#intra-action

[tradingmentor]

http://nseexpert.in/

[zipper-neck]

Trans Rules of Engagement

By Florence Ashley

Strong communities make us all safer. As anti-trans movements gain in power and influence, holding space for each other through our flaws remains critical. Yet the very conditions that create our need for community care make it hard for us to care for each other. We are raw, wounded, traumatized, and hypervigilant. We make mistakes brought on by fear and hurt. We lash out at each other when we do wrong, often partaking in pile-ons facilitated by the synchronous nature of online interactions. Whether we realize it or not, we often exclude trans people from community when they need it most.

I have lost count of the number of trans people I have seen cast out of online trans spaces for misdeeds both major and minor—far too often with my help. I sometimes find myself wondering where they are now and whether they are still alive. Because, as Kai Cheng Thom has taught us, social death often means real death for trans people. Trans communities are life-sustaining in a world that hates us so, so much. In a world that wants us dead. We have lost too many people not to stop and think about how we can foster life among each other.

This goal I have for myself—that of fostering life—motivates the following principles and rules for engaging in online intra-community conflicts while preserving the life-sustaining spirit of our communities. Countless times have I failed to heed these principles and ignored these rules. This failure, which many of us share, is precisely why I now want to lay these principles and rules down on paper. If only as a reminder of my aspirations. The principles and rules are meant to be adopted for oneself, not imposed onto others. Their purpose is to foster productive engagement, not create even more conflict and rigidity. I hope that this will be a living document, and invite you to make your own version if you would like. Borrow what is useful, supplement with what is needed, alter what can be improved.

Some, and perhaps all, of the principles I acknowledge are false, hence the need for a living document. Each of my suggested rules have exceptions. In setting them out, I am staking a claim as to the sort of myths and half-truths that are necessary to sustain life in a world that wants us dead. We must treat them as true if we wish to foster life-sustaining communities and survive the hellscape we belabor.

Principles

1. We are all flawed, traumatized humans at the end of their rope. Many of our actions say more about the conditions we live under than who we are as people.

2. No one is disposable. No one is unsalvageable.

3. Life holds greater value than being right or comfortable. Hurt is preferable to death.

4. No one should be deprived of community.

5. Harm does not require further harm. Punishment does not equate protection or healing.

Rules

1. Do not depart from these rules, unless you have to.

2. Morgan M. Page’s Rule: Try to avoid criticizing other trans people in public. The world does it enough already.

3. Favor in person or private conversations: Addressing someone’s comments or actions in person or privately is typically more constructive and effective. It allows you to communicate more cogently and with more nuance problems in someone’s actions or words and because it is less likely to make them react defensively from a place of trauma or fear.

4. Take your time: Few things require an immediate response. Responding while caught in a surge of thoughts and feelings is often unproductive. Ask yourself how much harm was done, versus how much we are reminded of an earlier harm. Ask whether your response is rooted in misperception or potential biases towards the person due to race, disability, gender, or other marginalized identities. Consider whether their words or actions reflect a different kind of thinking or communication style, a lack of access to education, or limited access to progressive communities and norms. You can respond tomorrow, once you have collected your thoughts, talked to others, and gained perspective.

5. Don’t mob: Be aware of group dynamics. Ask yourself if you are connected to this person and in community with them. Avoid jumping into the fray when others are already criticizing the person. Do not invite others to join in and mob them. Withdraw if others join in, and kindly ask people to stay conscious of mobbing dynamics. Mobbing rapidly grows out of proportion.

6. De-escalate: Focus on de-escalating conflicts. Ask what people mean or want, and why. Ask them for clarification or elaboration if needed. Ask yourself if you know enough about the context of the situation. Distinguish the action from the person, and acknowledge that it is normal to respond defensively or aggressively to public criticism and mobbing. People are traumatized, mentally ill, and are scared of losing the little social support they have. As a result, conflict can trigger a fight-or-flight response in both those who are criticized and who criticize, which leads to escalating conflict and ends in a loss of community. Dropping the conversation to return at a later date is preferable to escalation. Often, I find it best to limit myself to three replies in conversations that aren’t constructive.

7. Respond proportionately: Responses to words and behaviours should be proportionate to their harm, and reflect a need for healing and protection rather than punishment. When we speak from a place of hurt, we can understandably but unfortunately forget the measure and impact of our response. Use language that reflects the nuances and gradations of harm rather than a coarse good and evil binary. Cutting all social support and community banishment are rarely a proportionate response, even for someone who doubles down and does not apologize. Responding proportionately is asking first and foremost what response sustains rather than dissolves life. Especially when it comes to words, it is better to under-react than to over-react.

8. Ensure support for everyone: Check in on those who are criticized and those who criticize them. Remind people that we are all in this together, and that banishment is not how we work as a community. Everyone deserves to have their needs met. Do not shun or reproach people who offer support to those who were criticized or called out. Distinguish supporting a person from enabling their behavior.

9. Hold space for people to grow: Allow space for people to be accountable, change, and move on from previous conflicts. Do not hold past behavior over people’s head, nor dig up past misdeeds to fuel present conflicts.

10. Resolve conflict and harm as a community: We must ask how our communities enable and cause hurt and harm, and find ways to transform the conditions that create them. Holding accountable, problem-solving, and conflict resolution are functions that should be taken up by the collective, not isolated and unsupported individuals.

11. Center those most hurt or harmed: Focus on supporting and empowering people who are hurt and harmed rather than on punishment. Ask what they need to be safe and integrated in our communities, while committing to support for everyone; what they need to repair their relationship to the person who hurt or harmed them. Focus your involvement on bringing people together, fostering dialogue and mutual understanding, and restoring a sense of community togetherness, rather than deciding who is right or wrong.♦

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

A different spin on a sex question! I'm a nonbinary lesbian aspiring filmmaker. I personally think sex scenes in live-action film/tv are super important to a lot of filmmaking I love, both as a queer person using it for resistance reasons and also just as a horny old dyke who likes seeing booba on screen. How do you think queer pro-sex filmmakers can tackle reactionary attitudes amongst younger queer people wrt sex? Like ofc intimacy coordinators and consent etc etc, I mean more dealing with it as an intra-community issue.

I think probably just ignoring people who are going to whine about your art and making what you want to make is the way to go

[germiyahu]

If someone derails your conversation about Israel to be about Israel's treatment of this or that group, Mizrachim, Beta Israel, etc. you may just want to consider their motivations, and do a little digging into the kinds of subjects they normally talk about on their own blogs.

If someone who has staunchly antizionist views, like I'm talking thinly veiled genocidal fantasies about destroying Israel and reveling in the chaos that would bring, and having no concern for the future of 7 millions Jews, their concerns about Medinat Yisrael's treatment of minority groups are not valid.

This is Concern Trolling.

If someone is derailing you to accuse Israel, through accusing you, of sterilizing Ethiopian women, stealing Mizrachi babies and having them raised by "white" parents, trying to destroy Yiddish, all these alleged violent assimilationist policies that Israel employs against fellow Jews?

A non Jew barging into your space and bringing up intra-community issues and grievances is a red flag. Do not fall for the sealioning trap. Do not turn out your pockets. Do not fall for the concern trolling.

Because what is their solution to these problems? To eliminate Israel as a state? And what about these minority groups within Israeli society then? Their answer is the same as their answer for the Ashkenazim: who cares? They largely imagine all Israeli Jews can simply move to the United States or France or something. The fact that over 95% of Israelis cannot just go to the countries of their parents or grandparents is of no concern to them.

That's why it's concern trolling. They're trolling you by pretending to be concerned, and baiting you into discussing an intra-community issue because they think that'll be the argument that finally gets you to disavow Israel. Because now you'll have no choice but to agree Israel is irredeemably problematic, because now it affects other Jews. So they are exhibiting a kind of bitterly envious brand of antisemitism. They think that all Jews believe in Jewish supremacy. They're quite mad about it. This is an aspect of the Chosen People canard.

But the main reason concern trolling is bad is because they don't care about these groups they bring up. They're not defending them, they're not championing their rights. They're trying to distract you and make you look like a hypocrite. When they cheer for Hamas raping and pillaging and spraying bullets into Israelis, they don't care if it happens to Beta Israel women who've supposedly been mass sterilized against their will. They cheer all the same. So much for their legitimate concerns that Israel is antisemitic in of itself I guess?

If the solution to a problem faced by a minority group within a country is "destroy their country which they also believe has saved them from ethnic cleansing and mass death, and figure out the rest later," you're not an ally to that group; stop pretending you are!

This is tied into pinkwashing, but from a sort of opposite approach. If any societal progress that Israel makes for minority groups is a psyop and a marketing ploy to cover up Palestinian Genocide, the concern trolling is antizionists holding Israel hostage to any societal progress it has not made. But they never intend on letting Israel improve these relationships. Israel is too nice to gay Jews, and not nice enough to African Jews. The only course of action therefore, is to let Hamas butcher them alongside straight Jews and "European" Jews.

So if you see someone trying to engage in this game, ignore them! Your time is worth so much more, and the vulnerable minority groups of Jews (both in Israel and the Diaspora) are much safer with Jews who discriminate against them than goyim who tout social justice rhetoric but want to see them dead. Plus, so many Jews are already doing the work, learning and listening, and trying to improve. This enrages the concern trolls like nothing else.

Call out Israel's bigotries, but you know, maybe don't trust the people who aren't affected by those bigotries invading your space and demanding your allyship to groups of people they'd be content seeing die en masse. Like "Israel is actually antisemitic against this vulnerable group of Jews!" and "All Israelis are settlers, none are truly civilians, and any form of violence against settlers is justified" are two stances that do not mesh very well...

Because at the very least, they're separating good Jews from bad Jews again, just based on what they perceive intra-Jewish oppression to be like. And they expect these good Jews to cheer and happily live as dhimmis in the absolute chaos that is a 100% inevitable Hamas-Fatah civil war and total societal collapse... and spit on the graves of their kinsmen.

And at worst, the concern trolls won't bother distinguishing these vulnerable Jews from their alleged oppressors anyway, and happily watch as they all flee with the clothes on their backs or get gunned down or enslaved by Hamas "Resistance" Fighters.

[feluka]

Hi, I don’t rlly know how to explain this but I’ll try haha.

I recently found out I have Egyptian and specifically Coptic ancestry, through family tree making, matching with cousins, gedmatch, dna testing, etc and now personal confirmation from family/ancestors.

The problem is idrk who was the Coptic ones in my family as my dad died when I was four and I’ve had no contact with his family at all since. I know it came from his mother, but I can’t even give you her name let alone where she was from, or anything. Although I want to learn more and reconnect and eventually find out who they were exactly. It’s just hard because my dad’s living family has no contact w us and since he’s dead, it’s been hard to get records as well.

I would like to learn more about Coptic culture and Egypt in general but I am worried about people considering me a ‘culture thief’ since I only recently. found this out a few months ago but didn’t really have 100% confirmation until like 2 weeks ago. And even though I can prove genetically I have ancestry Coptic I can’t really say who my ancestors were which would probably make some skeptical.

Especially because I am African American and there already exists a rift between Egyptians and AAs bc of hoteps who claim Egyptian culture/claim Egyptians are just Arabs who ‘stole’ Egyptian culture. I want to be respectful but I’m unsure how to navigate this.

I guess I’m asking if you have any idea how I should move forward, or if you know of any resources to learn more? I want to be respectful, but I would also love to start to reconnect even if I don’t know where my ancestors were exactly from other than ‘Egypt’.

Hello! First of all, this is both a very respectful and a very personal ask, so I want to thank you for trusting me with that. I hope my answer can help you find peace with the matter a little.

Instead of trying to figure out if the overall sentiment of trying to reconnect is harmful or not, because there's really no answer to that in and of itself, and instead stop at every individual action taken to reconnect and asking: could this be harming anybody?

For example, if you'd like to pick up Coptic language lessons, could this action possibly be harmful to anyone? Not really. Is reading about Coptic culture and engaging with what survived of it in modern day harmful? I don't think so.

The only possible thing that I can think of that might be harmful is, I have awful experiences with certain diaspora Copts who have never really engaged with the community nor know much of it, who suddenly butt in conversations about Coptic politics in Egypt like they're an expert on it despite never having been or known anything about it themselves, but from the way you've written this ask I doubt you're the kind of person to do that anyway, seeing as you're being very respectful and that you recognize that there's some dissonance in your experience (which there's no shame in, but the self awareness is helpful as a guide of when to participate and when not to!)

I don't know if I said this before on this blog but, to my knowledge, the matter of the hotep subculture entails far more than just questioning the Egyptian identity, and seeing as I'm neither African American nor Black at all, I don't think it's my place to comment on it. I invite any of my Black followers to contribue to intra-community discussion in the reblogs/comments for you to read, though!

All I can promise you is that even if the notion that the population of Egypt was displaced rather than converted during the Arab conquest of Egypt is false, there still are Black Egyptians and there always have been. Sadly I'm sure there will always be people who try to make you feel like a pretender, but that is true of so many things and regardless of what you do, so always remember thay Black people have always been part of Egypt's history, and that nobody is entitled to know your personal details or family history and you don't need to disclose anything you're not comfortable with to prove anything to them.

As for resources, there's always a lot on Egyptology in general, so the specific topics that would be helpful to be aware of are: modern history of Copts (or Copts post the Arab Conquest of Egypt), the persecution of Copts, the decline of the Coptic language and the efforts to revive the language. The last two are especially pertinent nowadays.

Lastly you can always ask other Copts! I may not have all the answers but I'm sure between me and my followers we can find something helpful for you if you're trying to find a specific resource of have more questions. (The scarcity of resources is something we *all* have to deal with, even us here in Egypt, I'm afraid, but it's not a lost cause! You'd be surprised how much is out there on internet archives.)

I hope you have a lovely day. ♥️

[vaspider]

Okay, so I hope I don't come off as really confrontational and I'm sorry if it does. I've started to notice an increasing number of posts on your blog that seem to be critical of things trans women do on an intra-community level. I wasn't going to say anything before, but someone you reblogged mentioned that they were starting to keep an archive of what they called "Trans radfem behavior" and that concerned me a bit.

I have -- for years -- been extremely critical of cop behavior within the community or divisive behavior within the community. I have been critical of fellow lesbians when they have gone after aces and bi people. I have been critical of fellow transmascs when they say shitty things. My most quoted, most reblogged, most 'taken and posted on other sites', most linked on Reddit (fucking apparently) post is one about divisiveness and respectability politics within the community, how those things fail us and set us up to be split up and devoured by the cishets, and a call for radical inclusiveness within the community as the only way forward.

This isn't new. I've always been like this.

I have also always been critical of the idea that identity is a shield for shitty behavior. Whether that's disabled people acting like they can't be ableist, queer people acting like they can't say homophobic shit, Jews who think they can't act in an antisemitic way, or trans people acting transphobic or saying transphobic things, this is not a new concept for me, nor one I'll move away from. It is an unfortunate thing that disabled ableists and trans radfems exist, but they do, and I've gotten tired of the idea that we have to pretend someone isn't saying shitty things because of their identity.

For a long time, one of the topics I shied away from was discussing the divisions within the trans community specifically, because -- quite frankly -- I've seen the dogpiling that tends to happen to transmascs when we criticize the shitty, bioessentialist, 'man bad woman good' behaviors of a very small but very vocal section of the online transfem community.

But shying away from talking about that is just fucking cowardice, and I've never been able to stand for cowardice within myself. So yeah, you're definitely seeing more criticism of shitty intracommunity behavior within the trans community with me. I have never been one to criticize shitty behavior restricted to identity, however, and I have surely been critical of shit behavior regardless of whether or not the person saying it is a trans man, a trans woman, or any other group of people.

You will continue to see me criticize shitty behavior, because I am absolutely fed up with the way that this community treats itself, and you will see me talk about the things that happen as they happen. Right now, there's an awful lot of shitty behavior aimed at trans men and transmascs on this site, including some from trans women. It's absolutely unconscionable to talk about raping people, or to use words like "theyfab," "cuntboy," and "zippertits" to refer to transmascs. That's what's happening, so yep, you're gonna see that on my Tumblr.

The solution here is not to be concerned about me talking about it, but to be concerned about the people doing that. Talking about shit behavior isn't the problem. The shit behavior is the problem, and it's important to both talk about the shit behavior so it fucking stops, and to talk about the shit behavior very clearly as the actions of the people who took them and not the actions of a community. It sucks that there are transfems and trans women who think it's okay to treat transmascs and trans men the way that some transmascs on here are being treated right now. Those transfem folx should know better than to pull that shit, because they know what it's like to be the target of that kind of behavior.

That said, I am absolutely not responsible for what other people say or do. I am not aware of having reblogged or endorsed the idea of starting an archive of 'trans radfem shit,' so I'm very confused as to why exactly you're talking to me about it as if I said it or endorsed it or as if it has anything to do with me, or why it would be bad to talk about the way in which trans people of any gender can fall prey to radfem manipulation. Maybe the person talking about it specified they were tracking trans women, but even the ask you sent me says 'trans radfem behavior,' so I'm assuming it would be trans people of any gender, right? If not, why are you linking those ideas together?

Like, I didn't say it, I didn't endorse it, I'm not responsible for it, but what exactly would be wrong with talking about how radfem mindsets infect our community in the first place? The manner in which too many trans people find it easy to fall into the bioessentialist thinking of radfems is a community problem.

tl;dr: I criticize everybody when they act like fools, and I'm not responsible for some random thing that 'somebody I reblogged' said.

[chaninfused]

The Altar of Angels | Lee Minho

◤“If the jester wanted to play, then the Prince of the Underworld would happily oblige.” In which a mafia heir seeks the aid of a wildcard to upturn his court. ◤Disclaimers: Female reader insert. Chapter five from the ‘dead men don’t speak’ series. Enemies to worse enemies (seriously, there’s not a shred of affection between them, only toxicity). Action and angst. Descriptions of violence, death, blood, and injury. Usage of vulgar language. ◤Word count: 3.3K ◤Note: This idea is a 100% mine and any case of similarity with someone else’s is purely coincidental. Events are pure fiction and do not reflect the idols' true characters. Please do not take my content without my consent. Masterlist. ◤From the author: I'm sorry for the long pause! It took me longer than expected to get back into the groove of writing, but we're back, and I wish you happy reading!

Previous Chapter | Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

The Prince of the Underworld had learned many lessons at thirteen. Most notable was the revelation that his life was merely a game of cards. Every person had their pre-assigned place in the deck, and he played them all with a serpent’s ease and a devil’s grin.

A restless mastermind, Minho survived by being in control, and it seemed that his guest was keenly aware of that fact.

He glanced at his silver watch. Seven minutes past the meeting time. He’d known that this alliance was never going to be peaceful when he sent that invitation.

Still, he was patient. Two could play this game if his valued guest so desired.

Ten minutes.

He was sure it was on cue when the doors swung open right then and his guest strode in, that infamous burgundy coat billowing around her, her entourage of one man tailing behind her. She was all too relaxed when she met his gaze, faux apology leaving her lips, “My, what a maze this place is!”

The legs of the chair opposite to him screeched against the floor, but she didn’t seem to care as she flopped onto the leathery cushions, tossing a familiar envelope his way.

“So,” her eyes didn’t crinkle when she smiled, “Do spill. Where did you find the spine to summon me like one of your lackeys?”

Straight to the point, huh?

Minho wanted to laugh. She was just as he’d expected.

A Joker card.

Unruly, unpredictable, and incredibly special. If the jester wanted to play, then the Prince of the Underworld would happily oblige.

“I believe our meeting was supposed to happen at eleven. Seeing as to how it’s ten past that now, I think I’ll be taking my leave,” Minho remarked coolly, barely rising from his seat when the air next to his ear whistled as a bullet tore through.  

“Stay put, will you?”

He mentally cursed at his body for freezing involuntarily. Of course she’d be the type of madwoman to shoot at him in a room full of his men. Any closer, and it would have been his brain matter splattered on the pristine walls alongside the imbedded bullet.

“I did have to make a long journey here, so make it worthwhile, your highness.”

Her mockery didn’t go unnoticed, though the real mockery was the desperation that made him ignore that address and hold her cold gaze. He didn’t know if it was stupidity or confidence that made her and her second so nonchalant despite the guns aimed at them for the transgression.

Minho remained standing. “I’m not fond of tardy people, miss Y/n.”

“And I don’t like to be ordered around, but I guess we can’t all have it our way,” she twirled her handgun lazily, eyes and words sharp.  

Touché.

Minho supposed this made the two of them even, so he decided to let it go, motioning for his guards to lower their arms as he reclaimed his seat.

“I called you here because I would like to propose an alliance between us,” he began once he had settled.

“And what purpose would that serve exactly?”

“My uncle has been running Taunt to the ground lately,” he leaned back into the leather chair, voice dropping, “I think it’s time he fell.”

“Not interested in your intra-organization power struggles,” she shrugged in immediate dismissal. “Besides, it seems to me you’re forgetting the agents Taunt had planted to assassinate me and the Right Claw two weeks ago.”

“That is precisely why this alliance benefits both you and me,” Minho stressed. “My uncle was reckless enough to attack you and spur the Shadow Front’s wrath—against my express advice, I’ll have you know. I want him and his moronic execs gone before my organization is destroyed, and I’m sure you want payback for the hospital.”

She glanced at her second in command, an unspoken exchange flitting between them, before pointing out, “And you think associating yourself with the Shadow Front is gonna fly with the rest of your people?”

Of course it wouldn’t fly. The animosity between Taunt and the Shadow Front was as ancient as the sun and the moon, but the Seraph’s Ring was becoming impatient.

“I don’t plan to associate myself with the Shadow Front,” he corrected, “I’m associating myself with Shiver."

The Six Claws were the highest-ranking individuals in the Shadow Front, and their power allowed them to create their own divisions or even found their own sub-organizations, so long as they answered to their Boss at the end of the day.

Shiver was one such sub-organization, belonging to none other than the Left Claw who sat across from him, murmuring to herself, “I see.”

“Well… I do agree that the executives should perish,” she finally said, and Minho nodded, “And I won’t stand in your way when the time comes. Do we have a deal, then?”

The room held its breath, and then she laughed, “Sure. I’ll kill your boss for you.”

Minho exhaled.

He had done it. The King of Diamonds would finally topple.

“But what do I get out of this?” her question shattered his moment of triumph.

Eyes sparkling with amusement, she rested her elbow against the armrest of her chair and propped her head against her palm. “It isn’t like I actually need your permission to take revenge if I wanted to.”

But of course, Minho wasn’t so naive.

“I’ll give you free access to Port Three for a year.”

“Two years.”

She hadn’t missed a beat, still boring into him with those unnervingly bright eyes as though nothing in this world could ever be worth taking seriously. Her drawl dripped with poison, “Two years or I make a beeline out of here to your uncle’s office and tell him about his little traitor of a nephew.”

Right.

Port Three was under Minho’s control, and the charges he collected from it were only a small portion of his fortune. He could afford to relinquish control temporarily.

“Fine,” he yielded, perfectly composed, and that same grin stretched her lips again, not quite reaching her eyes.

“Nice doing business with you.”

Hatred was a mistress of many faces, and Minho was familiar with all of them. The Left Claw smiled and her second was expressionless, but Minho saw it.

Those two despised him to their very cores.

It mattered to him none.

He had his flimsy alliance and he finally had her.

A Joker card to add to his collection.

•⭓•

Minho wasn’t born a prince.

He’d been nothing one day, and then he was the chosen son of one of the most powerful men in the underworld, the closest thing to royalty among criminals.

And it was only right that the King’s son be raised a Prince. Blessed, untouchable, divine, he could have the very sky that you were now captivated by in his palms if he so wished.

“Haunting, isn’t it?” he remarked as he approached the balustrade where you stood with your second, so still as if meditating. The stars were invisible tonight, but the moon was a bleeding orb of light and terrifyingly close. It had a presence that sent a shiver down his spine, as though it were an omen. A promise of bloodshed.

“That’s not the word I’d use,” you scoffed, turning away from the balustrade to face him. You wore an altered version of your notorious coat, sharply cut to suit the party, and a displeased frown. “Let’s get this over with already.”

You didn’t care to wait for his response before stalking toward the grand doors, and Minho caught up to you with ease. The two of you walking in together would be a statement, and it would create just the kind of fuss needed to ruffle his uncle’s feathers.

More than that, actually. It would set the King of Diamonds’ metaphorical plumage on fire, and the thought of that almost made Minho dizzy with excitement.

The sea of dark suits seemed to still, conversation dying and voices falling into a hush upon your entrance into the hall. He stifled a victorious smirk at the scene.

It worked like a charm.

Every gaze was a spear that directed at you, and Minho felt it then, a gaze hotter and sharper than the rest. The Cardinal Ring, fuming with betrayal and unbridled rage.

They all recognized that deep, reddish color—the Joker card at his side.

You paid them no mind, marching through a crowd that parted for you almost naturally, and Minho matched your pace until your path collided with his uncle and his three executives, huddling close to one another as though to intimidate the two of you.

“You have some nerve, Minho,” his uncle all but spat at him, his name sounding like a curse from his lips.

He only smiled cordially, coldly, in response. “I’m afraid I disagree, sir.”

His uncle seethed silently, snapping his eyes to glare at you. Minho knew he wouldn’t make a scene with him so publicly, but you were a known enemy, so you weren’t spared when he jeered at you, “What, that one-eyed brute finally bored you? Cozying up to your enemies for some excitement?”

You didn’t so much as blink at his provocations. Lips pressed into a flat line, you leveled him with a look so unamused that it stilled the air. Only your second in command expressed any semblance of agitation, a lone vein twitching in his jaw.

Han Jisung was his name. A Jack card, so loyal to his boss.

Silence yawned between the two of you, a depthless canyon, so thoroughly uncomfortable it caused Minho’s skin to prickle. It felt like hours, though realistically, he knew it was a mere few seconds before his uncle scoffed a swear under his breath and turned away with his posse.

You watched them disappear into the crowd for good measure and then faced the direction you had come from. “Let’s go, Han.”

“You’re leaving?” Minho was a little surprised, and you gave him a withering glare.

“I only came here to piss off your uncle, and we’ve done that. Your company doesn’t interest me otherwise. Goodbye."

Minho could only watch as your burgundy coat melted into the mass of black suits. He might’ve been offended at your curt dismissal, and maybe he should’ve, but Minho found the grace in his heart to forgive you.

After all, the Joker, the harbinger of chaos, had but a single instinct driving their every action.

Bloodlust.

He would entertain your antics because as long as he wielded your insatiable craving for bloodshed, you were practically dancing in his palms.

•⭓•

Kings were made to fall.

Minho also learned that at thirteen, when he cradled his father’s cold body in his arms. The King of Spades, he’d later dubbed him. Mighty, boundless. Fallible.

The current boss, his uncle, was also a King and so were his executives. It was a fitting assessment because he had to fall too, for the sake of Taunt’s survival.

That was why Minho considered himself a perfect ‘one’. An Ace. He would only rise, like an angel outstretching a hand for the salvation of humanity.

Blessed, untouchable, divine.

His faction was thus aptly named the Seraph’s Ring, and they had become ravenous beasts praying on his uncle’s downfall.

The doors of the meeting room burst open when Minho charged in, quipping without a drop of lightheartedness, “What’s this? A secret club meeting?”

The stunned faces of his uncle and his three executives greeted him. The Cardinal Ring looked as though they had been caught red-handed.

“I wonder, did our invite get lost in the mail?” Minho sneered as he ambled in, followed by the two other executives who constituted his faction.

Sitting at the head of the long table, Taunt’s boss hissed, “You have no right to sit at this table after sleeping with the shadow bastards.”

What a vulgar mouth.

“I slept with nobody," Minho deadpanned as he dropped into his usual seat. "Your problem has always been that you’re severely short-sighted.”

One of the Cardinal executives slammed a fist against the table, features contorting in anger. “You arrogant little—”

“I learned something interesting.”

Minho savored the small victory of their silence at his announcement. They were all the same at the end of the day.

Vultures.

“Those shadow bastards have quite the deal to close with Six-Six,” he wielded the foreign organization’s name like weapon and saw the executives' eyes darken in response. “Three hundred million dollars or something along those lines.”

“I hear the Claws will be in attendance too,” Minho leaned back, triumphant when he met his uncle’s hungry gaze, “Doesn’t that excite you, uncle?”

“So this was your play all along?” his boss huffed his surprise.

“I’m not as airheaded as you think I am.”

Once again, Minho had played a flawless hand. He could practically see the schemes brewing in his uncle’s head.

“Two weeks from now. Two in the afternoon,” he smiled, drinking in his sweet, sweet greed. “I’m sure Six-Six doesn’t care who meets them at the West Port.”

Foolishness was the downfall of all Kings.

•⭓•

The rusty aluminum ceiling of warehouse 5B would be the last thing Taunt's boss would see. What fine taste you had.

Mino’s gaze roved over the space and the abandoned containers lining its walls. “And you’re sure no one will interrupt us here?”

“Yeah,” you said behind him. “Just make sure your boss shows his face.”

“He will.”

That man was a slave to his greed. Minho was more than glad to pull his leash into this trap.

“And the execs?” you asked.

“They’ll likely stay behind. Wouldn’t want to dim his spotlight.”

 “Right.”

You were as riveted by the plan as one would be by an ant crossing the pavement. It ticked him off, just barely.

“You’re awfully relaxed,” Minho commented as you strolled past him.

“What, haven’t killed a man before?” you paused to side-eye him. “No wonder you sought outside help.”

“Hey.”

“Or wait, there was that cruise incident last year, right?”

His blood chilled. Too late did he notice the sly grin on your lips. He’d basically confirmed your claim with his silence.   

Damn it.

“How did you know about that?” Minho demanded. He had ensured that the coverup was flawless, that it could never be traced back to him.

So how—

“A little fox whispers to me.” you shrugged, resuming your aimless walk. “Anyway, let’s go over your sob story again.”

That fox must have been your informant, and quite the skilled one. Minho bit back his frustration. It didn’t seem like you planned to use the information against him anyway.

“You purposefully fed me wrong information and made me lead the boss here. You then ambushed us and killed him as revenge,” he recited.

“Exactly! I betrayed you,” you lamented mockingly. “Poor Prince of the Underworld.”

Poor Joker card, he thought in response.

The hatred in your gaze never shied from the light, but it was pointless. No matter how much you fought him, you would never be able to truly betray him.

For only he held the cards in this game.

•⭓•

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

There was blood on the ground, seeping from bodies long still, pooling until it appeared like an extension of your burgundy coat. Four bodies, crumpled unceremoniously, and you stood in the midst of the carnage like a Reaper. 

This wasn’t the place the two of you had agreed on. These weren’t the victims the two of you had agreed on.

“What the fuck did you do?” the shout tore from Minho’s lungs, blistering and painful, colliding with your back which you still gave to him.

He saw your shoulders raise and drop.

“I told you they had to perish.”

“You killed them all!” a roar sounded from somewhere seemingly outside his body. Minho couldn’t tell, couldn’t think.

They were dead. They were all dead.

He stumbled and his legs gave out, splattering him in the blood of the executives of the Cardinal Ring when his knees met the ground.

This wasn’t my plan. This wasn’t my play.

You half turned toward him, that smile of utter distaste on your lips. Pity burned in your eyes. “It’s personal, don’t feel too bad.”

Personal? His stomach twisted and threatened to empty itself out on the ground. Minho’s assessments were never wrong. The Joker card was bloodthirsty, and that thirst was easy to control. It should’ve made the finest tool out of you.

So why—

His hands moved before he could process the thought, his instincts taking over.

A wildcard ruins the entire deck.

His gun was warm in his hands, and he aimed it at your head.

You can’t continue to exist, Joker.  

He might have been too late in realizing it, but he saw it now. You were a threat Minho couldn’t afford to ignore.

There was a step before he felt the barrel of a gun press against his temple.

“Wanna test my reaction time?” Jisung’s voice was void of humor and he ordered, “Drop the gun.”

It was futile. The moment Minho’s finger twitched on the trigger, his life would be snuffed out. He likely wouldn’t even see you fall before that. His resolve splintered and cracked, and his aim fell lower and lower until his weapon clattered on the bloody ground.

Jisung kicked the gun away instantly, and Minho felt a scream clawing its way through his throat.

But it was barely a whisper that left his lips, “Why…”

He wanted his uncle dead, yes, but not his executives. As much as he despised the Cardinal Ring, he needed its members alive to keep Taunt stable. There was no way he could avoid a revolt now.

His father’s kingdom. His family.

Taunt would destroy itself, and you would dance over its grave.

“You ruined everything,” he spat, hoping the words stung as he glared at your relaxed form. There was no hint of violence on your person. Your hair was undisturbed and your coat was pristine. No bruise nor blood marred your skin. There was only light in your gaze.

Blessed, untouchable, divine.

Corrupt.

“And who’s to blame for that?” you wondered aloud. “You were the one who led me right into your den, or did you forget that already?”

Minho had done just that. He even promised not to stand in your way.

A mistake so terrible, it would haunt him for the remainder of his days.

His distress must’ve shown because you frowned, disappointed, disgusted, even, “You’re still incredibly boring—”

An explosion shook the earth below you, deafening, and you immediately looked to your second. Alert with your gun ready for attack, you uttered a single word of command, “Han.”

He moved wordlessly, a specter drifting over the corpses as he made his way toward the shabby window of this warehouse. A few seconds later, he declared in the suffocating silence of the explosion’s aftermath, “It came from 5B.”

Minho’s heart sputtered. He didn’t remember setting up any bombs there, and judging from the grim shift in your expression, you didn’t either.   

“Didn’t he say he would be scouting the area?” you asked, and your second answered as he returned to your side, “He did, yes.”

“Well, then. I guess I’m glad I took his advice and changed locations,” you shrugged after a moment’s thought, stuffing your hands in your coat pockets and beginning to make your way to the exit. “Let’s hope we don’t meet again, Prince of the Underworld.”

Minho didn’t have the spirit to bite back. He had become a plummeting angel, his wings torn and his halo dimmed. He grappled with the realization that perhaps he’d been wrong all along.

Alone, surrounded by the corpses of his arrogance, Minho screamed until his mind’s pandemonium ceased.

Maybe Kings weren’t the only ones made to fall.

Previous Chapter | Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

Thank you for reading this far! We're nearing the plot's apex, so a lot of answers will be revealed in the upcoming few chapters. I would love to hear your thoughts! A reblog and any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I hope you have a spectacular day, and I'll see you next week for chapter six! ♡

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/753295388848553984/thinking-the-progressive-pride-flag-is-ugly-is#notes

Bruh, I'm sorry but that reasoning does not hold up to any scrutiny if you even give a lick of care to learn the actual bullshit that goes on in queer sphere.

"(poc+trans) they’re marginalized even within the community,"

I'm a bisexual woman. I've been explicitly and blatantly excluded from queer and LGBT+ events when it came out I was 100% bisexual. Even at times where I had a woman as a partner. I've had to deal with accusations of being a predator from the lesbian community when dating lesbians, or "invading" lesbian spaces. I've dealt with accusations of transphobia for using the label bisexual, rather than "more inclusive" labels. I've been told to shut up when talking about my experiences as a bisexual woman, especially if it was me criticizing the behavior from the rest of queer spaces.

I've had to deal with being excluded from queer community events, helplines, or other resources for queer people because I was bisexual. Do not get me started on the times I was with a man, or male presenting partner. I've had to deal with people demanding that bisexuals get dropped from queer spaces, and that we should "choose a side" and that bisexuality doesn't exist.

And you know what? I know that the exact same shit happens to aces. In a slightly different coat of paint, but it nonetheless the same level of vitriol and exclusion happens on a constant basis. There's a reason why there's such a deep solidarity between aces and bis "It’s a flag that was created to draw attention to intra-community issues,"

It's a flag that pretends to draw attention to intra-community issues, but in reality only shines light on a tiny part, and in reality doesn't even do that well. I don't even think most people flying that flag have any idea as to the alleged specifics of why these designs were made. I've seen people throw out incredibly subjective and/or vague assumptions and assertions as to why they exist, while they're clearing doing guesswork.

It's not your accusation that people believe that the "progress pride flag is separating trans people and POC and acting like they weren’t previously included" it's that it feels incredibly shallow and ignorant of queer history, and queer POC history and racism-even from within queer POC spaces-.

It's the problem that people think that flying that flag while doing absolute fuck all to change the problems in queer communities is enough, intra-community also doesn't work if the communities represented don't also actively weed out their own problems. Don't add me I know about the NB-phobia, and inter-trans transphobia, "If you want to pass you're a traitor", dumbshit like "no rice or spice" shit from poc users on (certain) queer dating sites... That shit is and was never exclusive to white people.

The rainbow flag as a battleground for these issues feels cheap, shallow, and childish because it was never created to exclude or target a specific sexuality. It was always a symbol of togetherness and fighting for our rights and right to live. Then some people decided that the flag that always represented the message "We're standing together" suddenly doesn't represent that message anymore, not because the flag doesn't stand for togetherness or the message has changed. No, it's because some idiots completely unrelated to the flag and it's meaning are being terrible people. No, just because someone is queer doesn't mean they get to poison the well for all other queer people and rot the meaning of a flag that always was for everyone, or their actions suddenly get to smear that the meaning of the flag from the get go included everyone, black, white, asian, brown, fucking translucent, and was always meant to show solidarity between all the sexualities. We're standing together as queers, but that doesn't mean individual queers can't be shits all on their own.

At this point we should just slap a triangle on all the pride flags, the flags themselves have absolutely nothing to do with it, but at least we can pretend like it does something, because a few dingbats can't behave and happen to be #that-sexuality/genderID. Let's add a bi and ace triangle to the gay, lesbian and trans-flag. Add an extra trans triangle to the trans-flag, maybe the NB and bi flag as well.

You can have your progress pride flag. You can have your feel good messaging if that's what it takes. But for the love of the rainbow, stop pretending the flag is anything but a shallow way to show-off that you at least know the surface level issues in the queer community.

--

[lesbianchemicalplant]

one of the most pointedly transmisogynistic people I've ever had the displeasure of hanging out with irl is a tme nonbinary self-described dyke "they/them type situation" who wears vulva earrings and has talked about how much they hate their trans woman ex-gf literally every single time I saw them, along with other charged comments involving trans women

"theyfab" will continue to exist as a term used by transfems to describe that intra-trans transmisogynistic dynamic as long as it exists. it's not a nice term and it's not meant to be. if the term bothers you so much then your best course of action would be to work against the specific transmisogynist dynamic it names instead of concern-trolling transfems for describing how we are commonly treated by other trans people

[undercat-overdog]

All the versions of Celegorm and Curufin's actions during the Bragollach, for my own future reference. I mean to write a meta on them at some point, but that might morph into a broader one on the Bragollach as a whole.

Takeaway: Celegorm and Curufin always head towards the Finarfinians and never towards their brothers, even though they would have been able to (in the versions where they head south then west in particular, where they would have numerous options for further travel). In many versions, this is explicitly because of their friendship with Orodreth. (I say versions, but the actions are pretty consistent - defend Aglon till they need to retreat, head towards Orodreth and/or Nargothrond)

I think this is very interesting and has implications for various intra-Finwean and intra-Feanorian dynamics.

The textual history of the material that became the Silmarillion is... complex. I present the different versions in the order they appear in HoME, which semi-corresponds to when Tolkien probably wrote them. I omit the very earliest version, "The Earliest 'Silmarillion'" in SoME.

The Silmarillion: For the war had gone ill with the sons of Fëanor, and well nigh all the east marches were taken by assault. The Pass of Aglon was forced, though with great cost to the hosts of Morgoth; and Celegorm and Curufin being defeated fled south and west by the marches of Doriath, and coming at last to Nargothrond sought harbour with Finrod Felagund. Thus it came to pass that their people swelled the strength of Nargothrond; but it would have been better, as was after seen, if they had remained in the east among their own kin.

Shaping of Middle-earth pg 128, the Quenta: Then Felagund went South [after being saved by Barahir during the Bragollach], and on the banks of Narog established after the manner of Thingol a hidden and cavernous city, and a realm. Those deep places were called Nargothrond. There came Orodreth after a time of breathless flight and perilous wanderings, and with him Celegorm and Curufin, the sons of Fëanor, his friends. The people of Celegorm swelled the strength of Felagund, but it would have been better if they had gone rather to their own kin, who fortified the hill of Himling east of Doriath and filled the Gorge of Aglon with hidden arms.

SoME pg 357, the Earliest Annals of Beleriand (in this version, Orodreth holds lands in Dorthonion, right next to Celegorm and Curufin): Here were Bregolas slain, and the greater part of the warriors of Bëor’s house. Angrod and Egnor sons of Finrod fell. Barahir and his chosen champions saved Felagund and Orodreth, and Felagund swore a great oath of friendship to his kin and seed. […] The sons of Fëanor were not slain, but Celegorm and Curufin were defeated and fled with Orodreth son of Finrod. Maidros the left-handed did deeds of great prowess, and Morgoth did not take Himling as yet, but he broke into the passes east of Himling and ravaged into East Beleriand and scattered the Gnomes of Fëanor’s house.

LR pgs 132 - Later Annals of Beleriand The sons of Feanor were not slain, but Celegorm and Curufin were defeated, and fled unto Orodreth in the west of Taur-na-Danion.

LR pg 147 - in the footnotes, Christopher notes that his father changed the above line on pg 132 to: Celegorm and Curufin were defeated, and fled south and west, and took harbour at last with Orodreth in Nargothrond.

LR pgs 282-283 - Quenta Silmarillion For the war had gone ill with the sons of Feanor, and well night all the east marches were taken by assault. The pass of Aglon was forced, though with great cost to Morgoth; and Celegorm and Curufin being defeated fled south and west tby the marches of Doriath and came at last to Nargothrond, and sought harbor with their friend Orodreth. Thus it came to pass that the people of Celegorm swelled the strength of Felagund, but it would have been better, as after was seen, if they had remained in the East among their own kin.

LR pg 289-290 Christopher’s commentary on the previous paragraph where he’s comparing different manuscripts. Inglor is Finrod. It is said in QS 117 that after the founding of Nargothrond Inglor Felagund committed the tower of Minnastirith to Orodreth; and later in the present chapter QS 143 it is recounted how Sauron came against Orodreth and took the tower by assault (the fate of the defenders is not there mentioned). The statement here that Celegorm and Curufin ‘sought harbour with their friend Orodreth’ — rather than ‘sought harbour with Felagund’ — is found also in an emendation to AB 2 (note 25); the implication is that Orodreth reached Nargothrond before them, and that their friendship with him was the motive for their going to Nargothrond. This friendship survived the change of Orodreth’s lordship from the east of Dorthonion (‘nighest to the sons of Feanor’, AB 2 annal 52 as originally written) to wardenship of the tower on Tol Sirion. The sentence ‘the people of Celegorm swelled the strength of Felagund, but it would have been better […] if they had remained in the East among their own kin’ goes back to Q ([HoME] IV 106), though in Q Celegorm and Curufin came to Nargothrond together with Orodreth.

WotJ 53, 54 - the Grey Annals (Celegorm is referred to as Celegorn throughout; Cranthir, Damrod, and Diriel are Caranthir, Amrod, and Amras. Inglor is Finrod) Celegorn and Curufin held strong forces behind Aglon, and many horsed archers, but they were overthrown, and Celegorn hardly escaped, and passed westward along the north borders of Doriath with such mounted following as they could save, and came thus at length to the vale of Sirion. […] Morgoth […] sent a great force to attack the westward pass into the vales of Sirion; and Sauron his lieutenant (who in Beleriand was named Gorsodh) led that assault, and his hosts broke through and besieged the fortress of Inglor, Minnas-tirith upon Tolsirion. And this they took after bitter fighting, and Orodreth the brother of Inglor who held it was driven out. There he would have been slain, but Celegorn and Curufin came up with their riders, and such other force as they could gather, and they fought fiercly, and stemmed the tide for a while; and thus Orodreth escaped and came to Nargothrond. Thither also at last before the might of Sauron fled Celegorn and Curufin with small following; and they were harboured in Nargothrond gratefully, and the griefs that lay between the houses of Finrod and Feanor were for that time forgotten.

WotJ pg 239-240- the Later Quenta Silmarillion. Christopher is presenting the emendations his father made to the Quenta Silmarillion manuscript published in LR. Celegorn and Curufin … sought harbour with their friend Orodreth > ‘… sought harbour with Inglor and Orodreth.’ > ‘sought harbour with Finrod and Orodreth.’

[quipxotic]

Answers and events I hope for in C3E96; spoilers for C3E95 below the cut, obviously, and also because it got really long:

For everyone left in the room to talk about what Orym experienced in the fight. I think it’s hard to judge where people will ultimately fall on the intra-party conflict based only on what we saw in that last hour of the previous episode when, A) they woke up in the middle of a situation and may have missed some of the context, and B) were so shocked in the moment that some of them seemed unsure of how to act or what to feel. Talking about it would be helpful to everyone, including the audience. I’m particularly interested in the Ashton-Orym-Fearne of it all. Ashton tried to de-escalate and get Laudna to apologize, but was not as demonstrably supportive of Orym having the sword as Dorian and Chet were. Previously Ashton and Orym have been among each others' biggest supporters, so how does Orym feel about that reaction? Personally, I don't think this will open a rift between the tanks, but it would be bad if it did. Also, Fearne was reluctant to take sides between her two friends. How does Orym feel about that?

For Imogen to return to BH’s room and immediately blurt out that Laudna is knowingly feeding Delilah. Do I think this will happen? No*. If she did do it, might Laudna see it as a betrayal? Probably. Might it ultimately help Laudna? I think it could help to have everyone know what she's dealing with and why she's acting out of character. Plus, while the reemergence of Delilah is a recent event in-story, I am personally ready for the narrative to move on from her being the unaddressed elephant in the room. And BH definitely needs to come up with a plan before Delilah either seizes control of Laudna or Percy sees her form of dread and takes the choice out of their hands.

How is Laudna going to act towards the rest of BH after her absorption of Otohan’s dagger? In her conversation with Imogen at the end of the last episode Laudna said she "didn't mean to...," but that seemed to me to have more to do with Laudna’s fear that she’d damaged their relationship, not any actual regrets about her actions. Will she be immediately apologetic with the rest of the Hells? Will she deflect and try to act like nothing has changed? As in her conversation with Imogen, her reaction may depend on how they act toward her and whether they insist on consequences.

Some push-back or boundary setting from BH toward Delilah and Laudna’s recent actions. Again, I’m not convinced this will happen based on prior experiences and I know they’re about to head into something difficult, but ignoring what’s happening with Laudna has the potential of making that difficult situation even more dangerous. When Ashton tried to absorb the shard, he had about two-and-half to three episodes-worth of consequences and mea culpas. You can debate whether that was warranted, and I know there are strong feelings on all sides there. You can argue that the situations are different, which is certainly true. But Ashton didn’t attack anyone in the party and, intentionally or unintentionally, Laudna did. There's got to be some kind of reckoning with her doing that. It’s not about whose actions were worse, again they are different situations. And it's not about making Laudna suffer because Ashton did, but the whole point of the trust-building exercises was to build a stronger group. This is a setback in that effort and I don’t think it’s just we fans who will draw connections between the two events.

Also, as an aside, I find it funny (in an "Oh look, narrative connections!" not "Ha-ha" kind of way) that both Ashton and Laudna's respective power grabs could have/may have destructive consequences for Whitestone. One up close and the other (currently) at a distance.

For Fearne to question Orym about his pact with Nana Morri. There’s been a lot of fandom speculation around what everyone’s reactions to that will be, so I can’t wait to see how it plays out in-game. I suspect there will be some surprises.

How will the Fearne/Ashton and Orym/Dorian relationships develop? Will the potential for romantic partnerships there change the EXU trio’s friendships with each other?

Let’s go to Aeor everyone! As a C3 fan, it’ll be my first time there but I’ve seen a lot of hints and discussion from C2 fans and I adored EXU: Calamity’s depiction of the Age of Arcanum, so I’m excited about BH exploring the ruins of another city from that time period.

Essek’s reaction to BH’s…everything. To the fight and the tension in the group, yes, but also to just them as individuals. I always enjoy outside characters' impressions of the Hells.

New outfits and character art! Maybe? Hopefully?

Where are the other members of the Cerberus Assembly and where do they stand on Ludinus and his plans?

*I will be very surprised if Imogen tells everyone, but I will not be surprised if she tells at least one person about it telepathically. In the past that person would have been Orym, so it'll be telling if she chooses to confide in him this time. Given the situation, she might go to Ashton, Chet, or Fearne instead and all of them would react to that information in very different ways.

[natlacentral]

New ‘Avatar' remake didn’t want to ‘water down’ depictions of war and imperialism, actors say

“It is just a part of our history, and this show reflects a lot of things that are in our culture currently as well,” actor Daniel Dae Kim said.

Disclaimer: Potential spoilers ahead.

Netflix’s new series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” tackles heavy topics like war and exploitation and, according to actors in it, the showrunners didn’t hesitate to depict them in a graphic way.

The live-action series is a departure from the animated Nickelodeon show on which it’s based on, which only alluded to instances of genocide and murder. Actors Daniel Dae Kim and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee said there’s a good reason for that.

Lee, who plays Uncle Iroh, a former general of the fictional country called “Fire Nation,” explained the show’s intentional display of brutality.

“I, as an artist who’s working in it, appreciate that we’re not watering it down necessarily to make it more palatable for the audience,“ Lee said. “The scope, the epicness of it, the themes that we’re trying to explore, I think you can’t be too light-handed with it. And this is what I appreciate as a fan as well. And I think a whole generation of original fans would like that sort of change where it’s stepped up.”

“Avatar: The Last Airbender,” which debuts Thursday, follows the journey of a young monk and his friends as they travel through the world to master the four elements and save the world from the militaristic Fire Nation. While the live-action adaptation honors storylines and themes of the original, creator Albert Kim told IGNthe show is “a remix, not a cover.”

Kim, who plays Fire Lord Ozai, a villain bent on conquering the world for the supremacy of his people, said the depiction of war in the series is timely. 

“It is just a part of our history, and this show reflects a lot of things that are in our culture currently as well,” Kim told NBC News. “This idea of an imbalance of power, the idea that people are seeking power without the responsibility that it comes with.”

“I think it’s an appropriate show for our times,” Kim said. 

The original “Avatar” animated series was noted for its critique of imperialism and for capturing the devastating impact of century-long warfare on cultures, families and nature.

While the eight-episode show depicts the Fire Nation attempting to conquer other nations, it also aims to explore the complexities of intra-regional politics — and how differing opinions on peace and war exist within the same people.

“Colonialism, imperialism is not just one race against another. It’s one nationality against another. It’s one region against another,” Kim said. “If you look at the history of just Asia, how many times has Korea been conquered? How many times has China had a revolution? Even going back to dynasties, it was one dynasty overthrowing another.”

[creatrixanimi]

as a submas fan who recently got into hazbin I would absolutely love to hear your au thoughts!!!!

Ok ill have to try to write out everything i've got so far!

So the original premise was that ingo and emmet got mixed up and ingo got sent to hell instead of emmet as an oopsie (emmet didnt do anything overly bad in life but heaven/hell stuff is so arbitrary they probably just made a weird decision somewhere down the line lol) but i thinkkk i have switched it to Ingo gets sent to hell because Volo successfully sacrificed him in a ritual and emmet, while dying in the same place, wasnt actually part of it so normal rules still applied to him. Ingo's soul is all messed up and corrupted because of the ritual which caused his amnesia. Emmet finds out about Ingo being sent to hell after he cant find ingo anywhere in heaven and rightfully gets upset at heaven's lack of action because he see's ingo's situation as a huge injustice. So Emmet's whole thing is basically just causing problems until he finds his way to hell and reunites with ingo.

Ingo's situation is where the fun is lol. So he wakes up after spawning in hell and is just a total odd-ball. Half because he doesnt remember ANYTHING from before he died. Maybe not even his name? Which is weird. And also because he's a total sweetheart. No one can figure out why he's even there because it's not like he's a hellborn so he must have done something to end up in hell. After a brief period of wandering around aimlessly, Lady Sneasler, who is an overlord in this au, kinda adopts him and takes him places because she thinks hes so charming and adorable. Melli is just a guy that hangs around lady sneasler even though he acts like he doesnt like her? She's the poison overlord (kinda like an aqua tofana situation for sneasler) and melli is a poison guy. So they kinda just fall into the same group. So they both become friends of Ingo. After a while of character introductions and some brief fun stuff like Sneasler getting Ingo to do all kinds of fun stuff he probably wouldnt do on his own (like the clubbing thing lmao) Ingo has his first blackout, probably triggered by some sort of memory thing, and its kinda terrifying. When he has those blackouts he shifts into his full demon form and his power goes haywire causing a lot of destruction. Its a huge shock because normally regular sinner demons dont really have much in terms of inherent power and also because Ingo cant actually use his powers while conscious so there was no sign of him being capable of that level of chaos. Anyway, after he has his little blackout his body sustains damage from exerting that kind of power and is kinda down for the count for a while afterwards. His story from there on is figuring out what is going on with him and trying to stop those blackouts before it either destroys him or a good chunk of the city, whichever comes first lmao. Sneasler is kinda just there to reign in ingo and melli she just loves a good show lol Melli is kinda where i wanna connect it more to the existing hazbin characters/storyline. Because this is lowkey more of a crossover. He accidentally becomes charlie's new pet project which no one is a fan of 😂 melli did not volunteer for this at all but his character arc is learning to make friends and care about other people after pushing people away for so long because he's a huge ball of self-hatred. He's kinda perfect for the "i can fix him" thing the hotel is all about. SO he's stuck learning to become a better person and being the narrative connection back to the core of the actual show lmao. Not sure if they ever even stay at the hotel. Maybe ingo and melli could flip flop between sneasler's place and the hotel. They dont actually have places of their own so its one or the other. In terms of intra character interactions i think its like this (this is prolly set post-s1 so no sir pentious): Charlie: thinks ingo is nice, wants to fix melli and is working with ingo to do this. Her relationship w sneasler is similar to rosie in my head. Alastor: finds Ingo somewhat threatening because Ingo can read him like a book. would otherwise find him pleasant but because he has a hard time keeping up his mysterious scary image around him he avoids him if possible. Ingo really likes him because "he reminds him of someone but he cant put a finger on it", will teleport away if melli is in the vicinity, finds sneasler charming. would gossip with her 10/10. When emmet shows up they try to kill each other which is entirely unsurprising. Everyone else in the hotel is more or less "theres something not right about that ingo guy but he's nice enough i guess", "FUCK melli get him OUT OF HERE", and "lady sneasler is chill" and when emmet shows up theyre just like "oh this explains why he likes alastor so much. Now theres TWO OF THEM." I would like to develop the other character's opinions on the situation more but this is getting. so so long. misc other character stuff: 

Lady sneasler still has sneasels, usually 3 of them. they just have tiny wings and horns but otherwise look like regular sneasels. No clue what their deal is they just exist. 

Rosie and Sneasler get along great. they are kinda similar but fill different power-niches in hell. 

Rosie finds ingo SO charming. She loves his odd vintage flair despite literally dying like. in the 2020s lol. He's very popular in cannibal town because he's a train freak and edwardians love trains. He takes the cute edwardian cannibal kiddies on train rides.

im not really sure what goes on with emmet in this au i just know he's having a shit time of it and eventually finds ingo. I havent decided if he actually falls or just leaves heaven because it sucks and no one cares enough to stop him. Also only slightly related but i actually have a voice-canon for him which is will wood which works great for this au lmao. Also emmet plays killer jazz piano and alastor is so mad about it because its actually good.

emmet and alastor dont really have all that much in common besides the smile thing but its just enough for them to beef over it. really its a similar feud as alastor and lucifer, alastor sees emmet as a threat both because of his power and the smile thing and emmet doesnt like that ingo is following alastor around like a lost puppy. emmet is def way less mysterious, he's just pissed that his brother is suffering even if ingo doesnt seem to notice his own problems.

volo doesnt really come back up in this au because he's still alive. just imagine that akari is kicking his ass in the living world or something lmao. 

i cant decide if pokemon exist in this universe. It would be funny tho to have chandelure exist in a world where souls are like whole ass people who can die for a second time. worlds nicest guy's pet lamp eats people until theyre perma-dead for breakfast.

Elesa (and probably also drayden and iris depening on your headcanons) are very sad :( i like emmet/elesa so it makes it extra hard on elesa tho. there is no solution for this.

not sure what the arceus situation is here. hazbin as far as i know doesnt have a canon god design so for all we know god could be a dumbass llama i guess. its doesnt really matter besides stylizing volo's ritual

[batsysquared]

zionism and nationalism

Stop using the term "zionism". Ideally, nobody at all would use it outside of intra-jewish discussions and certain academic circles, but there are two camps of people who never let go of it. This very circumstance is exactly why it's so much more important that everyone else abandons the term in discourse. If you truly, truly care about the situation in Israel and Palestine on a level beyond morality plays and the fun of Geopolitical Team Sports - that is, you care about stopping pain and suffering, about ending a cycle of violence, about freeing the people of Palestine from their oppressors and the people of Israel from the very same chains that bind people living anywhere where those who hold power speak and act on their behalf without actually bothering to hear any but those who legitimize their actions, about forging a lasting peace between people where neither side has any significant desire to harm the other - then it is important to understand that zionism, as a term used in popular discourse (i.e. discussions against zionism by those critical of Israel's actions or for "zionism" in justification of Israel's right-wing - both distinct from discussions about zionism between Jews) is a weapon wielded by antisemites and genocide supporters both. It is a weapon of obfuscation, honed sharply over decades to muddle any good faith effort at a conversation on any topic relating to Israel. Antisemites use it, obviously, as a dogwhistle - they depend on others to also use it so that they can spread their hate unnoticed, spreading propaganda amongst the well-meaning to be regurgitated uncritically in order to effect a subtle societal shift towards their views - just enough that those they wish to victimize are terrorized and isolated by an already great hatred which now seems even unimaginably greater than it already was. At the same time, those wholly behind the State of Israel's actions, and those who believe it hasn't gone far enough, use zionism to further the conflation of their ideals with the ideals of all Jewish people everywhere. They use a long-standing cultural framework to ingratiate threatened Jews (of which there are many!) to an ideology that is not equally understood to be what it is. Where one person may see the safety of a homeland, the supporter of genocide sees kahanism - the elimination of all who are in the way, and the exclusion of those who are perceived to be not sufficiently culturally aligned. They, too, spread propaganda amongst the well-meaning to be regurgitated uncritically, merging these two different conceptualizations of zionism into one dual-but-irreconcilable meaning, and in doing so also isolate individuals to strengthen their own position and to gloss over the horrors they support by framing their desire as something less than their actions.

So - when the word "zionism" is used in these discussions about the actions of State of Israel (again, as opposed to discussions among Jews about what Israel ought to be; see also the distinction between black people discussing a theoretical New Africa and the condemnation by the public of pre-1980s Liberian politics) what does it mean? From my observance, it means something different to every single person who uses it, and every single person who hears it assumes that the way it was used was the way they understand it. With two constant forces acting in bad faith to make it impossible to know what anyone really means when they use the word, with so many people who are scared and hurt and so many people that are ready to fight on their behalf, how could anyone have a conversation in their presence which is not full of hidden barbs that cut away at any real attempt at forward movement? You can't. And for antisemites and kahanists both - that’s the goal. So what are those who truly care about peace to do? Simple: call out the actions of the State of Israel and the rhetoric of those in power and those who support them for what it is: nationalism. Not some unique "Jewish evil" as antisemites would have you believe, nor a desire and need unique to the Jewish people, but rather the very same mechanism by which states have organized themselves for centuries to protect Us and hurt Them. The thing being championed now as the solution for Palestine: the evil that always seems such a good idea until suddenly it isn't, because the usage of violence to create a geopolitical, cultural, and ethnic boundary forever taints those boundaries. This taint ensures that it will always be those who control those boundaries that refuse to let go of them once independence is won, because safety can never be truly assured. Others are always a threat, and so there will always be an excuse. Eventually, as we see now in Israel, the boundary closes in every way but the lines on the map (which, of course, expand) as people who fit the cultural and ethnic profile set forth fail to meet the expectations of those who now control who is and is not considered to fit in the box, and as the contents of the box change to exclude those trapped outside of it even though there was no problem with them before the box ever existed. And rest assured, as has happened with every nationalist movement before, should Palestine find its liberation under these same ideals - that "from river to sea, Palestine will be free" - all we've done is flipped who is Good and who is Bad. The slaughter continues, with a new flag and a new justification. To believe otherwise is to cling to liberalism - to defend the status quo by believing that it has changed even when all that has really happened is that blue has been painted over with red while the building continues to collapse on its rotten foundation.

The problem is nationalism. It always has been, everywhere across the world. Not only does calling it zionism plaster over the true issue, it causes people to turn a blind eye to the nationalism they themselves call for in desperation to combat the zionism they fear, and prevents them from wrestling with the nationalism they themselves live in and benefit from. Nationalism is a tool for liberation, yes, but one that must be discarded once liberation is obtained and yet never is. To build a nation is to preserve a people, but to build a state to defend that nation (or to build a nation around a state, lest we let empires like the US off scot free) is to open the door for atrocity. The answer is not a defined and bordered Jewish nation, nor is a defined and bordered Palestinian nation - even if both exist at once, their foundational myths and rhetoric will compel them, as states, to engage in "legitimate" violence against each other and their own people. This is not just an inevitable consequence of nationalism, it is its goal, as viewed through history across the world before the western concept of the nation-state even fully coalesced. Anyone who truly wants peace in Israel and Palestine, in the Middle East, or in the world as a whole must come to terms with this. And to do that, we must stop making excuses. Israel is not guilty of Zionism, because Zionism is a purposely moving target which (outside of non-discoursal channels, where the term is actually properly defined before use and remains so throughout the conversation) means everything to everyone and thus nothing to anyone. To call it Kahanism is a step better, but this still positions what has happened this past century as something unique. No, Israel is guilty of nothing more than dipping its hands in the same well of blood that humanity calls "security". Until we understand this and stand together to look upward and speak out against those who chain us with promises of that security and say that the blood of those around us will bring serenity, there can never be peace. Humanity will eat itself alive, snuffing out empathy as portions of it fail an ever-stricter purity test, and it will cheer itself on while it does.

[mariacallous]

Ten years ago today, news of the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 in eastern Ukraine shocked the world. All 298 passengers on board the Boeing 777, including 80 children, perished. This tragic event was just one of the many shocks coming out of Ukraine that year, as the largest European war after 1945 unfolded in southern and eastern Ukraine.

The war began in February 2014 with the occupation of Crimea by regular Russian troops, followed by Moscow’s illegal annexation of the peninsula in March. Russian irregular troops then entered Donbas in April 2014—ostensibly to “protect” Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Later on, more Russian armed groups, including Wagner mercenaries and small regular army units, poured into Ukraine. They brought with them heavy equipment, including anti-aircraft missile launchers used to shoot down MH-17, a commercial flight on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, as well as Ukrainian fighter planes and transport aircraft bringing troops and supplies. After Ukrainian defenders began to push back the Russians—at that time still mostly irregulars—large numbers of regular Russian troops started invading eastern Ukraine in mid-August.

Over the course of six months in 2014, there was a manifest, expanding Russian military aggression in the heart of Europe. Yet the West reacted barely at all—with meek diplomatic statements and a few minor sanctions. Besides their limited scope, the sanctions were initially focused narrowly on the annexation of Crimea. The first larger sectoral sanctions followed the shooting of MH-17, which killed dozens of EU citizens. Never were the sanctions a coherent response to the most significant attack on a European country since 1945. During the years that followed, even as fighting continued, little additional action was taken. The West continued business as usual with Russia or even upgraded relations, like Germany’s push to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

How could it be that it took the West until Feb. 24, 2022—when Moscow expanded the war it launched in 2014 to a full-scale invasion—to wake up to the reality that Russia is a revisionist state seeking to impose, by any means necessary, its own version of European security order?

Between 2014 and 2022, Western politicians, commentators, and journalists, with few exceptions, continued to believe that Russia’s aims were limited—and that the war simmering in eastern Ukraine was a Ukrainian civil conflict taking place in isolation from Russia’s much larger revisionist aims. Not only did Western efforts to resolve the conflict fail. Since the West continued with business as usual, it also inspired Moscow to press on and paved the way for the 2022 invasion.

Why did the West fail to properly diagnose Russia’s war in Ukraine for eight long years? What lessons from this failure are important today?

One reason was the lack of Western expertise on Ukraine and Russia’s tactics there. Moscow’s interference in Ukrainian affairs since the country’s independence in 1991 had largely escaped Western journalists, political analysts, and international relations scholars. When some Western journalists arrived to cover the events, the situation on the ground was chaotic and its interpretation a challenge for newly minted Ukraine experts. Russian narratives of intra-Ukrainian conflict and regional escalation were simple, understandable, and made sense to many observers—not the least those who had previously worked in Moscow. Many media also relied on their Moscow correspondents, with their skewed, Russia-centric lens, to report on events in Ukraine.

There was also a glaring lack of awareness of Russian hybrid methods. Ten years ago, few Western observers understood the Russian way of war, for which Ukraine was a testing ground. Attempts by Ukrainians, other East Europeans, and Western area experts to explain Russia’s strategy were usually met with skepticism. To outside observers, these descriptions of the Kremlin’s methods, where the intelligence services play a central role, often sounded like speculative assessments or outright conspiracy theories.

The parachute reporters arriving in eastern Ukraine in 2014 witnessed pro-Russian protests and listened to pro-Russian Ukrainian citizens. Some foreign observers could not even tell the difference between Ukrainian residents of Donbas and people from neighboring Russian oblasts who crossed as adventurers or were bussed into Ukraine to participate in the supposedly indigenous separatist movement.

Pro-Ukrainian journalists and other anti-separatist local voices in Donbas, in contrast, faced threats, physical violence, and worse. These Ukrainians feared the consequences of expressing themselves publicly and often remained invisible to visiting reporters. A number of eastern Ukrainians resisting the Russian takeover were threatened, attacked, abducted, severely injured, or secretly killed by Russian irregulars or their local collaborators. Most of these collaborators were encouraged, financed, delegated, or otherwise coordinated by Moscow. This suppression of local opposition laid the groundwork for Russia’s eventual annexation of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Western media only started to have a substantial presence in Ukraine in December 2021, on the eve of the full-scale invasion. Before that, much of the reporting was done by correspondents based in Moscow, who usually spoke only Russian and were heavily exposed to Russian narratives.

The Washington Post did not open a Kyiv bureau until May 2022—and sent its former Moscow correspondent to report on Ukraine. Similarly, the New York Times only opened an office in Ukraine in July 2022, headed by the paper’s veteran Moscow correspondent, Andrew Kramer, whose coverage of the war since 2014 had outraged Ukrainians. The newspaper’s reference to Russia’s hybrid attack as a “civil war” (later corrected) and Kramer referring to Russian-occupied territories as “separatist zones” echoed Kremlin language, reminding some Ukrainians of the Times’ sordid history of misreporting genocides and Soviet atrocities. Another widespread adoption of Kremlin talking points on Ukraine was the Western media’s myopic fixation on right-wing extremism that was supposedly out of control in Ukraine—a claim that has been solidly debunked but that would be used by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify his full-scale attack in 2022.

Many journalists eventually learned to be more critical of Russian narratives. But there remains what behavioral psychologists call an anchoring bias: When people learn about something for the first time, they remember their initial interpretations. These take concerted effort to unlearn and can still be exploited by Russian propaganda.

There were multiple signs of direct Russian involvement in the events in the Donbas in 2014. Most Ukrainians understood intuitively, from the early days of the alleged rebellion, that the unrest and unfolding war were initiated, directed, and funded by Russia. In contrast, it took Western observers time to establish, specify, and verify the facts—and to distinguish them from the many lies.

A circumspect approach to information and conflicting claims from war zones is, in principle, good practice to avoid misinformation. In 2014, however, this overabundance of caution often turned into laziness—a cover not to do the hard work of digging deeper to establish the facts on the ground. With many Western governments and media commentators invested in the idea of a “thaw” with Moscow at the time, there was also an incentive not to look too closely at Russia’s involvement.

The inability, for many years, to define 2014 as a first Russian invasion also underlines the inability of Western observers, including the media, to cope with the sophisticated tactics of hybrid, grey-zone war. As long as the Russian irregulars and mercenaries did not wear official Russian army insignia—and as long as the Kremlin issued a stream of denials that the Russians in eastern Ukraine were anything more than “tourists”—media editors and fact checkers could take refuge behind a false equivalence of opposing claims and perpetuate the notion that the war was an intra-Ukrainian conflict. The media’s difficulties in properly framing a war if it’s waged beneath the threshold of an openly declared one continues to be an issue today.

Western willful ignorance was particularly evident concerning the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic. From their creation in 2014 to their end in September 2022, these were Russian proxy regimes. Yet many in the West—including governments, diplomats, academics, and journalists—treated them as statelets set up by supposed eastern Ukrainian “insurgents.” Only in January 2023 did the European Court on Human Rights put an official end to this pretense, establishing that Russia had effective control over these fake republics since the day they were created.

Regardless of motivation, the West’s slow public reaction to the unfolding events in 2014 left space for Moscow to fill with disinformation, half-truths, and propaganda narratives. Many of them, even after having long been debunked, still circulate today.

The West’s widespread cognition problem between 2014 and 2022 was also a result of a fundamental gap between Western strategic culture and Moscow’s sophisticated hybrid and grey-zone tactics. Initially, foreign observers were often reluctant to acknowledge that the war in the Donbas was part of the same operation as Russia’s more straightforward occupation of Crimea. There remained a naïve belief that the Donbas war was a separate case—an unfortunate conflict between equally legitimate interests to be resolved through joint negotiation, deliberation, and mediation.

Pursuing tactics known as “reflexive control” or “escalation control” that were first developed by the Soviet Union, the Kremlin used aggression via proxies to impose its will on Ukraine and its Western partners. From 2014 to 2022, aggressive behavior alternated with feigned concessions and apparent de-escalation to deceive Western politicians and negotiators into thinking that a peaceful resolution remained possible even as Moscow tightened its grip and prepared for an eventual full-scale conquest.

Throughout the talks that eventually produced the Minsk accords, Moscow used purposeful escalation by its proxy and regular forces to exert maximum pressure on Western and Ukrainian negotiators—but stayed short of an open and massive Russian military attack that could trigger a Western response. Moscow’s zigzag between escalation, apparently conciliatory moves, and stalling tactics managed to deceive many Western observers, who continued to believe that the West was in control of escalation, mistaking Russia staying below the threshold of full-scale war for a sign of moderation. This mistake proved deadly for Ukrainians, allowing the conflict to fester and grew.

On Feb. 24, 2022, the West finally woke up to reality, imposed substantial sanctions on Russia, rushed defensive weapons to Ukraine, and later followed up by delivering heavy weapons. Had there not been so many Western misconceptions about Russia’s first invasion in 2014, those weapons might already have been delivered then. And today’s much larger, much more brutal war might have been avoided.