#imperialists will always side with each other

[robotpussy]

pro palestine protest today in London and suddenly nobody is allowed to wear anything that "conceals their identity" in certain parts of central London and the excuse of "based on evidence" it's so clear this is just racial profiling and islamophobia and a gateway for police harassment and even when asked about masks the pigs are still trying to cover their trail. ok fascist police state

[simpletale-officiale]

INTRODUCTION!

SIMPLETALE is an AU that aims to parody undertale. while also giving it its own original twist, although its not just limited to undertale, as we also aim to parody other silly little bits of the multiverse. like underfell, underswap, heck. maybe even underverse! you can find some of the AU's included in the lineup drawn above, as well as in the descriptions for the askable AU's further on in this post

the AU uses old concepts for undertale, and some fanon misconceptions. to make a funny and entertaining story, but also one with worldbuilding and some slightly more serious bits. unfortunately we cannot show the rest of the cast for simpletale currently because that's spoilers and we want to keep it secret for later (;

(be sure to frequently check this post, as characters could be added to be askable in the future)

questions are not just limited to characters though, you can also ask us, the creators, questions about the production of simpletale, or even our own opinions on it! maybe even some questions about areas...? but ill be nice and give some suggestions. "whats your favorite thing about simpletale?" "whats your least favorite thing about simpletale" dont be shy, ask!

moving onto the characters.

the simple. the basics. the one and only's!

the simpletale bros!

sans- a rather cheeky, clumsy, and humerus fella. likes getting a laugh out of others, often through humerus actions, he ends up annoying the shit out of his brother a lot of the time, and they argue a lot, they love being brothers though, and most of the time they make up rather quickly. usually tries to speak as little as possible and be as straight to the point as possible. has a fast food addiction

papyrus- a bumbling perfectionist imperialist. believes himself to be superior to others, even when in a low position of power, he was accepted into the guard because..... they needed someone to do the paperwork, dogs ain't that good for writing. despite this he believes himself to be the most important and supreme member of the guard, despite the most important thing he does being signing the occasional tax document or punting a trespasser (usually just random preteens) 20 feet into the air. a bit of a narcissist with a sailors mouth but he does actually care for the people in his life, despite coming off so rude most people find him annoying though ):. basically papyrus autism thrown to a hundred. banters with sans often when he tries to knock papyrus ego down a peg. tries to act menacing, but hes really just an 80's cartoon villain goofball. cooks the most delicious food you will ever taste, we let bro cook for a REASON.

the simpled is swapped?

the simpleswap bros!

they started out exactly like simpletale sans and papyrus, but decided to parody each other for shits and giggles, and then got all their friends along, which created simpleswap. their personalities are a bit altered from the simpletale brothers due to reasons but their whole swapped personality thing is a gag and they might break character once you say something outlandish or spook them.

papyrus- apathetic, and a bit apolitical with almost everything. started smoking weed to parody sans fast food addiction but actually started smoking it regularly, so hes like.... high. always. once you get through his apathetic and at times, cold and careless character, he can be surprisingly kind and humble, honestly a pretty decent guy. finds his old self cringey and dumb. works as an accountant on the side, cooks pretty tasty food, and often makes tasty weed brownies????

sans- cheeky, energetic, and plays this character of perfection to parody papyrus narcissism, think of the character of perfection kind of like how liquid chris works, effectively doing anything papyrus did, but better. still tries his best to get a laugh out of everyone, hes in better shape then simpletale sans and is overall more athletic, playful and energetic, takes the whole parodying eachother thing less seriously then his brother. him and fellsimple sans are best pals

their bold, their brash, they certainly dont belong in the trash, an-OUCH I FELL AND BROKE MY FUCKING KNEEES-

fellsimple.

this one goes slightly more heavy into parodying fanon

sans- has anger issues, plays up this role of being a punk, "fuck the government" "acab" "i dont believe in consistency" you get the point, a bit of a greedy fuck, loves gold, as well as sharp stuff and gold, he has some.... taboo fetishes like hes probably into bdsm. being the only one out of the skeletons to not be asexual as well as being the only one to be straight. rides a motorcycle, but likes trucks more, probably secretly works with trucking, simpleswap sans is his best friend and he loves to drink with simpletale sans, tough attitude, but is secretly just as silly as the others.

papyrus-has a job as a guard but ends up skipping most of the time because the guards are pretty horrible people and they make him pretty stressed, likes books and philosophy, probably plays this fake role of an evil, heinous guard at work, if ever does it that is. hes a real cheapskate compared to sans, but will buy good books or vinyl albums at a high price if he feels their high enough of quality. hes shy compared to the other papyruses.

sans

....aaaand error.

a bit of a sleazy fella with a PLAN. he doesnt destroy aus here but does more heinous stuff, like rob banks in AU's, make illegal businesses or currencies, clash with rival gangs, and occasionally fights with ink (although their relationship is very sexual, parodying the fanon misconception that errink is canon) ask him the right questions, and he might even bring some of his gang members along to answer (; his personality is somewhat apathetic, but he always has a PLAN!!!!!! AND YOU CANT FIGHT NATURE JOHN......

NOW, THE FIRST ERROR GANG MEMBER!

killer: nickname: assassin has been unlocked!

coming from an alternate timeline of simpletale where sans got bored? varisk (frisk replacement) decided to mentally manipulate him into thinking that robbing and killing is a better option then doing nothing. and pays him for it eventually papyrus was killed in crossfire and sans murdered varisk, the pin on his jacket is a soul, but souls are useless in the simpleverse, blood is much more valuable. he's a silent but professional skeleton. cares deeply about his boss and coworkers.

EXTREMELY good with firearms as well as chains. its hard for him to move his mouth, so its almost always locked in a constant smile the liquid that leaks out of him is like an oil like substance, touching it for too long burns your skin, its incredibly cold though. he's ruthless and aggressive in battle and is often the tank/brute in whatever operation dysfunct has going on. usually smug and professional, but can also be very gentle around those he deems friendly enough.

picked up by error after an.... incident in his au.

the nightmare and dream brothers!

nightmare: claims to have been "betrayed" by his brother (dream stole his sandwich) believes dream causes all his misfortunes and bad luck moments. kind of acts like a spoiled rich kid with a military obsession. started the gang by feeding into errors idea of a free multiverse, where there are no governments and an independent existence for everyone. a world with anarchy and fun. he can be a good manipulator at times, but is all bark no bite. pretty cringe, both him and his brother claim to be "gods" but in truth, their both mutations/byproducts of the simpleswap universe "glitching" creating this disgusting blob and a ball of light (think like sans bad time eye) inside of a husk body. both are amortal and seek to destroy the other, or at least piss each other off for as long as possible.

dream: LOVES shit talking about his brother plays this role of an innocent cutesy kind emperor, when he is everything opposite to that, except for emperor I guess. he is an emperor. believes causing nightmare misfortune will bring him luck in some form (it doesn't, but hes too stupid to realize) if he gets the chance he would probably torture and give his enemies a VERY painful, but quick death. he wants his brother to be at the bottom of life, the worst point in his life, before he plans to KILL. speaks in a very Shakespearian way. is a snobby fuck. not really greedy. but will do ANYTHING in his power to make his enemies die the most painful death he can give them. not cruel to his people, but gaslights them a lot. claims what he does is for the "greater good" acts nice, and very kind to his "friends" but would betray them the moment he finds anything better. the type of guy to give you puppydog eyes after burning down your house

AND ME!!!

thanks to kyne for activating my dastardly plan to take over this tumblr, im not just gonna be thrown away as a simple outcast at that pub anymore, im fuckin important goddamn it!!!!!

i also may edit the intros a bit add my own flare you know but the importance is i am now your stand in if you ask anyone thats in the multi-bar!!!!

bio: 404 was born omnipotent, automatically more powerful then all the other simpletons. he would become aware of how through an alternative reality known as the prescratch timeline where that version of him speaks of what he was destined for. nobody believes him however and that bitch error keeps harassing me about talking shit well guess what whore i dont fucking need you anymore because ive found myself somebody who won't just use me and then throw me away when its most fitting fuck you never talk to me again bitch

liks: chaos, delinquency, anarchy, NOT following the rules, 100 gecs (the one with the stupid horse), being powerful, super transformations, hyperpop, chains, gold, copypastas, big hot strong men that could absolutely penetrate me hard, 100 gecks (literally, i have 100 of them as pets and its awesome!!!), flexing, being totally dripped out, colors associated with errors, busting it down (gay kind not cool kind)

dislinks: order, rules, politics, leaders, having to follow instructions, horror sans from the evil guys fuck you you stole my place on that group which im not that upset about anymore after realising they all suck anyways but i still hate you because you refuse to actually fight and keeps saying random quips everytime youre on screen like actually shut the fuck up, gex, women because im severely femalephobic and extremely homosexual so they terrify me, error (cheater and liar dont ever trust him with anything), ink who stole my man with her fuckin cursed woman parts and apparently in the prescratch timeline everyone calls her mommy????? kinda sussy BUT THE SIMPLEVERSE IS LIMITLESS! Because there is a multibar just down the road > (https://simpletale-officiale.tumblr.com/post/727125546167828480/farm-sans)

CREDITS

Undertale by @fwugradiation

Underswap by popcornprince and @underswapped3

Underfell by @underfell

error sans by @loverofpiggies

Killer sans by @rahafwabas

Dream and nightmare by @jokublog

Sigh.... 404 by.... @vibeless15

[paper-mario-wiki]

You made a decent post about how imperialist news sources obfuscate the settler-colonial nature of israel and how we should be supporting Palestinian liberation but then some liberal says "oh actually the imperialist news says youre wrong" and you roll over and apologize?

Of course imperial nations strengthen certain currents of their "enemies" to manufacture consent to brutally crush them further.

This will be my last statement on the matter, as I really don't think it's my place to be a source for information on this topic. This ought to be interpreted as an opinion, because it is. My blog is called Paper-Mario-Wiki. I'm a bit out of my lane speaking on geopolitical conflicts. That said, I'd be doing myself a disservice by not at least making my stance clear.

Completely setting aside your assessment of The Intercept of all things as imperialist news, you'll note that in my post I only apologized for unilaterally endorsing Hamas and not acknowledging them as a creation of the Israeli occupying forces. They are, by definition, a terrorist group. And they are, in fact, killing civilian families. It is a violent, terrible thing that is happening.

I did not apologize for, or take back, saying that the IDF has been murdering and torturing Palestinian civilians for longer than you or I have been alive, and that they are singularly at fault for deaths of the occupying settlers. In fact, at the end of the post I reiterated my support for the Palestinian resistance.

Regaining land and footing against an oppressor will be violent and regrettable, as (I believe) on a fundamental level most reasonable people do not want to kill each other for any reason. But it will continue to be violent and regrettable because of the state of Israel, and exclusively because of Israel, for the alternative is the total displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people, as has been their goal for the past century. Real, militant resistance does not look cool or pretty or sometimes even fair. The loss of human life will always be terrible, and no matter how good the intentions of strategic wartime violence, it is still violence. It is still war, and war should not be glorified on any side.

I feel no shame in acknowledging nuance in one of the most complicated international affairs of my lifetime. I also feel no shame in acknowledging this nuance while steadfastly believing that many, many people would end up dead in this conflict regardless of what tactics Palestinian forces used. The only difference is that the settlers who were murdered by Hamas took the land they were murdered on, and the violence of the oppressed cannot be equivocated to the violence of the oppressor.

[stirringwinds]

i know people talk a lot about the us and UK special relationship but it kind of fell after the Suez and France kind of sneakily stole it didn't he? I mean did the same before the wars

thanks for the ask! ngl, as a londoner, i've always personally felt the representation of the "Special Relationship" as this mega-close and affectionate dynamic is kind of...an un-holistic understanding of the UK or England, as well as of the United States. don't get me wrong, it's one of their most important relationships and there's a lot of deep history there—my issue is mostly with rose-tinted interpretations underpinning it and what biases they showcase. these were heavily biased by Churchill's (imperialist) gaze of envisioning Anglo-American affinity and leadership on the world stage. this interpretation quite significantly downplayed the rivalry, power struggles, conflicts and differences that historians existed between the US and the British Empire, or how US presidents tended to see it in far less majestic terms. like, Churchill rather downplays FDR's vehement disagreements with him over the issue of Indian independence lol or decolonisation (because the US was eyeing the world as a chessboard, re: new markets and also whether or not support for the old colonial power would be a bulwark against or risk soviet or other communist influence).

so, while you're right that Suez was a pretty low moment in US-Britain relations due to the US being pissed at Britain and France jeopardising its ostensible goal of swaying Egypt away from the Soviet sphere of influence (sidenote: Egypt itself was trying to navigate the mess of the Cold War rivalry to secure its interests), i don't really see it as "falling" after Suez or stolen by France simply because that dynamic Churchill painted a picture of never really existed in that way. plus, Europe (France included) and the ex-colonies of the British Empire (like the dominions and India) weighed heavily on British foreign policy/its national outlook too; i tend to find an overemphasis on a rose-tinted view of the "Special Relationship" leads to a lot of US-centrism that shuts out this understanding. to me, Arthur and Alfred's relationship is most interesting when we situate them properly amidst all these other imperial and geopolitical cross-currents. of which Francis is an important one, from the time he helped Alfred during the Revolutionary War, to the Entente Cordial, WWI and the post-WWII world of NATO, the EU and so on.

in hetalia-verse, it's one of the reasons I personally headcanon Arthur and Alfred as father and son. their bond is lasting, forged by the blood, steel and saltwater of empire, and all the familial, deep and troubling implications that implies. they are "stuck" with each other in some ways, because post 1945, it's a familial dynamic of the old king and the young, ambitious crown prince who thinks his father is out of time—and out of line. francis never really "steals" anything because he and arthur's relationship is on a very different axes: francis is the neighbour who has been by arthur's side as his enemy, friend, lover, rival in imperial douchebaggery, ally (for better and also for worse, like in suez...)—and everything in between. whereas arthur and alfred have some real patricidal/regicidal, titanomachy-level father-son power struggles going on, mixed in with this dysfunctional level of understanding and them also colluding together shadily (you are different from him in many ways, there are many things he'll never understand about you—but you are your father's son, alfred; to be powerful is to be tainted).

so in conclusion, i see alfred-arthur and arthur-francis as both very important foundational dynamics crucial to arthur's character, but conceptualised differently from that understanding of the "special relationship" because they're two different kinds of relationships, even if there is the overlapping dynamic of power, rivalry and empire. ✌🏼

[intersectionalpraxis]

Heyo! As a Canadian, are there any particular ways we can help Palestine? Also, who are the companies actively shipping shit to israel?

Hello! Thank you so much for the question. I'd first like to take the opportunity to state that the federal government in Canada right now -the Trudeau Government -has been terribly consistent with supporting the IOF. For DECADES -since the creation of the settler state (which should not be a surprise to anyone, of course), Canada has a LONG 'diplomatic' history of being pro-Isnotreal. For folks who don't know/aren't aware, since we often hear about/talk about the US's imperialistic policies and actions against many communities around the world (which, again is understandable given the billions in military aid they give to Isnotreal and the sheer amount of militaristic aggression and violence the US unleashes daily to people they deem a 'threat' to their empire) -but I always remind folks to not forget that Canada is equally awful and problematic.

The Trudeau government, like many MP's across party lines, have supported the IOF and the Trudeau government has denied genocide 'allegations' against Isnotreal at the ICJ. Trudeau is also the one who advocated for a "humanitarian pause," after stumbling on his words a few months ago, and has, from time to time, 'condemned,' the IOF military for going 'overboard' when he trickles in his little empathetic 'we are so concerned for the people in Gaza,' while in the same breath saying the IOF didn't strike hospitals... (side eyes).

These are some recent examples (the first in June, and December of 2023, respectively) -which shows proof that Canada exports weapons to the IOF (but often through the US -the article below addresses this). Since you asked about about which companies are shipping to Isnotreal, the only one I can reference is CN Rail [Canadian National Railway] (which is where some protests have happened), but there aren't any other particular companies I can reference because shipments are done relatively in secret, so there's not a strong/direct paper trail, so to speak. this is an except from the first article below:

"Canada doesn’t normally release many details on defence exports to Israel or other countries. Since 2015, however, the largest annual categories of shipments fall into three categories: bombs, torpedoes, missiles and other explosive devices; aircraft, drones, aero engines, aircraft equipment for military use and electronic equipment; spacecraft and components." "A 2020-2021 study by the House of Commons foreign affairs committee obtained records that shed some light on the goods Canadian firms were seeking permission to export to Israel, including transport vehicles, circuit boards for Israel’s fleet of F-15 and V-22 aircraft and components for radios." "The Canadian-made components that go into each F-35 don’t show up in Ottawa’s records of military goods exports because they are shipped to the United States, where the aircraft’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is based, and Global Affairs Canada does not publish the full value of annual military exports to the U.S."

It is very concerning how the Canadian government operates this way, and we should all be demanding more transparency about arms transfers to the US. Project Ploughshares, the research committee that they spoke about in the first article, is a resource I would look into if you want to learn more about this. They focus on "disarmament efforts and international security specifically related to the arms trade..." I've attached their website below. You can also access previous webinars, reports, and commentary on their page on these topics.

There were 2 successful direct action protests in Canada, one in Winnipeg and the other in Montreal, in November and December of last year, respectively. Both of whom were blocking railways in an effort to raise awareness about Canada supporting and sending arms to Isnotreal.

This also happened recently:

Now, what can be done on our ends? Plenty -sharing and creating posts about what is happening -and telling the world we won't remain silent on the genocide happening in Gaza.

This is the most updated BDS movement list for you to boycott companies and brands that either profit off of or indirectly support the genocide of Palestinian people:

Oxfam also created this small article about what we can do to help which I find is a great start:

Some of the actions include emailing the Prime Minister (they have a template for you to work with), and I wanted to also include emailing your MP's (Members of Parliament), to demand a ceasefire.

There is also a current petition in parliament right now you can sign -it's a demand to a ceasefire, and also demands an investigation into Canadian arms deals/sells in Isnotreal -and for more transparency into this, generally speaking (you can read everything the MP outlines below). This is open until February 19th, 2024. I may also make a separate post about this too:

There are some petitions on change.org I know people have set up, so you can take a look there of course. There is also a source that Oxfam links -they have a section of current events/resources where you can take action. The most recent national march for Gaza was in December 2023 (it took place in Ottawa, on unceded and un-surrendered Algonquin territory -Parliament Hill), and I am sure more will be planned for those able to attend/what is accessible to you.

I know this was quite long, but I hope this offers some direction and clarity, if not encourages more people to look into some of these topics and issues more deeply. Thank you once again for sharing this today. I will also be updating my page soon.

As always, free Palestine!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

thoughts on ppl (not necessarily zutarians) saying that killing yon rah would've been good/relieving for katara?

Simple: these people don't understand Katara. At all.

Katara's Trauma

The attack on her village changed Katara's life forever. She was forced to face the ugly side of humanity, lost her mother, her dad left to fight the war, and she had to step up and basically raise her older brother. All of it because the Southern Raiders need to kill HER, not Kya.

War, grief, growing up too fast, survivor's guilt... all of it was throw at Katara at once, and even though she seems to be well-adjusted enough, episodes like The Swamp, in which we see just how desperately she wants her mom, or even the first episode itself, when she immediately gets emotionally attached to Aang because he gave her the chance to be a kid and have fun, show us that she's still struggling to process it all.

She 100% needs some form of closure. But what exactly can give her that, and at what cost?

Righteous Fury VS Blind Rage

Katara hates Yon Rha and wants him to pay for what he did to her mother, and by consequence to everyone who loved her. That is not a problem. In fact, it is the way anyone in her position would feel. Aang himself says that's how he felt towards the Fire Nation when he found out about the genocide of his people, and towards the sandbenders when they stole Appa - both times, that anger caused him to get into the Avatar state.

And Katara could not stand to see Aang like that. When he tried to weaponize it, she tried to talk him out of it. Why? Because that kind of reaction of violently lashing out, like nothing else matters ALWAYS leads to problems. That has been a consistent theme through the show.

Whenever Aang's grief triggers the Avatar state, everyone around him is terrified, and he got dangerously close to accidentally hurting people during it - and just the emotional distress of it all was so intense, he was having nightmares about it later.

Zuko had the awful habit of verbally attacking people who had done literally nothing to him whenever he got too upset about anything, and he even got the point of started a physical fight because a guy dared to talk to his girlfriend, who looked very bored listening to it. Not only did this kind of behavior push people away from him, but it also made Zuko miserable. Even his bending was affected by it, as his impatience and pride made him refuse to master the basics before moving onto the advanced set.

During the whole episode of "The Southern Raiders" Katara is taking out her anger at Yon Rha on the wrong people. She tells Sokka that he didn't love their mom as much as she did, does NOT give Zuko a much needed telling off when he mocks the culture of Aang's people - ya know, the one his family commited genocide against - which she 100% would have done at any other time, is pushing herself too hard and looking exhausted as she flies on Appa, and even uses bloodbending willingly for the first time ever... on the wrong guy.

Sure, he was still an imperialist scumbag, but considering Katara was horrified after using it on Hama, who had literally been using it to capture and torture innocent people and tried to force Sokka and Aang to kill each other right in front of her, it's safe to say Katara would not see that as enough to excuse her own actions.

Katara is not being "empowered" in her quest for revenge. She is spiralling out of control and basically crying out for help without even realizing it. She has every right to be angry, but she's letting it take over her.

(Note: Her being angry at/not trusting Zuko even after everyone else befriended him is NOT misplaced anger like the episode claims. Zuko might not be as bad as Yon Rha, but he gave Katara plenty of reason to dislike him).

Action, Inaction & Guilt

Kya's death, and the attack against their tribe, was the definition of injustice, and Katara wants that to be corrected. Obviously it is impossible to undo it all, but there's still time to punish the people who caused it.

However, we cannot forget that Katara is 14-years-old. She's a child fighting the adults' war, like her friends. A child that had to hear her older brother say that when he heard the word "mom" he thought of her now. Not only is that unfair, it is also one of the main things that Katara had been trying to escape for a long time: not being allowed to be a kid.

Obviously, neither her nor the rest of the Gaang have the option of just not trying to stop Ozai - especially not after the failed invasion on the day of the eclipse, that had a ton of the adults on their side imprisoned.

But for a long time, she also did not have the option to go after Yon Rha directly. She didn't know his name, didn't know what position he held, had no idea how to track him. He was completely out of reach until Zuko gave her a lead to follow. Katara now had the option to confront her mother's killer and punish him for what he had done - even though that was not her obligation, since she was just a child.

But did she really see it that way? Like I said, Yon Rha had been after HER, not Kya - who only died because she lied to protect her child. Survivor's guilt could have very easily played a part on Katara's decision, and honestly I think some of the dialogue sugests that it did. She does not argue when Zuko says that forgiving is the same as doing nothing, and even her "Then you didn't love her like I did" to Sokka after he objected to her mission could be seen as her letting slip that, deep down, she believes that if she doesn't avenge her mom, doesn't "make up to her" for "causing" her death, then it means she did not really love her. And she deliberately mentions Kya's lie saving her life both to Zuko and to Yon Rha.

Katara isn't going after him just out of anger - she feels this is her responsibility. Her burden. Once again, this is not her being "empowered" enough to punish a wicked man. This is her falling into the trap of thinking she's not allowed to not want that weight on her shoulders.

A Forgotten Man

When Katara finally confronts her mother's murder, he is very different from the terrifying man she remembered. Sure, he can still use his bending a bit, but he clearly has not fought in a while, is easily overpowered, and is the definition of cowardly. He doesn't have any allies with him anymore, just his elderly mother that seems to hate him as much as he hates her. The cruel, oppressive system he was once a part of has chewed him up and spat him out. Nobody gives a damn what happens to this miserable bastard.

Now, obviously he doesn't want to die, especially not if the person who will take him out has EVERY REASON to make it slow and painful, but considering what we saw of his life, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the type that would just lay his head on a pillow at night and think "Wouldn't it be nice if I just never woke up again?"

THIS is the man Katara sees before her. Like she said, someone that is pathetic, sad and empty. Someone that would not be missed by literally anyone - not his mother, not his community, not the Fire Lord. Someone that offered her the head of the one family he still has left.

Kya meanwhile had a happy life before the Southern Raiders came to her tribe. She was a brave, loving mother that sacrificed her very life to protect her child, and left behind a family that is still grieving her.

This would not be "an eye for an eye" Yon Rha's death could NEVER come even close to be enough to "pay his debt" because it was absolutely worthless.

But does that mean that Katara confronting him at all was pointless?

Healing

By the end of the episode, after deciding to spare that bastard,Katara is being comforted by Aang, her best friend - like she had always done for him after he'd get into the Avatar state - and giving a second chance to her former enemy. She has also made it very clear that she will not forgive her mother's killer. Not now, not ever.

But this does not mean that she's back on square one. She faced her biggest trauma, confronted the monster that had been haunting her all her life, and acknowledged her anger and accepted that it will ALWAYS be there, but without allowing it to turn her into something she's not.

It is simmilar to her fight with her dad at the start of Book 3. After suppressing all the resement she felt after he left them to go fight against the Fire Nation, then taking her anger out on him, she broke down and accepted her pain, her vulnerability. She admited that, at the end of the day, she's just a child that wanted her dad with her, and now that Hakoda is there again, she CAN have that.

Naturally, there's nothing Yon Rha could say or do to make things better. But by facing him, giving him a taste of his own medicine, leaving him to rot, and then helping take down the very system that allowed people like him to commit attrocities everywhere, Katara finally got some closure. The grief will always be with her, but it won't define her anymore. She no longer has to be the adult figure of her family, she no longer has to wonder where that evil monster that took her mom from her is hiding and if he's making new victims.

Conclusion

Yon Rha was a horrible person, and if Katara had killed him, nobody could have judged her, and it sure as hell would NOT have made her just as bad or worse than him.

She needed to face him. She needed to let her anger out, to show him all the pain he had put her and her family through, to make him feel as powerless and scared as she and her mother had been.

But she did not need to stoop to his level. He did not deserve her forgiveness, but she did not need to sacrifice what was left of her innocence to put him out of his misery. He was just not worth it. Killing him would have been just violence for the sake of violence, and that is not in Katara's nature, and would have NOT helped her with literally anything. Quite the contrary.

She didn't spare his life for his sake, but for her own.

[hussyknee]

Regular reminder that if you don't live in the Global North, nothing they have to say applies to the rest of us. Actually most things they say have little value anyway since the Global South and Eastern folks are afterthoughts to them, much less center us in their social justice.

- The USAmerican cultural hegemony has fuck all to do with us. Be aware of what they're trying to peddle you, but they have more power to harm and radicalise you than you have ever could to harm them. This applies to both the Western left and right wing. They are both equally racist, colonial and imperialist.

- Global North issues around capitalism, exploitation and piracy have nothing to do with us. Consumer activism might work to some extent over there idk, but if anyone brings it up over in the lands of the Black and brown people, you can laugh them out of the country.

- Their queer history is not ours. Congrats to Stonewall and all but that's just some shit that happened in the US. We need to dig past 18 different strata of cultural genocide and colonial garbage to mine our queer histories back into the light, and designing microlabel flags and fighting over colonizer language acronyms have fuck all to do with that either.

- Always pirate everything within reach. Save up and buy from authors and creators you really like (that's what I do – esp when it's a BIPOC creator), but people who can't afford to buy shit in the first place ain't stealing food out of anybody's mouths. Pirating is praxis and always has been since the days of the East India Company.

- Don't buy into the USAmerican theories of race. They aren't universal. "BIPOC" especially is a USAmerican specific term, it is not used in the UK or other settler colonies. Constructs of race and the tribal Other far predated European colonization; race as a colour system that exists today is simply one variation of it. The global apartheid against the mellanated takes many forms, histories and terminology. There are especially no "people of colour" in Asia, Africa, Caribbean and Polynesia. There are only people who live there, and "people of white".

Race is a fake, made-up conceptualization imposed by whoever has power within each region. It's ethnic, cultural and casteist, with no biological basis whatsoever. There is no uniformity, no universalism, no rhyme nor reason to any of it; the only people who know exactly who doesn't belong are the oppressors. I'm seeing concepts like "unambiguously black" floating around the terminally online Western left; any dark-skinned person of the Global South should split their sides laughing at it. Whites have no ambiguity on who the darkies are.

- Read, watch, listen to, play whatever the hell you want, just have the sense to pirate it, and to be very conscious about the narratives they try to smuggle.

- When the US and UK speak, listen with compassionate interest, offer what solidarity you can spare for their downtrodden, and then go back to reading and following your own fucking news. Focus on our own women's and reproductive rights, trans rights, queer histories, rise of fascism, militarisation, anti-blackness, class warfare, nationalist violence, imperialism etc. That is decolonization, that is emancipation from the Western cultural hegemony. Everything else is the bread and circuses of empire, in which both the left and right wing of the West are complicit.

We owe the Global North nothing more than we can each individually afford to extend to them on grounds of common human decency and compassion. Which is a lot more than they will ever reciprocate.

[apollos-olives]

Hi, I appreciate your effort on spreading the words about Palestine on this website that's been suppressing Palestine content so much these days. I've been posting about Palestine and got shadowbanned on my other account. I just want to say something.

Regarding the last ask about white queers, I as an Asian (Vietnamese) queer can definitely tell that the queer liberals are very unproductive. I can tell from many people even my friends, who are staunchly against the West, lumping queerness with Western value (despite our culture is rich of drag queens and homosexuality has always been there) and therefore very queerphobic. Queer liberals cannot and must not stand with the oppressor bc the oppressed are homophobic, which yes so many times the homophobia from the oppressed comes from the oppressor. A lot of queer spaces being this reactionary makes me don't want to join a lot of queer spaces.

I also feel like the conversation around why people support Palestine has been very strange. People using various amounts of idealistic reasoning, but the number one reason that I and pretty much 80% of the world would agree on is that it's the fight of the oppressed against the oppressor, and 80% of the world had been in the place of the oppressed. I was lucky to not live in those times in history, but I was taught and told to never forget our oppressed history, of more than 127 years fighting the colonialists and imperialists. Our hospital was also bombed, our cities destroyed, villagers massacred. When I saw the Palestinian doctors said they will stay here for Palestine, it reminds me of my grandma who said the exact same about Vietnam. Palestinians arguably had it significantly worse than us Vietnamese during our war time with that total blockade, so I as a Vietnamese wants to share the struggle with them too.

Also Idk why an one-state Palestine solution is so hard to imagine to people. We Vietnamese also had been subjected to a two-state solution as well, and what happened after reunification is very simple. Most of the people just stayed and became citizens of the new united Vietnam, some fleed to other countries. If Palestine unification happens it would be similar imo. A lot of arguments against the one-state solution comes from just pure projection bc Israel afraid of what they're doing to Palestinians will be done to them

Anyway that's just my two cent about Palestine from a Vietnamese perspective. Free Palestine now and forever.

hi and yes i'm doing as much as i can to try to spread what's going on. i'm not typically afraid of getting shadowbanned right now, but i understand how much that hurts and affects other people who are also trying to spread awareness.

you're right about the way that queerness is often grouped up with the concept of the west and white majority countries. and that (white lib) queers would happily side with the oppressor out of the fear that they would be further oppressed by the other group that is being oppressed itself. this is just one of the many ways that propaganda twist the narrative and tries to split up minorities, and this entire belief of "us and them" is only going to hurt everyone in the end. we, as oppressed minorities, need to stand together against the oppressor, not be against each other.

i'm not gonna add much onto what you said about vietnam, since you already said pretty much everything, but it is saddening to see how so many people can relate to what's going on in palestine because of how much colonization has impacted their life and own culture and country. it genuinely is so unfortunate, and no one deserves to go through the horrors of colonization and being horrifically oppressed. i wouldn't wish that on even the zionists (and i fucking HATE those guys).

you're right about the one state solution thing. the only reason people fear it is because they are scared that the palestinians will do to them the same thing they did to us. it's a sad delusion.

thank you for speaking up though, free palestine 🇵🇸

[mandalorianchronicles]

Did Bo-Katan ever believe in Mandalorians being Mandalorian by "blood"?

So one thing I keep on seeing Bo-Katan accused of is this idea that she believes the Mandalorians are Mandalorians by blood. I believe this started when the Armorer said she took the title of Mand'alor by right of blood and the Darksaber, which anyone who watched Rebels would know was not the case. She has never said or done anything to make me believe that she held that view. If ever she did, she certainly doesn't now, as the writers have made exceedingly clear. But did she before?

It was Satine and the New Mandalorians who held the view that Mandalorians could be a race of people or, at the very least, a nationality. Those who held to the old ways, The Faithful, always believed that Mandalorians were Mandalorian by creed, not by blood. When Death Watch formed as a sect of the Faithful, they also held that view. They wanted to return to the ancient ways of Mandalorians when they were conquerors, and they certainly taught their followers that anyone could become Mandalorian as long as they followed the creed. This was canon in The Clone Wars, by the way.

Now, I've heard people argue that Bo-Katan also believes in right of bloodlines because she said things like "My family once ruled all of Mandalore". That in no way means that her family believed they had the right to rule because of "royal blood". Mandalorians are a religion of warriors. Warriors require an enemy in order to be warriors. They fought each other for dominance.

In the old days, the Tuang conquered those who lived on neighboring worlds and subjugated them. They were imperialists who presided over the mass genocide of many races. Eventually, when their race began to die, they started teaching their slaves and vassals to follow the resol'nare too - that's how humans and other species first became Mandalorian. In the present, most Mandalorians are human. In centuries past, when their expansionist efforts were repeatedly thwarted by the Jedi and the Republic, they were forced to stop trying to colonize. But a warrior society still needs an enemy to fight. So the clans turned on each other and began jockeying for power. This isn't to say that the clans didn't struggle for power before, only that it became all out civil war when they didn't have a common enemy to unite them. Those wars wrought terrible destruction on their planets, evident on the surface of Mandalore and the ruins of Concord Dawn. Rebels really delves into the cold, hard facts of Mandalorian culture and their self destructive nature.

Over the centuries, certain clans rose to power and stayed in power. Clans that held the fealty of lesser clans became Houses. House Vizsla and House Kryze were two such families. They ruled because they were strong. Those houses were comprised of family members who were born into the clan and some who were adopted into the clan. Whether you were born into it, or adopted into it, you were raised to become a Mandalorian. Their children were (mostly) taught to be warriors. I say mostly because the old canon when TCW was being written tells us that the New Mandalorians had been around for centuries, and that there were family members of even the great houses who had people on both sides. There's some disagreement on when the ideals of the New Mandalorians came about in the current canon. The Mandalorian concurred with the old canon that Bo (and probably her older sister, Satine) had been taught the warrior ways by their father, who was a powerful warlord and the head of House Kryze. We don't know if Satine ever took the creed like Bo-Katan did, but it's implied that she did not when Bo says that "she [Bo] didn't embarrass her father". I don't know how opposed to fighting Satine was in her youth, but when she was sent to Coruscant to protect her during the conflict, she became an all out pacifist. Honestly, though I think pacifism is flawed to its core, I can understand her desire to remake Mandalore into a more traditional society, since years of civil war had driven Mandalorians to the brink of extinction. But to rebuild a civilization, one must break the old one - so all traditional Mandalorians who believed in the creed and followed the warrior ways were banished to Mandalore's moon, Concordia. Adonai Kryze was killed in the Great Clan Wars, and so began the downfall of House Kryze. Bo's nephew, Korkie, was raised in a society where Mandalorians were Mandalorian by blood. Bo would have also also raised in this society until she was old enough to be on her own and she left her remaining family to join Death Watch.

Death Watch was fighting against the ideas of a Mandalorian race or nation, but the tactics they used to achieve their goal of removing Satine and her government from power were brutal and dishonorable. However, it's important to note that their brutality was in keeping with the ancient culture of the original Mandalorians - the Tuang. Yes, they were terrorists. Yes, they were brutal and they treated weaker people terribly. But, that's actually in keeping with the old ways. Since they are also followers of ancient tradition, I'm extremely curious what the Armorer and the Children of the Watch will want to do with their strength and power once they do retake Mandalore, but that's another matter.

We see the subject of bloodlines come up as a very serious matter in Chapter 22, Guns for Hire. Axe Woves is young enough that he was probably introduced to the ideas of Mandalorians by blood when he was small, as Bo-Katan was. We don't know when he became a part of Bo-Katan's Nite Owls. He may not have been with her during her time with Death Watch, joining her sometime in the years that followed, after the Empire rose to power. In any case, just because he carried over those beliefs into adulthood doesn't mean that she did. There were people in Death Watch who believed different things, obviously; that's why they split when Maul gained the Darksaber, even if it was by creed.

As of yet, there is no evidence that Bo-Katan ever believed that Mandalorians were Mandalorian by blood instead of creed. She believed in the greatness of her family, but she never insinuated they ruled because it was their right by blood, as opposed to the honor they had earned as capable and powerful warriors. Mandalorians are supposed to be loyal to their clan, always fighting to put their family first. Whether you're born into it or adopted into it, your family is everything. When Satine rejected everything they had been taught, Bo considered their family ties severed, and she sought her own sister's death. But when Maul murdered Satine and took the Darksaber, she saw the wrongness of it all. She has been walking the line of retaining their warrior culture while also uniting their people and stopping the endless bloodshed (that she was once a part of) ever since the end of the Clone Wars.

Personally, I don't believe Bo-Katan's belief in Mandalorians by creed instead of blood began with her introduction to the CoTW. She's been with them for too short a time for there to be that much change in deeply held beliefs. Her conviction that Din was just as much a Mandalorian as the rest of them was heartfelt and passionately spoken. I think this is something she has believed for a long time. But, even if it isn't, we are seeing that this is a woman who believes in the resol'nare, even if she doesn't believe in the "add-ons" (ancient tradition or otherwise) that the CoTW have adopted. And if there's one thing that we (and Bo-Katan) learned in TCW and Rebels, it's that neither old ways nor new ways are necessarily good ways. They have a chance to make Mandalore into a truly good society, and I think that Bo-Katan is the perfect person to lead them into that because she's seen both extremes and rejected both. She can forge a better way forward for their people...Din certainly believes so.

[treasureofmammon]

Warning: RANT POST! ‼️

This happened to me this week:

So, between my recurring "Mammon-lover" posting, there was this person who interacted with one of my stupid posts and nagged about Mammon being mean to his bros and a robber, and- you name it. This person "call me out": "... and you know it" -they say. Yes, I know everything he is. Despite this, I chose to see the good side of him because that is the side he shows us, MC. Just like all the brothers do to us once we passed the first lessons in our relationship with all of them.

Also, I can't stop loving him. I honestly didn't choose to love him. If I could, I'd have chosen Simeon, but I can't, ok?! The heart wants what the heart wants. I just fell for him and built this one-sided weird relationship with a 2D guy, like the childish adult woman that I am.

And, honestly, I love all of them: all the 7 brothers, from Luci to Belphie, and the secondary characters too. They all make my heart race, bury my face into my pillow, and throw my feet like a fidgeting high schooler. I just like Mammon better.

I guess this post is more of a rant and, to say, straight to "everyone's face," that, if you're here (in my blog) expecting me to change my preferences for Mammon, just because he's morally wrong a lot of the times, you can leave my humble little Tumblr page. Bye.

And don't get me wrong, I can see everything he does, yes, I can! But let me indulge in my man here. He's the one I like the most! Let me be! I ain't hurting others. And definitely, I'm NOT running through every goddamn post to change people's minds on Mammon, nor to call people out for their preferences. Would it kill you to do the same? Would it kill you to be a person who respects other people's preferences and tastes?

Also, what OM!/NB game are you playing?! These dudes are demons! They all are the literal definition of each capital sin. WTF?

Also, like, we can have a healthy discussion over the brothers being their sin, about Mammon and his interesting personality: as he is so kind yet greedy, as he puts his family in bad situations yet he also puts them first. On how he tries to hold himself high, but he's probably the one who hates himself the most, because he doesn't want to be a burden for his brothers but can't stop indulging in his sin, who is himself: greed, and ends up doing whatever he's tempted by, with the side effects that he didn't want, which is hurting others, most likely his loved ones. And yet, he acts like an angel sometimes, for example <SPOILERS ahead>: on how he was willing to put himself in an uncomfortable position, being blackmailed by witches for years, so a child can have a decent life, being this, probably, the only debt that he pays without fail, but he can't stop himself from self-destructive attitudes like continuing his gambling addiction that keeps to build up his debt higher and higher and ruin himself. Yet he finds the way to endear us, always. Our protector and our troublemaker. Both. He is both: my wonderful baby boy and my headache (and heartache too, honestly). And yet, he's (allegedly) the better of them all (said by Satan who is also and probably the most rational of them all, along with Lucifer), meaning that Mammon is the most humane. Mammon is flawed: he's bad yet he's good. Aren't rl humans like that too? Walking contradictions? And also, we can have a healthy discussion, about the other 6 brothers too, being the way they are and who they are, which aren't any better than Mammon, btw. Yet they are also endearing and kind to us. And that's ok.

It's just that you can't go through people's posts thinking that you are a moral compass, changing people's minds because you think they are wrong and you are right like some random unlikable elementary-school bully.

And now that we are on it. This blog is strictly feminist, open to all LGBTQ+ communities, anti-homophobic, anti-xenophobic, anti-transphobic, anti-racism, anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist. Because I understand that all of these are born from empathy and acknowledging other people's realities. Which is where this all comes from, EMPATHY: "the ability to understand and share (or at least, try to) the feelings of another".

That's all I'm asking. It's not much. I do this. I understand people have different preferences, I respect that. Can you respect mine then?

So:

This Barbie loves empathy.

This Barbie loves Mammon 💖✨️💛

This Barbie loves shitposting.

This Barbie loves to see people happy with their beloved OM! character, whoever he or they are.

So kindly go fuck yourself if you can't comply with these. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Here's a hot Mammon if you read the whole post.

Ps: English is not my first language, there might be ortographic and syntactic errors.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Hello.

You and gay-jesus-probably have successfully made me question everything with your view that Tears of the Kingdom is imperialist propaganda, so that's been fun.

Anyway, I decided to share this discussion with the Zelda fans on reddit, and perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of them disagreed. Here is what they said (I'm Alarming_Afternoon44):

So what do you think? Have I and all these other people just been duped by the game's manipulative framing? Or do they actually have a point?

And if you'd rather not answer this, or would prefer if I censored the usernames, just tell me and I'll delete this.

Hey! Thanks a lot for reaching out, and I'm glad it made you think stuff through!!

Honestly, as I mentioned in this post, I am not super interested about in-world conversations about who oppresses who, because what can be assessed from the game is super vague and more vibes-based than evidence-based. Within the text, of course that the Good Zonais are good and the Bad Ganondorf is bad! But that's my whole point! The narrative has been deliberately crafted so that the zonais and Rauru (and Hyrule) are as blameless as possible (and it's not doing a great job at it overall to be frank; we would not be having these conversations about how offputting it all feels for a non-zero number of people if it did do a great job). More importantly, I want to focus on what sort of real-life narrative it all parallels. Because people make stories, and people live in the real world.

Not going after everyone's throat here, gamedev is hard and the hydras that are AAA game production do end up doing super weird stuff, especially since the thematic ramifications are absolutely never prioritized (and it's also always the same kind of people who make the final calls and push out what can and can't be talked about also). And as fans, we tend to have trouble stepping outside the lens of lore and take a look at the bigger picture sometimes; not as an attack on any individual part of that decision-making process but to just pause, stop, and question our standards, our priorities and the kind of reality (or skewing of reality) the stories we tell each other reflect.

Again: do we want to take videogames seriously or not? If we do, then we need to accept they are a vehicle for ideology, just like any other artform. And sometimes, you push out questionable ideology, sometimes without meaning to, because you didn't unpack your own biases as you did. And it's even fine to do it, nobody is perfect, a 300+ people team spread over 6 years certainly will not be that. But that it wasn't prioritized is, in my opinion, a problem. As a narrative designer, I want games (at least the narrative side) to be held to a higher standard than this. It's literally my job to work with the industry so it can hold itself to higher standards of quality --so the whole TotK situation is quite frustrating to witness from a very pragmatic, work perspective where I already spend my days trying to convince people that things mean things. I have a vested interest here in not having the companies I work for being given a free pass by gamers to do literally whatever as long as it's fun, especially when we're talking about a billion-dollars company suing its own fans left and right for any perceived slight. Nintendo are not underdogs here. It's fine to point out they cut corners and maybe promoted messy ideologies, voluntarily or not.

So long story short: no I don't believe anyone here has a point in regards to what I think is actually important, which is why these choices were made in the first place. If you look at an imperialist text expecting the text to tell you that it's imperialist instead of recognizing a framing used for propaganda by yourself, you're never gonna find any imperialist text ever, obviously not!! I'm sorry if I sound a little gngngn here, but I don't know why audiences have, at large, this feeling that lore and story beat decisions materialize themselves already formed and without any human bias, meddling, intervention, internal politics or approximations (it seems that people can only conceptualize this part if they have actual names to attach to the story, but without clear authors it's like there are no authors and so no bias, which is... a very strange bias in itself). I can promise you that it does not work that way in practice: every narrative department on every big game is a battlefield --some nicer than others, but all of them very emotionally draining either way.

So yeah, I guess that on these grounds, I disagree with every point raised here. Sorry Reddit :/

But thank you for the ask and sorry if I didn't go more into details as to why. The big Why I Dislike Rauru Post and the Gerudo Post might have some more specific rebuttals, but I am not super interested in debating small detail stuff tbh. I feel like it's no use if the frame of reference isn't being understood in the first place.

[researchgate]

radblr would rather side with a terrorist group that wants to put women under sharia law and throws gay ppl from rooftops over supporting Jewish people. it's sick. also something I've noticed is how both on radblr and the left in general were always walking on eggshells when it comes to criticizing anything/anyone muslim and the pattern is lowkey similar both w misogyny and antisemitism. for instance it's ok to talk about white men's violence used as a colonial tool (and that should be the case of course btw!). but somehow european women (of all races) expressing concern and fear about Muslim migrants extreme levels of misogyny are privileged bitches (mind you eastern european/balkan radfems have had our people subjugated by muslim imperialists and our foremothers were raped and sex trafficked but hey we're privileged white women so we should shut up ig). Similarly when it comes to antisemitism, it's apparently ok for Muslim countries to pretend hatred of Jewish people is a European only issue and deny the pogroms and ethnic cleansing of MENA Jews. all while antisemitism is on the rise on the left, including by (though of course not limited to) muslim people.

This is so real. And then they say you basically just said reverse racism is a thing when it was never said. When you just said "hey, white women are also victims of misogyny" , they'll come at you like starving vultures come at a carcass of an animal. Like chill gyns. I think some people took the axis of oppression concept way too literally and decided that unless your axes intersect you can't truly be oppressed. At the same time they'll (correctly) say female pets are less likely to be adopted or something like that, because females are viewed as inferior regardless of species, but then treat Jewish women as inferior or subhuman when they were raped and brutalized.

Also, whenever a non-poc woman dared speaking about non-white men being misogynistic towards women of any ethnicity/race, she'd be labeled a racist, and one could only make a point of these men being misogynistic if their misogyny was against other women of color. The oppressed can violate too, and if we take the axes of oppression concept and apply it, one can oppress another on one axis, but the other can oppress the first on another axis. But that's too complex for them. If the rape is done by the Oppressed, then it's okay, especially if the victim passes as white (in their personal standards). They're no different than the leftist men who use "cis white women" before going on misogynistic rants.

And god the amount of genocide denial when it comes to Jewish people's victimhood is fucking annoying. True ethnic cleansing happened in the Arab countries in the 1940's and Muslim countries in general since the 1920s. The reason that nowadays Jewish genetic makeup is diverse is because Jewish people were forced to flee from each place they stayed at, not before several generations of Jewish women were raped by locals. It's honestly laughable to see how people don't give a flying fuck about Jewish history when they make claims about Jews. Well, it would have been laughable if it weren't a clear sign of antisemitism (also, maybe we should start just saying Jew-hatred, so that the "Arabs are semite too" folks will not have any way to sway the conversation lol. Because regardless of how many times you tell them it replaced Judenhass, they keep using their dumb mantra).

also don't get me STARTED about the Balkans and (especially) the ottoman imperialists. People around can see through Erdogan's actions well that he wants a second ottoman empire but fail to realize just how TERRIBLE it was! How kids were taken from their parents into the army, or how parents were encouraged to sell their sons to the army so they know he gets food and education, how women were sold as slaves into harems for either sexual or other forms of servitude. But what about the Sultanate of Women?? They'll ask, not knowing it's a term given by male historians to describe a century they viewed as failed and bad in terms of success. even though this sultanate of women was only possible because the Valide Sultan was the closest adult to the sultans who wer children. That they spoke from behind a curtain as to not be seen at any cost. This was the "sultanate of women". Glorious, feminist, and stunning, isn't it?

I'm so sick of the pandering to non-white men as if they're some precious fragile figurines and not while men who are capable of misogyny just as much as a white man. If we agree Islam is a misogynistic religion, surely we can agree that its male followers are misogynistic and terrible, regardless of their skin color, right? Apparently not! Apparently if they commit a misogynistic hate crime against a white woman it's okay because they're the oppwessed and she's the vile terrible oppressor. So fucking stupid.

honestly idek if Muslims can be considered as included in the Left because Islamic values are certainly different than leftist ones. Had the right wing been less racist and more accepting of the other, even just a little bit, they'd find many similarities between them and islam lol. But the left is far more "open minded" (unless it's Jews) and less racist (unless it's Jews), so they find their allies in the liberals they hate and whom will have next to no rights if not none at all under shari'ah law.

It's absolutely infuriating, isnt it?

Sorry for the rant, btw. Thank you for your ask!

[lady-of-imladris]

Babe enlighten me pls, how % is your city Dark Academia-vibed?

(I have a strong impression that it is super dark-academiac)

Ahdkahdk sorry this took me so long 😭. Ok so it depends A LOT on which areas of you focus on but for the purpose of a pretty post we are going to ignore the ugly parts 🥰

How Dark Academia is Vienna?

Let's do this by categories! 1. Univesities :) Bottom left is Vienna University of Technology main building, the others are University of Vienna main building, I'd say 100% dark academia.

Next some museums:

Left side is Albertina which is where Dürers' famous bunny painting is! Right side is the Naturhistorisches Museum (biology ish) and across from that building is an art museum that looks exactly the same because imperialist Austria was REALLY good at cool city architecture

Cool building section!!

Left column is Hofburg which is where our President has his office! It used to be the Emperor's official palace I suppose. The other two in the first row and the one in the middle are Stephansdom which is like THE church in Vienna! Fun fact, my grandparents got married there :) Bottom center is Charles' Church WHICH IS MY FAVOURITE BUILDING EVER (I'll explain in the footnotes lmao) and bottom right is Volksgarten which is a pretty park!

Miscellaneous category!

Top row: The Riesenrad, The tram (I LOVE the tram) and castle Schönbrunn

Middle row: still Schönbrunn just the other side, also still Schönbrunn (except I cut the picture wrong so it's just the gardens lmao), and a Fiaker, which is what those horse carriages are called in Vienna. We still have them and you can tour the city in them!

Bottom row: the courthouse (If someone asks I WILL tell the funny story related to this one), the Belvedere, and the opera!

Fun fact about literally every pretty building in Vienna: THEY ARE ALL RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER!

Stephansdom? Walk 5 minutes end up at Charles' Church. Fall over once? VIENNA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY. Cross the street: OPERA. Behind that? ALBERTINA. Walk 5 minutes? 2 museums right across from each other. Behind that? COURTHOUSE. Cross the street? PARLIAMENT. Next to that? UNIVERSITY.

All the important buildings are all neatly aligned in circular form around Stephansdom. What do we call it? THE RING. Super uncreative but cool as fuck.

In conclusion: YES. Dark Academia 100% and very pretty, you should come visit me!

Pictures as always stolen from Pinterest or taken by ✨me✨ and whoever guesses which two are from me gets a kiss.

Bonus: why Charles' Church is my favourite:

1. It's right next to my university and there's a huge pit they fill with water so in summer you can just hang out there and study and WATCH CUTE DOGS PLAY IN THE WATER

[justanotherthrowaway1950]

Zuko Did the Honorable Thing by Challenging Azula to the Final Agni Kai

Lately, there seems to be a popular strain of thought in ATLA fandom that the 16 year old Zuko was dishonorable in accepting his clearly mentally unstable sister’s Agni Kai challenge for the Fire Nation throne.

Or that the 16 year old Zuko challenging the 14 year old Azula to an Agni Kai is the same as the middle aged Ozai challenging the 13 year old Zuko to an Agni Kai due to “disrespecting” him in his war council meeting.

But when you look at the complete context, not only is there no equivalence whatsoever between Ozai’s challenge and Zuko’s acceptance, but also Zuko did the honorable and most sensible thing he could have considering the circumstances.

For it is it sad that Azula’s mental state deteriorated so hard that Zuko, who she is normally superior to, believed he could take her one on one?

Yes.

It is sad that two siblings, who, despite all that happened between them, do deep down care for each other, and yet, instead of being able to resolve their issues peacefully, instead have to fight each other till one of them is dead or subdued due to being on the opposite sides of a war that started long before either of them was born?

Yes.

It is sad that Iroh said that he could not fight his younger brother because history would negatively view two siblings fighting for the throne while in the same breath sending his underage surrogate son to fight his underage niece to death? 

Or that instead of subduing Azula himself with a handful of his fellow White Lotus members, Iroh instead deliberately choose to leave the fate of the Fire Nation and his remaining non-Ozai family in two teenagers' hands (Zuko and Katara) in favor of going on an ego trip liberating Ba Sing Se? Especially since TV!Iroh, even when out of shape, has hype and feats that suggest that he can easily defeat TV!Azula without hurting her or getting himself hurt?

Yes.

It is sad that Ozai, if he knew that Zuko was going to challenge his prodigy for the, as far as he knows, now worthless Fire Nation throne, would probably encourage it since in his twisted mind, either Azula gets to “redeem” herself for “failures” and for lying to his face about the Avatar’s survival, or Zuko will have done the world a favor by eliminating his “disappointing” daughter, who was not worthy of his “love” after all?

Yes.

It is sad that instead of getting a real chance to heal and atone for her actions after getting involuntarily psych warded, Azula instead got abused in her asylum to the point that her mental health further degraded, causing fans, and probably everyone in-universe outside of Zuko and Ursa after the actions she took because of said degraded mental health, to believe that she was always a psycho and/or that she had “second chance”, and yet threw it away?

Yes.

But the key point is that Azula was the agent of a genocidal, imperialist, colonizing regime, and was going to continue perpetuating violence on the world if she took the throne. Meanwhile, Zuko was an anti-imperialist seeking to take the throne so he could stop the Fire Nation’s unjust and vile war of aggression. 

And that Azula, even if she was mentally stable, was not going to be peacefully persuaded that everything she had been taught was wrong. Nor was she going to be peacefully persuaded that the world would never trust her on the throne, especially when Zuko, who at the point of the Agni Kai had shown he was a committed anti-imperialist, was a viable claimant and had a close connection with the Avatar.

For while we, the audience, know that Azula does have inner conflict and wishes that there was another path to take other than the one her father set out for her, Zuko and Katara don’t know that.

But what they do know is that: Azula is the hyper-competent Fire Princess who hunted them across the Earth Kingdom; that Azula is the person who overthrew Ba Sing Se with just two friends while also managing to turn Zuko and put a lightning bolt in Aang’s back; that she helped suggest  the “let’s burn the Earth Kingdom” plan, or at best suggested scorched earth tactics; that she actively encouraged the cruel treatment of prisoners of war like Suki; and that she started actively hunting them again once Team Avatar made a public reappearance on the Day of Black Sun.

And in Zuko’s case, Azula was his secondary abuser from childhood, attempted to kill him several times, and, as far as he knows, killed the love of his life after she saved him and half of Team Avatar from boiling alive in the Boiling Rock.

Also, Zuko was probably thinking ahead to when he needed to assert authority once he, Aang, and Katara successfully overthrew Ozai’s regime, and thus needed some way to legitimize his claiming of power.

For as far as the average Fire Nation citizen would be concerned, Zuko would be the traitorous crown prince who turned on his nation just when they were going to fulfill Sozin’s dream for the world in favor joining the demonic Air Nation Avatar so he could overthrow his highly regarded father and war hero sister so he could take the throne for himself.

And to make things even worse, Zuko’s only real domestic allies would be: the traitorous former Crown Prince General Iroh, the traitorous deserters Jeong Jeong, Piandao, and Chey, and the treasonous Ladies Mai and Ty Lee, if the Ladies miraculous survived being executed by Azula as far as Zuko is concerned.

So when Azula not only appears to be severely off her A-game, but also gift-wraps Zuko the means to legitimately take the throne, Zuko did what any sensible person would have done and accepted it, a choice that is vindicated by canon.

For even after Aang de-bends Ozai before allowing Zuko to jail him, and Zuko manages to involuntary psych ward Azula after winning their Agni Kai, Zuko constantly faces assassination attempts in Ozai’s name, and even an organized Ozai restoration movement in the form of the New Ozai Society, barely managing to survive all these threats to his life.

(Legacy tells us that Zuko officially won the Agni Kai even though Azula burned him, presumably because she attacked a non-duelist.)

So if Ozai, who had been defeated by a fully realized Avatar at the height of his power and spiritually mutilated as punishment for his transgressions against balance, was still was able to invoke such feelings in the Fire Nation population, imagine what would have happened if Zuko, instead of fighting Azula in an Agni Kai, instead decided to jump her in a 2 v 1 with a “snow peasant” before forcing the Fire Sages at fire and/or ice point to crown him Fire Lord?

Well, in my opinion, either Azula becomes an especially potent martyr if she dies, even compared to the scenarios where Azula dies in the Agni Kai since at least Agni Kais have the built in assumption that you are willingly risking your life by engaging in one, or, assuming that the 2 v 1 still ends with Azula alive and involuntarily psych warded instead of being killed, Zuko would have probably faced an Azula restoration movement. 

And in the latter scenario, assuming that Azula manages to escape Zuko’s custody like she does in canon due to Aang's unwillingness to use energybending except as an alternative to summary execution and Zuko’s selfish desire to find Mommy at all costs, even if it means putting the post-war order in danger, instead of Azula eventually realizing that no one will support her claim to the throne, and thus her "realization" that her destiny is to “help” Zuko, Azula instead would have joined up with the movement and easily dispatched Zuko and his friends/allies before restoring the old regime en route to restarting the Hundred Year War.

And obviously Zuko wants to keep on living alongside his friends and allies so that they can, among other things, build the world of peace and love that they desire instead of the world of hatred and subjugation that the Fire Nation created during the Hundred Year War.

Not to mention, at the time of Azula’s challenge, Zuko didn’t even know that energybending was a thing, making it more crucial that he delegitimize Azula, for even if she was jailed or psych warded, if she managed to escape his custody, she could easily train to surpass him once again before attempting to violently overthrow him.

And before you call this fear unfounded, Azula did canonically manage to surpass Zuko again post-Sozin Comet, and has attempted, and is still attempting to, overthrow Zuko, either by outright overthrowing him, or by turning him into her puppet.

But to wrap things up, while it is tragic that that the Final Agni Kai had to happen, that Azula never got the help she needed after loosing, and that the Agni Kai is used to demonize Azula, the fact is that considering what Azula was fighting for, and the fact that Zuko needed all the help in legitimize his rule while also delegitimizing his main probable rival claimant and her potential to be a potent martyr if he did end up having to kill her, Zuko did the honorable and sensible thing by accepting Azula’s Agni Kai challenge.

[innocentimouto]

Was Jet a racist?

I immediately thought of someone hating the monarchy. The Fire Nation isn't a minority, and Jet is not a huge danger to them. People try to give Jet more power than he has, so he can seem worse and more dangerous to others.

Which is eerily similar to how minorities actually face harm in the real world.

This is how I see it.

Jet antis: Jet is a terrorist, and racist, he didn't care about his own people, he'll never change. But Zuko is such a perfect boi

Me: Zuko did more though.

Jet antis: Zuko changed and apologized. If he hadn't, I'd hate him too.

Me: I know that's a lie. People go 'poor zuko, he just wants to be loved' in the earliest episodes.

Jet antis: Zuko always had a good heart!

Me: And Jet didn't when he offered protection and a home to other orphans who had nowhere to go?

Jet antis: Jet did horrible things!

Me: Arguably only 1. Zuko did way more.

Jet antis: Zuko made a mistake and changed.

Me: Are you including the terrorizing women and children, burning down a village, trying to give the avatar to the firelord to never be killed, Ba Sing Se? A mistake?

Jet antis: Zuko had a redemption arc. He literally changed.

Me: You say that, but you're so appalled by 1 thing Jet did and are so confident that he can't change over that 1 thing.

Jet antis: Jet was racist. He hated ALL Fire Nation people.

Me: Zuko was racist to the three other nations? That's what all the Fire Nation people are taught... Zuko saw all air temples, corpses most likely, and still wanted to capture Aang? None of that made him think the fn was wrong...

Jet antis: You clearly don't understand how redemption arcs work.

Me: It's not even about Zuko's redemption arc. It's about your inability to think outside of the narrative. You have Zuko and he wants to be loved and he's abused and his uncle just wants to help him. And because you got nothing for Jet, he doesn't get an ounce of compassion from you.

Me: I don't think you're trying to be colorist or an imperialist apologist. But you are. You're refusing to use any sense of imagination or even freaking common sense, about what an orphan would have to go through to survive in a war, simply because the show didn't give it to you. But you throw every trauma reaction you know and then some for Zuko and somehow do not recognize the hypocrisy.

I'm saying all this because I know when people say Jet is racist, they are not thinking about how in wars, both sides ALWAYS hate each other. Especially before easy access to the rest of the world, which atla didn't have.

Also the racist card is only ever applied to Jet and never to Zuko or any other Fire Nation character, despite that being canon. There's great discussions and fanon over how horrible Jet is because of his prejudices and how he can never let it go, and people really dive into real world things with it.

But with Zuko, they just switch to anything is possible and not that it would reasonably take anyone a long time to unlearn that. It's habit, an unconscious thought. I'm not saying Zuko would go around thinking how can I hurt this person in the worst way over their ethnicity. I'm saying Zuko would literally not know what he would be doing wrong.

Everyone around him did it. And that enables people. Especially if it's your father or uncle or adults you're trained to trust. If you were never taught, how would you know?

But people don't associate Zuko and racism. That's Jet's thing. Zuko had a GREAT redemption arc but we're not interested in any discussion of what else he could improve on.

Honestly the way the fandom treats Jet always makes me think of cops/government justifying any harm or lack of basic human rights given to minorities while other groups of people get everything and more. One group faces injustice and people rush to defend why they deserved it/it was unavoidable, and the other group faces injustice and there's public outcry.

Basically fandom tries to do anything to justify the lack of exploration or empathy for Jet in the show because then they have to reconcile with the fact that the Fire Nation should be held accountable and they weren't by the show and that Jet would have a lot of reasons to hate Zuko and Iroh and that maybe Zuko didn't have a redemption arc since everything he did got swept away in a few episodes.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I like your blog but I was disappointed to see you say it would ever be okay for Zutarians to have Katara and Zuko cheat on Aang and Mai in their fics if they acknowledged it is bad. Somethings can't be done right and need to just be kept out of any story. It's completely disrespectful to the Kataang and Maiko fans.

Also if I were you, I'd block the anon who said they could understand the appeal of Zucest even if they claim not to ship it, and in case you don't know, a blog you reblog from a lot hello-nichya-here likes that cursed shit so there's another one for your block list. Incest is gross and immoral even if it's fiction, and you'd be better off not interacting with that kind of people.

Buddy, I'm brazilian. I was raised on soap-operas. If I gave people shit for enjoying any media that involves the main characters selfishly cheating on their partners to be with each other, I'd be the world's biggest hypocrite. That kind of stuff is an easy source for drama, and it will always be part of romance stories - regardless of the quality of said romances.

As for it being disrespectful to Kataang and Maiko, yeah, I could see it, but only if it's combined with a bunch of slander towards these characters, and pulling stuff like "How I Became Yours" did by saying Mai was a terrible, abusive person for being angry that her husband cheated on her, or if it's shit like Zutarians constantly harrassing shippers about how Aang/Mai is totally being cucked. But if they're just writing as a source for drama in a story, without demonizing the characters that are clearly being screwed over by Zuko and Katara, I don't mind it.

Also I fully disagree with you on the "Somethings can't be done right and no one should write them." No topic should be forbidden in fiction, and what people should discuss is "Does this make narrative sense?" not "Is this a morally correct thing for people to do?"

How would that even work for the Avatar fandom anyways? "Sure, the original show is literally about war and genocide, and it is constantly praised for having an imperialist prince redeem himself and befriend the people he sent a hitman after, but if we write characters doing immoral things like cheating or sleeping with a relative THAT is going too far"

Sounds like one hell of a double-standard to me. And I've literally said it in my pinned post: This blog exists solely to point out the kind of behavior that made Zutara become such a hated ship, not to bully people that are just minding their business, or to tell them what tropes they are allowed to like. I don't like the idea of Zuko and Katara together at all, especially not with it involving them hurting Mai and Aang. But if the people writting these stories weren't constantly forcing it down everyone's throats, I wouldn't mind them adding that trope to every single fic they wrote.

As for the second part of your ask, I guess there's only one way for me to make my stance on Zucest VERY clear, so you and anyone else who could be bothered by it can decide if you want to keep following this blog:

Hello, Nichya here. I'm not going to use this side-blog to block my main, as I feel it would be kind of pointless to block myself considering the content in both accounts is coming from the same brain.

And see Zutara fans? It's super easy to only bring up your OTP when it is relevant to the conversation and without trying to force other's to like it, and it tends to get you far less hate too, no matter how "problematic" your ship is.