#france news update

[chaoticace22]

this summer is definitely something...

[sayruq]

[vyorei]

Live coverage of the 11th of March 2024 is now closed.

Here is a recap of today's major events.

It is 12am in Ireland now so I have to go to bed.

I'll be back to resume live updates on Wednesday as I have to work.

For continuous updates while I'm gone, click the link below:

[the-eyespy]

🇫🇷🇵🇸 A French soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) posts a video stating, "We're going to Gaza, we're going to massacre them!"

[tejennnn]

Opa! The Mediterranean Cat Daddy (also no #1 so he and Türkiye can fight for the #1 spot 💥) 🇬🇷🐾

It's Greece with his anise-flavored national spirit, Ouzo! A parody of brand 12 Ouzo that has existed since the 19th century.

I love how their latest brand design has fish as the element!!!

[coeur-de-fruk]

SOMEBODY STOP ME PLEASE THIS IS A CRY FOR HEL-

[jkkyks]

Happy New Year People Of Tumblr♥️💋

[augustsappho]

Goldsmiths Centrists and Palestine: How To Ignore A Genocide - by August Sappho

On some unfortunate Tuesday in October 2023, I was sat shoving a piping hot cheese toastie down my throat in between morning lectures and sat idly with 2 other people in the refectory. Creative Arts students I'd met in the freshers chat who, whenever I had tried to share the contents of my lectures excitedly, had shut me down on the basis of politics being complicated and uncomfortable table talk. Desperate to make friends and coming from a family of people who typically get headaches at the dinner table caused by my ramblings and ravings, I understood and obliged; after all, I want to build bridges, not be the scary monster underneath them. That is until the curious question of Palestine came up, and I stayed quiet. Surely, these self-proclaimed apolitical progressives would be sensible. “I just think it’s all so complicated, really! People need to read up more before they come to broad conclusions!*” Yes, they absolutely should. What a rational take to have formed in the face of a sudden media flurry. In my own opinion, education, and more importantly, history, is the cornerstone of enriching one's ideas and understanding. The same way you use butter in a stew, and like butter, the professionals use a lot of it. And, like butter, it fattens me up, nourishes me and brings me a great deal of comfort. 

Mid-way through the summer term, I was struck by pure delight that I am living in a time where I can access any and every book I could ever dream of accessing either via the internet or a library or simply buying it. I sit, live and breathe in a country where the tuition fees are, yes, expensive but far from American and where people take great risks on their whole lives just to brush it with their fingertips, arm outstretched over a chasm of hope. Unfortunately, my table mates had decided not to utilise any of this incredibly accessible research and immediately followed their statements up by berating and shaming a lecturer in the media department for wearing a pro-Palestine jumper. They alluded very heavily that he should face some sort of consequence or simply not be allowed to wear it. After all, what does Palestine have to do with Creative Arts?  I continued chewing very slowly and very tense. I did think about saying something but decided against it. Months later, I blew up at them because these same apolitical progressives had one too many times scoffed, played devil's advocate and questioned people, including myself, into an uncomfortable corner over political meet-ups, rallies and open letters. Questioning tactics, phrasing, aims to no avail beyond being arseholes - have we tried just being really super duper nice to management guys? I almost laughed when I’d seen one of them had started learning Hebrew out of the blue on Duolingo.

Unfortunately, those self-proclaimed progressives aren't anything new at Goldsmiths University of London. It has a real troubling culture of letting people only engage in what they are comfortable with and not think much beyond that. Gay rights are legal in this country and, therefore, not controversial and, consequently, easy to support. Racism is illegal in this country and, therefore, not controversial to speak up against and easy to publicly oppose. Feminism has had many successful waves here, and so it is not out of the ordinary to call yourself a feminist (without being able to explain much theory behind any of what makes these ideas up or what distinguishes them). Unfortunately, these are also easy things you can add to your social media bios with no further thought, with the sole intent of virtue signalling and repelling conservatives online. While I am grateful for all these comforts and people's ability to declare themselves as such openly, they are often done on a very face-value level and do not always mean you're a particularly good anti-racist or a good ally or a good feminist. They often trick people who have done their homework into a false sense of security. No,they use these words in a way where the thinking has been done for them. You do not have to fight; you just have to pick the glaringly obvious option. They do not have to form moral opinions on the suffragettes bombing mailboxes, the Stonewall Riots or violent plantation liberation attempts from the likes of John Brown. They can simply sit and enjoy the luxury of not ever having to deal with the hard-hitting stuff and pretending they would have come to those conclusions anyway. 

Palestine, then, has acted as an axe, splitting whole student bodies around the world into two general camps. Between those who will occupy, sign letters, donate money, raise hell in the name of justice. In the name of what is good. Between those who will learn and listen and between those who will rattle on the same few talking points, claim to see both sides and claim things are just oh-so-complicated when they simply are not. Those who swear themselves by ideals of liberty and freedom and yet cannot muster a grain of sympathy to fight for those who have none. Those who will even go to the extent of the disenfranchisement of their peers and bullying if it means maintaining close contact with their comfort zones, and Palestine makes them very uncomfortable indeed—hearing chants and seeing flags and skirting around the videos of the bodies and the rubble, having to relocate your lecture or walk past a very obvious liberated zone. It makes it an unavoidable topic, puts politics in the face of those self-proclaimed progressives, and asks them, “Do you care enough to make a change?”. And the answer is a simple no. Instead of engaging with the reading they promised themselves publicly as a show of intellect, they choose to occupy their hours sending secret complaints to the warden, huff in frustration at marking boycotts, and get uncomfortable while swearing they're involved in all this and fully supporting it. Yet following lists, open letter signatures, and the things they mutter to each other paint a different picture. It is as if they know they are on the wrong side. They look left and right to see predominantly white middle-class faces like their own and prime ministers of conservative governments and think of it as some bizarre coincidence. They know they are wrong not to be reading, learning or keeping up to date which is why they maintain their opinions and feign progress until they are awkwardly called out or the simplest of questions peels off the scab.

“It’s [the occupation of the library] hindering students who have every right not to join the protest to do well in their end-of-year assignments!”—a message sent by one of the beloved October centrists. In a conversation that blew up into me confronting them for how they have treated several people, they hammered in that the student occupation of the library was unfair on themselves personally and other students like them. However, the occupation wasn't situated anywhere near the exam rooms nor on an exam day and was solely in the bottom floor front section of the library, where students are allowed to make as much racket as they want already, and people frequently do group projects there for this explicit reason. Anyone who has been to any library knows the bottom floor is always designated as the loud floor, and the higher up you go, the quieter it gets. Our library is quite impressive in size, so while unavoidable on the ways in and out, once you are inside, it was never going to be hard to find a spot to block them out. They did not know this, however, as it had never impacted them beyond hypotheticals in their head, and their argument wasn't dependent on having actually kept their eyes on what students were doing but rather finding anything to scream inconvenience at. All I could think was how funny that a student occupation of a library could be deemed as some unforgivable act because it impacts them directly, but a genocidal occupation in which their university has a hand in just isn't worth the time of day. The warden herself referred to the library occupation as something that ‘threatened’ students.

Let me conclude them with a different quote from the fictional Robin Swift from R.F. Kuang’s ‘Babel’ whose words perfectly encapsulate this ordeal.

“Across the town, students were fast asleep. Next to them, tomes by Plato and Locke and Montesquieu waited to be read, discussed, gesticulated about; theoretical rights like freedom and liberty would be debated between those who already enjoyed them, stale concepts that, upon their readers’ graduation ceremonies, would promptly be forgotten. That life, and all of its preoccupations, seemed insane to him now; he could not believe there was ever a time when his greatest concerns were what colour neckties to order from Randall’s, or what insults to shout at houseboats hogging the river during rowing practice. It was all such frippery, fluff, trivial distractions built over a foundation of ongoing, unimaginable cruelty.”

*the first conversation is paraphrased as best as I can remember it, as I do not record my conversations with people

[drsonnet]

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, [Mosque, Cairo, Egypt], 1843, Daguerreotype, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie, Réserve EG2- 701., LL/62078

[genshin-impact-updates]

The Steambird Special Edition V: New Creatures and Enemies: Ashore

Hello, Travelers~

As you explore Fontaine, there are new creatures and enemies waiting to be discovered.

P.S.: This edition only includes a presentation of certain creatures and enemies. We invite you to discover more content for yourself in the new version!

[elderwisp]

today in ts4: everyone is getting subtle tweaks

[staralite]

Summary: Matthew was a lot of things. He was a shy kid, a good baker, and an amazing twin brother.

What he wasn’t was a heartless serial killer. But if he got caught… then that’s all anyone would ever see him as.

So Alfred would protect Matthew. Even if it meant helping him hide the evidence, scrub the blood, and dump the bodies.

Even if it meant Alfred had to kill as well.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Fandom: Hetalia (Anime & Manga)

Relationships: America & Canada England/France

Word Count: 3,456

[sayruq]

[CONT] Seychelles

[the-eyespy]

🌏🌍🌎 You know when you have the USA, NATO, Russia, and China united against you, you're cooked.

Is there any conflict or potential brewing conflict where you can potentially see the United States, Russia, and China cooperating?

[valyrfia]

so irl life meant i didn't manage to complete Lestappen week but considering most of my fics for those are already half-written I'm going to try and post them slowly over the next couple of months! for now, here's a little snippet of the A/B/O fic <3

---

It goes like this. 

Max is ferocious before he even presents, spitting and hissing at any opponents who ruin his race. It’s a given he’ll present as an alpha. “Only a matter of time!” Jos proclaims proudly to anyone who will hear it, as Max balls his fists in a strange, unknown rage that threatens to sweep him away. 

This childhood anger finds its outlet in a little kid from Monaco-not-France with a bright helmet and an even brighter smile. He races Max like an equal, as they struggle for superiority over the karting tracks of Europe. Even more frustrating is the magnetic allure he seems to generate, alpha, betas, and omegas alike drawn to him, packs fawning and shifting and pawing to be formed by his side even in the biting competition of the karting tracks. 

And Max isn’t jealous, can’t be when more often than not he’s standing on the top step of the podium, Charles centimetres below him glaring up at him with jaded eyes. He manages to push down the jealousy, the deep yearning for pack and sate it with the fizz of fake champagne and the gleam of trophies. 

It changes, the last year in karting. Months after Max presents, he turns up at Val d’Algerton and smells Charles for the first time. Scents were dizzying the first few weeks after he presented, too much information sometimes for his brain to correctly handle, but he learned, he had to if he wanted to be stood at a race track again. 

Charles though, threatens to undo all that, smelling of tugging sea air and mediterranean pine and Max has to stop a second, the bright scent hitting the roof of his mouth. 

His father beside him, follows his eyesight “Leclerc’s an alpha then. Good. It reduces complications.”

“Complications?” Max hears himself asking, eyes swivelling to meet his father’s. 

Jos sniffs, “Well, a beta he might’ve been looking to form a paddock pack. An omega, he might’ve been looking for a mate,” Jos shudders at that, as if he could think of nothing worse. “This way, there’s no hard feelings, you’re just competition, even if he forms his own pack on track, or god forbid, finds a mate, his feelings don’t affect you you're always going to be competitors.”

[penofglen]

Oops, Did I Just Offend the Bible Belt and MAGA?

I've stirred the pot! My latest post delves into the recent uproar around the Olympic Opening Ceremony and the surprising backlash I received. 🤔 #olympics #olympicgames #reading #writing #paris2024 #sport #france #paris

Well, it seems I’ve stirred the pot a bit! If you follow my blog, you might have noticed my recent post questioning why so many people are up in arms about certain issues surrounding the Olympics (or, rather, why they’re Googling to find something to be outraged about!). The aftermath was quite the spectacle. I received a flood of private messages informing me that “God is watching me” and…