yugonostalgia-misc

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the final chapters of orv to me are like this. youre feeling tired and insecure and your friend invited you to a party later tonight but you think they'll probably have more fun without you. so you fake sick and don't go. and you do that often enough with enough friends that you look back at your life and realize you never took a single person up on a single offer. and then you die and god hands you a big book and you open it and its full of every single time someone wished you were there. every single person who wanted to be with you longer, every old friend and passing acquaintance who wished they still knew you. every single person who you could have built a life with and didn't, and their life was colder as a result. and god says here is proof that you were loved and you say what do i do with this now. its too late. i missed it all. and god puts her hand on your shoulder and says you're not too late at all. the invite is still open. we're still here.

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i forgot brian exploded an oxygen tank on hookwolf and then shot stormtiger in both legs. with great expediency and professionalism. he's so awesome. crazy ass

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okay i dont have the post in me right now but is it just me or does the bit about A's gender at birth in the new seek chapter sound genuinely fucking dystopic

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where do you think alec got his taser-staff? that's fully plausible technology so it doesn't have to be a tinker, but even so who do you even commission for something like that?

i think he was like lisa can you tell our boss i want a staff with a taser in it. heres my drawing of what it should look like. and lisa was like ok. and coil was like ok. and one business week later alec had his taser staff

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drew sayeon and ryujin for yuri day <3 i havent drawn them in ages and it's shittyyy but it had to be done GO MY LESBIANS

some official art of them because i LOVE THEM SO MUCH PLEASE LET THEM KISS SLEEPACROSS 🙏🙏🙏

SAYEON ILY BUTCHER YOUR ENEMIES <3

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remembering

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Min and Sayeon duo 🔥

(Fanart commission!)

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Heeheehee yes yes I love love love Sophia/Taylor so much. It's what got me into Worm in the first place!! I mean, since reading Worm i acknowledge that Rachel/Taylor is real and beautiful and true, but Sophia/Taylor will always be my guilty pleasure. I mean, they have so much chemistry and potential and they're so similar in such unique, violent ways!

Spent way too much time thinking about Sophia and wishing she was in Worm even more and wishing she got the happy ending & date with Taylor she deserves!!!

The trio being WOKE !!!1!1

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Yes yes yes love them so much drama potential

Going to put thoughts under spoiler instead of tags for once. So first of all I love the (in my opinion) accurate dialogue of the trio. Like, Sophia doesn't really talk with anyone but Emma. She doesn't even mention Madison once - In her view, it's only Emma that *gets her*, and she puts up with all of Emmas hanger ons. Perhaps because it's better to be on the top of a social hierachy than in the bottom. Meanwhile, Emma is the top, and she has a desperate need to put others down (Taylor) to stay sane - Sophia's her bff, the one she's built her foundation upon, her secret-sharer. She'll play the role of the popular girl for it's own sake, socializing but not actually caring about any of the hanger ons. (her interlude's so ... sad and pathetic)

As for sexualities.... in an alternate world Emma's the protagonist of some GL manhwa where she fucks around with girls despite not actually being gay. Like, there's no hint of sexuality one way or another in her interlude - no romantic interest in sophia or any other girl or boy expressed. Kind of empty. But if necessary for status or security she'd be able to string along anybody. Sophia? Sophia's lonely as hell. And in my opinion - she's a very, very repressed lesbian. She's dismissive and offended at the naive innocence "childishness" of her teammates/schoolmates - but she repeatedly tries to reach out to Vista and Fletchette! It's clumsy and she's bad at it and they all piss each other off, but she doesn't even try with any of the boys.

Anyways that's why Sophia and Taylor should date <3

The trio being WOKE !!!1!1

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what i’ve failed to understand since i was a kid is why these ghouls want war with iran so badly. is it resources? do they have money in defense contracting? is it just that iran is too strong an opponent to us hegemony? why specifically do they want to see iran destroyed?

There is not one singular motivation behind the drive to send the US to war with Iran. There are multiple motivations which often overlap, but which are held in different orders of prioritization by different advocates of war. Most of these motivations are irrational and/or immoral, while others are legitimate complaints that could be addressed through diplomacy far more easily than they could through militarism.

Here's ten common motivations and arguments for a US war with Iran which you might encounter:

Independence from the US: The Iranian government is among the world's least-willing governments to obey US demands and subjugate themselves to the US-led order. For certain US primacists, this independence means that their very existence poses an existential threat to US dominance (similar to North Korea, Cuba, etc.) To a particular type of US militarist, it is necessary for the Iranian government to fall in order for the US to remain the unquestioned leader of the world.

Real Fear of their Nukes: There is a substantial contingent who really does believe that Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon and that they could well use it if they were to develop it. Logically, the best way to address this concern would be through a diplomatic deal similar to the 2015 JCPOA, which Iran complied with! But the intensity of anti-Iranian sentiment among US hawks tends to convince them that direct military confrontation is somehow a better option, thus explaining why Trump decided to break this deal.

Desire for Revenge: Many older foreign policy hawks in the US have never forgiven Iran for 1) the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis, and 2) the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon, which was orchestrated by a terror organization with ties to the Iranian government. In their minds, both of these incidents were embarrassments to the US' military prestige which we have never properly gotten revenge for. (These people tend to ignore the massive wrongdoings which the US has carried out against Iran during this same time period, like the US destruction of Iran Air Flight 655). There are people in and around the Pentagon who have wanted to bomb Iran over a grudge for more than 40 years now.

Iran's Regional Proxies: Over the last several decades, Iran has engaged in an aggressive campaign to expand their influence throughout the region by supporting proxy paramilitary forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, etc. Many of these proxies have undeniably engaged in acts of terrorism. This strategy is both opportunistic (taking advantage of the power vacuum caused by the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein) and defensive (countering the regional influence campaigns of Saudi Arabia and Turkey). This is probably the most legitimate cause of US anger towards the Iranian government, but it is a grievance which will only be worsened by backing Iran into a corner militarily.

Israel (and Saudi Arabia) Hates Them: Iran is unfriendly with two of the US' closest partners in the region: Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israeli government, in particular, has long been laser-focused on the overthrow of the Iranian government, and they are fully committed to dragging the US into such a regime change operation. For the most fervent defenders of Israel in the US, overthrowing the Iranian government is near the top of their wishlist.

They Got Oil: Oil is a factor which is often overstated in these discussions, but it definitely is one of the factors. Iran currently produces 5% of the world's oil and has the potential to produce far more were the current sanction regime against it to be removed. They also have the ability to shut down the Straight of Hormuz, an important chokepoint through which 25% of the world's oil flows. Regime change in Iran would significantly increase the leverage that the US and its allies hold over global oil markets and further weaken the strength of OPEC.

And Other Commodities Too!: Though the separation between the US and Iranian economies hurts the US economy as a whole, there are certain sectors of US industry that benefit enormously from having Iran so heavily sanctioned. Some of the big names in the US pistachio industry have lobbied heavily to keep US-Iranian relations unfriendly, because the elimination of US sanctions on Iran would allow the massive Iranian pistachio industry to compete with the US industry. As long as these two governments hate each other, a few politically-connected US businessmen make way more money.

Diaspora Pressure Campaigns: Most Iranian-Americans hold the following two opinions at the same time: 1) they hate the current Iranian government and want to see it replaced, but 2) they strongly oppose US efforts at regime change in Iran. However, there is a vocal minority of Iranian-Americans that do support regime change efforts, and they tend to cluster into two well-organized groups that wage pressure campaigns against the Iranian government. The first are the monarchists, who want to see the son of the former US-backed Iranian dictator restored to power. The others are those who are loyal to the MEK, a cult and former terrorist organization which has been extremely effective at building relationships with US politicians. Both of these groups work full-time to push the US towards overthrowing the Iranian government so that they can step in and take over; it's fairly easy to find both of these groups in online social media threads about US-Iranian relations.

Who Cares, We Want War: As I have written about many times before, the US military-industrial complex encourages the US government to engage in militarist behavior in order to boost their profits. Iran is one of their favorite boogeymen to justify increased levels of US military spending, second only to China. These companies fund think tanks and other policy initiatives to argue that Iran is an immediate threat to us, and then they fund political candidates who want to spend more money preparing for this "threat."

They're Crazy! You Can't Trust Them!: We are led to believe that the Iranian government cannot be negotiated with because they are irrational, they're anti-Western religious zealots incapable of reasoned decision-making. This is a convenient excuse for war, but it's entirely incompatible with the restraint that the Iranian government shows in responding to Israeli attacks, their continued willingness to sit down for diplomatic talks with their aggressors, the way that they helped the US government deal with al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11, and a million other indications that the Iranian government is just as rational as any other government in its geopolitical decision-marking.

Add all of that together, and you get a deranged political ecosystem obsessed with inflating the scale of foreign threats, finding excuses for maintaining the trajectory of our militarist status quo, increasing regional tensions, and rejecting obvious opportunities for diplomacy and a peaceful resolution of our differences.

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Toxic yuri yaaay

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When it comes to understanding migration, this needs to be taken into account: if you are in a rural area in the global south, like Honduras, you have basically no access to social services, medicine, and education. In fact, the funding for those services is actually being cut, as the social security funds have been looted by corrupt politicans appointed by a military coup. Then you have to factor in that you likely have no access to the land, and no access to credit to buy seeds, and have to sell yourself for basically pennies to an agroindustrial giant. The peasants feed the local people; the agroindustries feed the Americans. In Guatamala, there is a neo-corporate fuedalism where you are allowed a patch of land if you are willing to work, unpaid, for coffee plantations which sell their produce to the German company Ritz. If you attempt to settle unoccupied land, a local businessman will claim it is his without any proof, and the police will take his side because the Agrarian Reform Institute, which issues land titles, is controlled by coupists whose main concern is squeezing as much wealth out of the country as possible. Thugs will murder a man and his wife in broad daylight, and the judge will respond by evicting you and your family from the land.

There is nowhere else for you to go but Tegucigalpa, where you can work trying to wash car windows or selling snacks to passing cars for a handful of lempira a day. Or perhaps you could work for a few dollars a day in one of the maquila factories making textiles for the American and European market, which are set up in special economic zones called Charter Cities where the constitution and labour laws do not apply, which can close down and spirit away whenever they like to another country when they are more willing to sell their people for even less. And then you have to factor in the hurricanes that sweep through the country, destroying everything, that the rains no longer come when they used to but when they do they come in flooding torrents. Much of the north of Honduras is currently underwater; most of the banana and coffee plantations have been destroyed.

And then you factor in when you tried to change this via electing a better government in 2006, he was overthrown in 2009; when you tried to get organised and resist the coup, your friends, your loved ones, your trade union leaders and peasant resisters all turned up mysteriously dead while the military and police worked with drug gangs disguised as agribusiness like the Dinant coproration to burn down villages that opposed them. For trying to change things in the way that you were supposed to, through non violently protesting, organising, and voting for something better, you were subjected to a decade of counterrevolutionary terror and violence that the “international community” not only ignored but gave its active approval to. All of the factors listed above have not only been ongoing for the last 10 years, they’ve been intensified, hothoused by the global counterrevolutionary terror that was the response to the 2011 wave of post-financial crisis uprisings and revolutions and accelerating climate apocalypse.

And at the same time, all of this is being done so more of the country can be turned into a massive cash cow for the benefit of foreign corporations and domestic oligarchs. The wealth of your country is siphoned off and flows around the American and European financial system, benefiting them and building a consumer disneyland that looks like paradise compared to your situation. That could, even if you are worked for nothing, give you a few dollars to send home that could build your abuela in the countryside a nice home for her to live out her days. What other option is left for you and your family other than joining the exodus of people heading north, to the countries where the wealth and profits and rewards of your homeland’s suffering are being kept. And after you cross mountains and rivers which freeze you to death and sweep you away, you are faced with a massive border wall of ahte and soldiers on horses which hit you with sticks. You are faced with an immigration detention centre that will chain you to your bed while you give birth and separate you from your baby who will be given away for adoption to a white couple. When you make a charge against the border fence in Melilla, fed up with being kept in shacks with nothing while the Northerners debate what to do about the problem people their greed has forced to move, the Moroccan police will beat 35 of you to death.

And then when you get there to that golden paradise, you end up doing work not dissimilar to the work you were doing back home, working for pennies (though pennies that are valuable enough back home to buy the family that remain the tiniest slice of comfort) for an agroindustrial giant that supplies supermarkets with cheap produce picked by cheaper people. While you work in the fields, a crop duster plane will spray you with paraquat; when support organisations try to raise this with OSHA they will ask for the plane’s number, and when this can’t be provided they will say nothing can be done. In fact, inspectors are ordered to stay away from the plantations on the Texas border. A member of the Border Agricultural Workers Project says she hasn’t seen a normal child born on the border in 20 years, such is the effect of agrichemicals. If you fuck up in the slightest, have any interaction with the state, you will be deported and sent back to square one. There are a 14 million migrants in the US in the same precarious state, effectively without any way of enforcing their rights. My aunt is a Mexican migrant in California. Her son was deported because he got a speeding ticket. It was 15 years before she saw him again, other than through the bars of the border fence, when she finally got her green card.

The situation in Honduras can be repeated for almost any other country. Syria, Venezuela, Iraq, South Sudan, Libya, all the headline countries are countries that have been subjected to a severe counterrevolutionary terror. The processes of dispossession and destruction of peasant economies and communities (primitive accumulation to use the Marxist jargon) have been hothoused over the last decade by war and violence. I just wish that relatively comfortable people in the imperialist countries realised that the “migrant crisis” is the result of policies that their governments forced on others. Violence that their elites made their fortunes off. What a monstrous, barbarous way of life we have.

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Looking for mindblowing book recs? Here's Necroepilogos:

It is 200 million years in the future. Earth and humanity have gone through every possible change and era. Now, we are in the epilogue. The only things left are the perpetually reanimated constructs of dead humans from ages past, and whatever remnant technologies have survived the millennia. A world where the vast majority are confined to a narrow ring of habitable territory, unless they manage to transform into something monstrous enough to survive the wildernessOur protagonist is reanimated alongside six other girls, each hailing from a completely different era and culture. She insists on protecting and saving them, as substitutes for the sisters she failed in life. Can she maintain the values of the post-scarcity utopia she died to protect, in a world where the only choice is cannibalism or starvation?

what is this unfinished serial 👀 ← currently collecting recs I'll realistically never finish. why is the flower that bloomed nowhere so long

Mmm there's a lot of books I truly truly love. JWQS, Pact, ORV come to mind in terms of beloved books that bring me to tears whenever i reread them.

But there's only two web serials that completely rewrote my brain chemistry. One is obviously Worm, which i'm still obsessed about 3 years later, made a tumblr for, and have tried my best to collect as much fanart for as possible.

The other is Necroepilogos, a truly mind blowing scifi novel that I'm in total agony over the fact that it's approximately 1/3rd finished. I'll attach my slightly pretentious teaser/recommendation beneath this on my sideblog haha. I really hope more people can discover this serial & support it!

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Nobody follows this blog thankfully so i can vent here....

What do you do when you have an unhealthy hatred of another member of your same fandom? I cannot stand him and his stupid-ass opinions, which on its own would be whatever, but he's so popular in this (Worm) fandom and many people I otherwise like/respect follow him. It's like, genuinely distressing/upsetting/stressful whenever I see a mutual who i really like reblog a post from this idiot who doesn't know shit -- what should I do in this situation? I can't just ban idiots from posting in this fandom, and it's not like i've been 100% correct about everything forever myself. But it's feels like it's unhealthy, hating another random tumblr user so much (justified literary interpretion disagreements nonetheless), and I wish it didn't bother me at all...

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Sea monster illustrations by William 巴特尔  Bao

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Wave of Wardposts sliding across my dash reminding me I have unresolved issues with the fact that Chris is one of the most categorically telling fumbles in Ward.

Like you have a character who touches on:

The way that the physical form links to the mind and how embodiment is part of identity

Living with severe harm done to you by a sibling

Forging a future for yourself while struggling with the expectations of an abusive parent of who they made you to be

The strain of pushing yourself to constantly perform new stunts with your power in ways that don't necessarily align with its 'intention'

Dealing with a 'villainous' origin and the stigma of that in the world of capes

The difficulty of forming relationships when you're kind of an asshole

Chris has one of the most 'easy to make thematically relevant' powers in the therapy group to boot. And we can't say it's too high concept and convoluted to make legible to readers because let us consider some of the other fucking powers in Ward. 'Guy mutates based on emotional states he wants to evoke' is pretty straightforward compared to some!

But for reasons that remain beyond me Chris betrays the therapy group because...it was time for the scheduled shocking betrayal, and he did it because...reasons that don't quite follow from prior characterization but okay, well, surely Villain Chris will provide some kind of interesting - ah no never mind he's just apathetically Evil now in ways that occasionally show a glimmer of promise but ultimately conclude in "our viewpoint character doesn't care about the interiority of people who aren't her + Wildbow was in the weeds by that point".

And I could dissect this all more but the way Chris' potential is spilled like a soda behind sticky theatre seats feels like a symptom of the many ways Ward did that with everything. We got rid of Chris so we could, bless her, spend approximately one million years resolving Rain's issues as a central hinge of Ward's dissolving thematic tissue only to - and this part also gets me - not resolve Rain's issues or arc to the extent of concluding a major part of it offscreen.

Salvaging Chris wouldn't have saved Ward and it's far from the biggest issue with Ward, but in the version of Ward in my head that's good Chris sticks around to force Victoria to have ongoing beef with a child in orthodontic headgear. I think it would be funny.

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I made things....

Hand jumper layout... Sayeon Lee

The brainrot consumes me