict has also led to a major increase in food prices, with the cost of cassava flour rising by four times.  The ongoing fighting has also had a severe impact on the health and disease response, with the DRC reporting the highest number of suspected cholera cases and deaths in West and Central Africa region. The country alone accounts for almost 80% of disease transmissions and approximately 60% of all deaths, as per a report released by UNICEF last month. The provinces of North and South Kivu alone accounted for 80% of all cases in the country and 33% of all deaths. 

The current mandate of the EACRF is set to expire on December 8. Meanwhile, the DRC has also called for a removal of the UN peacekeeping force, MONUSCO, whose current mandate will expire on December 20, around the same time as the country is set to hold its elections.  The Congolese government has indicated that it wants the EACRF to withdraw from the country after its current mandate expires. On November 1, government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya said, “some Congolese are now questioning why we even asked to join the EAC […] When we joined the EAC, it was to connect our country with the region. The regional bloc was committed to peacebuilding but unfortunately, we have little progress.” 

[thesiltverses]

Out of curiosity, just how unstable/stable would the Peninsula be following the Glottage Incident? Not going to go into specifics about it to avoid spoilers. I'm working on a thing for the RPG set after it, and wanted to see what the showrunners thought would happen.

Oh, that sounds really cool!

Personally - although of course this is no more canonical than any other bozo's opinion - this is what I imagined would happen to the Peninsula after the events of the show (spoilers below the cut)

Assuming that there are no wild cards from the stuff we deliberately left open-ended (i.e. that the polluted winds aren't going to sweep east across the entire Peninsula and render it uninhabitable)...

With Carson and Val gone, a whole lot of load-bearing lies are likely to come crashing down very quickly. The remnants of the CLS government will be able to publicly declare that the Peninsula only won the war with the help of a highly illegal rhetorical god who murdered civilians, committed countless war crimes, and threatened to unravel reality. Likewise, the High Adjudicator's sex coma was already on the verge of being an open secret, and his private plane flying out of Glottage then crashing in the west is only going to lead to more searching scrutiny about just what the hell was going on there.

If the Peninsula was ending the war in a strong position, all of this might not matter - but with Glottage in tatters, a power vacuum, a decimated population, and the war's outcome looking less like a heroic victory and more like an internationally-condemned and chaotic embarrassment, I imagine the remaining Adjudicators would be pivoting frantically to become peace-loving, harmonious and sustainable-sacrifice types, with the condemnation for the war being unceremoniously heaped on Carson and the High Adjudicator's shoulders in their absence.

As a result, I can see Shrue (with their history of anti-war speeches) being quickly re-embraced and co-opted, maybe even actively canonised as a saintly figure by the newly-pacifistic political establishment - because after all, wasn't their speech really raging at the wastefulness, lies, and corruption of certain politicians? We should all have listened to them earlier.

I can't see the Parish being publicly acknowledged as the true perpetrators of the Glottage attack, however - it's far more politically useful to state that Val must have been responsible (because then the people of the Peninsula are also victims of Carson's lies and his horrific terrorist-saint run amok, we all suffered equally, and we can all just draw a line under this tragic affair.)

The lasting winners of the power vacuum are likely to be the major international faiths, which can quickly position themselves as neutral mediators and peacemakers between the leaderless CLS and Peninsula, while swooping in to play a more active role in both nations' governance.

All of that scandal and upheaval would also undoubtedly continue to energise the Woundtree / anti-sacrificial movement across the country which might even find a legitimate foothold in mainstream thought, but the ideological risks to that movement (being neutered or softened or co-opted) would be greater than ever.

So...definitely highly unstable, I'd imagine, but with no shortage of players rolling in from the wings, just as before, to try and transform all of this into a nice, simple, tutelary story of saints and scapegoats.

[xclowniex]

why do you only criticize the left on your blog. Aren't nazis and white supremists also bad.

The reason why I criticize the left so much is for two reasons.

1. I am a leftists

2. The left is being very hypocritical about jews

To elaborate on those points, you should always call out those within your own political side. You can't just go "right wing people don't care about minorities" whilst not saying anything about the people on the left don't care about a minority.

It's hypocritical to criticize others when your group does the same thing.

All that does is say one of 3 things about you. That you either think that being bad towards a minority is excused because of your political opinion, the minority at hand and the discrimination they face is not as important as other minorities or isn't bad or that you just don't care about the minority at hand.

Going into how the left is hypocritical about jews, the left frequently is against civilians being held accountable for the actions of their government. Yet Israelis are being held accountable by them for their governments actions. Diaspora jews aka jews outside of Israel also get frequently held responsible for a government which isn't even theirs.

Leftists are against the collective punishment of Gazan citizens yet collectively punish Israeli and Jewish folk socially.

Then you have people talking about how a minority doing a bad thing doesn't take away from the need to respect their identity. Such as how you shouldn't misgender a trans person if they do a bad thing as that's transphobic but as soon as they find out that a Jewish person is a zionist, antisemitism is now okay.

You've got jews currently who have seen the lefts ideas and agreed with them. We agree that collective punishment is bad. We agree that a minority doing something bad doesn't take away from the respect they deserve for their identity. We have supported land back movements for the native folk of whatever country we live in.

Yet none of those actions are happening for us. Instead antisemitic tropes are used to blame us for everything.

I could go on about how the lefts actions in the West further fuel the right wing parties in Israel. How they view it as "see no jews are safe outside of Israel. We need to be more violent to secure Israel's safety for jews internationally.

I could go on about how the lefts actions are forcing jews out of the left and are making jews more likely than before to become right wing.

But none of that matters because what should be in the forefront, is a leftist ideal of discrimination based on religious, ethnicity/race, sexual orientation or gender, is bad.

Yet that completely escapes people when it comes to jews and antisemitsm.

[lafemmemacabre]

Goth 101

🦇 tl;dr version for those who prefer that format

Goth is a music-based subculture that started out in the UK in the late 70s/early 80s and spread internationally from there. It spawned from the UK Punk scene, keeping the DIY ethics but turning the music more melancholic, introspective and experimental.

The music genres that the subculture was built around are (dark) Post-Punk, Gothic Rock, Darkwave, Ethereal Wave and a few other smaller subgenres.

While the fashion and other non-musical aesthetics are very prominent and beloved by goths, they're non-essential to the subculture. What defines a goth is the music we listen to.

Our "big 4" bands are The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and the Banshees. However, 3 out of 4 of those bands are Post-Punk acts (Sisters of Mercy being the exception Gothic Rock band), and while very influential to the rest of the goth music scene, they by no means are the end-all, be-all of what goth music sounds like. The genre has evolved through its over 40 years of existence, creating diverse sounds. Anyone darkly inclined can find something to love, even if it takes a bit of research.

The Dark & Gothic playlist on Spotify is a pretty decent way to get started into goth music. In my old blog I had entire tags dedicated to goth music as a whole, and separately to Post-Punk, Gothic Rock, Darkwave and Ethereal Wave too. I had a few playlists based on popular goth aesthetics here.

The longer description of goth music will include playlists for each bigger goth subgenre, but please keep in mind they're made by me in a way that appeals to my personal tastes for each subgenre. I don't know every band that exists and my personal taste is biased towards the 90s.

Now, to a more detailed introduction to the goth subculture...

🦇 Dark alternative vs Goth

What a lot of people need clarified is that the goth subculture doesn't have a monopoly on the dark alternative world, nor are we the home for everyone sad, spooky and weird who doesn't fit in and might listen to any sort of sad, spooky or weird alternative music.

There are SO many dark alternative music scenes that have nothing or very little to do with the goth subculture. We've influenced a lot of them fashion-wise, but just because they copied us we look alike doesn't mean we're interchangeable.

There's no scale that goes from Prep to Goth and measures how Valid™ your inner darkness is, in which if you're anything below goth then you're a poser and lame. It's perfectly fine and cool to be dark alternative without being a goth. Goth isn't a badge of legitimacy or honor, it's just one specific flavor of dark alternative among so many.

Goth is a very small and obscure subculture despite our superficial hypervisbility (our looks and infamy are hypervisible, what we're actually about is extremely buried underground), and most dark alternative people aren't goths.

🦇 What does it take to be a goth?

There's one rule, and one rule only: LISTEN TO THE MUSIC. You wouldn't call yourself a metalhead without being a fan of Metal music, would you? The same principle applies to goth.

There are many types of alternative subcultures; some examples are fashion-based subcultures, another are lifestyle-based subcultures. A third type of subculture that's very prominent (especially in the West) are music-based subcultures.

Goth is a music-based subculture, just like the metalhead, punk, emo, rivethead/Industrial, hip-hop, rave, K-Pop and grunge subcultures are.

This means that, while the music isn't THE ONLY aspect the subculture has, in order to be a goth you have to listen to goth music, and we have a specific set of music genres that our subculture was built around, so not just anything dark and melancholy will do, as we don't have a monopoly on that, but we do have something closer to a monopoly on a specific sound and musical legacy.

You don't have to listen to goth music EXCLUSIVELY to be a goth, that'd be insane. You don't even have to limit yourself to dark alternative music either. You just have to listen to goth music to a relevant degree and be passionate about it and you're in, the rest is up to you.

This means too that the way you dress has no impact on your validity as a goth, whether you don't have the gothic wardrobe of your dreams yet or you just don't want to dress goth at all. I'm TikTok mutuals with a girl who dresses exclusively in pink-white sweet lolita coords, but who's passionate about goth music. She's a goth, no questions about it. On the other hand, a lot of the influencers you'll see online who look like a lost Addams cousin aren't goths at all, and no house decor or outfit will make them gothier if they don't listen to the music.

🦇 What music counts as goth?

From the previous points I made you probably gathered that Industrial and Metal ⁠– both genres that outsiders usually associate with the goth subculture ⁠– aren't actually part of the goth genre. So, what is goth music?

Goth music developed initially in the UK in the late 70s/early 80s off of dark Post-Punk. Post-Punk itself developed from UK 70s Punk Rock, being also influenced by Glam Rock, experimental electronic music, and many other influences more specific to each band that took part in this musical development (Bauhaus were very influenced by Reggae!).

What characterizes the goth sound are elements such as; being bass-driven rather than guitar-driven (in almost every case), guitars playing more of a decorative or atmospheric role instead of being the main focus (which contrasts starkly against genres such as Metal), preference for voices with a lower vocal range (altos, this is your genre to shine in!), optional use of synthesizers, recurrent replacing of human drummers with drum machines, and common use of lots of reverb and delay effects everywhere for an extra sensation that you're listening to music recorded in a catacomb.

Dark Post-Punk was the starting point of the goth subculture, and from it, all other goth music subgenres developed. Depending on who you ask there's a billion goth micro-genres. In my opinion a lot of those subgenres are rather meaningless (a lot of them are just specific flavors of Post-Punk or Darkwave) but the main 4 subgenres of goth music are:

(Dark) Post-Punk

Gothic Rock

Darkwave

Ethereal Wave

POST-PUNK:

Post-Punk took the standard sound of Punk Rock and its DIY ethics and made the sound more melancholic, romantic, experimental, less angry, and more introspective. Dark Post-Punk in particular was influenced by gothic literature and old horror movies (including their soundtracks, the Banshees created their characteristic guitar sound after the violins in the Psycho soundtrack).

Besides the 3 Post-Punk bands I listed as part of the goth "big 4", there's bands such as Skeletal Family, Twin Tribes, Specimen, She Wants Revenge, Sex Gang Children, Xmal Deutschland, Lebanon Hanover, Cruex Lies, The Secret French Postcards and The Birthday Party.

GOTHIC ROCK:

When goth became slightly more established in sound, Gothic Rock is what happened. Less experimental than Post-Punk, a bit more Rock-based, more decidedly dark and miserable than Post-Punk necessarily is, and finally severed from goth's punk roots. Sisters of Mercy is THE most popular and influential Gothic Rock band; they popularized the use of extremely low baritone vocals and drum machines. Despite existing since the 80s, its popularity peak was in the 90s.

Goth as a whole has its "big 4", but the subgenre of Gothic Rock has its own "big 3", which are Sisters of Mercy, The Mission (UK), and Fields of the Nephilim. Other Gothic Rock bands are Rosetta Stone, Corpus Delicti, Inkubus Sukkubus, Mephisto Walz, Angels of Liberty, Two Witches, Nosferatu, Wisborg and Soror Dolorosa.

DARKWAVE:

Goth going electronic! There's basically two types of Darkwave; the one that's more a combination of Post-Punk + Synthpop (very popular in the past decade), and the one that's more a combination of Gothic Rock + electronic music in general (most popular in the 90s). EXTREMELY danceable, but then again goths can dance to literally anything. This genre has existed at the very least since the second half of the 80s and has never stopped being relevant in the goth scene, save maybe during the Deathrock revival phase.

Clan of Xymox might be the single most influential Darkwave band. There's also The Frozen Autumn, The Crüxshadows, Switchblade Symphony, Collide, Dark, Ghosting, London After Midnight, She Past Away, Drab Majesty and Boy Harsher.

ETHEREAL WAVE:

This genre is heavily linked to Dream Pop, Neoclassical Darkwave and Shoegaze. Like with Darkwave there's basically a few styles of Ethereal Wave, I can pinpoint three; the one that's like, regular Goth Rock/Post-Punk but with a lot of extra delay and reverb and other stylistic choices that make it sound, well, Ethereal, dream-like. There's the type that has lots of Folk influences (be it Medieval/Rennaisance-ish type of Folk or "ethnic" type of Folk), and there's one that's synth-based but, unlike Darkwave, sounds like what ketamine must feel like. This genre has existed since the mid 80s but its peak in popularity and relevancy in the scene was in the 90s.

Dead Can Dance is THE most influential Ethereal Wave band, but there's others such as Cocteau Twins (started as Post-Punk, ended up as Dream Pop and Ethereal Wave), Miranda Sex Garden, Faith and the Muse, Lycia, Claire Voyant, Hamsas XIII, Love is Colder than Death, SRSQ, Black Tape for a Blue Girl and Mors Syphilitica.

What about Deathrock, Gothic Metal and Industrial?

Deathrock is goth's American twin, basically. While in the early 80s in the UK morose ex-punks were playing Post-Punk, in the early 80s in the LA Punk scene morbid and brooding punk kids were playing Deathrock; it's closer to Punk Rock in sound than Post-Punk, being more about being spooky and brooding than about being eerie and romantic. Goth is to vampires and witches what Deathrock is to zombies and werewolves.

To summarize the consensus on Deathrock and its place within the goth subculture; it's rare to find a goth who's not also into at least some Deathrock, and even rarer to find a deathrocker who's not into goth. Personally, I think Deathrock is its own separate though very similar thing, but I don't mind Deathrock being lumped in with goth music.

I made a whole TikTok video on why Gothic Metal isn't a goth subgenre, but in summary; Gothic Metal is a Metal subgenre that was somewhat influenced by goth music in its earliest stage of development, but is for the most part a cross between Doom Metal and Death Metal with lyrics inspired by gothic literature. By adhering to a Metal sound it doesn't fit the type of sound goth music has. The goth influences in Gothic Metal were mostly only present in the earliest bands and a majority of the newer acts are completely disconnected from the goth scene.

As for goth's ties to the rivethead subculture (and thus, Industrial music): We've been sibling subcultures since at least the early 90s. Both very, very small and underground scenes that despite being different, had enough similarities in music, idiosyncrasy and aesthetic sensibilities to comfortably band together for the sake of scene viability. That's why you might hear people talking about the "gothic-industrial scene".

Keep in mind too that 80s and 90s Industrial music sounded very different from how it does now (compare your average Grendel or Combichrist song to your average Skinny Puppy or Die Form song). There was a lot less influence of raver music in the rivethead scene back then, and a lot more influence from 80s dark alternative music and New Wave, which are key influences for the goth scene as well.

As told by goth YouTuber Angela Benedict (goth since 1995), every goth back then listened to at least some Industrial, every rivethead listened to at least some goth music, and they all loved 80s New Wave, so DJs at shared club nights had a very easy time entertaining both audiences simultaneously.

🦇 Trivia & other things to know

The term "gothic Rock" was being used in music journalism as early as to describe releases by The Doors and The Velvet Underground, but the word "gothic" there wasn't so much used to point to a specific type of sound at that stage, it was used to imply the mood of the music and that's not where the subculture gets its name.

We don't know for sure why this subculture began to be referred to as "goth", initially the music was called either New Wave (just a darker and more underground variety of it) or Positive Punk. However, one of the potential roots of this name for our subculture is that it comes from an inside joke from members of Southern Death Cult/The Cult about Andi Sexgang (Sex Gang Children) about how he was a creepy little guy obsessed with the macabre and dark romanticism living at the Visigoth Towers, so they called him a "goth goblin" and if he was a goth, then his fans were goths too.

From the comments that the goth bloggers/vloggers I follow get, apparently it's common for baby bats and people interested in the subculture to think that they HAVE to find a goth "type" to lock themselves into, like "trad goth" or "romantic goth" or whatever else, and if they don't, they're a poser. This isn't true at all. Most goths wax and wane between fashion styles and goth music subgenres. These terms are far more useful to describe aesthetics rather than people or music.

If you ever hear people talk about "1st/2nd/3rd wave goth/Gothic Rock"; that's an (in my opinion) outdated and not too functional terminology to differentiate between "eras" of goth music, 1st wave being between 1975-1985, 2nd between 1985-1995, and 3rd between 1995-? That terminology was used widely when I was a baby bat but not so much anymore.

"Baby bat" is what a lot of more established goths call newbies! It's NOT meant as an insult nor to be condescending. It's a loving cutesy term and while of course most baby bats are very young, it's perfectly plausible to be a very grown adult and a baby bat if they just got into goth instead of getting into the subculture as a teen.

Most goth bands are easily found on Spotify except for more underground ones that haven't been active for a while (I have so many beloved bands and songs that just don't exist on Spotify), but the real goth jackpot is at Bandcamp.

Facebook is still useful for one (1) thing and it's for finding goth events; that's where I've found out about gothic fairs, goth nights and gigs; from the largely popular ones in my local scene to the very underground ones.

The song most of the subculture agrees is THE first official goth song is Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus, which was recorded as a singular take. It was the first track the band recorded together, too.

The Batcave is infamous nowadays as a huge goth night club in Soho (London) during the early 80s, owned by the band Specimen, BUT as told by the very people who used to frequent the nightclub, the whole thing has been a little overblown and its current reputation is more legend than fact. YouTuber Gothcast has a great video on the subject that was praised by members of Specimen itself!

Most of the most iconic pioneer goth musicians HATE being referred to as goths or to have their music referred to as such. When the term "goth" was first starting to be used to describe our music and scene it was a pejorative used by outsiders and/or mostly associated with the campier and more "low brow" bands (Specimen and Alien Sex Fiend come to mind). Andrew Eldritch from Sisters of Mercy especially hates it, to the point he refuses to even say the word and refers to it as "the G word". Which is hilarious since he sounded the most stereotypically gothy out of the big 4 and looked like this at the time he started to be a piss baby about it:

Goth isn't really a "youth" subculture anymore if you ask people within the scene. Unlike people from many other subcultures, goths have a tendency to stay goth far into adulthood (even if covertly). When you go to any events, besides teens and people in their early 20s, you're gonna see plenty of goths in their 40s and older, a few of them will bring their kids along if the event is family friendly.

Besides the obvious chance of many goths being professional creatives (musicians, writers, artists, etc), for some reason A LOT of goths work in tech and healthcare!

Metalheads headbang, they and punks also mosh. What do goths do to vibe to our music together? We dance! We don't dance the same as non-goths but we LOVE to dance to our music, together or solo. There's no established dance styles to adhere to; it's just letting your body flow to the music. Some goth dancing is very intricate, some of it is very simple, it depends on the goth in question. Just in case, this is NOT like the dance gifs of cybergoths/rivetheads under that damned bridge. Think less that and more Wednesday Addams dancing to The Cramps, or the girl from the Night of the Demons movie. Here's some videos about how goths dance:

We fucking love 80s New Wave. No, Depeche Mode isn't a goth band; yes, you'll have to dig deep to find a goth who doesn't ADORE them. The only one I've come across who disliked Depeche Mode liked Soft Cell instead.

Goth IS international! Not just in the sense that there's fans of goth music basically everywhere, but that there's local goth scenes with their own local goth bands everywhere. Outside of the US + Europe + Canada, there's huge goth scenes all over Latin América (our Deathrock and Post-Punk are at times even popular among 1st world goths), and there's also smaller but still present goth scenes in Africa, Asia and Oceania. She Past Away is very much one of THE most popular goth bands in recent years and they're from Turkey.

The goth scene has always been in friendly terms with the LGBT community. Not only are many of our biggest icons LGBT themselves (the whole band Specimen, AVC from Sopor Aeternus, both members of Diavol Strâin, the vocalist from Male Tears, Cinnamon Hadley, and many more) but plenty of cishet goths (especially the men) embrace gender non-conformity and/or androgyny. In most local scenes, goth club nights are held at gay bars/nightclubs, as they don't tend to have privately owned venues. And either way, at any goth night there'll be tons of gay and gender non-conforming goths no matter where they're held. To varying degrees depending on the locality of the scene, gay and bi people are completely normalized in the goth subculture, and gender non-conformity and androgyny aren't just encouraged, but praised and coveted.

There's goths of any religion you can think of, but Neo Pagans are somewhat over-represented in our community compared to the rest of larger society (for better or worse). Funnily enough, very few goths are actually Satanists of any sort. I'd say the numbers go more or less similar to our local non-goth peers. In the West and westernized countries I'd say it goes; majority culturally-Christian atheist or agnostic goths (usually not militant about it), a few practicing Christians of whichever denomination (usually whichever is dominant in the country they inhabit), the rare but entirely plausible Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist goth, and a bunch of Neo-Pagans. Probably one (1) or two (2) actual Satanist goths per state/province/etc, tops.

World Goth Day is celebrated every year on May 22nd.

"Mallgoth" isn't a type of goth in either a musical or fashion sense. I made another TikTok about it, but in summary; it was originally hurled as an insult towards a very specific type of poser; the American kids in the late 90s and early 00s who imitated how goths dressed and called themselves goths while only listening to Nu Metal and maybe the most mainstream Industrial Metal. They tended to congregate at malls and behave particularly obnoxious to everyone there, further ruining our already delicate image (especially at that time).

Cybergoths aren't really goths either. Their music scene is centered around EBM, which is basically slightly darker and slightly more aggressive raver music that may or may not have Industrial influences. And to be honest they behaved like a rapacious invasive species in goth club nights to the point that they almost decimated the actual goth scene and it took us a while to recover from that.

Goths are sometimes perceived as too self-serious but honestly? We love making fun of ourselves and we tend to have a very silly or dry sense of humor. We're just tired of the same cheap and inaccurate jokes made by people who don't know anything about us. The best jokes about goths will often come from goths ourselves; you can only properly make fun of something you understand well! The few times outsiders get it right though? (Sad to confirm that the South Park goth kids are hilarious and I wish they were in a better show) You'll see goths sharing the SHIT out of it, such as me being obsessed with the goths from Ridonculous Race, or the clip below:

[diaryofajewishgal]

The revelation that Netanyahu purposefully propped up Hamas should tell you two things:

1. Netanyahu is a purely evil human being. He does not care about Israeli lives. He does not care about Palestinian lives. He would do literally anything to maintain his power. Israelis would do more to protect their own safety by storming Beit Aghion and publicly executing him than by bombing Gaza.

2. Hamas and its supporters internationally are an absolute fucking gift to the Israeli far-right. I don't think American leftists could do more to prop up the Israeli far-right if they donated directly to them.

(Neither of these things, of course, are new information: Bibi has shown his colors with actions like the expansion of West Bank settlements, and BDS and other poorly thought through acts of international "leftist" support for Palestine have often benefitted him; he should be sending fruit baskets to every SJP chapter in America.)

The corollary to this is that the Israeli blockade and bombing of Gaza is not only morally evil, but strategically stupid, and every moment it continues is a gift to Ayatollah Khomeini. The Iranian government doesn't fund and train and stoke Palestinian terrorists out of any great love for Palestinians; they do it because they understand that instability and bloodshed in the region is good for them. The people primarily reponsible for the Hamas attacks knew that the end result would be massive Palestinian loss of life, and this was not a bug but a feature to them.

Palestinians don't benefit from the public rape and execution of a young woman or the murder of 40 babies in their cribs. Israelis don't benefit from entire towers full of Palestinian civilians being reduced to dust and ashes. The only people who benefit from any of this are the power hungry far-right warlords who have stoked and funded this conflict.

There are, roughly speaking, 7 million Jews and 7 million Arabs in Israel & Palestine. Without a holocaust-level genocide of one of these peoples, the only options are a never-ending cycle of violence and bloodshed, or both populations learning to live in peace with one another. Every act of violence committed today makes the latter solution more difficult.

[steveyockey]

I paid $5 to access séamus malekafzali’s latest substack on palestine, here’s the full text,

It is easy to be lulled into a state of complacency, even with military occupation.

Israel’s occupation of Palestine has gone on longer than many of us on Earth have been alive, now going on 75 years. The levels of that deplacement, blockading, and violence have ebbed and flowed over years and decades, but that hand around the neck has always remained, even if how much it constricts has a tendency to loosen and tighten. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israel this year in its occupation. News bulletins of them dying, oftentimes teenagers, come up through the headlines of Palestinian newspapers and channels as often as the weather. These deaths at the hands of Israeli security personnel are not isolated incidents, with soldiers materializing on roadsides and at checkpoints as unfortunate coincidence. They are constant spikes in the waveform of an incessant low-grade hum of humiliation, imprisonment, and destruction that has made daily life a forced agreement to constantly exist on the precipice of death.

This framing is not meant to be a tired retread of the conflict between Israel and Palestine or the nature of the Israeli occupation. This is meant to be a bulwark against the inevitable framing of this latest battle unfolding around Gaza, as it will appear in the Western media in the days to come.

There is a tendency, a deep-set one, to report Israel and Palestine as two countries that are on roughly the same playing field internationally, as you might report on a war that might involve Israel battling against a place like Jordan or Egypt. This kind of coverage obscures how deeply interlocked Israel’s military operations are with the fabric of the Palestinian society.

In the West Bank, settlements and checkpoints have made Palestinian land into a kind of comical archipelago, where in addition to being separated from Gaza by a huge land border, they are also separated from traveling to communities only a stone’s throw away from them without going through significant anguish. In Gaza, while no Israeli soldiers walk the streets, all their land borders are essentially sealed, their ports almost completely blockaded. Israel’s continued occupation has been so pinpoint and precise that its planes have gone as far as bombing bookstores, and its restrictions did not let up even when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced one health organization to carrying only as many tests of the deadly disease as could fit in a car.

This is not a matter of moral justification; one does not need to constantly busy themselves with having to make a full ideological conversion before understanding this. This is a matter of cause and effect.

What is the logical expectation, regardless of politics, ideology, culture, and creed, when a population of people is thrust into conditions that can only be described as an open-air prison, where every individual is a criminal in the eyes of the military occupying power regardless if they pick up a rifle or not, because there is supposedly always the threat that they will one day?

These are the basic conditions that have preceded the initiation of Operation al-Aqsa Storm this morning. As dawn broke on the morning of October 7, only one day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, launched a military operation of unprecedented scope in its history. Hamas fighters would not only attempt to enter Israeli territory proper with ground troops, already in of itself an intensely bold action (though not without precedent in the past decade). This operation would be a combined incursion into Israel by both land, sea, and even air. Ground forces would cut the border fence into settlements surrounding Gaza, speedboats would make landings in southern Israel, and fighters from a newly-inaugurated paraglider division would fly over the border fortifications and then further inland.

Threats of an invasion of Israeli territory proper have been a staple of speeches from Hamas and Hezbollah and groups like it for years. There was a long-standing perception by outside observers that it was fanciful. An intentionally lofty piece of propaganda that fires up supporters while the real military wheeling and dealing is done under far more subtle and controlled terms, as with most militant organizations. After all, no Israeli-administered town, the ones occupied in Palestine during the initial 1948 war, had ever been taken in any war against the Jewish state since its creation, even by a combined force of multiple Arab national militaries.

That notion now can no longer exist.

At sunrise, Hamas fired a gigantic barrage of rockets into Israeli territory, a staggering 5,000 in the first wave alone. As Israeli military and police forces were distracted by fires and rocket destruction in residential areas of the country, Palestinian forces in Gaza proceeded to make their primary move.

After the sun rose, Hamas cut through the border fence surrounding Israel and sent both fighters on foot and on motorcycles into Israel. Images released by the group seem to tell a story in frozen figures. Israeli soldiers, strewn dead, caught by surprise, one having even rushed out so quickly that he put on his military gear but no other clothes except his underwear. An even grimmer story could be found in one of the IDF military dormitories, where an entire room full of soldiers had been massacred, only having perhaps seconds earlier gotten the alarm that Hamas had breached the perimeter, many of them seemingly mid-way through getting out of bed.

From there, Hamas made unprecedented move after unprecedented move. Hamas fighters moved as far north into Zikim, built on the former Palestinian village of Hiribya, and moved as far east as Ofakim, built on the former hamlet of Khirbat Futais. The Erez Crossing, for years the only legal border crossing that Israel operated with the Gaza Strip, came under full Palestinian control. Sderot, a city where Israelis had once gathered on couches dragged to high peaks to watch the bombardment of Palestinians, now found themselves facing down Palestinian fighters in their own streets.

An additional shock would come in Israel’s initial response. Amidst cataclysmic scenes like hundreds of ravers in the desert near Gaza fleeing on foot, neither the Israeli president nor the prime minister spoke in those early hours in the morning.

The Israeli high command, despite the continuous insistence of Palestinian factions that they would one day attempt to take the fight into Israel itself, had become complacent. They, like many observers of Israel-Palestine, believed the occupation they had constructed could go on forever, unburdened by the need to adapt. Israeli soldiers after all were now more used to sniping reporters and unarmed protesters than engaging in military conflict. Entropy was what was propelling the military occupation complex of the Jewish state, not a wholly active effort.

Despite an ungodly amount of Western military equipment, highly advanced anti-aircraft systems programmed to shoot down thousands of rockets, an international reputation for tenacity and strategic knowhow, and multiple victories against Arab nations again and again and again, all of it ended up being useless against a Hamas fighter flying in on a box fan and a parachute.

This failure is two-fold, and both are closely related. One is the expectation that things could go on as before without addressing the root of the issue (that being a military occupation of an entire state), and the other in expectation that those being occupied had no capacity to learn from experience how Israel’s military strategy operates, people who could then going on to capitalize on that knowledge.

There is a fundamental flaw in the perception of Western powers toward the Middle East in general and Arabs in particular that because the groups fighting with Israel or the United States are irregular, bereft of highly professional uniforms and dedicated gigantic military headquarters, that they do not have the same ability to strategize and to confront the forces that are occupying their countries. Flashes of how faulty this thinking is rear their head again and again, from Iraq to Afghanistan and everywhere in-between and around, but still the idea, unspoken as it may be, remains that they are fundamentally unequipped compared to the might they are fighting against. But Hamas has military strategists of its own, ones that understand the asymmetric situation they are dealing with, and ones that understand what the actual capabilities of Israel are, versus what their perception is.

The perception of Israel’s invulnerability versus what has actually been displayed today could not have been more different. Instead of being forced to immediately pull back, in essence making today a raid, Hamas has instead actually contested several Israeli settlements, which are still being fought over at time of this writing many hours after the initial incursion from Gaza began. A single Israeli soldier captured and held in Gaza used to capture the Israeli imagination for years; now there are believed to be not only tens of soldiers captured by Hamas, but tens of Israeli civilians as well, all now being held within the Strip. Hamas has also brought Israeli military vehicles back into the Strip, the novelty of working IDF equipment now under Palestinian control a source of celebration within the territory. Over 100 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the first day of Hamas’ attack, and nearly 1000 injured, a shocking early casualty count in an ongoing conflict where casualties on the Palestinians’ side are usually far more lopsided.

Israel’s response so far to Hamas’ operation has been to escalate rhetorically, with Netanyahu now calling this a war, and escalating its usual military strategy with Gaza, with carpet bombing now on an intense, concentrated scale. At the time of this writing, almost 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in only a few hours, with that number expected to rise significantly in the days to come. Already, news has come in of Israeli planes having leveled Gaza’s second-largest building, the Palestine Tower, which housed a plethora of media offices, in scenes reminiscent of Israel’s bombing of another tower block of media offices in 2021 that infamously took out the local bureau of the Associated Press.

As fighting continues into the night in ways never seen before since 1948, the question remains: after all these decades, why now?

The ostensible justifications of what the clincher was that sparked this operation are innumerable, but two appear to be most clearly illuminated: the recent increased activity of far-right Zionists at the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem (hence the name of the operation itself), but just as well the indications that the Saudi Arabia and Israel may be close to a normalization deal, which would be the largest such development in the Abraham Accords yet. Hezbollah mentioned this operation as being a “message” and a “decisive response” to Arab nations pursuing the idea of normalization with Israel. Still, it is important to recognize that pinning the undertaking of a completely gigantic operation of this scale as just a simple message to Saudi Arabia would be reductive. As the Los Angeles Times’ international correspondent Nabih Bulos says of the matter:

“To pretend that Hamas did this to be a spoiler of KSA-Israel normalization is just downright epic in its navel-gazing nonsense.”

What is important to always return to is that eternally governing line above everything: the low hum of constant occupation, and who has been causing its spikes. Israel’s government, its most far-right in its history, has been on the warpath almost immediately from its inauguration, with figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, now thrust to the forefront, doing everything large and small to provoke a Palestinian response. The hope is that the inevitable Palestinian response can mobilize the Israeli society, that it can be swiftly defeated by the Israeli military, and that the Israeli state can use such an opportunity to impose its sovereignty over what little of Palestine governed by Palestinians remains, and perhaps even what lies beyond it.

But that formula relies on the Palestinian side only accepting being provoked, themselves having no strategy of their own outside of firing rockets and yelling on television. Military occupation breeds a feeling of annihilation, but that annihilation is enclosed with it inevitable feelings of rabid and desperate hope, inspiring within irregular groups desires to try things never tried before. These are not always guaranteed to be successful: one may look at Aleppo when rebel groups managed to come together and break the siege on the city in the final stages of the battle, only for it to fall in the months to come anyway. Nevertheless, there is a real perception within Israel, communicated out to the world by its media and by its intelligentsia, that it is a nation on the verge of internal collapse, brought to the precipice by far-right forces it has let fester for decades without envisioning its eventual conclusion.

What does looking at how Israel is faring now communicate to Palestinian factions in Gaza? What do young people in Gaza, who make up 47% of the Strip’s population, imagine might lie ahead for them as they see these events unfold? What does a Hamas fighter imagine might be possible when, as the writer Josef Burton says, he exits a 25 by 7-mile space he’s never left in his entire life?

[mossadspypigeon]

As a late comer to some of the nonsense, can you explain or point to something explaining what watermelons have to do with Palestine? Asking google "what the fuck do watermelons have to do with Palestine" was not a productive search. Where did that come from?

hello anon! yes indeed i can. this is gonna be a long post, so buckle in lmao.

so the main and simplified reason the watermelon is used (and i'll get into some more complex stuff and context because both are important to understand with this) is because red/black/green represent the PLO flag, which is known as the "palestinian flag."

now, i don't know if you know who the PLO are, so:

(this notice to include secondary sources is so faulty btw. this is based on primary sources written BY the plo, which removes bias of interpretation)

i recommend reading this wiki page at least and clicking on the sources for more information. it isn't as bad as some wikipedia pages and it can provide a good introduction.

now, the PLO is an internationally recognized terrorist org. it split into numerous factions, including yasser arafat's "fatah." fatah controlled groups like black september, which committed the munich massacre and also murdered the king of jordan.

the PLO itself has committed numerous acts of terror, including the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. terrorists who hijacked this ship shot and tossed a disabled jewish man in a wheelchair named Leon Klinghoffer overboard, etc. so no, they are not a resistance group. this act was sponsored and supported by arafat.

if you want to know more about their bullfuckery, which i recommend, read their charter here.

okay, now moving on to the flag:

you've probably noticed that the red/black/green/white thing is a motif used by several countries. this is because of "pan arabism."

rootsmetals did some good posts on arabization:

the specific colors have meanings, and those meanings are either religious or secular. the religious and secular connect though. let's take a look. i'm going to use arab sources without commentary on any biases:

on the other hand:

so. we know about the flag's history and its meaning. we know what it represents. now, let's go into the whole "watermelon" thing:

the reason it's used depends on who you ask. if you ask the pro palestine crowd, the watermelon is used in place of the "palestine flag" due to "censoring" and "silencing."

this goes back to the propaganda that israel banned the palestinian flag. israel DID NOT ban this flag legally, but it did have it taken down because...guess why? why would israel want the flag of the plo not flown? it's like flying a kkk flag in the usa, that's why.

yes, you have freedom of speech in israel, but it has its limits. those limits are hate and incendiary speech. the plo flag is a symbol of hate based on the charter and acts of the plo itself. also, fatah/the palestinian authority, which currently governs the palestinian section of the west bank/judea samaria and east jerusalem still pays terrorists who murder jews and israelis and are imprisoned. sooooo you can guess why the flag was taken down, but here is some of the propaganda:

the lack of sources in this article lmao.

again, hilarious lack of sources.

if you ask the pro israel crowd, it's an appropriation of a very zionist crop and a symbol of decolonization.

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if i find more sources on this, i will do another post.

but yes, the watermelon emoji is used because "the internet silences palestine," which is hysterical, considering google favors palestinian sources and most major news networks employ either palestinians or palestinian allied supporters.

and of course, tiktok and the rest of social media won't remove antisemitism, but will constantly ban jews and israelis. hence why finding sources on the jewish history of the watermelon is difficult.

anyway. hope this helps. <3 if you're comfy, definitely dm me sometime if you want to discuss things and/or get sources.

@matan4il do you happen to have any sources on the israeli/jewish/zionist history of the watermelon? if you do, it would be so appreciated.

[pixiesfz]

hey! could you maybe do a sam kerr x matildas!reader where sam and reader get into a huge fight before a game and refuse to talk to eachother, but then during the game reader gets hurt really badly and it absolutely terrifies sam causing her to just snap out of it and comfort the reader, feeling really guilty about their argument

when I saw this request I had just been dreaming of the best not cringe and actually like valid argument that doesn't put either reader or Sam in the right.

give up? s.k

plot: Though you and Sam play internationally together you play in Barcelona for the champions league but Sam casually brings up a contract for you in the WSL which leads into a fight and then a very messy game.

warning: angst, swearing, stubborn people, blood, injury, LONG

It was known that your contract with barca was coming to a close, many people thought you would stay and you would if it wasn't for girlfriend.

You're loving girlfriend Sam Kerr who isn't just your fiancé but also your national captain.

You grew up together as you were both called up to almost all ages of the Matilda's camps. "annoyingly slowly" Caitlin says you two realised your feelings for each other before you got your first signings out of Australia.

You were scared when she went to America that you would have to break up but somehow the two weeks of Australia camps every three months held you two threw it.

So Sam knew you were the one for her and you knew you could never imagine loving someone more than you loved Sam.

So last year when she flew up to Barcelona 'secretly' (mapi accidently told you) to propose you said yes immediately.

Jessie played in London and you in Spain it was an unspoken problem that the two of you rarely brought up but it hurt every time you had a bad game and couldn't crawl into Sam's arms.

A phone call wasn't enough.

So Sam started talking around to WSL leagues secretly and vouching for you, you didn't need vouching though managers would dream for a defender like you, you were clean and patient with Umpires.

You still gloated on how you had never received a red card ever.

You loved Barcelona and the girls that you played with you had many memories there, you helped Alexia with English sometimes in interviews when she was confused, she mainly picked you for partners when doing Media duties so you could help her with anything.

Mapi had even once convinced you to get a matching tattoo with her, just a small one under your boob of a cartoon like soccer ball with your number next to it.

Barca had been amazing for your career, you won a lot. Which you loved but you never had Sam to celebrate with as she was in London.

Moving to a different club would be a hard decision and Sam was at her high at Chelsea being one of the captains, you weren't a captain but you couldn't help the selfish intentions that came over you.

Sam had been having conversations with clubs such as Arsenal but also her own.

Emma didn't deny when Sam said you would be a great fit in the team and you and Millie defending together would practically be a brick wall.

But she didn't say anything until the first night of your last tillies camp of the year.

It was dinner and you were all sitting with the 'trio', Steph, Katrina, Hayley and her three children.

"What are you doing about your contract?" Mackenzie asked you as you looked down at your plate and played with your pasta "uhm-"

"Chelsea's keen on her" Sam piped up and you quickly turned your head to her, you went to say something but Steph beat her to it "I heard Jonas talking about how she's going to the WSL" she teased and you shot her a confused look which she didn't see.

Alanna made comments about man city as Mackenzie did West Ham but you looked down.

You hadn't made any choices.

You and Sam hadn't talked about it.

Did she expect you to just drop your career?

You were quiet for the rest of dinner before finishing quickly and going up to your shared room with Sam.

"Did I say anything bad?" Alanna asked as she was the last to speak "no" Sam said and looked at her food "I'll go check on her" she said before following after you.

You were in the shower when Sam came in, your thoughts were clouded by questions.

A knock sounded at the bathroom door when you got out "babe?" Sam called out "Can I come in?" she asked and you shook your head "no"

"why not?" she asked and you started to get changed "cause I'm naked"

"Oh c'mon I've seen you naked before"

"I'm not in the mood for jokes" you called before zipping your (sams) Jumper up and walking out, brushing past Sam's shoulder.

"Alanna thinks she said something, are you okay?" she asked and stepped forward to you.

"How did Jonas apparently know I was interested in the WSL if I haven't made any decisions yet?" you asked and Sam stopped walking "I- I don't know" she said and you rolled your eyes "you do know!"

Sam slumped "Okay I may have been telling teams in the WSL that-"

"That I what?, want to leave my team of seven years? Sam we haven't even talked about what I should do, this isn't something that you do alone" you said, using your hands dramatically, something Sam noticed you do when your serious.

"You never want to talk about it!" Sam shot back "every time I bring it up you talk about something else"

She was right but you were too angry to realize that at the moment.

"What so you go behind my back?" you scoffed "Sam this is my career do you expect me to drop it so I'm with you!" you yelled and Sam stood back "well do you not want to be with me?" she asked softly and you groaned "of course I want to be with you but you don't seem to mind the fact that this change will only effect my career"

"I'm sorry I actually want to be able to sleep in the same bed as my fiancé for more than two times a month!" Sam yelled and you shut your eyes before storming towards your bag.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked "Grabbing my stuff and going to Steph's room before I say something I'll regret" you say as you packed your bag.

"What like maybe how we shouldn't get married?" Sam said sternly as the tears that you had been holding rose to your eyes, you froze, your back towards Sam.

You zipped up your bag before you turned to Sam who look defeated.

"yeah" you sniffed "exactly that".

You didn't mean it and neither did Sam.

When you left the room and closed the door you sobbed, your brain screamed at you to go back and to kiss Sam as hard as you ever had before and apologies.

You would move to any club for her.

You would do anything for her.

When you reached Steph's room, she didn't question why you were crying, just held you as you cried into her arms.

In the morning of the game you woke up feeling like shit, your eyes were puffy and red and there was a note on the door from Steph saying she would bring up breakfast up for you.

You smiled at your friends kindness and got dressed into your kit before going into the bathroom and trying to get rid of any signs of the tears that melted your skin the night before.

You wondered if Sam felt the same way.

When Steph walked down stairs for breakfast Sam perked up from the corner of the room, expecting to see you but Steph shook her head at Sam and instead grabbed two of everything so she could bring it back up to you.

"You look shit skipper" was all Mackenzie said as she patted Sam's shoulder.

When you and Sam finally saw each other in the morning was when you were getting into the bus but luckily Katrina's eager toddler was adamant on sitting with you on the bus.

"Why have you been crying?" Harper asked you in a sweet tone as you sat at the back with her "I said something bad to someone I love" you admitted and Harper snuggled into you which you accepted.

You didn't see how Katrina and Sam were watching you together at the front of the bus.

"What did you do?" Katrina asked and Sam crossed her head "I can't talk about it right now"

You fell asleep with Harper cuddling you pretty quickly as you lacked sleep from how long you had been up crying.

Katrina was the one to wake you and Harper as Harper cried up to her mum "No matter how many times I cry to you mummy I still love you!" Harper yelled as she snuggled into her shoulder, Katrina looked at you, a knowing look in her eye.

"That's okay bubba. People say mean things when they're upset sometimes, even to people who they loved."

You sighed as you smiled at the older woman 'silently' thanking her.

You didn't talk to Sam before the game started, you knew she didn't like to have big chats before going on the field even if her mind was screaming to go up to you and apologies.

You felt off, you didn't feel the butterfly's that you felt in the tunnel as you usually did but instead you felt dread.

You tried breathing in and out but nothing was helping and Sam was at the front of the line so you couldn't see her.

You needed her to tell you it was okay.

You were playing Canada and they were out for revenge because of the World Cup, they wanted to send off their captain with a win.

It wasn't until the 45th minute until it happened.

The ball was in Canada's square and Cloe Lacasse had kicked the ball as hard as she called as Mackenzie ran up and blocked it but the ball went past her fingertips and almost into the goal until you ran and jumped, your foot in the air as you kicked it into the opposite direction.

Well at least you hoped it did, all you could see was black.

The stadium fell silent as they watched your head connect with the goal post, players near you hearing the smack that had sounded out when you collided.

Sam was on the other side of the field when it happened.

Her breath hitched as some players looked at her in sorrow as she watched her fiancé, the love her life, the called 'princess' of Australia bash her head against the metal post.

She'd never felt herself move so quick in her life as she ran towards you, any memory of last night gone as she saw your body on the floor.

You were stirring awake when Sam reached for you "baby?" she asked, grabbing onto your hand as the medics arrived, you didn't reply your head was stuck in the air as your eyes travelled around frantically, you heard your thoughts too loudly.

'tell her you're okay'

but you couldn't.

So when the medics brought out something to cover the bleeding on the side of your head, Sam let her tears drop out "I didn't mean what I said last night" she said in tears but you only squeezed her hand before the medics took you off.

It wasn't until after the game, Sam didn't congratulate any of the Canadians and didn't interact with any fans, she went straight into her car and drove to the hospital that you had been taken to.

She waited in the waitiing room for twenty minutes which felt like two hours until a nurse walked out.

"y/n y/l/n"