#an international and political level

[daswarschonkaputt]

are you still taking requests for dvd commentary of a fic scene? could you do apias chapter 19, the opening scene with jiraiya, oro and the sandaime?

oh yeah, ofc sure!!

[quickly takes off my kinnporsche hat and puts on my naruto one]

under the cut so i don't bore people with my rambling, haha.

Orochimaru’s lip curls as he props himself up languidly on one of Sensei’s couches. “Welcome home Jiraiya,” he says, voice smooth and mocking. “Done with your penance already?”

So, like, this first line was one of the very first things I had written for this chapter. In fact, this entire first scene had been sitting in my drafts since before I wrote chapter 18. I rewrote the entire scene, like, five times before I finished the chapter, getting all my ducks in a row.

This is actually referencing something that we'll find out a bit more about later on. I have in-depth plans regarding what the sannin got up to during the war, and how everything ended up fracturing. (Basically, Jiraiya was involved in something a little fucked up during the war, that he sort of blames himself for. There were originally going to be way more references to this throughout the chapter, but they got cut for flow reasons.)

The job of this scene is to establish the byplay between Jiraiya, Orochimaru and the Sandaime, and sort of set-up the state of their relationship. (Which comes back again at the end of the chapter.)

“I’d gathered,” Orochimaru says flatly. “We’re one person short for a Team Hiruzen reunion.” [...] Sensei reacts with the same nonchalance that he’s always carried when faced with Orochimaru’s spite. “That is, in fact, the issue,” he says.

So here we have a cornerstone of the Orochimaru and Sandaime dynamic: Orochimaru snipes, and the Sandaime doesn't react at all. There was actually a line from earlier in the scene that got cut that might explain this better -- Jiraiya says, "The only way to survive Orochimaru's brutal words is to hide the fact that he's ever managed to draw blood at all." Or something to that tune. Essentially, this is a powerplay from Hiruzen -- Orochimaru can't do much more than say mean things, because Hiruzen is Hokage, and so Hiruzen is just pretending that those mean things don't effect him at all.

Sensei taps his pipe against the edge of his desk, flecks of smouldering ash falling down onto the floor. His movements are measured, slow and relaxed. A powerplay, of sorts – he knows he can afford to make you wait.

This is one of my favourite lines in the chapter, lol. It's so fun to write this scene from Jiraiya's POV as opposed to Orochimaru, because Jiraiya is very neutral about all the ways the Sandaime uses to display his power and subtly keep them in line, but you just know that internally, Orochimaru is fucking fuming.

It's an impression that matched with what he read of her sealing style – concise, elegant, and subtly brilliant. Never a wasted stroke. Compared with Jiraiya’s haphazard scrawling, the difference was stark.

So, this bit here is referring to Mito, and her sealing style. It exists to establish that Jiraiya did not learn his sealing technique from Mito -- he's mostly self-taught -- and establish this idea that your sealing technique reflects your personality. (In a following chapter, we get to have Jiraiya's perspective on Minato's sealing technique, so we've got to lay the groundwork here.)

The other bit of groundwork laid here is the idea that Mito didn't have all that much interest in Jiraiya's fuuinjutsu. This hasn't been revealed yet, because it turns out the scene I'm thinking of is at the start of ch 21 not 20, but whatever. I do what I want. On the topic of Minato, someone says, "Look, Minato I get. He’s not your average floater genin. Heck, Mito-sensei even sort of likes him." Mito-sensei likes Minato, and she likes how Minato writes seals -- there's a reason Minato was there when she had her stroke.

On the outside, it’s a simple request. From their view within, Jiraiya knows it’s anything but. “I…” he starts. “There are some contacts, I could lean on, who might have some ideas. She won’t have left Fire Country, not with the price on her head after the war. And, well, with her habits, there should be some sort of trail I can follow.” He inhales. “When do you want me to leave?” Orochimaru says nothing. They both know it has to be him.

So, obviously, this is referencing the complicated relationship between Orochimaru and Tsunade, that we get a bit more context for later on in the chapter:

Anyone else would probably believe him. But Jiraiya had been there, the day they put Nawaki to rest. He’d been there when Orochimaru had put his head on the floor, and begged Tsunade for forgiveness. He’d been the one to pick Orochimaru up off the floor when Tsunade slapped him so hard his left eye swelled shut.

Tsunade and Orochimaru have a grudge between them that Orochimaru acknowledges was his fault (lowkey a huge deal given Orochimaru's... everything), involves Nawaki (Tsunade's dead little brother), and is so awful that Tsunade slapped him when he tried to apologise. Oh, and it has something to do with why Orochimaru doesn't want to be a jounin-sensei. Hmm. Wonder what could be going on there. Truly, a mystery for the ages.

Sensei takes in another deep inhale from his pipe. “That,” he says, “is where things get a little complicated.”

So, this is the last line of the scene, and things deliberately cut off there so that I didn't have to explain all the wild political scheming going on. We obviously get one puzzle piece for this with Jiraiya and Orochimaru at the bar:

Orochimaru doesn’t do anything as plebian as flinch. He pours himself another cup of sake. “Jounin-sensei get to pick their teams. I presume Sensei is extending you the same courtesy?” “Yeah,” Jiraiya says.

And then another bit at the end of the chapter:

“We are not broke – yet. On the second matter, I have been very reliably informed that the daimyo will not support another war,” Sensei says calmly.

But there's a lot more going on than just that. One of the things about Sarutobi Hiruzen, and writing him in this fic, is that he has schemes within schemes. You see this very much this chapter -- he lets Jiraiya and Orochimaru in on something, and then lets Jiraiya in on another, later, secretly. The way I write Hiruzen is as a dyed-in-the-wool politician. He's clever and he's scheming. Jiraiya, at least, is convinced of his sensei's benevolence beneath that -- he still has faith. Orochimaru is somewhat more disillusioned.

Some more general things to with this scene:

We start the chapter off in Jiraiya's POV, because it's important that the readers get a feel for what he's like, how his brain works, before we see Megumi's POV on him next chapter -- and as such, can choose how much of what she sees to believe.

I wanted Jiraiya to feel like a plausible spymaster, without making him cold and manipulative. He's genial, and friendly, and he gets on with people and even builds genuine relationships with them -- but he's also got a head for secrets, and he ferrets them out with relative ease.

Orochimaru is the kind of person who would orchestrate a six-month long seduction of someone to get access to an office to steal a file. Jiraiya is the kind of person who'd just have a mate who could slip it to him. Friends in every city, essentially.

So, like, one of the things this chapter is how much are the characters saying? What aren't they saying and why? Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Hiruzen all wear masks for different purposes. Jiraiya's interesting, because what he hides first and foremost is his intelligence. You see it a little, at the end of the chapter -- the mask comes off. Jiraiya lays his cards on the table for his teacher.

Basically, when you chose that scene for the commentary, my brain went, huh. yeah. okay. i see why.

There's a lot going on with Jiraiya this chapter. But, in the interests of not spoiling the entire arc, I'm trying to be as general as possible here. Let's just say there was a lot of set-up here.

[chynandri]

Canadians: the ICJ hearing is very soon and I think there’s still time to send an email through this campaign to the foreign minister and other members of govt urging them to take a firmer stand with South Africa - if you haven’t already. It’s almost at its goal of 20k emails and as far as I have read, Canada is still of the stance of ‘we will respect whatever the ICJ rules’.

If anything it’s worth it to keep expressing your feelings and thoughts to the govt about their stance at every stage of this genocide:

[e77y]

Guy from my student newspaper just emailed me to ask what hot-button legislative issues young people are concerned with so he can ask a local politician about it??? At a political internship interview???? In this deep red county????????? I am the WRONG guy to ask buddy

[enbycrip]

Once again, demagogue politicians are out there appealing to “common sense” to justify their actions denying 99.99% of the scientific consensus, and also coincidentally meaning they get funding from large petrochemical corporations.

I try not to get pissed off at Thomas Payne for inserting the idea that “common sense” is key to the average person’s interaction with politics into western political discourse. He was working in a reasonably different environment to the current one. (Though not as different as it would like to claim, tbh, given the preponderance of elite political dynasties with long connections to slavery in politics in both North America and European democracies.)

But the basic facts are that “common sense” literally measures a person’s own daily experience and that of the people in their immediate circle. It is *very* situational to an individual’s class status and sociocultural experience.

Hence why, for example, a wealthy white person will have an entirely different “common sense” approach to how one behaves when dealing with the police from an impoverished black person with experience of being unhoused. Applying the attitude of the first to governance without awareness of the second is so often what is done, even without the individuals involved being *actively* racist or classist, and that has been *disastrous*. This is how structural racism and classism are embedded into political structures.

All of this is within the sphere of everyday human experience. It requires common human skills like empathy, which have been needed for the entire lifetime of our species. And, frankly, people who are not specifically taught to/put time and effort into developing it, *very much* including our political class, *still* regularly fuck it up.

So how much more vulnerable are we to fucking up internalising the understanding of far more complex situations, far too big and generalised to be within the regular scope of a single or small group human experience, that require an advanced understanding of mathematics and statistical phenomena, which are *not* remotely a common enough part of our sociocultural understanding to have been internalised within it yet? And which, frankly, are not taught particularly well across our educational system, particularly under the university level?

And that absolutely includes the very-much-not-state schools and universities most of the political class attend. My personal education leans towards the humanities, and I am *not* a professional scientist, and I was still genuinely quite shocked to see how even politicians acting in good faith struggled with trying to process what I think of as quite basic public health-level clinical understanding during COVID.

And this is the situation as we are coming into this terrifyingly vital period for climate change.

[fleshadept]

being raised agnostic in a very christian area has put me in the strange position of knowing i could never really Be Religious without radically altering the way i experience material reality but also deeply envying the experiences religion affords people, the idea that there’s a presence out there that you can talk to when you need something or feel alone. the kind of polytheism popular in imperial china and ancient greece and egypt—and in a similar vein the catholic patron saints—the idea of having Specific Guys who are all about an aspect of life (whether it’s your trade or love or death etc) that you can direct your attention to at different times sounds particularly nice. i do feel as though i’m missing out sometimes

[jvzebel-x]

King Kalākaua-- dubbed throughout time as the "Merry Monarch"-- dedicated his life&complicated rule to establishing the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi as an independent power recognized world wide, as well as revitalizing a culture that had been nearly ground to dust under the heel of colonization. Hula-- once publicly outlawed as a deeply spiritual&religious act by the missionaries who spearheaded the war to destroy our culture-- was brought back to the public consciousness by the King, an incredibly accomplished dancer himself.

The Merry Monarch Hula Festival is the most well-known portion of his legacy, and is celebrated by kānaka&lovers of hula all over the world.

Mahalo nui loa, Ke Aliʻi Kalākaua.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

House Bill 3817 was filed by State Representative Jehan Gordon-Booth along with 19 cosponsors, all Democrat. The measure will now to sent to Governor J. B. Pritzker for consideration after passing the Senate 36 to 20, and passing the House 73 to 38.

The legislation, which covers a variety of topics, includes a provision that would alter the state’s existing tax code to allow marijuana businesses to take deductions for “an amount equal to the deductions that were disallowed under Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code for the taxable year.”

The legislation is seen as a partial remedy to IRS code 280E, which prevents federally illegal entities from taking tax deductions. Although the measure doesn’t allow marijuana businesses to take federal tax deductions, it would allow them to take the state-level tax deductions the same as any other legal business in Illinois.

According to data released by the Illinois Cannabis Regulation Oversight Officer, the state sold $50 million worth of legal marijuana and marijuana products in April. This brings the year-to-date total to almost $150 million.

[sylver-drawer]

Tfw you make a whole new love interest for Athy because you dislike both of the canon ones

[pochapal]

imagine being one of kinzo's children and thinking you have the right to call literally anybody else a failure and a loser. yes battler is a pathetic scrungly or whatever but that's beside the point

[fiapple]

everyone acting like the fact that some detr*ns people join transphobic movements after de-tr*nsitioning is a phenomena that’s the fault of trans people not supporting them enough & not, oh, i don’t know, their own choice to become a literal fucking facist, owes all trans people $1,000,000 each actually. usd too.

[timesofocean]

Ukraine’s president stresses importance of focusing on path to victory

New Post has been published on https://www.timesofocean.com/ukraines-zelenskyy-stresses-importance-of-focusing-on-victory/

Ukraine’s president stresses importance of focusing on path to victory

Kyiv (The Times Groupe) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that society and Kyiv’s partners should not lose sight of the path that must be followed in order to defeat Russia.

“Compared to last year, it’s quieter in many places now. But this does not mean that somewhere you can ignore the war or be less focused on helping the state,” Zelenskyy said during an evening address.

“We have managed to do a lot together with our partners to protect people. Ukraine and the whole of Europe. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to rest on our laurels. We have a long way to go. The movement is forward. It’s something for which we need unity no less than before. We must be no less focused than before,” he said.

“Just as before, our positions at the front, all our soldiers at their positions must be supported by Ukrainian positions politically and in terms of information, by the power of weapons and the power of our social unity, our internal stability and the strength of Ukraine’s ties with the rest of the world.” TIMES OF OCEAN

Zelenskyy also said that this is the task of the state and its people, both on the domestic and international level, who value “a free life and an international rules-based order.”

“It is foolish to just passively hope that someone else will bring victory, the one who is now in the trenches, the one who is now performing assaults. This is a joint task. Everyone wins. Those who fight for it, and those who provide weapons. Those who reduce the capabilities of the terrorist state, and those who increase those of Ukraine,” he added.

[betty-bourgeoisie]

if you dont mind me asking, could you elaborate on how Bananas, Beaches and Bases relates to Hetalia? I read your tags and now I’m interested in picking up the book, but having a a sort of trajectory for my thought would be great. Thank you!

Okay, I read this book while taking a women's international politics course that added a lot to the information and I can't reference my copy right now because a friend is borrowing it so my apologies if I'm accidentally misremembering where I got certain information but anyway -

The book is essentially a primer on the roles women play in international politics. It covers everything from sweatshop workers to military wives, beauty pageant contestants to women diplomats. It is quite explicitly intersectional in its lense and talks about the ways that class, race, and ethnicity impact women's roles in international politics (it's not as good about disability and queer intersections but I'm pretty sure it does at least touch on the latter).

But one of the points Cynthia Enloe especially focuses on is how gender, as well as other identities, impact nationalism, patriotism, and the very way you conceptualize yourself as a citizen of a country. She also talks very explicitly about how these things tie to colonialism.

So in terms of reading the book as a Hetalia fan, Bananas Beaches and Bases is going to give you:

1) A broad overview of what nationalism, patriotism, and nationality even are

2) A very simplified history of global colonialism

3) A more nuanced understanding of how people with marginalized identities are impacted by things like nationalism and colonialism

All things that I personally think any adult engaging with the idea of country personifications should probably have at least some grasp on if they don't want to make an ass of themselves.

And to be clear, this book does simplify a lot of topics! It's trying to cover a lot of ground in a limited amount of time and Cynthia Enloe herself has said that she meant for it to be an introduction to feminist international politics. It's not meant to be super in-depth, but that's one of the things that I think makes it a good entry-level "everyone should read this" type of book for these topics.

[crabcrabcrabmeat]

i had this spoiled for me but its still insane

[transmaverique]

gonna be honest I see anyone talking about this "my gender is more complicated than yours" shit as someone who genuinely cannot comprehend that other people that don't share certain traits with them can still in fact have rich interior lives. as an agender trans woman who uses she/her I've never had anyone say it to me who wasn't (usually unknowingly) transmisogynistic

see but im not talking about "rich interior lives" and the assumption that i am is exactly what im talking about. i am talking about the actual physical way that reality treats and percieves me in comparison to the way it treats and percieves you. saying my gender is "more complex" means to me that i am physically incapable of existing in a strictly binary world and that there is no thing i can pass as bc "binary man" and "binary woman" are both incorrect for me. and the Cisiety in question does not allow androgyny to exist - it is exclusively the timeframe people have to decide whether they think you are a cisman or a ciswoman, or a failure and a freak. i dont subscribe to that "binary privilege" shit, thats not how privilege works. but there are differences in the ways both you and i can navigate this strictly binary Cisiety!!! and those differences deserve to be named, imo

like. again. i dont have to comfort you about your own internal sense of gender before youll listen to me about my experiences in the real world as genderqueer. as a different sort of transsexual than you.

(and bc i Know what binary ppl love to say: i know not everyone is 'capable of passing'. what i am talking about specifically is the difference between being unable to pass as a cis woman or a cis man vs being unable to pass bc what i am does not exist AT ALL in a binary society, and both of those things are incorrect ans unattainable.)

(anyways if that language is too imperfect for you thats like fine but. its just confusing to me, i dont get why its hard to understand what we are talking about here. our experiences w our nonbinary genders are completely different! why do i have to discuss them like theyre the same?)

[gachaparadise]

*head in hands* why is it every time i'm randomly like yeah i'll get back into AK it's time for a sad goat time.