#I told you I was dictatorial

[matan4il]

Feel like I'm going insane every time I see anti-Israeli propaganda. Just saw a post claiming the war in Gaza is one of the deadliest "in history." Gaza isn't even the deadliest war of 2023. Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and others would like to have a word.

Is there a reason people feel the need to lie to care about Palestinians? Like do they feel that if they told the truth, they'd be hypocrites for not caring about other conflicts?

Hi Nonnie,

I'm with you, the dumb, ignorant shit that gets posted so carelessly, showing a complete disregard for the lives of the 20.3 million people who are threatened by Hamas (the people who need to be free of this genocidal, antisemitic, dictatorial terrorist organization) is truly breaking world records. Beyond the fact that Hamas (the so-called "Gaza health ministry") has been caught lying about the number of fatalities, such as in the al-Ahli hospital parking lot explosion, even if we accept its numbers, you're absolutely right. The bloodiest conflict in human history was WWII, with between 70 and 85 million fatalities. The war in Gaza is nowhere near that scale. Even if you take all Israelis and Palestinians together, we're not going to reach such numbers, so what are these people even on about!? And yes, here's a good reminder IMO of current on going conflicts that are also bloodier than the war in Gaza, but don't get anywhere near as much attention. I guess if it doesn't involve vilifying the Jews, those other wars are just not as worthy of being talked about...

People involved in this are not all the same. I assume some are just uninformed, and they repeat the lies they've heard from others, which they accepted as truth. Others know they're lying, and I assume they lie, because they know that otherwise, the anti-Israel narrative just doesn't hold water. You can only justify violence against Jews in Israel (or Jewish Israel supporters in the diaspora), if the Jews somehow committed a grave enough sin to merit such violence turned against them, right? Therefore everything has to be exaggerated and twisted in such a way, that Jews appear as the great villains ever, deserving of the greatest violence in retribution.

That's why the conflict has to be the bloodiest one ever, if though it isn't. That's why Israel has to be accused of intentionally depriving Gaza of food and water, even though there are hundreds of aid trucks that Israel allows into Gaza daily (surpassing the number the UN said in Oct Gaza needs daily, 100 trucks), and even though there are 2 out of 3 water pipelines operating from Israel into Gaza despite the war (in addition to water supply from Egypt, and Gazan self supply). That's why every Israei quote has to be taken out of context, and be presented as if said about fighting the Palestinians, rather than Hamas. And that's why the fact that Jews are native to Israel, and that Jews tried to live peacefully alongside all Arabs in the region, has to be erased. Otherwise, the violence against the Jews isn't justified, and then what's the point?

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[l0velylecter]

Could you do it where the MW2 men find out that one of their S/O relatives is in the military like their brother or sister maybe by recognizing the last name is the same as there S/O( preferably their older brother) and how they would react thank you

(Preferably with Alejandro, ghost, soap, and Graves)

how the cod:mw ii men react to finding your relative in the military

characters : simon ‘ghost’ riley / reader , john ‘soap’ mactavish / reader, alejandro vargas/ reader , phillip graves/ reader  fandom : call of duty modern warfare ii rating :  t for teen and up audiences warnings : brief mentions of blood and violence, tags : mostly fluff, light-hearted, some angst, gender neutral ! reader

01 | Alejandro

When it was time for Rudy to take a rookie under his wing, just as Alejandro had done with him, the captain was eager to see how it would play out. He'd watch from a distance as his second command walked the fresh-faced cadet through training, occasionally stepping in to give input before leaving them be. And when the rookie took down the sniper on the water tower and saved his ass, Alejandro was proud to witness that he was, after all, a good mentor.

The more time the three spent together, the more that Alejandro started to suspect something was off — nothing urgent enough for him to distrust the man but enough for him to start shivering from the de javu. The two dimples on the side of his smirk, the way he carries himself, the hard-to-miss accent whenever he speaks: the familiarity of it all, despite having confirmed that, no, the two men haven't met previously, made Alejandro feel excluded from the punchline of one, big, cosmic joke.

And the funniest part was that he'd come home to your arms and complain to you, oblivious of the dimples peppering your smile as you patiently listened to him go insane over the obvious — " I swear on my life mi vida, I've met this man before."

You would have put your partner out of his misery if it wasn't for the fact that he found out before you : when the rookie told them the same childhood story you've recited to Alejandro so often that he could recite it word by word. With a sudden step on the brakes and Rudy's nose colliding into the dashboard, Alejandro nearly lunged into the backseat to choke your brother for not telling him sooner.

Alejandro couldn't even be angry when Rudy made hundreds out of their little bet — " I told you it would take ages for him to notice, no offense, capitán."

When Alejandro came home with your brother in tow, uniforms stained with dirt and dust from the little roughhousing they had, you had no choice but to drag them inside by the ears. Angry at your brother for enlisting without your knowledge and Alejandro for not noticing sooner.

02 | Graves

Graves has always believed that a certain amount of disregard for authority is healthy. If he has to be honest with himself, taking orders from Shepherd is irritating enough, but taking orders from his orthodox, headstrong, and almost dictatorial second-in-command is a pain in the ass, if not pure, fucking torture.

The minute he received the file in his office, Graves knew right off the bat that he was your father. If the name hadn't been a dead giveaway, it would be that underneath the cold, calculating gaze of his headshot, you shared the same eyes. The curve of your jaws, the slight tilt of your heads, the similar phrases you shared when speaking, Graves didn't have to know that the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

So he did what every potential son-in-law would do: he tried to impress the general, even if it pained him to behave like a dog on a leash. Weeks of training turned into months on the field, and it took Phillip half a year to finally get the man to ask — "What's your name, soldier?" and another half a year for him to say — " Maybe you and your men aren't as useless after all."

Phillip hated groveling more than anything, but he had to keep his cool and play his cards right: he was playing the long game here. Every time he came home, you would bite your fingernails by the door, anxiously waiting to interrogate your boyfriend about his day — " Did he suspect anything? Did he ask? Did he hurt you?"

Imagine Phillip's satisfaction when Christmas rolled around: it was time to meet the family and the sight of his commander's usually stoic face crumbling at his wife doting on him with sweaters and laughter enough to inflate the CEO's ego and fly him to the moon. And when you held — no, gripped, Phillip's hand under the dinner table as a silent way to beg for him not to say anything that would trigger the silent yet ticking time bomb in the room, he had disregarded it with one, single movement.

" Daddy, can you please pass me a fork ?"

When both Phillip and your father reached for the utensil, you could feel your mother place a hand across her mouth next to you. Let's just say none of the shadow company members knew why they were reassigned to Shepherd the next day — not that their captain and his bruised lip were complaining.

03 | Soap

When a new sniper was assigned to the task force, Soap was first in line to make conversation with the lad, and although Ghost was stern in reminding him that 'friends aren't in the manual book', the lt.'s words were disregarded ( as usual ) the moment the two men clicked.

He had written to you about how well he got along with the new rookie, enjoying how it was now his turn to guide him through the steps, the same way Price had with him. Due to the covert circumstances of the mission, he had to send his letter by mail, and by the time he received a response, it had been months and nearly a year of the two running assignments together. When you explained to Soap that your last name had been your mother's maiden name and that you actually had a different last name, the sergeant had put two and two together in an instant — eyes falling onto the nametag by the sniper's uniform.

To say he was thrilled was an understatement. The Scotsman would have started cheering if they weren't already embracing each other by the shoulder, fondly talking about you by the fire.

He'd send back polaroids of the two of them in their gear post-mission, sharing a pint. It definitely made you feel like the third-wheeler.

Johnny would grow to become protective of your brother, and vice versa : they would always look out for each other, making sure that you wouldn't have to open the door after missions to just one of them.

The day Soap told you that he knew about your embarrassing childhood stories was the day you considered writing to Price.

04 | Ghost

The moment Ghost saw the rookie's name tag, he immediately knew. Briefly, there was a cold, heavy, sinking feeling settling inside the pit of his stomach. Yet, he remained passive under the mask, ordering the rest of the men to board the helicopter as takeoff was in five. Once they were in the air, he stole another glance at the man, noting that you shared the same nose, chin, and hair color. Fucking hell, he cursed internally. He shouldn't be here.

There was no denying it. The brother you've spent years searching, mourning, thinking that he's either dead from his previous deployment or MIA from how he's never kept contact, is going to be deployed into what most men call a suicide mission.

He shouldn't interfere. He shouldn't reach out: even if Simon cares about you. And dare he confess — loves you, this wasn't the time and place. Trying to protect the rookie will get him killed, but he did it anyways. Without thinking twice, his body moved on its own, telling your brother to follow him when the team gets split in four. And when they had to go in pairs, the lieutenant had dragged him by the arm, ignoring Soap's look of surprise.

The catacombs were narrow and long as they dwindled further into the shadows: even with their night vision, the darkness was almost blinding as they ventured into the abandoned mine in search of Makarov's old base. Your brother tells him as a matter of factly it was because of the radiation, and even if there were no active nuclear activity at the moment, previous experiments conducted by Makarov's men were at risk of contamination, which would need to be contained. And Ghost hated how he spoke just like you, eyes bright and curious of the world. Simon didn't feel sorry when he told the rookie to shut up.

As if the oxygen thinning wasn't already suffocating enough, the pressure that gripped the air made your brother's breathing turn shallow, immediately alerting Simon. Just as he was about to suggest that they return to the surface, a cluster of bullets flew past them: causing flashes of red and yellow to echo down the halls, sending tremors everywhere. Simon gripped your brother by the collar, pulling him down to duck.

The fighting probably only lasted for half an hour, and by the end, the cave was already on the brink of collapse, barely supported by old, rotting wooden pillars. Sion had to jog with your brother's limp body against his, the rookie's breathing barely there, his wound seeping blood onto Simon's uniform.

When they made it out, it was already nightfall: the last rays of sunlight tethering on the borders of the horizon. Your brother demanded Simon to put him down, face crumbling in the fear and acceptance that he wasn't going to make it. The helicopter was still two hours away, and the rest of the team was on the other side of the tunnel. Simon was many things, but he wasn't a liar, and so he wasn't going to force-feed the cadet hope if he truly didn't stand a chance.

So Simon did the next best thing. He laid him down atop the soil, supporting his head with a makeshift pillow he had made with his jacket. He listened to the man speak about his regrets, eyes dropping when he mentioned your name — " I wished I could've told (name) how fucking sorry I am for leaving. I've been meaning to reach out, but I just couldn't… I was afraid of what they’d think. They must be disappointed in their big brother. I let them down."

" They're not. They never stopped looking."

A heartbeat passed where he didn't react to Simon taking off his mask, a brief silent moment where it was just the breeze, the night, and the branches humming. His pain-stricken face turned into a smile, and a laugh, followed by a sputtering of coughs — blood pooling across his lips.

" Holy shit...what are the odds, eh? T-take care of them, okay?"

Only when Simon nodded did he let go of his hand, fingers turning cold and numb against the sand. And when Simon gave you the dog tags, he didn't have to say a word. All he needed to do was hold you as you cried: his own regret, cold and heavy against the pit of his stomach.

a/n : thank you for requesting ! i hope this lives up to your expectations <3 this was very fun for me to write, the entire time I was writing graves’s prompt, I was thinking about the scene in ‘22 jump street’ lol. and the garden fight in ‘crazy stupid love’. the little shit would definitely be a menace to in laws.

[itstokkii]

I've been considering making this post for a while but hesitated since I don't wanna beat a dead horse.

I'd like you to look at this post looking back at the Andijan massacre. What started as people protesting issues like distribution of gas, electricity, and other human needs and rights ended in a bloodbath. A cousin of mine told me schools taught it as "the national guard protecting civilians from Islamist terrorists."

I'd also like you to look at this paper by the Human Rights Watch on the torture and persecution of Uzbek Muslims like me during Islam Karimov's 20 years of dictatorial rule. Even Uzbek Muslims outside of Uzbekistan weren't safe. Multiple family friends of mine were randomly tackled to the ground and arrested by Korean Police on accounts of "domestic terrorism" in Uzbekistan, and some were only released about 5 years ago.

You weren't allowed to wear hijabs(even in Islamic universities), openly pray, read the Quran, or do anything religious. Someone would always be there watching to report you.

I wasn't allowed to go outside by myself around my neighborhood due to Uzbek government agents kidnapping the children of Uzbek diaspora abroad. I wasn't allowed to wear a hijab until after we went to Uzbekistan 2 years after Karimov's regime ended, and we made sure it was safe there and back. I wasn't even allowed to visit the country to see my relatives for almost a decade because of the crackdown on Uzbek Muslims.

When Uzbekistan was colonized by Russia as the Uzbek SSR and even before then as Turkestan, Russia made sure to stamp out religion entirely. They killed off scholars and poets like Cholpon, who wrote about Uzbek self-determination and praised religious texts. Uzbekistan's first leadership since its independence carried on with this policy, with Russian colonial values ingrained into them.

As for Korea, our partition was opposed by the whole peninsula. When Jejuans protested the US-UN backed elections, it ended in 10% of Jeju's population being killed by joint US-Korean forces. Though the South Korean Government apologized for the first time recently, the US stays silent. What a surprise. The bodies of these Jejuans were buried in mass pits and had the Jeju Airport built on top of it.

The US still fails to apologize for the No Gun Ri Massacre, in which the US Army murdered about 300 Korean villagers despite knowing they were civilians and therefore not targets. The US also indiscriminately bombed North Korea with more bombs than they had in the Pacific Theater in World War 2, martyring almost 2 million Koreans.

After the Korean War followed almost 30 years of dictatorship by Syngman Rhee, then a military junta, then Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan. During this time, university students protesting the dictatorial rule established by the US were arrested as "anti communists," and be tortured repeatedly, sometimes even until death.

Though the Seodaemun Prison is known for being Japan's colonial prison where they arrested independence activists, the Korean dictatorships used it to arrest people in favor of democracy.

The Namyeong-Dong Anti-Communist Investigation Office was a similar prison, in which one of the floors had extremely thin, narrow windows to avoid prisoners from escaping. Park Jong Cheol, a Seoul National University student who was protesting against Korea's military dictatorship at the time, was incarcerated here and routinely tortured. He eventually died due to water torture.

The Gwangju Massacre was a protest held by many activists against Chun Doo Hwan's dictatorial rule, which came about as he staged a coup and successfully overthrew the previous government. As they called for democracy, Chun Doo Hwan brought the national army, who fired upon, killed, and raped the protesters. Chun Doo Hwan was never held responsible for his crimes before he died, and his grandson recently apologized to the victims and their loved ones. It was found that the US approved Chun Doo Hwan's plans to use armed forces on the protesters in Gwangju.

Though the Gwangju Massacre is taught about in Korea, much of the US involvement and responsibility of the horrors of the dictatorship is left out.

The US does not allow Korea to produce its own nuclear arsenal, allowing Korea to rely entirely on the US for nuclear support. Additionally, the existing presence of the USFK in Korea and their joint training sessions with the ROK army further provokes North Korea and therefore gives the US a "justification" to maintain its military presence in Korea.

Growing up I was taught where to look for nearby nuclear shelters. We visited the War Memorial of Korea multiple times, and air raid sirens are rare but are happening more often recently.

This, along with the added danger of living as Uzbek diaspora outside of Uzbekistan as Muslims.

So when I say "please respectfully depict Russia and the US when it comes to the Cold War in a way that does not center them entirely" and "please keep the gravity of their actions in mind as you write them; Hetalia does not exist in an apolitical vacuum,"

and I am met with "mature adults" telling me that "they're just characters," or

"i'm the one ruining the fandom," or

"block and move on," or

"i love russia and america cold war!!!" or

"you're crazy" or

"moralf*g" or

"someone's sensitive"

and especially from russian artists who call me an "American SJW." russians calling me an uzbek overly sensitive for asking that they portray their country a little more respectfully to the victims of their colonialism. yeah that's completely normal

you are normalizing centering discussions about the Cold War to the imperial core, and then having nothing of substance to say about and being absolutely insensitive towards someone who's life has been and still are dictated by these imperial forces, and even harrassing them.

where's the "block and move on" mentality you prided yourselves for?

this fandom hasn't changed since the 2010s. it's just more quiet in the way it marginalizes victims of colonialism.

oh, and that person who told me to "block and move on, sister!!!" when it comes to me explaining myself as an uzbek-korean muslim?

you're not one to talk. 네가 뭘아는데 ㅅㅂ새끼야

[mariacallous]

The prospects of a united front preventing Donald Trump returning to power in the US looked a little bleaker this week.

Let’s be frank they weren’t great to begin with. To an outsider Joe Biden just seems to be too old to be a viable candidate. He doesn’t pas​s the first impressions test. Look at him and you do not see someone capable of serving another four years.

True, he won Michigan's Democratic presidential primary a few days ago– but he was hit by a significant protest vote from left-wing and Arab-American voters angry about his qualified support for Israel's war in Gaza.

And at this point that second cause for worry, and, frankly, panic kicks in.

The left urged registered Democrats to vote for the "none of the above" category to express their opposition to Biden's Israel policy – and about 100,000 did. Their votes represent a wider chunk of the electorate who could well stay at home or vote for minor Green or left-wing candidates and deny the Democrats key states.

In a deeply divided country with a warped electoral system that favours the Republicans, it does not take many voters abandoning the Democrats for Trump to retake power.

I wrote at the weekend about how the Trump example shows how hard it is to unite against a dictatorial threat.  People, or to be fair, many people, cannot put aside their commitments and ally with men and women they profoundly disagree with for the greater good of defending democracy.

On the one hand, they cry that Trump is a fascist and white supremacist. On the other hand, they refuse to use all available means to stop him. Mainstream liberals do not moderate their demands to win over wavering conservatives. The far left sees the Biden administration as its true enemy.

The history of the struggles against Nazism are highly relevant to the dilemmas and the dangers we face today.  

As Hitler began his rise to power at the end of the 1920s, the European far left was in the same place as a section of the modern US left.  

The threat of fascism was as nothing when set against its hatred of moderates.

 In 1928 the communist movement adopted one of the cruellest and stupidest policies in its history, which considering the history of Soviet communism was nothing more than a history of cruelty and stupidity was quite an achievement.

Partly because it helped Stalin in his internal power struggles in Russia, Moscow ordered all Europe’s communists to follow an ultra-leftist policy. They were told to denounce moderate leftists as “social fascists”, and fight them to the death.

Communism’s triumph was inevitable, the party line went. No compromise was possible with anyone who stood in history’s path. Reformists were opportunists and traitors. They were social fascists who were as bad as the Nazi gangs which were already gathering on Berlin streets.

Or perhaps they were worse….

For an argument that is still heard today held that, say what you like against them, at least fascists were honest in their way.

By contrast centre-leftists were traitors who had been “bribed by the bourgeoisie” to deceive the masses, as no less an authority than Lenin had said.

They were hypocrites who pretended to want change while watering it down. Nothing could be achieved until they were swept away.

When Stalin’s enemy, Leon Trotsky, who was hardly a moderate, warned that instructing left-wingers to fight other left-wingers was a sure way of allowing fascism to “ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank”, Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the German communist party, denounced him for his ‘criminal counter-revolutionary propaganda’.

The result was a disaster. The communists and socialists fought each other instead of the Nazis, making Hitler’s rise easier. Thälmann went along with Stalin’s categorisation of social democrats as “social fascists”  until actual fascists came to power in Germany. They taught him the difference by holding him in solitary confinement for 11 years at the Buchenwald concentration camp, and putting him before a firing squad in 1944 and shooting him dead.

Today there are plenty of Thälmanns who believe with absolute certainty that the discredited centrist mainstream is the enemy.

Here is a columnist on the Washington Post greeting the Michigan result

As I emphasised in my previous piece, his stance is absolutely fine in normal circumstances. US leftists are perfectly entitled to refuse to support the Democrats if Biden’s behaviour outrages them.

But surely only enormous levels of delusion prevent them acknowledging that Trump is a threat to democracy.  If he wins, the American republic may be so gerrymandered and its civil service so politicised that it will be a Herculean task to remove Trump and his successors. There are plenty on the US far right who cite the rigged democracy of Viktor Orban’s Hungary as their model and dream, after all.

The​ alternative is to build alliances and once again history is a guide,

Having seen that their previous policy of treating moderate leftists as Nazis had resulted in Hitler coming to power 1933, the geniuses running the Soviet Communist party decided on a U-turn. Henceforth communists were instructed to support “popular front” movements where everyone opposed to the fascist threat would be welcome.

Some of the most interesting US writers have reached back to the 1930s to find ways of dealing with Trump. In How Democracies Die the US academics Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt found an example in the little-known story of how fascism was stopped in Belgium in the 1930s.  

Belgium might have gone the same way as fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. In 1936 far-right outfits —the Rex Party and the Flemish nationalist party, or Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (VNV)—surged in the polls, capturing almost 20 percent of the popular vote.

They challenged the historical dominance of three establishment parties: the centre-right Catholic Party, the Socialists, and the liberals.

The leader of the Rex Party, Léon Degrelle, was a classic far-right figure.  A journalist (like Mussolini, and so many other believers in simple solutions) he would go on to become a Nazi collaborator in the Second World War.

Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote that, “the Catholic Party, in particular, faced a difficult dilemma: collaborate with their longtime rivals, the Socialists and Liberals, or forge a right-wing alliance that included the Rexists, a party with whom they shared some ideological affinity.”

 Unlike the mainstream conservative politicians of Italy and Germany, who brought Mussolini and Hitler to power, or the mainstream Republican leadership who collaborated with Trump, the Belgian Catholic leadership declared that any deals with the far right could not be contemplated.

"Catholic Party leaders heightened discipline by screening candidates for pro-Rexist sympathies and expelling those who expressed extremist views. In addition, the party leadership took a strong stance against cooperation with the far right. Externally, the Catholic Party fought Rex on its own turf. The Catholic Party adopted new propaganda and campaign tactics that targeted younger Catholics, who had formerly been part of the Rexist base. They created the Catholic Youth Front and began to run former allies against Degrelle."

Right-wing Catholics knew that they must ally with socialists and liberals they normally deplore in a popular front. And it worked. The far right was beaten.

I think popular front politics are essential. But they are not easy or even particularly principled. Go back to the 1940s and you find George Orwell was utterly repelled by communists and conservatives allying to stop Hitler

He looked back with mockery on

“The years 1935-9 were the period of anti-Fascism and the Popular Front, the heyday of the Left Book Club, when red Duchesses and ‘broadminded’ deans toured the battlefields of the Spanish war and Winston Churchill was the blue-eyed boy of the Daily Worker.”

To Orwell, the idea of covering up the crimes of communists for the sake of the greater anti-fascist good was horrific. But that was what the left of the 1930s did. And that was what the British and American governments did during the Second World War. Defeating Hitler came first. They were prepared to forget about the millions Stalin killed until the war was over.

It's a hard choice. But in the circumstances US progressives face, it is an obvious one. There is no argument against making every necessary compromise to prevent a second Trump term. You will have no right to protest, if you do not.

[thatdebaterguy]

Usually I would go anon but I am at the point where I don't care what people think anymore. I would rather be honest and have these people off my blog than keep doing it in secret.

Anyways, I was scrolling through a post (because I hate myself). Tumblr wouldn't let me put the link for some reason:

This isn't the whole post, but 2/3 of it. It's about how Israel was "tricking" children into picking up bombs that looked like food cans. Someone corrected this in the comment section.

And in response to the correction (there was more than one person correcting):

This is a massive issue I've seen with that side of the conflict. They don't care if the information they spread is true as long as it fits the narrative of "Palestine = weak, helpless, 100% good and pure victim. Israel: evil, colonists, eats Palestine babies for breakfast." And it's almost scary the lack of critical thinking to make sure everything fits into this mindset.

I once corrected someone's mistranslation on Pinterest of all places, where someone said a Hebrew translation was ""May this (bomb) lands on innocent people". It was just the company name. I was attacked and told I was a "genocidal zionist" and there was my favorite, "well it doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's what they mean".

So basically, "yeah it doesn't matter if it's fake information, it fits with MY beliefs, so it's okay."

I hate the Pro-Palestinian cult.

It is genuinely depressing to see blatant misinformation spread, for example I've been given the link to a site that takes supposed quotes from Israeli officials completely out of context, half the time a complete lie, and told it's some kind of proof Israel is the epitome of moral sin, despite being the most equal state in the middle east. I saw this post and saw another one debunking how the imagine has been altered in a misleading way, just as I saw a post of a server room that's linked to a Hamas database under an UNRWA facility, and someone said it powered a solar panel. Keep in mind they didn't lie for the Palestinian civilians, that was to straight up cover for Hamas.

The screenshot of someone calling Hamas 'freedom fighters' is actually scary.

this is the first thing you see when you search for the ideology of Hamas. Yk the worst part? This would be called zionist propaganda just because it says Hamas have committed terrorism, and October 7th happened. These are literal facts though, Hamas are proud of October 7th, proud of killing thousands, kidnapping hundreds, committing acts of terrorism. If you have any sense of morality, you cannot defend Hamas, even if you see them as on the right side or as freedom fighters, their methods alone make them a monstrous organisation. They wear plain civilian clothes in war, a war crime, they have been verified to use civilian buildings for cover, a war crime, they've killed thousands of innocents purposefully, a war crime, they've openly called for the annexation and occupation of Israel, a sovereign country with millions of ethnic Jews who would be 3rd class citizens in a Hamas ruled Palestine.

Israel doesn't want Gaza. They don't want to destroy it, to own it, they wish they never had to hear about it again, let alone invade it to remove Hamas from power. And the fact that people are scared to voice their beliefs against a literal terror group, against misinformation, is insane. You know, the only reason I'm on Israel's side is because when it comes to debates I follow the science, the figures, the statistics, a fixed code of morality and logic, and that leads to me to Israel because they've never instigated a conflict in their entire history, they've voluntarily surrendered land in pursuit of peace, aided the countries that have invaded them, they're by the definition not committing genocide, they're legally and factually in a war of self defence to topple an extremist dictatorial government, the figures show as far as modern urban warfare goes, the civilian-military death ratio is lower than most conflicts, they factually have a historical claim to the land, they built Tel Aviv, built Jerusalem, 400,000 Jews lived the region of Israel before its existence as a modern state, it just all points to Israel.

But I support the people of Palestine, I empathise with them, I want them to be free of the dictators who lead them to this war and suffering they must endure, and I pray they'll get the liberation they deserve. They deserve better than the nightmare of a government that rule over Gaza. And yet none of the Palestinian supporters protest Hamas. They don't realise, protesting against Hamas doesn't weaken the right for civilians to receive aid, because they're forced into this mindset that the Palestinian government and movement has always been one of perfect ineffable morality and one that you must be insanely villainous to even have any contradicting thoughts on. I'm a more conservative guy who's best friend of 4 years recently told me that they're genderfluid, in a polyamorous relationship with a trans man, and have a 'fursona' but since I know they're a person with good intentions in life I support them in finding happiness and getting better. I'd say that makes me fairly open minded, without tooting my own horn too much. But I will never be open to the idea that Hamas have ever wanted what's best for Palestine. Their actions are selfish, their goals are psychopathic, their behaviour is unwarranted, and their care for being a successful governing body is minimal. Gaza, whether prospering before October 7th or not, was legally an independent, sovereign region of the nation of Palestine, who have their own government, constitution, voting system, currencies they operate with, culture, freedom of movement, unless it's to Israel of course, and have been so since Israel pulled out of Gaza.

Israel actually occupied Gaza once. It was better maintained, the people were more looked after. In the years before Israel pulled out of Gaza, the Palestinian economy grew by the largest margin in at least 20 years, and then under Hamas, became incredibly stagnant, with foreign aid being the only thing propping it up. They let unemployment skyrocket despite the opening of more high tech facilities, once again thanks to foreign aid. Now, Israel doesn't want Gaza back, nor should they have it, but when the people of the nationality that Hamas wish to destroy, governed their land even better despite not even being the sovereign owners of that land and just the occupiers, it says a lot. Don't be afraid to speak out against Hamas, since you have no love for the Palestinian people if you don't want them to be free from the suffering Hamas has brought.

[witchofthesouls]

More messing around with @rocksinmuffin 's Megahusband AU, especially with a Reader that went from human to Cybertronian Seeker

“Darlin’, come down here.”

You and Megatron share a quick look. Even with the short, mayfly years passing by, you and him had achieved a strange… equilibrium. You shrink down, quickly mass-displacing in two steps to your old height as a human. Megatron spots the other adults in your family tuning into whatever is going on between you and your creator’s creator. They’re not even trying to hide their obvious interest. A quick glare deterred most of them, but a brave few had actually inched their way over using the slim cover of sorting out the recyclables on the nearby table. By color, material, and size. Your cousin had brought over the hose and a bucket to actually rinse out the various cans, bottles, and tins.

Of course, they all hear the ridiculous thing Meemaw says.

Megatron sputters as do you. Those raised purple wings flapping in confused alarm as your grand-creator drones over your “buts” with the well-intentioned sternness of a matriarch and dictatorial bullheadedness. She isn't a loud woman, but her voice echoes under the doorway.

Your cousin drops the hose. The sorting stops.

Megatron stomps his foot, and the table rattles from the force. They scurry to stop the glass from rolling off.

His in-laws somehow acquired the power to teleport with their sudden appearance. Your sire gives him such a long resigned look as the shared femmes of their lives begin to argue. Loudly.

“I’m sorry about this. I told her what you said. And we do love Starscream as if he’s our own flesh and blood, but Ma gets her ideas. And, well, since that-” your sire gestures to your entire being, “happened, Ma’s not letting it go.”

Megatron has no idea what’s happening, but his sire-in-law steps into the foray as Meemaw reiterates her point about troubles and marriages and making do with the situation. Especially when children are involved.

Your carrier is getting that particular pitch in her voice. The one that mechs side eye Starscream, even though the Seeker had existed before humanity extended beyond their primordial ooze out the ocean. You face pinches and wings slightly shift away as your carrier gets shriller in her affront.

Starscream strolls up with that ridiculous tie that Meemaw gave him on his graduation. “What’s with that face?! You look constipated or you got shot in the-.”

“Y/N’s extended kin thinks you were sired by Optimus.” He interrupts Starscream’s words, refusing to rise to the bait.

“WHAT!?” Starscream’s screech makes him feel slightly better

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Fair enough! There's certainly no definite evidence, you can totally read it differently, but I don't think the trauma interpretation, unless you're trying to, wrongly, claim Hard Canon Facts, is this massive, wildly-out-there-impossible stretch either. There's a basis to build a case for it from, it's just that all the evidence is circumstantial and relies on interpreting inner thoughts, so you could build a completely different case from it too. Guess for me, personally, it's like when you look at the angel version of Crowley versus what he's like today, he's Been Through Things and I don't think all of that was only secondhandedly witnessed - doubt he's escaped entirely unscathed from who-knows-how-many thousand years under first one and then another dictatorial state - and of that which was firsthand, I personally don't think that was all only Hell (and whatever Hell does to him, another thing that, to be fair, is mostly implied and read into the between-the-lines, not outright stated or shown, is technically traceable to Heaven for casting him out in the first place) but hey, that's just my interpretation. What we can, I think, sort-of-conclude is that the Fall was in all likelihood painful i.e. physically traumatic (I def trust the pub scene over anything told to Aziraphale) and probably intended at least partially as punishment, seeing it's the undesirable alternative to being a good obedient angel used to keep the angels in line. Book Crowley took the maintenance lift or the back stairs, whereas TV Crowley's being, imo, taken in a more dark, dramatic direction, but I could be totally wrong, because what we've got in the show so far could go either way. However it turns out, it's wrapped in six millenia of hurt and rage and there's waaaaaay more to it then we know so far, so in essence, yes, seconded, we need a Fall scene in the 3rd season.

i definitely don't think it's a stretch, not at all!!! i definitely do not think that crowley emerged unscathed from the whole debacle, whatever happened between the pre-fall scene and eden, but because we don't know exactly what happened, im currently reading it that he's as i described - bitter, angry, upset, resentful - rather than there being any underlying form of trauma. i do also think that the flood, or some point between then and uz, is a triggering point; there's a big difference in crowley's approach to god between these two events:

crowley comes across as very innocent and trusting on the wall and in mesopotamia; the sheer act of the flood, and what aziraphale tells him about the motivation behind it, comes as a shock to crowley - now sure, to me, this could say many things, but for me the biggest among them is that he can't believe that after the fall, god would basically pull the same stunt again, and 500-odd years later in uz, he's fully unsurprised by what he considers to be an atrocious act that he's working independently to subvert and resolve (and notable that we see in uz the first in what appears to possibly be becoming a habit - what appears to be displacement onto the goats. whilst it's certainly a defence mechanism, i don't personally consider it to always be a trauma response... but look im not a psychologist).

again, that's not to say that he can't be experiencing trauma alongside this, not at all, but in line to what ive personally come to expect as a result of trauma, i would have personally expected some degree of... resignation? at the flood - 'yeah of course god would do that, why wouldn't she, she's done it before' etc. so again, whilst i don't dismiss the possibility that crowley is traumatised from the fall, it's currently just not quite ringing 100% true to me, not without (imo) the crucial information to give context to why he acts/speaks/behaves as he does. so at the moment, i feel like a good portion of his behaviour stems from realising that god is repeating history, not necessarily the first instance of it (hope that makes sense). and this, i think, feeds into his direct beseechment to god in his flat - again, that god is doing the same thing over and over again, and hasn't learnt.

i definitely take your point re: what the angel who crowley was (AWCW) was like before the fall, and the stark contrast between that and crowley as we know him now. but there is a lot in between those points; not only the fall itself, but the events leading up to it. all we currently know that is he asked questions, and that he hung out/was somewhat in cahoots with lucifer and his gang - i don't think that necessarily occurred in a short space of time after the pre-fall scene; if anything, i do wonder if crowley's fall (especially if we take the revelation about his wings darkening slightly in the pre-fall scene) was a long, drawn-out, and steady process... again, that doesn't mean he can't have been traumatised from it, but there is a heap of context that we're missing that i think will reveal what crowley's state of mind would have been in, in the lead-up to, during, and directly after, the fall.

im personally undecided about how truthful crowley was in the pub scene; i don't think it's inconceivable that, alongside skewing the details of his fall to aziraphale, crowley is capable of fudging the truth somewhat to himself. that's not to say that he deserved to fall, because i don't think that's going to outright be the case, but i do think that it's a possibility that he did something that he has refused to come to terms with or acknowledge, and has told himself half-truths over and over until he potentially believes that to be the truth.

crowley may not outright lie, but he's very good at speaking in riddles, withholding information (sometimes even subconsciously), and dancing around begrudgingly-admitted truths to make himself come across as, frankly, more impressive than he already is. to my mind, AWCW does it in the pre-fall scene, even, so we know it's not strictly crowley-as-a-demon thing:

and to me, this comes across in the pub scene too; i don't think crowley believes, in his bladdered state, that he's actually talking to anyone, but he's speaking as if he is, and as such what he divulges is once again danced around and played down. the bit where i think it does become truth is the account of the physical act of falling; that i can believe, because it's the face he pulls, and the way he twists the talisker bottle, that make me think he's actually being truthful here... everything else before it feels like he's playing to an audience (and he doesn't know it, but obviously he is - us!), and that makes me take it with a pinch of salt.

so yeah, totally with you that the physical fall itself probably wrecked some damage (i don't talk much about book!omens - i hold it close to my heart but i see it very separately from tv!omens, i have to admit - but i do think there was some element of playing-it-off in the description of his 'sauntering vaguely downwards', no different to how he tells it to aziraphale in 1862), but i still don't know how much i see it as having traumatised crowley.

to my mind (so, for clarification, this is entirely based on my experience of trauma, and may not be the case for everyone!), trauma takes away a good deal of agency, and i guess idk how much i see crowley without agency in this respect? i completely agree that the fall may have painful, upsetting, and rage-inducing, without a doubt, but does it stem from trauma? that for me is not yet clear!✨

[thecleverqueer]

Random Thoughts on Star Wars Ships (Part One)

First, I’m going to focus on toxic Star Wars ships that I absolutely despise. There are three. They are all canon. Some of them are more serious than others, but all of them are incredibly pernicious and problematic. To say they’re my “least favorite” would be selling my hatred of them short, but yeah… the word “loathe” comes to mind. They are as follows:

1.) Luxsoka (aka Ahsoka Tano and Lux Bonteri)

This is my least favorite ship of them all because watching it unfold at times was physically painful. Part of me doesn’t understand it, but the other part of me knows that it was likely just a tepid attempt by Filoni egged on by Lucas to make Ahsoka more relatable. It didn’t work.

I guess the premise didn’t start out too bad with “Heroes on Both Sides” aside from the fact that it sort of felt forced and completely unnecessary, but holy fuck did it go off the rails fast!

Lux’s behavior in “A Friend in Need” was completely unacceptable and inexcusable. I mean, less than 10 minutes into that episode, Lux is threatening to shoot Ahsoka with a deadly firearm, followed by him stunning her unconscious, stealing her ship, hiding her lightsabers from her, then meeting up with known terrorists with anti-Jedi sentiment and history of violence against Jedi. Then, there’s the unwanted kiss. He just sort of grabs her and kisses her against her will to shut her up. She tries to wiggle herself out of it, and when she finally succeeds you can tell she’s PISSED. Rightfully so. Technically, that’s sexual assault. The episode ends with Ahsoka somehow being more fond of him, I guess… I assume it’s related to trauma. I don’t know.

Anyway, the last time we see them together is in the Onderon arc, Lux has fallen for and appears to be in a romantic relationship with Steela Gerrera, and Ahsoka finds a way get over him, which, good for her. It takes two episodes (of a four episode arc) of her being completely insufferable, but she gets there. Ahsoka deserved better anyway. By the end of the arc, she sort of does this attaboy shoulder slug to Lux after Steela kisses him for luck. By that point, Ahsoka probably also found Steela to be pretty hot, and at least one of them got to kiss her. Steela should have kissed you, Ahsoka, but we can’t win them all.

Filoni basically said he was experimenting with this anyway, and I would say that this particular experiment was an abject failure. I’m just glad that it fizzed out before it ever became anything. It was trash. Utter fucking trash.

2.) Anidala (aka Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala)

This is another toxic relationship that I don’t really understand. No. I mean, I do get it. It’s a plot point that gets us to a specific place in a character’s development.

It’s unfortunate really. Padme is supposed to be this badass strong, independent woman, and yet, she blatantly ignores countless red flags during “Attack of the Clones” that should have made her turn away… Anakin being generally creepy, crossing her boundaries, frequently interrupting her, admitting to being a dictatorial fascist… I guess I could technically write all of that off because sometimes your brain short-circuits when you’re in love, and you miss red flags. But… genocide? That was a bridge too far. She should have ran. She should have reported the incident to the Jedi council, but she didn’t because she’s “in love” and actually just a prop.

Their relationship didn’t get much better during the Clone Wars. Anakin guilted her often when she chose duty over desire, something her role in the galaxy required. It was also pretty apparent that Anakin didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her based on the way he acted during the Rush Clovis arcs. There was a point where it felt like their relationship should have ended during season six. Padme needed a break, and told Anakin that she just couldn’t do it anymore after Anakin brutally beat the dog shit out of Clovis. But then, more trauma. Maybe the moral of the story is to avoid “romantic” relationships when you’re in the midst of a traumatic experience because it’s going to end badly, I don’t know.

Then he kills her in “Revenge of the Sith”. Well. He force chokes her and she dies of a broken heart… and then he proceeds to lose his shit, force crushing an entire room with overwhelming emotion (say what you will about the Jedi and their obsession with not forming attachments and overcoming feelings but… *gestures vaguely at this incident right here*).

It’s just an incredibly disastrous toxic sludge of a relationship. And, I know I was more vague about this one, but honestly, I could write a novel about it… so, I’ll spare you.

3.) Reylo (aka Rey Palpatine/Skywalker and Kylo Ren)

I hate this one too… mainly because Kylo tells Rey that she’s “nothing” except to him in “The Last Jedi” and that bothers me. This is something a narcissist might say to someone they’re abusing and gaslighting in an attempt to make them stick around, and that is just gross.

If Rey had actually been a nobody, it may have been less offensive, but she’s a fucking Palpatine. She’s not a nobody. Her grandfather (who isn’t actually her “grandfather” as her father was just a Palpatine clone, and goddamn, I’m going to need a better explanation for all of that shit because it just makes me dizzy, but I digress) was an oppressive emperor that reigned in terror for decades. She’s far from a nobody. In fact, Kylo’s grandfather (actual grandfather, not a clone) was Palpatine’s bitch. He should at least show her a little respect.

He was also generically mean to her during the entire sequel trilogy.

This one ended in death too, but at least it was Kylo’s and not Rey’s death. Again, Rey exhibited this weird mental exercise where she sees Kylo Ren and Ben Solo as two different people instead of them being one-in-the-same (much like the mental gymnastics that everyone does with Vader), so she tries to validate the whole thing. But, he’s an asshole too. She should have faced it.

[steampunkforever]

Oppenheimer is Nolan's putting down his intense need to buck the norms of linear storytelling and just make a solid movie. It's Nolan putting aside the conspiracy-wall narrative maps and just making something beautiful. He hasn't made something this "standard" since Batman. When it comes to structures, Tenet was an avant garde culinary experience. Oppenheimer is a plate of Penne with Pesto Sauce. Less complicated, but very enjoyable

In many ways this is the perfect film to see in double feature with Barbie, they couldn't have planned this better. For all the flashbacks (The Dark Knight trilogy also used flashbacks), Oppenheimer doesn't follow Tenet in temporal acrobatics. This isn't Nolan proving anything other than that he's still got it.

At the same time Oppenheimer is supremely indulgent. Its runtime is 30 minutes shorter than that of Ben-Hur. The cast is has more stars than PTA's Magnolia, a movie that runs only 8 minutes longer. Just like Gerwig with Barbie, this is Nolan facing post-covid budgets, looking at a blank check from studios, and deciding to take the money and run. Unlike Chazelle did with Babylon, Nolan pulls it off.

Sure, it's long. I don't take bathroom breaks at theaters, and I had to go twice. An intermission would've been beneficial here. Matt Damon is someone who looks like he knows what a PT Cruiser is, but his performance belied his modern appearance. The star studded cast was sometimes a bit distracting (Rami Malek was the only one who surprised me enough to break immersion, but in a good way) but frankly that's a bold move for a film about lab-swelling nerds.

The Florence Pugh sex scene was a bit on the nose, as the iconic "I am become death" line is first spoken while Oppenheimer is bottoming for her, and any and all nudity felt dictatorially indulgent, but at the end of the day its a Nolan film and he handled it as classily as is possible for egregious sex scenes. This isn't Tarantino, after all.

On the note of indulgence, the film is still very nonlinear, told through a congressional hearing where RDJ reminds us that he knows how to act when the opening credits don't read "MARVEL" and a separate red scare closed-door hearing in which Oppenheimer pays the price for partying with the communists. The actual story of the atom bomb is told through flashbacks from both of these hearings, often one hearing bouncing to the other, switching from black and white (signifying objective facts of record) to color (more subjective takes on events) as Nolan weaves together a work of Cinema that gives us an intimate portrait of the father of the bomb.

It's a great movie. In terms of a Barbie/Oppenheimer comparison, despite being very different films, Oppenheimer is better. It's just a more put together movie. That's probably due to less studio oversight (Nolan allegedly recreated the atomic blast practically, while Gerwig had to seek approval from a brand-protective toy company for her film) as well as the general unity of purpose afforded it as an adaptation of a book charting historic events.

Whether you liked the pink plastic sparkles movie or the white atomic fire movie better, the importance of Oppenheimer is that Nolan's still got it, and can leverage the award nominations (including one for RDJ hopefully) into making more movies that act like they forgot the definition of linear anything.

[delicatuscii-wasbella102]

Transcript from the above video, Very interesting and educational, The part I have highlighted is SO right, and a great explanation.  Another part talks about when slavery ended and that those who were held captive were freed and how they found things very hard to adjust, which made me think of countries in the world today who have over thrown dictatorial governments and struggle in a democracy after, they have been so  institutionalized, that difference is a massive deal, yet we sit there and say, “They should be happy etc.” but they are starting from the beginning, everything they have ever known has changed beyond belief and it must be very scary. wb102 ‘John Henry Faulks Epiphany’ Transcribed by Outdoorvizions   ·“...But John Henry Faulk May have experienced the most profound effect. He was a graduate student when he interviewed the former slaves including the two women you hear in this broadcasts. Himself interviewed just before he died in 1979, Faulk was going on about about how he believed in giving Blacks the right to go to school, giving them the right to vote, giving them the right to go into anything they qualify for and then he said he experienced an epiphany.” . ~Interview of John Henry Faulk “I was sittin down on this old wagon tunnel with this ol’ black man and I was telling him what a different kind of white man I was. I remember him looking at me very sadly and kind of sweetly and condescending saying ‘you know you still got the disease honey. I know you think you’re cured but you’re not cured. You can’t give me the right to be a human being. I’m born with that right. Now you can keep me from havin that if you got all the policemen and all the jobs on your side, you can deprive me of it but you can’t give it to me cause I was born with it just like you was.’ . My God it had a profound effect on me. I was furious him but the more I reflect on it the more profoundly the effect. I realized this was where it really was.” ~ Excerpt from a 1999 ABC Nitghtline news story: Found Voices The Slaves Life Told by those who lived it Narrated by Ted Koppel  

[canichangemyblogname]

I heard something absolutely baffling this morning on BBC's Newshour. After interviewing Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a surgeon at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Nuala McGovern interviewed Israeli Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus on the Israeli State's Intelligence.

The Lt. Col. got on air and essentially argued that Hamas was supplying Palestinian hospitals *because* they do not care about Palestinian life and that Hamas' "game" is world-wide empathy for the Palestinian people and outrage over their treatment. His message: the other side is worse than us. Rather than citing Hamas' authoritarian rule and dictatorial treatment of Palestinians, including torture, to back up this argument (which would be the logical thing to do), he instead parroted the argument that Hamas is worse than Israel *because* Hamas could also be giving the hospitals fuel, but they're not (even though they had been according to the Israeli state), ignoring completely that the hospitals would not be in this situation if not for Israel's bombing campaign. This same man went onto CNN and said the situation at al-Shifa is "the unfortunate results of Hamas' choices," essentially admitting that the siege on these hospitals-- civilian infrastructure with medical personnel and wounded civilians inside-- is punishment for Hamas' actions on October 7.

CW: Audio depiction of fatal wounds and painful medical procedures. An Israeli Military Official denying Israeli responsibility and culpability in the conditions in Gaza, and dodging questions. TW: Use of skeptical language like "reportedly" in regards to Palestinian death figures and "accused" for statements issued against the Israeli state, but using more dictative language like "said" for statements made by the Israeli state.

Partial transcript below:

McGovern: "And why not release that evidence? Because you can see and hear the pressure that Israel is under for these attacks on places like al-Shifa. Why not let the world know what you know?" Conricus: "Well, maybe we will, but-- y'know-- I've been listening in on the conversation here. The previous guest recording spoke-- eh-- a lot, but never mentioned-- eh-- really addressed the elephant in the strip: Hamas. Hamas governs the Gaza strip. Hamas runs the Gaza Strip. Hamas told the people; the administrator of the Shifa Hospital not to accept the fuel; the 300 liters that we provided--" McGovern: "But--" Conricus: "Hamas is the one preventing civilians from leaving--" [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ] McGovern: "Let's talk, let's talk about--" Conricus: "Hamas is the one who builds infrastructure there-" McGovern: "Lets talk about the specifics of the 300 liters of fuel-- eh-- which Israel says it was delivering to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Ehm... they say they need 8,000 liters of fuel, that that request was rejected by Israel, and that 300 would only fuel a generator for about half an hour. You're hearing from doctor Sittah there about what he is going through on a day-to-day basis, with women not able to get cesarians, with only two operating theaters-- eh-- that are actually functioning, never mind no anesthetic, for example. Umm... 300 liters it--it's not even a token gesture." Conricus: "Well, it is actually much more than what Hamas are doing. And, and let's set the record straight here: we called on the people, including the Shifa Hospital and everybody else, in Northern Gaza to evacuate, and we did that more than two and a half weeks ago." [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ] "Since then, we have consistently called and informed everybody there that it is dangerous-- eh-- to be in Northern Gaza because we're doing-- we're going to conduct major combat operations. Let me, please let me finish. And in addition to that-- y'know-- Hamas has been stockpiling fuel, and they've been letting out, basically, rantioning [sic]-- eh-- rationing fu-fuel to the hospitals because they want to achieve exactly what is happening now. They want you and the rest of the world to be outraged at the sorry, horrible scenes of-- eh-- babies that cannot live or are in the threat of dying because of a lack of electricity. That is the Hamas game, here. That is exactly what they want to achieve. They want this outrage because this is their plan and they have absolutely no regard for Palestinian life." *emphasis and context/fact-check links mine

Also see: If Hamas is the government of Gaza, then Israel is not conducting a counterterrorism campaign. If Hamas has the legitimacy of a governing body, then Israel must observe the rules of engagement. And if Hamas is the governing body of gaza, then they, too, have a right to defend their borders and have a right to take Israel to the ICC. (a.k.a. This is not the argument they "want" to be making to the international community.)

[nerdylilpeebee]

I just remembered a theory that I have about Mass Effect Andromeda. My coworker suggested last Friday I post it somewhere, so I'm posting it here for now since I need to distract my brain from anxiety. XD

Okay, so, in Mass Effect Andromeda, Jien Gardon, the founder of the Initiative (the whole colonization effort for Andromeda, essentially) was killed in the Scourge Disaster long before our character arrives on the scene with the rest of the human ark. At least, that's what we're told.

Later on in the story, we can discover that Jien Garson was, in fact, murdered by a mysterious figure before the scourge disaster even happened. She woke up early before anyone else came out of cryo sleep and hid within what would have been her apartment on the Nexus (the main hub space ark for the initiative). There she is found by, what we can assume is, another human (not confirmed, per se, but the hologram you can create of the person that invaded is in the shape of a human male. And when you have created holograms of people you're investigating, they are always able to distinguish which species the person is, so we can safely say it was a human) and is murdered in her apartment. You then learn the rest of the leadership decided it was best to say she died in the scourge disaster with the rest rather than investigate deeper into her death, so as to avoid creating unnecessary panic.

She leaves you a message where she revealed that she believes the Benefactor, a mysterious entity that funded the initiative, was planning to kill her. The biggest question we're left with is WHY? Why kill her?

Well my theory is about that.

You see, throughout the story, several characters suggest that whoever was behind the initiative may very well have known what they were getting in to. That they'd known about the Scourge, the hostile alien species known as the Kett, that they were basically going into what was near-certain death. For the most part, it is dismissed by most as people wanting someone to blame for their suffering and it very well could be that.

But what if it was true? What if the Benefactor was aware of what they were getting into? If this is true, there then becomes a plausible reason why they would want Jien Garson dead. And that reason is that she was too idealistic, and would stick the spirit of the Initiative (i.e. peace and cooperation).

Jien Garson was the type of person who would have tried to make peace with the Kett, which ultimately may have led them to discovering the Nexus. If they discover the Nexus, the initiative is finished. They will take the station, they will capture everyone aboard for experimentation and worse, they will have access to the information that lets them know about all the other Arks and that they are meant to meet up with the Nexus. There would have been no way of surviving.

But her replacement? The one who got into power because everyone above him died? He is a conniving power-hungry Salarian, who is incredibly xenophobic. He hates the Krogan, he would never trust the Kett, he barely trusted the Angara, and acts throughout his speaking lines about them like he is hoping to use them to quell the unrest among the Initiative species and basically admits he will play to their pride and such just to ensure they remain allies. In the end of the game, if you choose to have the Angara represent Heleus to the rest of Andromeda, he also complains that you're giving up power. And for one final bit of proof he's power-hungry: the entire game he is trying to get you to endorse him as leader, hoping it will make everyone finally recognize him as the Director and basically give him dictatorial power. This man is even a Beuorocrat, and is masterful in keeping his persona as friendly as possible when in our presence.

This man, Tann, is the perfect leader to have when it comes to dealing with a foe like the Kett. He would never accept trying to make peace with them given that they've shown how hostile they are.

Literally tho, how do you deal with a foe that won't make peace and will in fact use any attempts to destroy you? Put a xenophobic scheming little rat in charge.

So that's my theory. The Benefactor killed Jien Garson (and possibly even orchestrated the death of everyone who would replace all the way down to Tann) in order to prevent the Kett from being able to use her idealistic nature to destroy the Initiative.

I also theorize the Benefactor is an AI. It would make sense given the seemingly-endless monetary resources, and the large AI theme in Andromeda. Plus, an AI would perfectly be able to work out such a plan.

Honestly, I also think the human Agent was none other than Reyes Vidal. Yes, the Charlatan himself. We never get an answer for why he came to Andromeda, the killer is a human male, he is VERY conniving and mysterious, and his origins and even everything he's done up until we meet him on Kadara is left just mysterious enough that this could be very plausible. And we know for sure he is not above killing and underhanded tactics to get what he wants (he uses a hidden sniper to win what should have been a one on one duel, for example).

[rwac96]

Know what I wanna see Satsuki being on the backfoot a bit.

Satsuki meeting Saphron and her family for the first time. I bet while keep her usual demeanor on the inside she's a bit nervous

There were a few things Satsuki Kiryuin feared, her mother being one of them. Her mother's plans coming to fruition is another, which lead her to make her school into what many would call a dictatorial state. Right now, the swordswoman was sitting at a dining table, sitting across Saphron Arc-Cotta, her wife Terra, and their son Adrian. The two women give the thick-eyebrowed girl a stern glare, while the two-year old toddler eats away at his meal.

"So," the blonde woman tilts her head, raising a brow. "you're dating Jaune?"

"I'm courting him," the oldest daughter of Ragyo says, sporting that confident frown on her face but was sweating bullets.

"Right, right," Saphron nods her head, using her fork to pick up her food. "so, does Jaune know about you making your school into a fascist, militaristic state?"

Gulping, the dark blue haired woman reaches out to pick up her glass of water, taking a quick sip. "R-Ryuko told him," she answers Jaune's older sister, "he was angry, at first."

"At first?" Terra spoke up, raising her eyebrows lightly as Adrian coos a bit while getting some food all over his lips.

"I explained why I did what I did," the swordswoman rubs the back of her neck, doing her best to keep her composure. "my mother's intentions, how she made my life a misery," she lowers her head. "He...well, hugged me."

Satsuki blushed as Saphron and Terra gazed at her with widened eyes, staring at one another. Meanwhile, Adrian hiccups, babbling a bit as he reaches out for his sippy cup.

[onewomancitadel]

I generally hate even getting near the tone of fingerwagging Tumblr posts, because they rarely ever make me want to engage, even when I know OP has a conceivable point. I'm not talking about critical social issues where tone-policing is a rhetorical device employed to stop rocking-the-boat, I'm talking about that type of Tumblr post which rarely inspires thought and tends to just make you feel bad, and doesn't even manage to make me, someone who may even hold the same opinion, want to engage or commiserate.

It's why I try to be very careful in the way I present my arguments, but people tend to assume that's the tone of what you're saying anyway: dictatorial, guilt-tripping, presumptuous.

Ultimately when it comes to Cinder, the argument I am always going to make is on textual and comparative grounds, rarely am I going to be saying 'you only don't like her because she's a chick' because in the first place it doesn't change very much and a determined sexist is not going to give a fuck anyway. It's also very true that Cinder doesn't exactly have the best reception amongst ostensible non-sexists anyway, and so as always I think the issue with her is a bit deeper than gender, and it does get kind of tiresome to reference rhetorically.

As I've said in the past, I think that if you can ground yourself textually you are probably better off in the long run. There is a specific story being told with Cinder which yes, does come with some gender flavour. Some people really want that and want specific stories about various different kinds of sociopolitical empowerment, but that's not the kind of thing I'm personally attracted to and so it's not going to be the thing I talk about. I am interested in deeper psychological empowerment which does touch on these themes in some ways, sometimes, (e.g. the Heroine's Journey), but my focus tends to be cosmic. That's just my preference narratively. I think that this is tonally true to R/WBY and where some of its storytelling falls flat (e.g. with the White Fang) due to its particular narrative goals, and why something like Cinder's magical imprisonment works better, especially her magical (symbolic) conflict with Atlas. Equally with Emerald, Emerald's story is about escaping mythic imprisonment, but some people might want to more deeply analyse misogynoir in her story, or how Black female characters are represented in fairytale storytelling (and how culturally inaccessible that is or isn't; fairytales/myth transcend the Occidental traditions).

I think these are simply different approaches, and maybe I am being sort of politically irresponsible not wanting to push that angle overly much, I don't know: but for something like R/WBY I am not looking for deep and meaningful criticisms on gender, but using it to convey its broader thematic ideas (and maybe subconsciously making a commentary too). But I just don't think this is an overall sufficient approach for Cinder - or, for Emerald, honestly, considering the anti-redemption posts for her I've personally read (though I do think overall lack of consideration for her romance with Mercury is related to it...)

Obviously the text isn't the be-all and end-all (and sometimes there are issues with the text itself!) but when it comes to Emerald and Cinder et al., I think their narrative potential in the story is clear. I feel comfortable arguing from that angle.

[charleslebatman]

Mastermind bestie 🌀 back again for another quick comment

I would like to implore my non-French/francophone peers to please acknowledge and understand that we do not understand the full context and lived experience of the French people who are affected by the retirement laws. I see many people say “she liked the tweets ironically! It was a joke!” despite not speaking any French and I think it’s important to recognize that you might not be able speak about this specific topic without the full knowledge of language and culture. Sometimes it’s best to defer to people who have lived experiences and can speak about these issues in an informed way.

I personally am an American and I’m not going to pretend like I fully understand the intricacies of French politics. But as someone who is a supporter of workers rights and has taken time to read OPs responses, read articles, and even watch tiktoks from French content creators, I have the discernment to see that this law is a fundamental violation of many French people’s economic stability and rights. There are many other intersectional aspects of this law in regards to race, gender, education level, etc I cannot fully grasp either, but I recognize that what I can do is listen and learn. I also know that as someone who doesn’t speak French, I can’t recognize or understand the specifics of irony and humour in a language I don’t speak. So it’s not my place to say whether tweet likes are made it good faith or not.

I’m going to listen to a person who is affected by something on how it’s impacting their communities. I think that’s the bare minimum of being an ally.

Much love and solidarity with the French working class who continue to fight for their rights.

Also, to the anon who said “what’s so bad about Zionism”, I suggest you look up the word genocide and do some reading on settler colonialism. From the river to the sea free Palestine 🇵🇸

In fact, the problem and the injury I very clearly had when I tried to explain these tweets. It's the nonchalance of people and international people who thought they knew better than me what it meant, when they have no idea what it means and are unable to listen to someone who has been at the heart of things.

Whereas for Kelly or other wags, it's a cacophony and an cancellation every where. But here, nothing. While I was flabbergasted that she'd liked this, like really, I had people in stop-your-acting mode.

Like really, the French pain in the ass who bore us with her demonstrations. When she could have liked so many other things, so many other laws. I would have said, I hate her opinions, her problems.

Here, no. She liked a context, a policy of a dictatorial government that has beaten and gassed its people with weapons of war. While she was in Paris, strutting around the Louvre and taking advantage of the system, she liked tweets that will never concern her. As a Frenchman or woman, you can't imagine how hurtful it is to see Charles affiliated with this. And that he's piling them up right now.

One day I'll do a real post on why idolizing this girl as a pretty, discreet French-speaking influencer is so wrong, and as a French person, we really want to bash these people.

It's like asking me to forget Kelly's actions and continue to support her because she's with Max. It's exactly the same level. As I said at the time, I can show you elderly people in the middle of Paris, Bordeaux, Nice, Toulouse and all the big and small towns in France who have been beaten up. It's a miracle no one died.

Yes, I remain very passionate about this subject because it means so much to the French and it's a real heartbreak. She didn't like it as a parody, otherwise I would have known. At first, when I was told that the first tweet was parody, I was like "gee, I made a mistake" and then I was shown the second one. And then I understood. She didn't give a damn about the poor.

You worship a Kelly at the end of the day, and people can't even see it because she's played it so fine and has a private insta account.

Plus, I’m glad to finally see a French anon 🇫🇷understanding me.

It’s as if I said to you, living in America, wait this law with the bravery you should take and fight in a manifestation is too much dramatic for us. It’s the view of the person, move on. While I’m french, miles away from your country and the policy of your country. You’ll see me, as girl fuck you. 😂 So imagine with the revolutionary side we’ve as french people, to see all this praising every where I’ve a fuck you push at its max. 🙃

You said all after, in your post bestie. Really if one day, you see the ask of too much and want to cancel the blog tell me. I’ll questioning my views and way of running this blog. As I said to the 🇫🇷 anon, before to just to yourself wait it’s too much stop this blog is annoying me. Sent me nicely a DM or ask.

For the 🇫🇷 anon, you’ve the right to say “meuf qu’est-ce que t’as foutu ! T’as merdé. Là c’est trop. Et rajouter un meme d’Amélie Neten alors là je vais bien comprendre.” 😂

Enfaite, le problème et la blessure très clairement que j’ai eu quand j’ai essayé d’expliquer ces tweets. C’est la nonchalance des gens et des personnes internationales qui pensaient savoir mieux que moi ce que cela signifiait, alors qu’ils n’ont aucune idée de ce que cela signifie et sont incapable d’écouter quelqu’un qui a été au cœur des choses. Alors que pour Kelly ou d’autres wags, c’est une cacophonie et un cancel à tout va. Mais ici, rien. Pendant que moi j’étais sidérée qu’elle ait liké cela genre vraiment, j’ai eu des gens en mode arrête ton cinéma.

Genre vraiment, la française casse-couilles qui nous soûlent avec ses manifestations. Alors qu’elle aurait pu liké tellement d’autres choses, tellement d’autres lois. J’aurais dit, je déteste mais ces opinions, ses problèmes.

Ici, non. Elle a liké un contexte, une politique d’un gouvernement dictatorial qui a tabassé et gazer son peuple avec des armes de guerre. Pendant, qu’elle était à Paris à se pavaner au Louvre et profiter de ce système, et liké des tweets qui ne l’a concerneront jamais. Entant que français ou française, vous n’imaginez pas combien c’est blessant de voir Charles s’affilier à ça. Et qu’en plus, il les accumulent en ce moment.

Un jour, je ferais un vrai post, sur pourquoi idolâtrer cette fille entant que jolie influenceuse discrète francophone et très mauvais et entant que français on a vraiment envie de taper ces gens.

Surtout ceux qui nous disent de mettre sous le tapis et de skipper, c’est comme si vous me demandiez d’oublier les actes de Kelly et de continuer à la soutenir parce qu’elle est avec Max. C’est exactement au même niveau. Je l’avais dit à l’époque, je peux vous montrais des personnes âgées, en plein Paris, à Bordeaux, à Nice, à Toulouse et toutes les grandes et petites villes de France qui se sont fait tabassées. C’est un miracle qu’il n’y ait pas eu de morts.

Oui, je reste très passionnée sur ce sujet parce qu’il signifie tellement pour les français et c’est une réelle déchirure. Elle n’a pas liké ça entant que parodie, sinon je l’aurais su. Au début quand on m’a dit que le premier tweet était parodique, j’étais “mince j’ai fait une erreur” et on m’a montré le deuxième. Et là j’ai compris. Elle se foutait ouvertement des pauvres.

Vous adulez une Kelly au final, et les gens n’arrivent même pas à le voir parce qu’elle l’a joué très fine et qu’elle a un compte insta privé.

[doodle-pops]

I personally feel like Celebrimbor would be a little more on the Celegorm/ Feanor side of the relationship (like dominating rather than being a switch-- once his S/O is comfy with him), because he has experienced as much pain as Maglor has.

Like yes, the fandom portrays him as a softie, but like I feel they underestimate him, because:

-- He withheld torture from Sauron for an absolutely long time, and yet never spoke up about the locations of the rings. As we know back then, the elven rings were very powerful, and if Sauron corrupted them... yeah. Celebrimbor never told him even a hint of where they would be, despite all the torture.

-- He disassociated with his family by his OWN influence. He was able to leave them without being advised to leave them, showing his smart and wise behaviour. I feel like a dom would have this.

-- He surely should have fought or strategized during the War of the Wrath because that war affected all parts of Beleriand and Middle-Earth, so he MUST have the qualities and behaviour of a leader.

-- He WAS a leader. When he left his family along with a few amount of the Noldor, he surely knew how to be charismatic and useful with words.

-- I believe that in the Halls of Mandos, he would have made amends with his family and vice versa, and when they are all re-embodied, they will be a normal family.

-- There are so many more ways he would be a dom, but at the end of the day, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

I feel like he's just like Maglor: a softie on the inside, but when required, he will be very dominant. :)

What do you think?

Nice breakdown of why you view him as more dominant than a switch. I also understand that yes, some people's trauma/life experiences can lead to them becoming domineering. But I take a view in portraying him as a switch.

My Take:

Considering him as dominant Celegorm/Feanor and I'll throw in Curufin because he isn't far off from them, doesn't appear as Celebrimbor's nature. Their type of dominance is what I would consider being born out of a lack of control, family desires and egotism (that's definitely not Celebrimbor). He would have grown up around all these dominant members of his family and witnessed what extreme superiority can do; destroy a household especially when family was of huge significance among the Feanorians. I'm not saying that he doesn't have Feanorian pride/anger, but it wouldn't be on alerting levels as the rest of his family to make him the controlling dominant.

Furthermore, having the strength and willpower to recognise that his family's unruly behaviour was a no-no and to break away, was the first step he took to throwing their dictatorial veil over his shoulder and creating a new path for himself.

Similarly, if he chooses to settle down and have a S/O, this indicates that he's aware of the do's and don'ts: not wanting to direct them down the same path as him because of the internal fear of channelling the same dictating demeanour that he observed destroying his family household. To him, his family is the blueprint of the do's and don'ts so he can learn how to be a respectful authoritative figure while knowing when to be submissive.

He is the type of person who'd become relaxed and trusting when he finds his S/O. No good relationship can exist without mutual trust and respect, and given his entire life surrounding him having no choice but to take an authoritative stance, there are times he would love to have that mantle taken off his shoulders. To be pampered a bit and not have to take the lead or constantly stand ten feet tall to remind everyone of who he is. All Celebrimbor wants is to just craft in peace, have a loving S/O and live away from the family drama.

When he is authoritative, it's natural (some stemming from his family's genes; can't run away from all) and is formed under mutual respect and trust for his lover and his duties as Lord since there aren't any hidden motives or desperate reasons.

N.B: His refusal to reveal the location of the three rings was an act of heroism if you wish to call it that. Celebrimbor knew what would happen should Sauron get his hands on the final rings since he was aware of his plans. I wouldn't call that an act of dominance but, selflessness. It takes a great deal of courage to know that you're going to lose your life in order to save others.