Totentanz

-Be careful; understanding a character's actions and empathizing with them does not mean justifying those actions.-

Btw someone did help Erik and someone did help Henry, did someone help Istvan? Got that in mind from days.

With all the respect for your feelings and trigger, I ask you If you are easily impressionable, please keep scrolling without looking below the cut.

Thank you for your attention, be kind.

I'm made of linen and salt, my blood is made up of feathers

He runs on language and laughter he's made of leather and pepper

Our limbs walk over to each other, the bodies are shoving

And I grab him by the tie and oh god, I think he's blushing

And the tactics, accents, rip my seem

He's a hopeless, focused, fucked up dream

"You forbade me to tell you that I love you.

But I can still show you that I do."

Fascism thrives best in the cesspool of hopelessness. They want us so confused and hopeless that we give in. When you give in, you don’t fight back.

If you wait for life to look good to do the things that bring you joy; life will still be bad - you will just have less joy.

As someone who has struggled with my mental health a lot for the last thirty years, I know this struggle firsthand. And changing this belief system - the one where you spend all of your time expecting bad things so you won’t be surprised when they happen - it’s the hardest work that I have ever done. And I’m not perfect; I still have setbacks. I still experience really real fears about the state of the world and the US, in particular, because that’s where I live.

But I made a vow to myself that I will not let the choices of others ruin my life. When I made that vow, I was thinking of my parents - but it applies to the state of the government right now, too.

There are still flowers in my garden, and ripe tomatoes, and it’s almost pick-your-own apples season, and I have plans with my friends to go to as many cemetery ghost walks as we can find this October.

I still deserve to live. I still deserve to laugh. I still deserve to love. I still deserve to be as happy as I can be.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"Censorship of some topics in fiction and art is good and I would be happy if it were to be enacted in a way I approved of"

and

"some things should be banned from ever being written or read about in fiction"

are both authoritarian viewpoints to hold and express, even if you don't have the power to enact them.

Something being nasty is not a good reason to ban fiction about it.

If we accept that "something being nasty is a good reason to bad fiction about it" then we give a foot in the door for all the people who truly, genuinely believe that queer people are nasty to ban all queer literature.

Either you’re for it or you aren’t.

The moment you agree that something should never, ever exist in fiction is the moment that anything can be banned.

Remember a while back how Tumblr banned a bunch of tags, including many popular innocuous ones that even people who are for censorship used and were upset about?

When censorship happens, stuff YOU like can and will be banned. That’s how it works.

Remember how a bunch of people had their accounts terminated here only last year for writing about their own sexual abuse?

When you ban “pedo” topics, say, any talk of child sexual abuse in any form, that means people can no longer write about their own experiences. It means people cannot educate others so they can learn how to protect themselves or get help from these situations.

Censorship is authoritarian. Full stop.

Even if “everyone” agrees something is “gross” and “shouldn’t exist,” that does not fucking matter.

Do you know who generally believes queer people are gross and shouldn’t exist??

The same people who are banning books left and right solely because they have queer characters or relationships.

The same people who attack and kill queer folk for simply exisiting.

This is not just some fandom matter or a case of being chronically online.

In 2007, Livejournal capitulated to the "pedophilia and sex crimes!" cries of (hate group) Warriors 4 Innocence, and you know what communities got shut down? Slashfic communities. Sexual assault survivor support communities. Authors who'd written non-smut m/m fic even got caught up in it. It was DEVASTATING to fandom spaces. I think pretty much everyone knew at least one person whose account was literally DELETED, or were a member of a community that was wiped off the map because they were considerate enough to include topics like "sexual assault" or "BDSM" in the profiles under the badly-named category of "interests" to indicate that posts on said blogs or communities may include discussion of things like that. Even if it was for a SUPPORT group. And it was because a group of religious bigots came to LJ and said essentially "EVERYONE thinks it's gross and that it's promoting CSA, we should ban it."

Like, strikethrough and boldthrough were a large part of what propelled AO3 out of a more unfocused conversation on one person's blog about hosting a site INTENDED for fandom content, into being an actual archive and nonprofit. And it's a large part of why you won't find AO3 banning topics that you find "gross".

Example:

Me: I think clergy who sexually abuse children should be held accountable for their actions.

Straw man: OMG why are you persecuting Christians????

What we're seeing here is the same thing.

Me: Censorship is bad. Freedom of expression is crucial to a free society.

Straw man: OMG why do you love pedophilia????

Literally nobody is saying that. But framing the anti-censorship position as somehow being pro-pedophile is a) bullshit and b) a tactic to force anti-censorship advocates to back away from their position.

It's exactly the same as when people advocate for defunding the police or holding them accountable and the GOP comes back with WHY ARE YOU SOFT ON CRIME, WHY DO YOU LOVE CRIMINALS?

So congrats, you're using the same arguments as fascists.

If you want freedom, that means some of the things people choose to express are going to make you uncomfortable. That's the price of doing business, y'all.

The scene at Nebakov gives us a few things to take note of already. First, the fact that Erik sees Hansry and instantly realizes that they're a threat, and then the fact that Isterik clearly know each other extremely well: