#-new campaign that he came up with and he's yet again using the tribal savage horrific stereotypes

[piplupod]

re: prev post, just an anecdote of my family's bs

i remember when i was trying to have a conversation w my family, esp my brother, a while back (last year) about the prev post's topic, and ohhh my fucking god. it was one of the worst convos I've ever had with them. my brother was whining about how difficult it was to not be racist and to know what qualifies as racist and what's "okay to say" etc (along with ableism, but racism was the main point of that convo at that point), so I said he just needed to go searching out some musicians and podcasters and streamers of colour and you'd pretty quickly diversify your media intake and pick up good habits and good viewpoints just through that one simple action. it's like,,, really not that hard to find POC to subscribe to/follow if you do a simple look-around in your usual spaces u spend time in on the internet.

and he said, and I quote, "i'm going to be honest, i just don't care enough to do that" and yet he had just been whining about how hard it is to not be racist and how he was stressed because people kept telling him he was being racist,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, head in my hands !!!!!! he went on to explain just how little he actually cared and how it seemed like too much work to him even though he'd literally just been complaining to me for like 20 full minutes about how he was so stressed and didn't like people telling him he was racist.

like i know what he wanted to hear was "its okay if ur racist, im sure ur just doing ur best :)" but i'm not going to fucking say that to him. even if it would make me safer in this hell house, i am not going to fucking affirm anyone's comfort in being racist.

[warsofasoiaf]

Now that the Traitor Primarch series is over, shall we start with the loyalist ones? I vote for the Khan to lead the charge.

The Khan would approve of being the first in the fray.

Jaghatai Khan is a man of contrasts. He is derided by his enemies and rivals as an ignorant savage, yet possessing of a firm honor code and member of a highly sophisticated tribal culture. He is a cerebral man that also possess a fierce love of battle. He is an individualist yet prides serving his father in his Imperium. Yet for all his contrasts, he never betrays the sense of his character and never feels inconsistent. He is who he is, and that is enough for him.

This is one of Jaghatai’s most noticeable traits, a fierce pride and confidence in himself. He presents a simple surface but is a remarkably complex man, and he does not care if you take what is on the surface and think less of him because of it. The White Scars and their Primarch appear barbaric but have a rich culture; and while they make no attempt to confirm this image, they do keep to themselves and allow others to draw their own conclusions. This is an ironic contrast to the Space Wolves and Leman Russ, who embrace their identity as barbarians yet have a richly detailed culture. For those who can appreciate him, for those who look deeper, the Khan is a fast friend; this is the relationship that the Khan has with Horus Lupercal. He is an outsider and thus bonds easily with other outsiders, this is the source of his strong relationship with Magnus the Red. Yet where Magnus pushes ever forward with acts of sorcery, his pride seeking to be recognized for the great deeds he can accomplish with his psyker powers, Jaghatai keeps his pride to himself. Where Horus pushes to be central and fears a world that forgets him, the Khan does not mind because he knows who he is and it does not matter if the world does not know him. There will always be battles to fight, games of go to play, calligraphy to draw. He is no ruler, and is happy to leave that task to those who want it.

He is a rabid individualist, and finds it to be liberating and free, the happiest the Khan can ever be is simply to be himself, laughing all the way. This is carried through in regard to his Legion, to the point where he permitted the warrior lodges because to forbid his White Scars to do so would be tyrannical. He encouraged self-expression among the White Scars rather than adhere to a rigid set of monastic beliefs as might be found in other Legions. He campaigned for permitting the Librarians not only for their utility but because an Astartes is responsible for his own actions, the entire concept should not be forbidden simply because of a danger. Everyone must stand for themselves. Even the White Scars who swore a Chogorian blood oath and found themselves on the opposite side of the Khan stand proudly, refusing to recant their oath and sink to Horus’s level, and the Khan honors them by wearing their names on his sword, bringing them to fight the Traitors so they can die as oathkeepers and loyalists both.

The Khan is an individual and free, but with that freedom comes restraint. He fights with laughter but not without thinking or overindulgence, saving him from the worse exercises of pride. This also allows him to put aside his differences with his brothers, he recognizes their differences and accepts that he may never understand them fully just as they might never understand him, but the hawk comes back to the hand that loosed it, and that bond of loyalty to the Emperor trumped his personal feelings of friendship toward Horus and Magnus. Jaghatai was an individual but never thought of himself as the center of the galaxy, he was simply himself.

This sort of restraint is found in the White Scars writ large, best emphasized in their concept of the Path of Heaven. The proper path is to take a single draught from the bowl and then put it down. The White Scars and their Stormseers do not fear the dangers of corruption because they know they must temper it with balance, and they are confident in a way Magnus never could be. Magnus believed that the Great Ocean could offer no dangers that he could not handle and so was utterly blindsided by the machinations of Tzeentch. The Path of Heaven mandates restraint as the way to protect oneself, not gaining greater power and proving mastery.

When the Kurayed tribe slew his foster father, the Khan felt that direct action would be the only way to stop the tribes from fighting each other, and so in traditional Genghis Khan fashion, he united the fractious tribes. Also like Genghis, he promoted his soldiers on merit and split up tribes in order to foster unity to craft a new polity, showing his Primarch instincts in creating not only great warriors but great soldiers and a strong army. In his conquests, he offered his enemies a choice, surrender or obliteration, and was remarkably true to his word. Those who surrendered were spared, those who did not were obliterated. This sense of honesty and honor is another hallmark of the Khan, he does not lie about who he is. He does not necessarily divulge the information, those who wish to know him must undertake the effort to do so, but he does not lie.

He indeed has a remarkable distaste for lies, and Stormseer Yesugei shares with the Khan one of the greatest lies of all: You are the strongest, and now all you can do is build bigger walls. To the Khan, this is a lesson of remarkable arrogance, of asserting far more knowledge of the universe than you really know, of asserting far more power than you really possess. The Khan understands restraint, and understands that there are limits to what he knows. Hence at Alaxxes, when he wasn’t sure who was a traitor, he refused to get involved until he learned the truth of what happened at Prospero, ignoring calls for aid from the Space Wolves. His demeanor came to a head on Prospero where he finally learned the truth of the Space Wolves killing the Thousand Sons and scouring their capital world. When he learns the truth, he finds that Mortarion followed him to Prospero. Jaghatai rips into Mortarion, hitting him not through their differences but through Mortarion’s own actions. The lord of the Death Guard lobbied extensively for the banning of psykers only to be on the side that permits them to be completely unrestrained and now he was alone, caught between those who embraced pyskers and those lost to themselves to the point where they no longer cared. An Astartes is responsible for his own actions, and a Primarch is as well, and Jaghatai was not about to bail Mortarion out of the prison of his own making. When he finds Dark Glass, his intelligence is on full display, he sees that there was a greater purpose behind the Great Crusade that the Emperor had and it involved the Webway, but he accepted that he didn’t know the full story and so refrained from passing full judgement, accepting that there was much he had yet to discover and learn.

Of course, the Khan’s honor has gotten him into trouble as well. A dispute in the proper use of speed with Corvus Corax led to a rivalry between the Raven Guard and White Scars that lasts to this day (save for individual moments like the Hunt for Voldorious) After the Sacking of Prospero, where the Space Wolves were attacked by the Alpha Legion, the Khan merely wished the Space Wolves well while he sought the truth. His desire to fight the Traitor Legion led him to be alone, isolated behind the Traitor Legion lines, bleeding from attrition by the forces of the Emperor’s Children and the Death Guard, because his honor did not permit him to withdraw. It took the loss of Stormseer Yesugei to get the Khan to realize his folly. He was losing sight of the Path of Heaven and of the oath he made at the end of Scars, that he would be on Terra when the Traitors came, and the price was the Khan’s last friend from Chogoris, leaving him alone.

But when he returns to find Leman Russ, the Khan’s honor is back again, and he stands with defiance despite knowing that Russ was angry for the Scars abandoning him at the Alaxxes Nebula. The Khan stood tall and stated that he went through Hell to be there and nothing would stop him because that is what he is, and that is what he must do. Russ immediately respects that and looks forward to the day when the Warhawk and Wolf would battle side-by-side. True to his word, the White Scars went to Terra, and formed one of the three loyalists to fight on Terra, using his speed to seize the Lion’s Gate starport, the rapid assault overwhelming the Traitors and the automated weapons inflicting devastating losses. Despite being in a grueling defensive battle, Jagahtai remained true to his doctrine and used his key advantages of speed and shock to overwhelm his enemies. He always dared forth, laughing as he fought, the first to strike. A man of fierce honor and bravery, a man of deep contemplation, a man who makes mistakes and learns from them. A blend of contradictions into a balanced whole.

He is, as always, who he is.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King