#cw: terrorism

[warsofasoiaf]

On ceasefire negotiations related to how Israel-Hamas is operating. Israel demanded to know how many hostages remain and who is alive, and apparently Hamas is refusing to provide the names and count. Is this a normal thing to argue over and is it normal for a country to sacrifice military campaigns for a comparatively small number of civilians? For example would the United States act similarly if it were in Israel's situation? Would another Western country?

This is actually something I can talk a great deal about, because it deals with negotiations, game theory, and applying economic concepts to non-economic subjects. This will be pretty clinically heartless, so I'm going to throw a cut down.

A hostage negotiation is, at its core, taking prisoners to extract some form of compensation for their safe return. The hostage taker wants something, and trades in human lives to get it. This can be money (ransom), an exchange of prisoners (a prisoner swap), or to exert pressure to enact political change (terrorism). The negotiation is largely an argument over price - how much is it worth to return the hostages safely. We'll get back to this in a bit.

It is typically standard practice to declare the name, number, and status of hostages for a few reasons. One is verification, to prove that the organization has the hostages in question. The second is to establish good faith that the negotiations can be conducted, that the hostages won't be immediately executed. If there is no good faith, the other side does not negotiate and instead attempts rescue (or in Russia's case, just mows them down indiscriminately). That's the same reason why hostage takers can release hostages as a show of good faith that further negotiations are fruitful.

At the end of the day, a hostage negotiation is an argument over the price of the hostages' lives. In any negotiation, information asymmetry is the name of the day, and the more advantages you have in that category, the better price you can command. Hamas is incentivized not to declare the name and status of the hostages for both benign (relatively) and malign reasons. By refusing to name the number and status of the hostages, it forces uncertainty into the Israeli negotiations. If Israel doesn't know how many hostages it's "buying" then it's liable to offer more than Hamas is willing to settle for, which makes Hamas come out ahead in the exchange. If Israel offers too low an amount, Hamas can simply demand more - there are no downsides unless Israel refuses to negotiate.

Of course, the malign reason is that the hostages are not in the best shape - they're either the victims of torture or are already dead. In this case, Hamas is disguising the status to up the price of the negotiations. Typically, negotiators don't pay for dead hostages, so in the event you have dead hostages, it's advantageous to disguise that status to extract something for them (typically money because once you have it in your hand, it's tough to go backsies). It's not good business in the long run, because no one does business with you again, but Hamas likely doesn't believe it's going to be in a position to negotiate again so that threat is less prescient. Similarly, Hamas likely believes it's insulated from the inevitable blowback that it would bring. Support for Hamas, either from their Iranian backers or Western groups, doesn't typically go down even in response to perfidy, torture, or other crimes. So in that sense, being a habitual bad-faith actor doesn't hold the same animus - they're still going to enjoy support from their backers regardless of what they do, which are prime conditions for reinforcing bad behavior. It's similar in Israel, where the Netanyahu government largely doesn't care about foreign political pressure - their reaction typically to international condemnation is to close ranks and accuse their critics of wanting them dead, or at least not caring whether they live or die.

Typically, governments don't like to negotiate ransoms for hostage taking for the all-too-logical reason, it incentivizes other hostage taking attempts. Private citizens often pay ransoms because for them, it is a singular iteration of game theory - there typically isn't a second instance of hostage taking unless the individual is quite unlucky. Governments however, frequently interact with terror groups and are thus less likely to negotiate directly save in the event that the hostage in question is extremely important.

In that sense, hostage taking is usually an attempt to force private citizens to enact domestic pressure on a government, not to pressure the government directly. In the sense of the United States or any other Western countries, this is more effective than in autocracies such as Russia or China, which both are relatively resistant to domestic criticism and are more willing to accept civilian casualties. So to answer your question of what would the United States or another Western nation do, the answer is "it depends on the willingness of the public to place domestic pressure on the government to free the hostages versus their desire to punish the perpetrators."

Thanks for the question, Cle-Guy.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[msilverstar]

Peace is the only ethical option

I'm Jewish, and I need to say that the Hamas attacks were horrors, awful, unforgivable. I hope the remaining Hamas organizers and participants are found and punished, I wouldn't be upset if they are killed in battle.

But Israel isn't going to be safer doing more of what it has been doing for 80 years. The US, Arab states and Palestinian leaders have some of the blame as well. We terrorized and dehumanized the Palestinians in Gaza for decades until they had no hope, and we were surprised when they exploded. Collective punishment is never acceptable. Bombing refugees is a war crime. Killing so many civilians of one culture, trying to destroy their physical environment and heritage, is genocide.

Attacking Israel civilians and Jews around the world is terrible, irrational and wrong.

Never again applies to everyone.

[weaversweek]

Under the cut, seven hours of how financial channel CNBC reported events on this day in 2001. Coverage begins at 8.45 local time (12.45 UTC), just before stuff kicks off.

And if you're the guy from Oakmark Select Fund, go home. They ain't coming back to you.

[unfinishedbusincss]

@protectthevulnerable call

Nearly twenty years ago, a terroristic cult called Diablo's Canyon planted a bomb on a California dam. The bomb was rigged with a biochemical agent manufactured to poison the entirety of the water within the dam, rendering it utterly undrinkable. During this act, the cult's leader, one Velvet von Ragnar, toppled over the dam and fell to her death. It wasn't until after Ragnar's death that reports of what she and her cult had been planning came to life, and the people of California let out a collective breath as they realized the danger that had almost come to pass.

The larger problem was that while the cult had been disbanded, Ragnar herself hadn't actually died. She'd fallen; she'd survived; she'd put herself back together; and now she was making her homecoming debut in a bar that twenty years ago had been called the Incinerator Club, thirty minutes away from the abandoned facility where she'd first built Diablo's Canyon. Velvet "Vaughn" stepped into the low light of the bar without any particular kind of plan beyond some amorphous idea about recruiting better shitheads than the worms she'd gotten before.

Her long black leather duster swept behind her with each click of her heels on the concrete floor, her eyes sharp in their dark makeup as they swept over the bar's patrons. Not much had changed in twenty years: new name, new management, same shitty clientele. Velvet was just considering her other options when a new sight walked through the doors, dark-haired and pale and with the kind of walk that spoke of a woman on a mission. Red lips pushed up into a smirk.

She didn't quite beat the other woman to the bar, but it didn't matter: both were equally ignored by the bartender, at least for now. "Hiya, sugar. You're not one of the regulars here." Spoken with the confidence of somebody who was a "regular here," despite Velvet's own absence from the scene.

[dictatortirah]

Damn he really did dat huh

[notaplaceofhonour]

Columbia Encampment: “We support Hamas and the destruction of Israel!”

Jews and multiple faculty at Columbia: “This… seems dangerous & violent?”

everybody else for months: “Psshhh no the Columbia encampment it’s just a peaceful anti-war protest! They just want Columbia to divest from the Israeli government!”

Columbia encampment: “In no uncertain terms, we are trying to extend the success of October 7th to America in the form of unrest and violence to bring about the total collapse of our University & eradicate America.”

[cold-boys-fandom-hub]

15 more behind the scenes photos from Christos Lawton!

[toontiedterror]

TOON-TIED TERROR #3: A BILLION AND ONE

CW: CARTOON GORE!!!

Prev: Toon-tied Terror #2 : Smoke and Mirrors First: Toon-tied Terror #1 : Bar !!Credits!!

Writing: @dictatortirah @blankboyo (foghorn dialogue by @blurryisme )

Title Card: @blankboyo

Roughs: @yiznro2 @/NumsterProduct @/Br3dB3ar @funkytoonz @hellocatbruhbi @dictatortirah @blankboyo @/cocksucker59

Lineart: @/cocksucker59 @/Brainless_Atze @funkytoonz @blankboyo @/loopundertow @inkrubberhose @dictatortirah

Color: @dictatortirah @funkytoonz

Editing: @dictatortirah @blankboyo

It's Saturday here!

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Rose McGowan - Planet Terror (2007)

[nopickls]

I wouldn't if I were you I know what she can do She's deadly man, she could really rip your world apart

- Maneater, Hall & Oates

[hellenhighwater]

May I ask you a potentially sensitive question (and please feel free not to answer if you'd rather not) but how did you come around to adopting Malice and Vice after your cat before them passed away. I lost my own cat, my baby boy, two years ago, and it seems an opportunity to have a new cat in my life has come up, and while I would love a new fluff in my life, I still have these feelings of ... wrongness? of sadness at the idea at the same time. I guess I'm asking, when you got your kittens, did you feel something like that? Is it something you wait to go away before welcoming a new pet into your life, or does it ever go away?

That's a really good, really hard question. I don't know that I can say anything objective about it. I can only tell you what it was like for me personally.

I love cats. I will probably have cats for the rest of my life, and I will adore each and every one, but none of them are ever going to be able to hold a candle to the Terror. She was just the best cat, and losing her was devastating. She was old, though, and I knew it was coming a while before it happened, so I had some time to start making peace before Nimitz actually passed.

There is nothing anyone could do or say that would have made that easier, and no new cat would have ever been able to replace her. I didn't want them to. I knew that losing Nim would gut me, and I decided that I would rather put that grief to work by taking in and caring for a cat that needed it. I had planned, actually, on an adult cat; Mal and Vice as kittens sort of fell into place accidentally. I didn't expect to feel less grief by having a new cat; I just wanted something to do with that feeling. I often find that I can't work through that kind of feeling until I've made something of it; I knew I wanted to make a home for another cat.

I still miss her. I think I will never not miss her; she was a phenomenal cat. I'm tearing up now, like I do every time I think about her for more than a few minutes. Taking in the kittens was almost...a tribute to her memory, I guess? The Terror was left on the street before she decided she lived with us; I think she would maybe appreciate the same being offered to other cats, now that she no longer has need of my home.

Malice is really nothing like Nimitz--there is a reason I mostly call her Meatball, but I think that for the rest of my life I will always have a black longhair, to keep just a shadow of the Terror of the Underbrush near.

[wrizard]

wrizard's super basic guide to y-chromosome-based identification!!

for those interested, on this fitzcovery day:

a dear friend asked me to explain why i felt completely insane about the phrase "genetic distance of one" and, as usual, i got overexcited and wrote an entire thing about it complete with goofy images! it's on twt HERE, but i figured it would also be nice to pop it up here also. SO. with the caveat that it has been many years since my last bio class and this is VERY OVERSIMPLIFIED. here's

Human DNA is grouped into chromosomes. We generally have TWO of each chromosome: 22 pairs (numbered 1-22), plus one pair of sex chromosome (typically either two X-chromosomes (XX), or one X-chromosome and one Y-chromosome (XY)). That's 23 pairs, or 46 chromosomes, in total.

When producing sex cells, matching chromosome pairs will RECOMBINE (swap bits of information) - eg. one Chromosome 4 will remix itself with the other Chromosome 4, making TWO UNIQUE C4s. When the cell splits into two sex cells, each sex cell will carry ONE unique C4.

That's sexual reproduction! Every new offspring is genetically unique - new combinations of traits pop up quickly, and if they improve reproductive fitness, can be passed on to future offspring. This allows for rapid adaptation and changes in a species over time.

But what about Y-chromosomes, which don’t have pairs? They can't recombine in the way paired chromosomes can - which means Y-chromosomes pretty much only change via mutation (errors in copying DNA). Mutation is VERY slow, especially compared to recombination.

This means that when an XY parent passes down their Y-chromosome to a child, chances are high that chromosome will have few, if any, changes – as opposed to X-chromosomes, which recombine in both XX parents and children, shuffling genetic information all over the place.

Due to this slow rate of change, Y-chromosomes can be more easily tracked through the generations than other human chromosomes. A Y-chromosome might be passed down nearly unchanged for hundreds of years from genetic father to genetic son.

GENETIC DISTANCE refers to the measurement of difference between two sets of DNA. The lower the genetic distance, the more closely related the two samples are likely to be. A genetic distance of 1 means the samples are close to identical.

Because we know how slowly Y-chromosomes change over time, we know that if the Y-chromosomes of two people have a low genetic distance, this implies that those people are paternally related – even if the two people live/lived hundreds of years apart.

In the case of Captain James Fitzjames, genetic data was extracted from a set of unidentified remains (a molar from a disarticulated mandible). 17 genetic markers from the molar’s Y-chromosome were compared to the Y-chromosome of a confirmed paternal relative of the Captain.

Those 17 markers were the same in both samples, giving the two Y-chromosomes a genetic distance of one – meaning, with the genetic information available, the living relative and the unidentified decedent are more than 2000 TIMES more likely to be paternally related than not.

EDIT: DOIP I MISREAD THE CHART 16 of 17 match, not all 17!!

Along with all the information we have from the historical record, the context of the remains, and this new comparative genetic analysis, we can safely conclude that this particular set of remains belong to Captain Fitzjames.

160 years isn't long in the grand scheme. Every identified set of remains is another reminder that these were people, not just a distant curiosity. It's humbling to remember not just that we have identified Cpt. Fitzjames, but that still, today, we have a genetic distance of one.

Photos and Y-chromosome comparison chart taken from Stephen, Fratpietro, and Park's paper "Identification of a senior officer from Sir John Franklin’s Northwest Passage expedition" from the Journal of Archaeological Science: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X24003766?via%3Dihub

hope my nonsense is helpful and/or informative and/or at least made you smile!! if you like this sort of thing :) cheers doves

[cicada-candy]

Working on a mechs lineup for Internal Consistency Reasons,,, I need 2 draw raphaella immediately but it is 2am this is A Crime

[22ratonthestreet]

okay so that scene fucked

[yorshie]

Safe With Leo

bayverse leo x female reader

SFW, reader in peril off screen, injured reader, Leo pining like a TREE, new nickname acquired, reader is not coping well after violence.

(I think the backstory me and @fuckedupcleric decided to go with was reader got carjacked then Leo did his own carjacking to get her back, but it's up for reader interpretation)

“Where do you think you’re going?”

His voice was low and even, at odds with the way his hands were clenched tightly into fists at his sides. Your gaze lingered on where the right was freshly bandaged, the strips of linen tight, the smell of ointment heavy in the air surrounding him.

The hallway where Leo caught you skulking wasn’t very wide. His shell blocked most of the light from the arcade around the corner. You tried, and failed, not to shrink in on yourself, despite the little voice screaming at you that it was Leo, the one person you always felt safe with. Should always feel safe with.

“Can’t sleep.” You told him, finally, honestly, too tired and too jittery to be able to stand the beeping and sterile cleanliness of the needle room. Your voice was a croaky thing, raw from screaming and sobbing yourself hoarse. Your ears rang, where you had deafened yourself in the enclosed space. Your palms and feet were raw, bruised from the concrete and trying to scratch yourself free. Your arms stung underneath where you were gripping onto your biceps in an attempt to hold yourself together. You could feel the deep cuts littered there, even through the bandages underneath the soft sleep shirt covering you. Covering you, you reminded yourself.

Safe with Leo, you told yourself again.

He let out a slow, heavy breath, the kind you were used to hearing directed at Raph, or Mikey, when either was being particularly annoying. It twisted something deep inside your gut, soured the saliva in the back of your mouth. The feeling of being trapped settled back in your gut when he swayed to the side, creating a space for you to slip past him.

He followed you, like a hound shadowing your footsteps, raising the hair along the nape of your neck. You heard him huff, the noise quiet, before he dropped back another step.

His voice was soft, but firm, when you reached the atrium, “Turn left, head to my room.”

You stalled, foot catching on the cold floor, a wince pulling at your mouth before you could hide the pain, “But-”

Leo shook his head, closing his eyes to dismiss your protest, “There’s no way you’re going to sleep on that couch, blossom.”

Blossom.

That was a new nickname. Before tonight, he’d always used your name, formal and polite, or on the rare occasion, if you were being especially sassy, he’d drop ‘princess’ in a smooth and silky voice that never failed to shut you up in a way Raph couldn’t when he teased you.

Tonight, however, Leo hadn’t whispered your name when he’d scooped you out of the trunk of the car hours before. No, it’d been blossom he’d pressed against your bloodied hair, voice wrecked and shaking as he’d cradled you in his arms and bared his teeth at Donnie when his brother had tried to take you away. It had been blossom he’d cooed at you while holding you still so Donnie could bandage the cuts on your arms, back and legs while you cried.

It’d been blossom he’d whispered when everything had become too much and you’d curled up into a little ball, the last word you’d heard when Donnie had ushered everyone out of the needle room.

Hearing it now, your feet resumed automatically, not ready to press and ask questions, not liking the newfound uncertainty that surrounded your feelings where Leonardo was concerned. 

He shadowed you all the way to his room, his normal, soothing demeanor gone, feeling more like a caged animal at your back than the friend you had grown to know these past two years. 

You stalled just inside the door, taking in the neat and orderly room that you’d only seen in passing before. “I don’t… think I should be here.” 

It felt sacrilegious. A privilege you hadn’t earned. An insight to Leo that made your palms sweaty and itchy and your stomach feel like lead. You wanted to be here…

You feared it.

He was watching you with an unreadable expression when you turned. “Do you want to go back to the needle room?”

Needle Room. Just the name sent a shiver down your spine, goosebumps and chills breaking out as you recalled the phantom smell of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant.

“No,” you whispered, too tired to keep the petulant edge from your voice despite the fact you knew he hated it.

Leo sighed again, his shoulders moving with the motion, and you idly realized his hands had yet to move, or unclench, from the rigid way he kept them at his sides. “Then, you,” He tipped his beak towards you, then to a point across the room, “bed.” 

He waited, patient as the moon, for you to cross the room, silent as you pulled back the covers and slipped between the sheets. You weren’t sure what to make of the way his eyes lingered for a moment, or of the way tension seemed to bleed out from his frame.

“Get some sleep.” He offered, voice noticeably softer, closer to that rumble you remember from the nightmare of your rescue. “If you need me, I’ll be just down the hall.”

You watched, unblinking, as he turned and disappeared from the doorway, not even a scuff of his feet to announce his departure. 

Maybe you were dreaming, maybe it had been a fictitious Leonardo that had offered the one thing you’d dreamt of, the one thing that you were sure you’d never get to experience. The one wish you’d squashed and squeezed, hoping one day it would disappear completely.

You were in his space. You looked slowly around the room, taking in the little pieces of decor, and the way everything was set just so. It screamed Leo, down to the soft blue blankets you were curled up under. 

Safe. The room told you. Safe from prying eyes, from staticy emotion boiling off other’s bodies, from questions you weren’t in any state to answer.

Safe with Leo.

Your eyelids fluttered, tension bleeding out of your spine with every deep inhale, letting the stale scent of teakwood and jasmine on the sheets, the incense from across the room, the tea on the little table beside your head, swirl together, lulling you to sleep with the scent of Leo.

Safe with Leo.

[kimdokjas]

"Remember that we lived."

Grief is a giant neon sign, protruding through everything, pointing everywhere, broadcasting loudly, "Love was here." In the finer print, quietly, "Love still is." — Heidi Priebe

happy belated birthday, jo ♡ @bixiaoshi [insp.]