#Ari's Threads

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ari Drennen at Ari's Threads:

When authoritarian regimes collapse, it often looks sudden—leaders flee, governments dissolve, and the state unravels in real-time. But collapse is rarely spontaneous. More often, it’s the result of a slow, self-inflicted erosion of power, set in motion when leaders overestimate their own support and push too far. This was the case in Afghanistan in 2021, where the U.S.-backed government, built on external military support rather than genuine legitimacy, crumbled almost overnight. It was also the case in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where a war meant to demonstrate strength instead exposed military and political weakness. And it was the case in South Korea’s 2024 martial law crisis, where a government that assumed it could impose military rule without consequence was swiftly removed from power. Again and again, regimes that assume their grip on power is unshakable discover—too late—that their own overreach is what brings them down.

Overconfidence Leads to Overreach

Authoritarian regimes don’t collapse because of one bad decision. They collapse because of a pattern of miscalculations—each one widening the gap between the government and the people until the state is too hollow to stand.

[...]

Not all resistance looks like street protests or armed insurgencies. Some of the most effective opposition happens quietly, in ways that authoritarian governments struggle to contain. During World War II, the OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual outlined ways that civilians could disrupt enemy governments—not with bombs, but with small, deliberate inefficiencies. Workers were told to misfile documents, delay projects, introduce small errors that, over time, would make the entire system grind to a halt. That same principle applied to Hong Kong’s 2014 protests, where a leaderless, encrypted messaging-driven movement made it nearly impossible for authorities to arrest key organizers. Every time police tried to crack down, new protest flash mobs would appear elsewhere. Digital resistance allowed the movement to stay ahead of law enforcement for months. In South Korea’s 2024 crisis, protesters flooded government hotlines, overloaded digital reporting systems, and created so much bureaucratic noise that state enforcement became nearly impossible. The government couldn’t keep up with digital disruptions, and by the time authorities responded, resistance had already moved to a different platform or tactic. Once a government loses the ability to enforce its own rules, even in the most basic ways, its power begins to slip—sometimes faster than even the people resisting expect.

[...]

Regimes Collapse from Within as Much as from Without

Governments don’t just fall because of external pressure. They fall because of their own mistakes. They push too hard, alienating even those who once supported them. They purge too many people, creating enemies where there were none. They assume military force can solve political problems, only to find that wars are easier to start than to win. They mistake silence for support, failing to see that silence is often just the absence of a safe way to speak. And then one day, the silence shatters, and the regime collapses so fast that even its leaders are caught off guard. Regimes that look stable on the surface often collapse the fastest. Russia hasn’t fallen, but it has been plunged into a financially ruinous war, losing soldiers and resources at an unsustainable rate. What was supposed to be a quick military victory has instead forced the country into a long, grinding conflict that is weakening its global influence and economic stability. Iraq was supposed to become a stable democracy, but de-Baathification fueled years of insurgency. South Korea’s government thought it could impose martial law, but within weeks, mass resistance forced it out.

Ari Drennen wrote a solid column on how autocratic regimes accelerate their collapse as a result of their drunken hubris, as we have seen in South Korea and Russia. This also applies to regimes that seemingly look stable.

[dailypokemoncrochet]

Jan-New-Ary Day 7/8! I think paradox pokemon are going to be difficult for me to do in the sense that I have done many of their "regular" counterparts and they'll feel too much like remakes, but this one had the additional hurdle of basically being 3 pokemon in one (magneton which is just magnemite x3 and both of which I've already done), PLUS more details. Altogether took 8hr7 and I had to take so many breaks because I was falling asleep a lot. Also this is a good example of a pokemon whose design really isn't that complicated, just time consuming. I love the way it turned out though!

[inkshadow]

random closed starter for @sunliights featuring ari and bella.

"babe, are you busy? i have to talk to you about something."

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

i will use any excuse to sneak sampo into my party

[noirhistories]

closed starter for max / @fatebinds

"hurry up, you're being evicted," ari declared as he opened up the door of the cell. no matter what max was picked up for or by whom, it seemed like nothing ever managed to stick to him. which really wasn't any of ari's business and he wouldn't have cared about max sitting in a cell, except his shift ended in about ten minutes and he wanted a beer. he wasn't being nice, he wasn't lowering himself to do the works of other people, he was acting completely in his own self interest. plus, he always thought it was funny to have an excuse to shove max in the back of a car and threaten him with handcuffs - it truly was the little things in life that mattered. "five, four, three…"

[oopsallmabari]

oh i'm really vibing with the graphics style tbh!!!

and HARDING MY BELOVED HARDING HIIIIIIIIII

[fallingsohard]

i've been gone for sooo long but i'd like to make a comeback because things have ( finally ) somewhat calmed down for me & i miss writing! i have a lot of my owed replies drafted but i'm making this post to see if anyone wants to continue the threads we had going on before i left?? it's been so long i really don't know if anyone is still interested/even follows me anymore lmao

[ofduskorofdawn]

a semi-plotted starter for @warofthebeasts

It is a strange knowledge to have acquired.

He had known—of course he had known!—for some time the horrors of which ShinRa was capable. There is no amount of starry-eyed optimism that can ignore the things that have happened in Wutai, the conditions in the slums, and even specific instances closer to home... all of which can be directly tied or correlated to the actions of ShinRa.

A glance to the two grim and silent Turks in the heli with him is all it would take to affirm that understanding.

Ariana had lost her father—under circumstances directly pertaining to his persistence in trying to locate one missing Vincent Valentine—and undergone such hardship as no one so young as she had been then should have had to endure. As if that had not been enough, she had also been forced to sacrifice any hope for her future, simply because ShinRa had insisted upon her employment, being the daughter of a former Turk.

And Tseng... Reeve does not know him as well, but he knows enough, if only due to inferences from veiled or ambiguous statements that Ariana had made to him from time to time during the course of their own conversations in instances where she had served as his security detail. Tseng had lost every bit as much as Ariana, if not more, in coming to work for ShinRa—willingly or otherwise?

No, he has long been aware of the lengths to which ShinRa will go... the horrors of which they are capable...

But this... This is an entirely different matter...

Someone must have known. If it had been so simple of a matter for him to discover, then, surely, someone must have known... mustn't they? Did they simply not care? Had they merely written off the other as an expense line item on a page?

If they did not know... he cannot determine, even as he offers Ariana a quiet 'thank you' when she helps him step down from the heli and onto solid land once more, if that makes the entire situation better or worse.

The readings from the Nibel Reactor had been... peculiar, to say the least. It was not quite to the point of raising an alarm, but they were certainly not the customary readings. Of course, he has never been allowed the same oversight with the Nibel Reactor as those in Midgar—considering it is under the jurisdiction Research and Development... Professor Hojo. At first, he had dismissed the odd readings as likely being some experiment of the Professor.

Still... something in the back of his mind whispered to him that something was not right, gnawed at him in a way that he could not ignore.

He had sent a spy, first, one that could get in and out without being detected.

What was reported to him was worse than he could ever have guessed.

That was when he had enlisted help from those who travel with him now, though not before he heard that Hojo would be elsewhere. Wary—or perhaps one might even say paranoid—still, he had not told them anything more than that he needed a security detail for a trip to the Nibel reactor until they were well on their way. He could not risk them being overheard, after all!

Now, approaching the site and entering into its rather eerie half-light... he can feel the discomfort pulling at him once more, the sense that something is very, very wrong. He focuses upon it, the whispers of the machines humming in his mind, and allows it to draw him toward the epicenter, the two Turks following behind him.

At the railing of the platform over the Lifestream, he looks over into the brightness of the Planet's life energy...

"Can he... Can he even still be alive?" Tseng questions as he peers over as well.

Even to Reeve there is an almost note of something that might have resembled hope had it been heard from any besides the ever grounded Turk. [ But then, perhaps it is the nature of a parent—and those who fill such a role—to hope, even if it is antithetical to their basic nature.

"Truthfully, Tseng... I cannot state an affirmative or a negative with any measurable degree of certainty... This is... unprecedented, to say the very least..." Reeve answers, shaking his head as he squints against the light. "All I know... is that the Reactor... its strange readings led me here..."

The correction is minor enough—or his preoccupation great enough—that Tseng seems not to notice it, though Ariana does give him a scrutinizing look before turning her attention to Tseng.

"Whether he is or he isn't doesn't really matter, does it? Either way, if we can retrieve him... we owe that to him, don't we? To... To rescue him or... to properly bury him..."

Though Reeve certainly cannot know, some unspoken something seems to pass between the two Turks when Tseng turns to meet her gaze, the briefest shadow of... what Reeve would almost guess to be some strong emotion(?) flickering across his expression... before he schools it carefully away again and nods in answer.

"Then, I believe that we have some work to do... Leave the first part to me," he says as he moves to one of the control panels and begins to study the console, silently yet fervently willing it to aid in his efforts as he works...

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ari Drennen at Ari's Threads:

I have always been terrible at jumping through bureaucratic hoops, but the incoming Trump administration was enough to make me finally take action. Like many trans people, I felt an urgency to update the name and sex on my Social Security card. The stakes felt high, and the timeline felt even tighter with Trump’s promise to enshrine into law that there are only two genders, assigned at birth. My first attempt to navigate the Social Security Administration (SSA) process was through their phone system. After calling multiple times and enduring hold times of over an hour and a half, I found myself frustrated by the lack of options. There was no way to speak to a human without waiting indefinitely, no callback system, and hold music that made me want to claw my eyes out. It was a bureaucratic nightmare, and I still hadn’t even made an appointment.

Thankfully, my friends who had recently updated their Social Security cards reassured me that you could simply walk into the local office to get it done. So, on Friday, I headed down to the Social Security office, paperwork in hand, hopeful that this would finally be the end of the ordeal. When I arrived, I was met with an unexpected roadblock. The security officers at the door informed me that the SSA no longer processes any changes without an appointment. They said I could take a number, but it would be a four-hour wait just to speak with someone—and even then, all they could do was schedule me for a future appointment. [...] With less than one week left before Donald Trump takes power, armed with a legislative agenda that explicitly targets trans people, this new policy is creating unhelpful barriers for those scrambling to update their legal documents. Even though the actual process to update a name or sex marker on a Social Security card can be done by a single employee in about a minute, there’s no online option to schedule appointments, and appointments made over the phone or in person could be weeks into the future. President Biden has often said that he has trans people’s backs. Changes like this suggest otherwise.

[...] By standing my ground, I was ultimately able to update my Social Security card. But this experience shouldn’t have been this difficult. It shouldn’t require navigating byzantine policies or advocating for oneself in a system that feels designed to wear you down. To my fellow trans people: if you’ve been putting off updating your documents, now is the time. Go today, tomorrow, or Friday. Print out the announcement so that you can cite the language. If you have not updated your passport with your new name or gender marker, do the paperwork and drop the application in the mail before this weekend. The process can be frustrating and exhausting, but getting it done before these barriers grow higher is crucial. Trump could easily introduce even more roadblocks to updating this paperwork, making the process even harder in the future. The process can be frustrating and exhausting, but getting it done before these barriers grow higher is crucial. Resources are out there to help, and with persistence, you can make it through. There’s still time, but don’t wait—protect yourself now.

Ari Drennen recounts the horror story she faced while updating her legal documents in the wake of Donald Trump’s return to the White House and how trans and gender nonconforming people can change their gender markers before it becomes even more onerous.

[torridturncoat]

it would be really funny if bran ends up being the third head of the dragon, bc not withstanding incest as a targaryen cultural practice, and assuming a decent portion of it was passed down on the mistaken understanding they have to keep the bloodline pure to fulfil some mystical purpose, and then it doesnt matter fuck all.

much like clan gojo inbreeding to preserve a cursed technique that, for lack of a better explanation, they understand fuck all about & does actively fuck all unless paired with another more niche&rare technique once every tengen abortion. a gege akutami solution to modern problems!

[inkshadow]

random closed starter for @sunliights

"did you think we'd end up like this?" this was arbitrary and could be taken a great number of ways. ari wonders if bella knows she means completely, totally head-over-heels in love with your best friend. that eventually it becomes insufferable to be apart from one another for too long. she wonders if this is the feeling she's supposed to have that will finally drive her to split entirely from her parents. for now, she'll just remain thankful for the sanctuary that her brother's home provides the two of them for the summer. "i know that caelum likes to joke around about us not talking about what we are and i'm not super bothered by labels or anything at this point but... y-you know how i feel about you, right?" and really, the better question was if bella knew the extent of how much ari loves her.

[noirhistories]

closed starter for dante / @saltedearths

"crying mothers shouldn't count." ari muttered in annoyance as he walked into the office and pulled out his wallet, removing a five from inside and shoving it in the glass mason jar with a post it note that said 'crying fees' along with a price chart. "they cry too fucking easy. you look at them the wrong way and they start sobbing over every injustice their baby has ever faced." they were all bleeding hearts and you'd think eventually they'd harder themselves to loss, but maybe grief remained an oozing, infected wound when you didn't have the closure of knowing why your loved one was lost.

[jcksonfields]

Who: @aridhingra and JD

Where: The Challenge (beforehand)

When: May 2025

Though pumped for the obstacle course and all it had to offer, JD was also a bit nervous. He hadn't exactly competed in one of these things before, and though he was an athlete, he was still a bit nervous about it. Of course he wasn't about to tell anyone that, let alone let it affect him but still. Taking some time to relax the night before, he found himself down by the fire pit, sitting on one of the benches by it, just letting the flames flicker in front of him before realizing he zoned out. Shaking his head, he looked up and saw Ari nearby so he got up and joined him. "Hey," JD said reaching out for a handshake, "competing or cheering tomorrow?"

[bittcrsuite]

open to: anyone ! plot: based on this ! muse: stella monti. 26-32. cosmetologist. dreams of opening her own salon one day.

"what are you doing here?" stella feigns surprise, failing to mention that she assisted with the guest list. she was tired of being iced out, so it was time to take matters into her own hands. "are you... did you bring a plus one?"

[ofduskorofdawn]

@warofthebeasts continued from here

"But..."

The boy jumps a little at another rumble of thunder, and he shrinks himself down further, his expression an equal mix of shame and genuine fear.

He hadn't yet gotten used to how the storms around the ShinRa building always sounded so close, as if he could open a window and lightning would come in.

The realistic part of him knew he was safe.

But he is only a child.

"...It's...childish... to be afraid of storms... but it sounds so close..."

@ofduskorofdawn

To see the kid so jumpy is a rarity, to be certain. She suspects it was not something he had necessarily intended to be observed, considering how she had just happened across him. But happened across him she did, and, as usual, she couldn't just look the other way.

[ He's just a kid. He shouldn't have to feel like he has to deal with these things alone. ]

"Hey, it's not childish. Hells, I've seen grown adults who are scared of storms. The fact is, anybody with any sense is afraid of something. It's just a matter of what. That's just how our brains are wired. You could say that it's a survival mechanism."

"Me? I hate the dark... Well, no, that's not exactly right... Maybe it's more that I hate the unknown of the dark, not being able to see what's in it."

It hadn't always been a fear of hers, but... Sometimes fears aren't innate; they're learned.

"So for me, it's things that go bump in the night. For you, it's storms. I don't know, but yours seems pretty reasonable, if you ask me."

[hidden-storybrooke]

@secrets-in-hospital

"Whatever you're going to ask, the answer is no."