#I have been following the news closely

[heckyeahponyscans]

The situation with Israel and Gaza reminds me so much of the United States right after the 9/11 attack in 2001. When every concern that the US should avoid killing civilians was met with, "Oh, so you don't support our troops and want the TERRORISTS to win??"

I was a young adult during 9/11 and I remember the fear and anger that roiled American. So I understand Israelis feeling those emotions. Anger is a natural emotion. But if you let it rule you, nothing good will come of it.

In 2001, I was as angry as any American and I thought we were right to go to war to Afghanistan, "to get the terrorists". (I was always against the Iraq war.) If I could travel back in time, I would tell younger-me, "It wasn't worth it." All that was accomplished was thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghans died. When our soldiers finally caught up with Osama bin Ladin and killed him . . . I felt nothing. To kill this one bad man, we left an ocean of dead innocents. And for what? Bombs can't kill terrorism any more than they can kill grief.

Looking at Israel, I am disturbed to see the highest members of its government label any criticism of it "anti-semitism" and equating empathy with the Gazans--a civilian population trapped, cut off from clean water, from food, from fuel--as "supporting Hamas." Anti-semitism does exist, of course, and it is wrong. But critiquing the political actions of a political state is not automatically "anti-semitic." Saying Gazans don't deserve to be indiscriminately killed is not "supporting terrorism."

It's so bitterly funny that the US State Department had a big media blitz to convince everyone "Israel didn't bomb a hospital, dont' get it twisted! It was a Hamas missile gone astray! We repeat, Israel DID NOT bomb a hospital!", and then Israel attacked, like, three hospitals. Supposedly there are Hamas tunnels under them.

Even if those tunnels exist, attacking a hospital is not justified. Because it's a hospital. And it doesn't even make sense in context. If someone told me "There are terrorists hiding under that hospital, they are armed and dangerous and have taken hostages," my first thought would be "Holy shit, we've got to evacuate the patients and medical staff before the terrorists take them hostage too!"

I would not think "Well, let's surround the place and prevent medical supplies from entering so the patients slowly die, while the terrorists escape via the tunnels that I think exist."

It seems like this 'war' is mostly about destroying as many lives and as much infrastructure as possible.

[valyrfia]

i have an informative covid post that's currently going mildly viral or at the very least has left my sphere of influence and i'm just thinking of a poor soul that thinks "huh, she sounds reasonable i'll follow her" only to open my blog and be hit in the face with my takes on which f1 drivers are having the most rancid sex with each other

[vynnyal]

This is likely the hardest I've laughed in rain world yet. Basically, you can glitch a spear into a quantum state using a dead bat body, allowing stabbed enemies to follow you through tunnels. So I tried bringing a leviathan to Moon. And the game really, really didn't like that

[doberbutts]

[zhukzucraft]

i'm launching another quick poll b/c i'm going feral from the lack of Hermit Permit updates

doc used to check the full list/status: link

now watch all the remaining Hermits post their vid in the next 24 hours, rendering this obsolete actually, i hope they do

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

thinking about the elections tonight... bad, cellbit, baghera, and forever are four candidates who are devoted to the island- more specifically, to the residents of the island. They care for the eggs, and they care for each other, and the way they exhibit that care through their primary presidential strategies is fucking fascinating.

Bad is who I watch the most, so I know him best. He's a classic mother hen. He doesn't like to take risks with the eggs, and he likes to prepare. If there's any sort of variable that could hurt an egg then he wants to control it. They have a stable relationship with the federation right now- it's not great, but they know the parameters. Don't trust cucurucho. don't follow cucurucho. send the eggs to NINHO every time there's a threat. the time of day changing means you need to run. Other than that they're p okay and roughly safe. But adding a president could potentially change everything. What if the president makes a rule that makes it easier to kill the eggs? And what about the way a president could cause tensions between the players to rise even higher? The dynamics of the island could change drastically. It's safer to neutralize that threat before it ever becomes a threat. It's easier to stop a war before it can start.

Baghera's primary concern is the way the election is designed to pit the residents against each other. All of them know that the Federation is a threat and she, like Bad, is focused on not letting them hurt more people. But, unlike Bad, she's less resistant to change. If the power is spread to multiple players rather than just one, it will be harder for the Federation to corrupt any one of them. Each time before the Federation has gotten to someone it's done so by isolating them. Felps, Cellbit, Jaiden- they've all spent a lot of alone time with Cucurucho. A council isn't just to consolidate the ideals of the island; a council would protect the players themselves. Sure, there might be disagreements and arguments, but they've had those before (and they're having them now!) and there's no reason to think they wouldn't be able to get through them again.

I hit a bit of a wall with Forever and Cellbit's pov here. Everything I know about their plans are from the debates and paraphrased discussions that have been translated here on tumblr, I'm going to talk less about their explicit plan and more about what the result will entail- a single president who takes responsibility for the island. It seems to me like they've recognized the presidential seat as the powerful opportunity that it is, and they want to take advantage of it. Here's some extra personal speculation but, adding rules, adding or removing mods, proposing public works, enforcing laws- those are just the abilities that are listed. Those are incredible opportunities to make the Federation take action, which is more than they've had before. We've seen before that the Federation isn't perfect; the Federation makes mistakes.

By working with the Federation, by making them take action (in a semi-controlled, semi-predictable way) you open them up to more opportunities for them to fuck up (while benefiting you). And, maybe, one of those fuck ups will be the key to taking them down. Maybe they could reopen ender chests. Maybe they could open the nether. Maybe they could learn why the Federation is holding an election in the first place. It's possible to do all these things with Baghera's plan, sure, but that's not a guarantee and, if someone like Bad is on the council, there's absolutely no way to be sure it would get done. And, if there's a council, then that opens up everyone on the council to the Federation's wiles. If there's just one president, then that's where the Federation's focus will be. By using a single person to build a relationship with the Federation, they only risk that single person. By electing ministers instead of a council, they can ensure that the island residents' needs are being heard while placing the federation's focus on that one person. A point can be made that they've done that before- with varying results. like kidnapping. selling your soul. etc. But! overall, I think they've gained more than they've lost by singling out one person. Because of them, we know that Cucurucho can't be trusted. We know that the Federation has a series of tunnels underneath the island. We know that the Federation not only has some sort of cryo technology, but had some unknown reason to use it. We know that there was another person working with Cellbit to take care of Felps (theorized to be ElQuackity), so we know there's at least one more Fed that isn't Cucurucho + blank-faced workers. There's been risk, but there's absolutely been rewards. This is just a very long meandering way to say that their plan to sacrifice Forever to the presidential seat reminds me very much of Cellbit's plan to sacrifice himself to the federation. They're saving their friends by potentially damning themselves and I, for one, think that is cool as hell.

they all care about each other so much. bad's plan means taking on no more risk. baghera's plan means spreading that risk evenly to stand strong together. and cellbit and forever's plan means taking the risk onto themselves so they can reap the rewards for others. am i reading too much into things? no this is tumblr and this smp is about LOVE and i really genuinely think that their election plans are a fantastic example of just how much they love each other

[maegalkarven]

"Player character can't be the cleric of Bhaal, Myrkul or Bane."

Ok coward

[archduke-enver-gortash]

mmm essay about sally and kid gort in the tags (cw for child abuse, mentions of suicide, animal cruelty and a murder attempt. i always hope i don’t have to say this but just in case: i don’t excuse or condone any of her or gort’s behaviour at all.) this is literally not even touching upon everything i have to say because i hit the fucking tag limit lmao. NOBODY READ IT’S BAD BRAINSTORMING I JUST NEEDED TO GET IT OUT SOMEHOW

[theunconcernedembalmer]

Slides this doodle out for a bit

[caracello]

i'ev been thinking for a while about likeee. making some kind of private blog or something 🤧 i'm too attached to this blog to properly remake but also i have been getting so stressed just being on my dash.

[zoomguanyu]

When Zak Brown says a far more appropriate response than any driver all while playing the same game as them, there is literally no way you can defend any driver who shuts down the issue with “I just want to race” or calls it “noise.”

[exlimix1a]

Hey Hey hey hgey hey guys. have you heard that sheezy.art is coming back

[outeremissary]

Ritual....

Happy "I'm sure it's still OC Kiss Day 5 somewhere" to all who celebrate. It's me. I celebrate. I was busy coloring something else and forgot what I was doing.

Hey if you didn't read the tags yet I think there's a fun game of "guess what 5e class this 'witch' actually had" here

[bigweldindustries]

im going insane trying to work out what fuckin set it was that axwell ingrosso first dropped barricade

I FOUND IT ULTRA MIAMI 2015

[andromedasummer]

you know what i would love to be an option in bg3? making your own party member. like Icewind Dale style. choose their class, voice, appearance and travel with them. obvs i understand why they didnt, but it wouldve been so fun to have the option to make your own member, esp if they could be incorporated into your backstory. a sibling, parent, spouse, adventuring buddy, best friend.

[casualavocados]

THE WHOLE EPISODE HAPPENED AND I FORGOT AYE LITERALLY SAID THIS OUT LOUD TO AKK