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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Original Work Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Additional Tags: Satire, Espionage, Ripped From the Headlines Series: Part 4 of The Nazli Darzi Spy Stories Summary:

With a possible attack on Iran by the United States imminent, it's up to super spy Nazli Darzi to break into the Pentagon and get those war plans!

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This is the power of primaries! This means Cuomo won't be the Democratic candidate in the general election. This means it doesn't have to be a choice between a shitty Democratic candidate and an even shittier Republican candidate!

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Something I'm really loving in The Wheel of Time is that we see Egwene (in the first season) encounter the White Cloaks and see first hand the drawback of having to use one's hands to channel. Then we see her (at the White Tower) practicing channeling without using her hands. And then we see that when she needs to channel in a dangerous situation, she doesn't use her hands. It's a really great bit of characterization!

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Happy pride month to my dad. When I came out as bi to him, this man googled what it ment, look at me and said "ohh. Yeah. You get that from me. You'd have far more siblings of I only shaged women." And went right back to his work emails.

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The Aes Sedai should be academically studying What It Means to be a Woman, and they should know it's not sex assigned at birth or genitalia.

In communities where channeling is an incorporated part of society, "would go mad if able to channel" should be a huge part of assigned gender!!

There should be beliefs about how gender is determined that aren't genitalia/sex-assigned-at-birth. Even if these beliefs are bullshit or complete nonsense. Like, give me a town where every child is gendered female until they pass the age where channeling manifests, and have a special coming-of-age ceremony for any non-channelers who want to be men.

Just, Trans Inclusive Gender Magic with Dire Consequences should have a big impact on social understandings of gender.

Trans Legends in The Wheel of Time

Okay, prefacing this post with the understanding that The Wheel of Time is adapting an older series and also only gets eight episodes a season and also has already been cancelled.

With that said, I'm in the second season, which means that (I think?) Aes Sedai who are trans women have appeared as background characters. (Look. I'm horrible at clocking trans women. Unless it's spelled out, I'm liable to miss that they're trans.)

But with Rand's male channeler angst, I find myself wishing trans people had been more incorporated into the legends of the series.

Because, look, the series has gendered magic rules with serious consequences that are trans inclusive. That's big!

Some channelers since the Dragon broke the world are going to come into their channeling ability before they socially transition or perhaps before they even come to terms with their own identity.

And that's something communities are going to have to process.

It's like, the Two Rivers has the women's circle. What happens if a channeler is initiated but then begins to display signs of "going mad". For channelers, being a trans man has to be terrifying!

Conversely, being a trans woman would be a reprieve.

The stakes mean people would be anxious to be "sure". And that should be something that creeps into the myths and legends.

Even if the language used is different, there should be stories about, like, a "male" channeler so pure of heart that the gods turned her into a woman. A legend of a "female" channeler cursed with the madness of men. Stuff like that. Exceptions to the rule make for great tales.

Someone had to have gotten their egg cracked by a Red being unexpectedly able to see their weave.

There should be an entire elict business of elixirs and tonics that purport to give male channelers the "soul of a woman" in order to save them from the madness!!

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Commission for @honeykiwis ! Thank you for the support!

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Trans Legends in The Wheel of Time

Okay, prefacing this post with the understanding that The Wheel of Time is adapting an older series and also only gets eight episodes a season and also has already been cancelled.

With that said, I'm in the second season, which means that (I think?) Aes Sedai who are trans women have appeared as background characters. (Look. I'm horrible at clocking trans women. Unless it's spelled out, I'm liable to miss that they're trans.)

But with Rand's male channeler angst, I find myself wishing trans people had been more incorporated into the legends of the series.

Because, look, the series has gendered magic rules with serious consequences that are trans inclusive. That's big!

Some channelers since the Dragon broke the world are going to come into their channeling ability before they socially transition or perhaps before they even come to terms with their own identity.

And that's something communities are going to have to process.

It's like, the Two Rivers has the women's circle. What happens if a channeler is initiated but then begins to display signs of "going mad". For channelers, being a trans man has to be terrifying!

Conversely, being a trans woman would be a reprieve.

The stakes mean people would be anxious to be "sure". And that should be something that creeps into the myths and legends.

Even if the language used is different, there should be stories about, like, a "male" channeler so pure of heart that the gods turned her into a woman. A legend of a "female" channeler cursed with the madness of men. Stuff like that. Exceptions to the rule make for great tales.

Someone had to have gotten their egg cracked by a Red being unexpectedly able to see their weave.

There should be an entire elict business of elixirs and tonics that purport to give male channelers the "soul of a woman" in order to save them from the madness!!

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what i’ve failed to understand since i was a kid is why these ghouls want war with iran so badly. is it resources? do they have money in defense contracting? is it just that iran is too strong an opponent to us hegemony? why specifically do they want to see iran destroyed?

There is not one singular motivation behind the drive to send the US to war with Iran. There are multiple motivations which often overlap, but which are held in different orders of prioritization by different advocates of war. Most of these motivations are irrational and/or immoral, while others are legitimate complaints that could be addressed through diplomacy far more easily than they could through militarism.

Here's ten common motivations and arguments for a US war with Iran which you might encounter:

Independence from the US: The Iranian government is among the world's least-willing governments to obey US demands and subjugate themselves to the US-led order. For certain US primacists, this independence means that their very existence poses an existential threat to US dominance (similar to North Korea, Cuba, etc.) To a particular type of US militarist, it is necessary for the Iranian government to fall in order for the US to remain the unquestioned leader of the world.

Real Fear of their Nukes: There is a substantial contingent who really does believe that Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon and that they could well use it if they were to develop it. Logically, the best way to address this concern would be through a diplomatic deal similar to the 2015 JCPOA, which Iran complied with! But the intensity of anti-Iranian sentiment among US hawks tends to convince them that direct military confrontation is somehow a better option, thus explaining why Trump decided to break this deal.

Desire for Revenge: Many older foreign policy hawks in the US have never forgiven Iran for 1) the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis, and 2) the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon, which was orchestrated by a terror organization with ties to the Iranian government. In their minds, both of these incidents were embarrassments to the US' military prestige which we have never properly gotten revenge for. (These people tend to ignore the massive wrongdoings which the US has carried out against Iran during this same time period, like the US destruction of Iran Air Flight 655). There are people in and around the Pentagon who have wanted to bomb Iran over a grudge for more than 40 years now.

Iran's Regional Proxies: Over the last several decades, Iran has engaged in an aggressive campaign to expand their influence throughout the region by supporting proxy paramilitary forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, etc. Many of these proxies have undeniably engaged in acts of terrorism. This strategy is both opportunistic (taking advantage of the power vacuum caused by the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein) and defensive (countering the regional influence campaigns of Saudi Arabia and Turkey). This is probably the most legitimate cause of US anger towards the Iranian government, but it is a grievance which will only be worsened by backing Iran into a corner militarily.

Israel (and Saudi Arabia) Hates Them: Iran is unfriendly with two of the US' closest partners in the region: Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israeli government, in particular, has long been laser-focused on the overthrow of the Iranian government, and they are fully committed to dragging the US into such a regime change operation. For the most fervent defenders of Israel in the US, overthrowing the Iranian government is near the top of their wishlist.

They Got Oil: Oil is a factor which is often overstated in these discussions, but it definitely is one of the factors. Iran currently produces 5% of the world's oil and has the potential to produce far more were the current sanction regime against it to be removed. They also have the ability to shut down the Straight of Hormuz, an important chokepoint through which 25% of the world's oil flows. Regime change in Iran would significantly increase the leverage that the US and its allies hold over global oil markets and further weaken the strength of OPEC.

And Other Commodities Too!: Though the separation between the US and Iranian economies hurts the US economy as a whole, there are certain sectors of US industry that benefit enormously from having Iran so heavily sanctioned. Some of the big names in the US pistachio industry have lobbied heavily to keep US-Iranian relations unfriendly, because the elimination of US sanctions on Iran would allow the massive Iranian pistachio industry to compete with the US industry. As long as these two governments hate each other, a few politically-connected US businessmen make way more money.

Diaspora Pressure Campaigns: Most Iranian-Americans hold the following two opinions at the same time: 1) they hate the current Iranian government and want to see it replaced, but 2) they strongly oppose US efforts at regime change in Iran. However, there is a vocal minority of Iranian-Americans that do support regime change efforts, and they tend to cluster into two well-organized groups that wage pressure campaigns against the Iranian government. The first are the monarchists, who want to see the son of the former US-backed Iranian dictator restored to power. The others are those who are loyal to the MEK, a cult and former terrorist organization which has been extremely effective at building relationships with US politicians. Both of these groups work full-time to push the US towards overthrowing the Iranian government so that they can step in and take over; it's fairly easy to find both of these groups in online social media threads about US-Iranian relations.

Who Cares, We Want War: As I have written about many times before, the US military-industrial complex encourages the US government to engage in militarist behavior in order to boost their profits. Iran is one of their favorite boogeymen to justify increased levels of US military spending, second only to China. These companies fund think tanks and other policy initiatives to argue that Iran is an immediate threat to us, and then they fund political candidates who want to spend more money preparing for this "threat."

They're Crazy! You Can't Trust Them!: We are led to believe that the Iranian government cannot be negotiated with because they are irrational, they're anti-Western religious zealots incapable of reasoned decision-making. This is a convenient excuse for war, but it's entirely incompatible with the restraint that the Iranian government shows in responding to Israeli attacks, their continued willingness to sit down for diplomatic talks with their aggressors, the way that they helped the US government deal with al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11, and a million other indications that the Iranian government is just as rational as any other government in its geopolitical decision-marking.

Add all of that together, and you get a deranged political ecosystem obsessed with inflating the scale of foreign threats, finding excuses for maintaining the trajectory of our militarist status quo, increasing regional tensions, and rejecting obvious opportunities for diplomacy and a peaceful resolution of our differences.

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Yep. This is why my current WIP novel uses "ghoul" as the name for what's happening, even though the audience will understand the novel as "Zombie Apocalypse IN SPACE."

It's a weird linguistic mix-up where the 'zombie' label got transplanted onto ghoul mythology despite, as the OP notes, the most influential "zombie" movies not even calling them that. And in the case of Night of the Living Dead, literally calling them ghouls.

can u imagine if other pieces of media were as scared of calling their monsters what they are as zombie media is about calling zombies zombies

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lake wants to kill and gnash and gnash my bones I think

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We are seeing the same playbook as Iraq and a lot of Iraqi diaspora also said the same things when it was ongoing. Regardless of how you feel about the Iranian government, do not fucking do CIA job

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i was playing pokemon blue on stream earlier at 350% speed and i got to thinking

what if the reason nobody in the pokemon world has any good teams is because its considered a dick move to have a proper team comp

like culturally everyone is like “haha pick the pokemon you want! if you’re happy with three geodudes, thats you and your life!” and then you’re supposed to just have a friendly battle with any other pokemon trainers and whatever pokemon they just happen to have

like the average trainer is probably just walking around with a growlithe because that’s their pet, or a hiker has three geodudes because the geodudes help him with hiking. and if this pet owner and geodude hiker meet, you’re supposed to have a friendly battle but nothing too serious

now imagine the 10 year old kid that has six pokeballs on their belt comes up. you’re like “haha, we’ll have a friendly battle!” and you throw out your geodude 

and they throw out a fucking gyarados, and it one-shots your geodude 

and then you throw out your pidgey you have because the pidgey helps you navigate mountains because you’re a hiker

and then electricity crackles around the gyarados and a thunderbolt flies off of this giant dragon and evaporates your pidgey 

so you’re down to your last pokemon. you tell them you’re gonna send out your bulbasaur. the ten year old is like “oh okay in that case i’m gonna pull out my vulpix.” like not only is this kid walking around with an amped-up super dragon, but theyve also got multiple pokemon specifically for making type advantage counter-picks?

this kid’s a fucking asshole! really, kid? what are you trying to prove here? this is a friendly match between strangers for fun! why are you composing real-ass competitive teams? what a fucker! 

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Aldo Bellini's biggest sin is not realizing he's in a story with a chosen one. In agreeing to try to be elected, and then in seceding his nomination to support Tremblay, he's doing what you're supposed to do. He's not letting great be the enemy of good! He's refusing to let a fascist take control even if the other candidate isn't perfect!

When literal lives and your dad's late pope's legacy and millions of people's place within the church is at stake you are actually not supposed to wait for a savior. You are supposed fight with the tools you have.

Except he's in a work of fiction with a Jesus-allegory character. Benítez is the right choice for pope, but to just assume that? To assume you'll be saved from the brink of fascism by a third party candidate divine intervention? That would have been the irresponsible choice.

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this is for my oomf that is so tlt

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"And remember when you fell down that hole!" "Which one?" "...Remember falling down holes?" Congrats to @gayghostrights for winning the animation raffle I hosted during Invictuscon 2025! They requested Arthur falling, which is of course a very Arthur thing to do c':

Thank you so much for being patient with me! This was so much fun to animate!

No motion lines under the cut!

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woke up and turned over and there was a roach next to me.... wtf did we do last night....?