#'but it's really helpful for people who-' at what cost

[hyperlexichypatia]

I don't think that will happen with the Gaza genocide, though, because that doesn't have the same factors that led to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since becoming unpopular with Americans.

Like, in political discourse at the time, there was a sharp pro-war/anti-war divide, with the anti-war side being heavily marginalized, but there were basically four distinct political arguments being made.

There was the basic jingoism/militarism/security state/collective punishment argument of "We have to Get The Terrorists and Punish The Bad Guys and Secure Our Homeland" that was by far the prevailing view.

Then there was the """humanitarian""" reasoning of "We have to overthrow these brutal dictators who oppress their people, and spread democracy, and the people will greet us as liberators, and we will rebuild their countries like the Marshall Plan, and build a better world." And this is the reasoning that seems to be most misremembered in the collective national memory as Transparent Politician Bullshit that Nobody Actually Fell For, but no, Americans actually believed this. Even some (some) Iraqis and Afghans briefly had hope before quickly realizing that all this "we're here to help!" stuff was a lie.

Then there was the broadly progressive/pacifist stance of "War is wrong because killing people is inherently wrong, and the lives of people in other countries matter just as much as American lives do," which was a category that included Teenage Me, but was never more than marginally relevant at any level of society, certainly not electorally.

And then there was the paleocon argument that accepted the premise that the war was "humanitarian," but considered that a bad thing, and used the basic argument "Why should we sacrifice American blood and treasure to help inferior, savage foreigners? We should look out for our own people instead. And why would you want Muslims to have democracy anyway? Everyone knows that violence and destruction are intrinsic parts of Their Culture anyway, so it's best for everyone involved if they're oppressed by a 'stable' dictatorship."

I mean, I'm wildly oversimplifying; there was a lot of overlap in all of these arguments, a lot of people arguing "We should bring democracy and prosperity to Afghanistan and Iraq so they'll be our allies and trading partners!" and people arguing "Why are we spending money on bombs when we should be building schools here?" and whatnot. But. Like. In broad strokes. Those were the four factions.

And most of the shift in the Iraq and Afghan wars becoming "unpopular" among Americans definitely seems to be a shift to the paleocon view, not a shift to any sort of view that conceptualizes non-American lives as having intrinsic value. This is the basic prototypical Obama-to-Trump swing voter. Killing hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq never became meaningfully unpopular any more than killing people in Korea or Vietnam was; only getting Americans killed in the process became unpopular.

So tl;dr, that's why I don't think the Palestinian genocide will ever reach that tipping point in American popularity. We don't perceive it as costing us anything, so we're not going to turn against it as a bad return on our investment. Obviously it actually does cost Americans something, and people have tried to make some kind of argument out of "Why are we giving billions of dollars to Israel when we could be using that money to fix our bridges?" but it's not that effective, because it turns out most Americans also don't understand large budgets very well. And the Gazan genocide doesn't even pretend to be humanitarian. Yeah, Israel has used some rhetoric about "Freeing Gaza from Hamas," but nobody really believes that. If Israel were framing their genocide as humanitarian, and the U.S. were subsidizing it, then, maybe, Americans would turn on it. But indiscriminate slaughter is what we've decided we do want our tax dollars to go to, so. We don't even accept "We should value the lives of people in other countries" as an ethical precept in the first place enough to lie to ourselves about having retroactively supported it.

Honestly it really frustrates me how the historical narrative has shifted vis-a-vis the popularity of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Like, i should go find some polling but I remember being corrected by my very liberal parents that i shouldn't be upset we were bombing afghanistan. I was nine.

It is unimaginable how uncontroversial that invasion was.

[sullina]

i honestly really appreciate Mairimashita Iruma-kuns take on demons, because demons in many fiction-works (which is... all of them, bc demons aren't actually real...) are portrayed as selfish and only doing what they want, or are literally just 1:1 to humans but this time with horns.

And yeah, in "Iruma-kun", they're also selfish and do whatever they want, but they're also still very much social and have a (more or less) working society. So they can work together, despite their selfishness.

And this also reflects in the demons we see working. Full disclosure, i don't remember that much right now, but just thinking of the teachers at Babyls, they all absolutely love their jobs and are amazing at it, if to varying levels.

And why wouldn't they? Demons only do whatever they wanna do. The teachers at Babyls aren't forced to work as teachers, they chose to become teachers, because that's what they wanted to do. And if you love something, you're willing to put a lot of work into it.

Even Kaluego, despite his usual demeanor and attitude, loves being a teacher, and especially wants to see every single one of his students grow to their fullest potential. Why else would he have a notebook dedicated to each and every single student? I don't think teachers are required to do that, so the only answer left is that he loves his job.

Also Balam, who gets so excited about new things that it scares most students.

And Bachiko, who taught Iruma archery. She was tough on him, but she never called him annoying or wanted him to go away, unless you count the beginning of their training, but even that was because she had so many students give up and didn't think Iruma was any different. Once he had proven himself to be capable and willing to do whatever it took to master archery, she was behind him 110%.

I just love this take, because on the one hand, it's more fresh, and on the other, also seems a little more... accurate?

Because consider any other medium where demons are portrayed as hating and killing each other on the daily, but still have cities and schools, and just a society in general (if a broken one), and it's said that it's "always been this way". Basically just "humans with horns and way more hostile". Why the fuck would they band together if they can't cross paths without trying to tear each others throats out? Why would they reproduce? If a demon can't care for anything other than its own individual self, why would they raise their children? Let alone anyone elses children, like in schools? You don't band together, unless there's some sort of benefit that outweighs the cost. In that kind of world, it makes no sense that demons would have cities, let alone countries, and without countries, there wouldn't be any wars either. Wars are fought by countries, which is a collection of people, or demons in this case, all fighting collectively for the same goal. If demons don't fight for a collective goal, because they're not a collective, there can't be any wars, only senseless bloodshed where it's everyone vs. everyone and the winner is the last individual left alive.

And yeah, in Mairimashita it's still said that it kinda sorta was like this a long time ago, but it's not like this now, and the clear reason is that Delkira, the demon king, made it this way, in part by introducing the rank system that allowed anyone to get higher in their society. And even then, in that "a long time ago", demons still had a society, just not an equal one. And while we see demons being selfish in the manga/anime, we also know that they CAN care for others, be it their friends or family. And in that amusement park arc, i distinctly remember a child being trapped in a building that could come down any second, and Iruma, the resident human, stepping in to save the child, which inspired his demonic friends to step in and help him. So yeah, demons in mairima are very much naturally selfish, but not to such an extent that they can't care for others.

[whencyclopedia]

Interview: Dithmarschen Republic

Located in what is the present-day German province of Schleswig-Holstein, the Dithmarschen Republic (1227-1559) was a republic by commoners who developed quasi-democratic institutions, including their own written constitution. Fiercely independent and freedom-loving, these peasants successfully defended their political independence against the forces of Holstein and the Scandinavian Kalmar Union as the Middle Ages came to a close.

House in Burg, Dithmarschen

Z thomas (CC BY-SA)

James Blake Wiener speaks to Dr. William L. Urban, a medievalist and the author of Dithmarschen: A Medieval Peasant Republic, to learn more about the Dithmarschers in this interview.

JBW: Dr. William L. Urban, many thanks for speaking with me. As your main research interest is that of the Teutonic Knights and the Northern Crusades, I am curious to know how you first became interested in the history of the Dithmarschers. What was it that led you to Dithmarschen?

WLU: In a very real sense, this book began at the University of Hamburg in 1964-1965 when I met a retired school teacher named Maria Krüger. Of Dithmarscher extraction, she often entertained my wife and me for tea, with cookies and tales of her native land. At her suggestion, I later read some of the local color novelists in the library of the University of Kansas. Thereafter, I went to the works of serious historians where I discovered that the novelists’ descriptions of Dithmarschen and its people were not exaggerations.

I was lucky enough to be able to travel to the countries north of the Elbe. After cycling across Germany three times, I lived in Hamburg and the neighboring town of Ahrensburg for almost a year. This gave me the confidence I needed to write a very rough draft of this manuscript before turning to the revision and completion of my dissertation, which appeared in 1975 as The Baltic Crusade. In the same year, I received a Fulbright-Hayes research grant for supplementary studies at the Johann Gottfried Herder Institute and the Philipps University in Marburg/Lahn. The opportunity arose for me to visit Dithmarschen twice that summer and again in 1976. In 1976-77, the University of Chicago awarded me a part-time faculty research grant in its main library, the Regenstein Library, to further develop my manuscript in discussion with Prof. Karl Morrison.

In the fall of 1982, Monmouth College provided me with a student assistant, Janet Fox, who typed the manuscript into the computer for editing. In the summer and fall of 1983, I was back in Marburg/Lahn with the help of a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service and a sabbatical from Monmouth College. At that time, Professor Walther Lammers was kind enough to read the manuscript and discuss it with me at his home. I really appreciated his support and friendship. In January 1988, with the help of my wife and a new student typist, Kris Wang, I began a two-year editing process. Hardly a sentence remained unchanged. Eventually, after being tutored to use PageMaker by Daryl Carr and Marta Tucker, I prepared the manuscript for publication during my spring semester sabbatical. In June 1990, my wife and I took a car tour of Dithmarschen to visit places I had previously missed. In the fall of 1990, Monmouth College provided another small grant to cover the cost of preparing the manuscript for publication, and Erik Midelfort (with whom I had discussed the Dithmarscher project on several occasions in the past) responded to my request for a final reading with several helpful comments on the text.

JBW: It is true that there was a notable absence of feudalism and serfdom in nearby Frisia during the Middle Ages. Were the political traditions in Dithmarschen similar to what many historians would term as 'Frisian freedoms'? If so, how 'free' were the Dithmarschers?

WLU: There were many similarities, but the Dithmarschers had a more strongly developed clan system. This communal spirit made it possible to build dikes and canals, to develop a legal system capable of dealing with crime, land disputes, and inheritances; it also made it easier to raise a fighting force of men who could stand up to feudal cavalry and neighboring militias.

16-century Map of Dithmarshen

Abraham Ortelius (Public Domain)

This evolved over time so that local communities (Kirchspiele) became more important, and then the more prosperous farmers became a quasi-aristocracy that dominated the 48 representatives of the final government.

JBW: Many of the characteristics of Dithmarschen – the presence of clannish families, a militia, and a fiercely independent populace – strike me as similar to other medieval peasant republics, like that of the Old Swiss Confederation or the Icelandic Commonwealth. Are such comparisons worthwhile or even valid?

WLU: In my book, I tried to analyze why most peasant republics failed. The Swiss survived because they had geography and poverty on their side. That is, the mountain cantons were difficult to attack and hardly worth the effort, while the other members of the Swiss Confederation managed to negotiate the complex political and military challenges by raising a well-drilled military force large enough to defeat the regional powers, then providing mercenaries to more powerful neighbors who became allies.

What Dithmarschen lacked was numbers, and both the Dithmarschers and the Hanseatic League failed to see the advantages of allying against their common enemies as the Swiss had done.

JBW: Relations between Dithmarschen and the medieval Hanseatic towns, like Lübeck, were close. Was this so that they could protect their common interests in commerce while maintaining a degree of political independence?

WLU: Yes, but their common interests were limited. There were Dithmarscher fishermen, just as there were in Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen, but no international network of trading partners for selling their catch. There were also too many tensions, especially Dithmarschen traditions that bordered on freebooting (and sometimes crossed over it)! Dithmarschers defended their citizens even when they were in the wrong, which was not always the case with the Hansa.

JBW: John I of Denmark (r. 1481-1513) and his brother, Duke Frederick of Holstein, attempted to subdue the peasantry of Dithmarschen in the 1490s. At the Battle of Hemmingstedt in 1500, Danes and Holsteiners were soundly defeated by the Dithmarscher peasants. What ensured their victory of what was seemingly a more powerful and better organized military force?

WLU: First, the invaders did not have the money to pay their mercenaries and allies for a long war, so they needed a quick victory.

Second, dumb luck. The king sent his army north from Meldorf toward Heide along a narrow road on a dike, expecting that the good weather would last. Instead, a winter storm blew into the invaders’ faces, making it difficult to see until they finally blundered into fortifications the Dithmarschers had hurriedly thrown up across the road. When they trained their artillery on the redoubt, the wind, snow, and rain doused the wicks and ruined the power.

Battle of Hemmingstedt

Max Friedrich Koch (Public Domain)

Lastly, Dithmarscher fighting skills were more appropriate to this battlefield – they opened the dikes, waded barefoot and half-naked through the freezing water to get at the foe, and then pursued the panicked enemy relentlessly.

JBW: What became of the Dithmarschers following the Protestant Reformation? Moreover, how did they ultimately lose their cherished freedoms?

WLU: The Dithmarschers were very pious, but because they had always been suspicious of clergymen, they had limited their authority. Since they had long managed their local religious affairs themselves and used the churches for schools and political assemblies, they found the change to Protestantism easy, which is quite something.

JBW: Are there any unique characteristics of the medieval Dithmarschen Republic that merit further consideration and study? If so, what are they?

WLU: First, we should not think of every European society as an inferior reflection of England and France, but of each possessing characteristics that are still important today. Second, these characteristics can be good or bad, or both at the same time. People are complicated. Third, not everyone can be moved by what they see in others.

Dithmarschers admire Britons; Americans are liable to see in the Dithmarschers what they once were, and everyone can remember that freedom is not free but must be earned and defended by patriot blood.

JBW: Finally, if there is one thing that we ought to remember about the Dithmarschen Republic, what is it in your opinion?

WLU: Someone inscribed a motto on the organ in Hemme, Germany: "Dithmarsia libera fuit." The implication was that it could be again, and today it has become so again.

JBW: Dr. William Urban, many thanks for lending your time and expertise!

Professor William L. Urban was educated at Baylor University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Universität Hamburg. He received a Ph.D. 1967 at the University of Texas, taught at the University of Kansas and Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois, at Knox College, Fort Hays Kansas State College, the Estonian Institute for the Humanities, and the Eastern Michigan University Cultural History Tour in Europe. He was Director of the Arts of Florence, then the Yugoslav and Czech programs of Associated Colleges of the Midwest. He received a senior Fulbright grant for research at the Herder Institut in Marburg/Lahn, Germany; several DAAD grants, NEH grants for summer study, and a United States Military Academy Military History Workshop. He is a corresponding member of the Historische Kommission für ost- und westpreußische Landesforschung and the Baltische Historische Kommission. He has published The Baltic Crusade, The Prussian Crusade, The Livonian Crusade, The Samogitian Crusade, Tannenberg and After, Lithuania, Poland, and the Teutonic Order in Search of Immortality, The Teutonic Knights: a military history, Medieval Mercenaries, Bayonets for Hire: the Business of War, 1550-1763, Matchlocks to Flintlock, Mercenaries in Europe and Beyond, 1500-1700, Bayonets and Scimitars, Arms, Armies and Mercenaries, 1700-1789, and Small Wars, and their influence on the Nation State. With Jerry Smith, he translated The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, The Chronicle of Balthasar Russow, and Johannes Renner's Chronicle.

Continue reading...

[samueldays]

This is interesting advice, but Yudkowsky nonetheless runs into the same problem he's describing!

A character who masters a world you invented to be masterable, or finds flaws in a world you designed to be flawed, can potentially possess a kind of “cheating” or “easy” feel.

In the original Harry Potter books, the Dementors represent depression. One can drive them off with the Patronus Charm, a spell that requires thinking hard about a happy memory, but this is best done with preparation beforehand or as a group, because the Dementors drain away happiness and blot out happy memories. A single wizard attacked by a Dementor will find it difficult to cast the spell for that reason. To spell out the analogy: being depressed makes it harder to take actions that would help against depression.

In the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality fanfiction, Yudkowsky invents the flaw that depression is a superficial appearance, what the Dementors "really" represent is death. He has the protagonist find and exploit this flaw to destroy Dementors completely with the Patronus Charm Level 2, a spell that requires thinking hard about immortality, which is one of the author's obsessions projected onto his self-insert. This has the "cheating" feel to me.

I would also take this advice lightly for a more general reason, which is the No Limits Fallacy in fanfiction.

Good original authors (and their editors) usually trim for relevance. If a device is only going to be used on-screen for one scene then it's not relevant to say that the device's maintenance schedule requires a daily recharge and a monthly parts replacement for continued use. Readers don't need to be told every limit and cost and drawback and edge case. A good mainstream book is not a technical specifications sheet.

Fanfic authors, particularly the ruleslawyering nitpicking D&D-reading authors found in the "rationalist" community, are more accustomed to rulebooks which set out constraints at great length, and are writing for an audience which has more patience for a work of fiction that stops to give lengthy infodumps. This sometimes leads to fanfic authors assuming that if the original work doesn't specify limits of a device, then the device has no limits, and can be exploited for superpowers or infinite resources.

Sometimes the original author gestures to limits, within the constraints of brevity and good pacing, and it still doesn't help because the fanfic writers imagine ways to bypass those limits that the original author didn't pre-emptively rule out, and so assume those limits aren't real.

To use a Harry Potter example again: Veritaserum, the magic potion that makes people tell the truth. Rowling gestures at three limits: it takes a month to produce, there's an antidote, and the potion can be resisted with a trainable skill. There's another implicit limit: this is a setting with memory-altering spells. There's plausibly more boring constraints that it wouldn't be interesting to infodump about.

So Veritaserum is canonically a controlled substance, used sparingly by the plot, and characters are sometimes threatened with it to build tension without having to drink it.

HP fanfic writers, over and over and over again, disregard these limits and then complain that it's a stupid plot hole when Wizarding Britain doesn't routinely make everyone in a courtroom drink Veritaserum, the potion that Severus Snape needs a month to make more of. Because surely Wizarding Britain can train up arbitrary numbers of expert potioneers on short notice, right? /s

There is a very murky grey area between finding flaws in your own world you designed to be flawed, and finding flaws in someone else's world as viewed through the No Limits Fallacy.

“I wouldn’t phrase it exactly that way, but I agree that this is the primary reason for rationalist fanfiction. A character who masters a world you invented to be masterable, or finds flaws in a world you designed to be flawed, can potentially possess a kind of “cheating” or “easy” feel. The morals of American prisons are no better than the morals of Azkaban; if there are no Dementors there it’s because American politicians have no Dementors to use, not because they’re better people than the Wizengamot; and American prisons are worse in ways that Rowling couldn’t have imitated without breaking her reader’s suspension of disbelief, at least the wizarding world isn’t imprisoning marijuana users that we ever saw. But even so if Azkaban were a feature of a world of my own invention, someone might ask whether Harry’s reaction to it, or the fact that other people in magical Britain seem not to notice it as a moral horror (just like Americans don’t notice the moral horror! Rowling was not being unrealistic!) would rest on wobbly floors. They might accuse me of having constructed an absurd parody for political purposes, where Rowling is not as easily subject to this charge. There are stories you can tell in fanfiction, in someone else’s universe which readers nonetheless aren’t pre-blinded to the way they’re blinded to the opportunities and horrors of real life, which you can’t easily tell in any other mode of literature.”

—

Eliezer Yudkowsky http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/28m5iu/quick_question_about_the_sub/cicxxma (via illidanstr)

People not understanding how horrible prisons actually are is something that upsets me a lot.

(via yxoque)

[messangerforthestars]

“We need more morally gray characters” you guys can barely handle topaz and jade.

[add1ctedt0you]

What a plot twist you were. [x]

[yuridovewing]

i understand the frustration with “i made this gay pairing cis x trans so they can still have biological babies” with no thought to other methods and how ppl assume thats the case when it comes to mothpool aus where mothwing is also the mother of the three, but also…. idk i kinda dont give a shit if someone wants to do that and i dont really think its inherently transphobic as long as its handled with care and respect.

what really concerns me about this debate is how some people are adamant that you cannot portray trans people having biological children in media or youre being disrespectful. and im gonna say as a nonbinary person who doesnt want children for themself- thats kinda fucking weird? like i understand that for some people, theyre trans themselves and theyre speaking from a place of dysphoria, and i absolutely get that, which is why i think the topic should be handled with nuance and diversity in trans characters, but like…. guys. pregnant trans men exist irl. trans women get people pregnant irl. trans ppl’s ability and right to parent and have biological children are being debated irl. we get denied the opportunity to adopt as well.

in a climate like this, are we SURE we want the stance on rewrites and headcanons in the silly cat books to be “if you portray trans characters having children, especially with a gay couple, youre a transphobic freak no matter what!” does it really matter? especially if its being done by a trans person handling the topic with nuance who has a lot of trans characters with varying perspectives?

obviously yes, remember that thats not the only way certain gay couples can have kids, remember that not every trans person is fully comfortable with it and keep that in mind, remember that surrogacy and adoption are also perfectly valid ways to give fan babies- but remember that there are OPTIONS. not that you need to condemn the idea of transgender parents in the first place unless they fit the very specific criteria of “proper transgender representation” and anything that dares deviate from that is proof the op is a transphobic monster (bonus points if theyre a trans creator bc i mostly see trans people getting shit for this and it kinda pisses me off. although idm if cis people do it either as long as theyre handling it with respect)

[needanaccount2readarcaneposts]

See, the way S2 kept trying to make this Silco-Caitlyn parallel... bothered me. It's so facile. S2 did a lot of this, where it would intentionally try to parallel or call back to S1 as though that automatically made it meaningful, when... no. No, it doesn't.

By trying to pAraLLel Silco and Cait by giving them a similar aesthetic, S2 is going, "Wow, look. Both these characters made Bad Choices due to Trauma. That's so deep, isn't it? Really makes you think."

No! No, it's not deep, because it completely abstracts both these characters from their political contexts; completely ignores the reasons these characters make these decisions, the circumstances in which they make them, their motivations for doing so, and the incredibly different range of options available to both characters.

Silco's goal is to bring about permanent systemic change; to free Zaun from Piltover's rule. Caitlyn is driven by her personal vendetta against one blue-haired pronoun-haver, and has extrapolated this to the entire undercity full of 'animals'.

Down in the undercity, the default state is one of 'back against the wall'. You can either help each other out, try and get by as best you can, and simply take whatever Piltover dishes out until it all comes crumbling down anyway (until Piltover enforcers flood your streets after a robbery; until Piltover's pollution poisons the tree that gives you food and air and shelter; until Piltover-allied forces march down to your commune to take what they want). Or you can say, "No more, not ever," and push back. The base violence necessary for change.

Caitlyn has a choice. Caitlyn always has a choice. Caitlyn knows that an offer of independence was made to Zaun. Every Councillor left alive voted for Zaunite independence. Caitlyn could, at any point during her fash era, go, "These attacks are motivated by Zaun's desire for independence; they are happening as retaliation for Piltover's actions; the first one happened because we made Zaun's freedom contingent on Jinx's imprisonment, and it bit us in the ass." Supreme Leader Caitlyn could, at any point, make the decision from a position of total economic and military superiority, to simply cut Zaun loose; give them their independence, warn them that Jinx is their problem now and that any further aggression will be treated as an act of war and responded to accordingly, and walk away.

Caitlyn can choose to walk away from her pursuit of Jinx. Zaun cannot choose to simply walk away from oppression.

In the undercity, if Silco decides that the ends (Zaunite liberation) are worth the price it takes to get there, the only currency he has to spend are the lives of his own people. That is why he makes himself into a monster, why he internalises his betrayal as a lesson on ruthlessness and doubles down on it: to become the kind of person who can do the things that need to be done without flinching. His cruelty is born of his own desperate circumstances, and those of his city.

Caitlyn gets to sit on top of the hill and inflict her rage on the people at the bottom. Her ruthlessness stems from her personal grievances, and it's still Zaun who has to pay the price. Even when the consequences of her actions do eventually come back around to incur a cost in Piltovan lives, due to mistakes entirely of Piltover's making, Zaun still has to help pay for those mistakes in blood.

When Silco gets his guarantee of independence from Jayce, he's immediately ready to be done. He's not motivated by a desire for personal satisfaction. He doesn't need to get his licks in, he doesn't need to see Piltover beaten and grovelling, he doesn't need to see the Councillors in jail. If he makes some concessions, and Piltover makes some concessions, and he walks away with an independence treaty for Zaun, that's fine by him - and it always has been. The only thing that nixes it is Jayce demanding his daughter.

Meanwhile, a 1,000 foot wall could spring up around Piltover overnight between episodes 2 and 3 of S2; Piltover could be magically guaranteed protection from any attacks from Zaun now and forever more; their economy could remain untouched and they could live in permanent prosperity and peace without a single Zaunite ever darkening their doorstep again... And Fash Era Caitlyn would still be hunting Jinx down, because that bitch kidnapped her, played fucked-up mind games with her, and then killed her mom.

(Except, I guess, when she changes her mind after Vi calls her cupcake. Or she gets bored of it offscreen during a timeskip. Or she feels bad because she watched a toddler nuke a werewolf. Unclear.)

TL;DR: Caitlyn's motivations are personal; Silco's are ideological. Caitlyn desires satisfaction for her personal grievances; Silco was ready to shake hands and walk away the second a treaty was signed. Caitlyn makes her choices from a position of immense privilege and power; Silco makes his choices from a position of desperation. Caitlyn always had good options available to her; Silco's options were 'die on our feet, or... also die, but more slowly, on our knees'.

Silco is a fucked-up dude who started at the bottom of a trench, breathing in unbreathable air, and when nothing else worked, committed to a fucked-up course of action to achieve liberation for his city. Caitlyn is the 1% of the 1% who, when she suffered a personal tragedy, weaponised the entire apparatus of military authoritarianism in order to seek out and exact her personal vengeance.

"Damn, bro, it's like... a parallel. They both Went Too Far in pursuit of their goals. It's almost like both sides... aren't that different after all... that's so deep..."

No! No, it's not! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

Would anyone like to lie down on the floor and think about the parallels with me

[northwest-cryptid]

I literally feel like I'm dying and I need to see a doctor, but I can't worry about that right now because

My bank account is literally in the negatives because I'm too disabled to work and can't make money but I can't worry about that right now because

I'm months overdue on getting my car new tags, but it won't even start if I could drive it so I need to jump the battery and get gas which I don't have money for, but I can't worry about that right now because

People are still expecting me to be social across numerous friend groups and it's pulling me in so many directions that I'm stretched so thin I'm running on no social battery for the last month, but I can't worry about that right now because

I still need to actually clean the house, do the dishes, clean the cat litter boxes, vacuum, and do my laundry... but I can't worry about that right now because

I still need to actually set up my new desk so I can stream since I haven't been able to do that for weeks and streaming is unfortunately my only source of income for how little I make every month, but I can't worry about that right now because

My partner is going through a really hard time right now and I need to be there for her and do what I can to make sure she's okay.

[nie7027]

WAIT WHAT HOW DID WHISPERS FOUND OUT ABOUT WOLFGANG?? HE WAS THE ONE WHO HAD SHOWED THE LEAST TO HAVE SENSATE CONNECTIONS!!

will Riley and Nomi were obviously found out by the bpo and known to be connected (although I don't remember how whispers learnt about Nomi and Will being connected)

sun was probably the easiest to find out that was related to them since Nomi did a lot of hacking to help her which is something Sun couldn't have done on her own (and while the point of hacking is to leave not trace of you behind every person has its own style and no doubt the obp would be on the lockout for any hacking activity that smelled like something Nomi would do)

After that Capheus and Lito would be next in that order. Both showed out of the blue extraordinary capabilities that didn't make sense they knew and clearly marked them as sensates(just no way to know who they were connected to) just like the people visiting Capheus said. The only difference was that Capheus acts were widely known while Lito only had Dani and Joaquin as witness.

And finally Wolfgang mad Kala who showed it the less. In fact they didn't show it at all.

Kala with her perfect idyllic life never needed to make use of the others abilities (besides that one time will helped her defend herself at the temple).

And Wolfgang although did use the others abilities and pulled of amazing feats thanks to them all of those instances were stuff that would be credible he did on his own because they were in line with the type of person Wolfang is and what he's capable.

So yeah... HOW THE FUCK WAS HE FOUND OUT? While it made sense Lila would tell the obp about him she also said that the Cannibal was specifically looking for him!

So how???

Ugggh it really goes way too fastpaced in the last episodes and it doesn't make sense... the Wachowski sisters would never leave such a big pothole...

I know they had to skip a lot of explanations but...

Dammit netlix

[get-more-bald]

the fuck do you mean I have to leave....

[medicinemane]

Mike johnson has so god damn much blood on his hands, obviously Ukrainian blood, but also plenty of American blood

Refusing to renew something that helps vets exposed to atomic blast and Americans who were downwind of the fall out... it's just sick. I can't fucking stand mike johnson, he's one of the worst scum to ever be in congress, and that's fucking saying something

"Johnson refused to allow House members to vote on bipartisan legislation to renew and improve the program"

Fucking quivering little pimple seems to have a real MO for just wringing his hands while insisting it's not his fault, he just can't do the one fucking part of his job of putting shit up to a vote... oh boo hoo, so sad, he'll just have to unilaterally let funding expire on things instead of literally just putting it up to our elected representatives to see if they want to vote yay or nay

Single handedly make the choices but it's not his fault when they work out how they do

Murderer

[arionaleilani]

1. it’s my 24th birthday today, so my goal of being published by the time i’m 25 is now a one year looming monster, but i never specified what kind of published and am currently looking in various literary magazines that are recommended for writers who have yet to be published, so i’m surprisingly confident that i can make it work? and tbh even if whatever i write isn’t officially published before my 25th birthday, if i have someone in the process of being published then i’ll be happy!! no matter what though, i’m gonna try to be proud of myself for at least giving it my best shot!!

2. i honestly love that my birthday is on the ides of march because the ides of march meme shitposting is only a thing on tumblr but it also being my birthday makes it easier to like. be excited about the ides of march outside of tumblr. like even in person i can be like “it’s my birthday! i’m an ides of march babe (:” and if someone is like oh what’s that? or if they say something along the lines of oh like julius caesar? i can be like yep!! and even if it’s a small thing outside of tumblr it brings me immense enjoyment and amusement being able to bring it up off of tumblr

3. transportation situation has been very rough since june 2023 when i totalled my car, my gap insurance are being assholes and i ended up putting my foot down on the phone with them yesterday which i’m pretty proud of because i am NOT a confrontational person (something i’ve been working on this past year, so seeing some improvement with my ability to hold my ground and not be a pushover yesterday was very cool!!) i was told i’d get a response from them by friday next week no matter what, and if i don’t then friday of next week i will continue to wreak havoc upon them. but my moms car which i’ve been using since my accident broke down yesterday, hopefully it’s fixable but my parents were saying it might be done for, so trying to think of how i’m gonna get to work next week is kind of stressing me out lmao, but for now i’m just gonna focus on enjoying my birthday the best i can because i don’t want to start off being 24 with an overwhelming anxiety for something that won’t be a potential issue until monday. plus i already messaged my boss today to let her know that i’m going to do everything i can to make it work out but just so she’s in the loop and knows of the potential of me not being able to make my morning shifts (one of my coworkers said she’s more than happy to give me a ride for our afternoon shifts which does help relieve some of the stress!) and i told her i’d let her know for sure sunday so that if necessary she can have time to figure out someone to fill in for me in the mornings!

overall: life is weird and i ended being 23 yesterday with a shitty situation but a positive outlook and i am going to enjoy my first day of being 24 no matter what because honestly i fucking earned it. happy friday everyone, i hope it’s a good day for you and me both!

[ddesertmoon]

Fuck, guys… the urge to write a fic that puts Anakin in a situation where he has to examine his flaws critically and question whether his actions are a proper reflection of his true morals is soooo strong… but am I the man for the job… that is the question

[yappacadaver]

im still so tired mang like fuck. fuckkkk

[quietwingsinthesky]

i think deep down even still believes the doctor can save anyone. everyone. and that’s the worst part.