#Savaged Regime

[sixteen-bit]

Rockman & Forte - Dynamo Man (YM2612 Cover)

[mendelpalace]

Savaged Regime - Command & Conquer - Industrial (YM2612 Cover)

[leroibobo]

really do not think people understand the extent to which palestinian sites/landmarks (especially muslim ones) were destroyed, beginning in 1948 until now, even in cities. the oldest extant mosque in jaffa (al-bahr mosque) was built in 1675, even though islam came there in the 7th century

[latin-dr-robotnik]

The Sequel Wars made me like Mega Man 4. What a good remake.

[cactusdrinkstea]

─ ‧ ִ ۫✭ Heart on his hand

Riddle Rosehearts x Reader

Summary: You studied with Riddle and decided to draw a heart on the back of his hand.

Word count: 1009

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It was another quiet studying session. Exams were coming soon and Riddle had to study to get the best grades possible. Anything below perfection would be a disgrace to him. He had started to be more gentle on himself and took breaks once in a while, but his focus was always set on perfect academic results. 

He usually studied on his own, but when you had asked him to do a study session together he didn't say no. Usually he didn't mind. He was used to giving help to others, although many couldn't withstand his tough studying regime. Many would already be done with him. It was thanks to you that he had tried to be more flexible with his studying plans. At first he was very strict and had to follow a specific schedule and amount of subjects, but when he started to notice the tired look on your face or hearing those soft yawns he realized maybe he had chosen the wrong approach. Thanks to that, now he saw actual progress in your grades. 

He knew he relished studying with you more than he would admit out loud. Sure, if he was asked about it he would say this was just a small favor for the sake of studying. After all, what kind of prefect had bad grades? He couldn't allow it. 

But if he had to be honest, he would say that he liked to spend time with you. These quiet moments without your chaotic duo of friends, or without that cat. Just the two of you in a quiet setting with the right flavor of tea at the right time. That was utter bliss. Not a singular noise aside from the occasional question. He loved it. Riddle knew it wasn't the most efficient way of studying, because more often than not, he was staring at you. Looking at your eyes and how sometimes your brows furrowed when you didn't understand something, or how your leg would bounce under the table occasionally, which he usually would find annoying on others but on you it was surprisingly endearing. 

Whenever he noticed he was starting to get distracted, he had to snap out of it and return his focus to his history notes. At this rate he would forget anything he read if he kept thinking about that errant hair strand of yours that he itched to fix with his own hands. Riddle’s focus went back to the papers, he was good at focusing and this was a piece of cake, nothing he couldn't handle. 

Perhaps he had focused too much on his notes, because by the time he felt something on the back of his hand, it was already too late. There was a heart, painted with black ink.

“What did you just do?” Riddle inquired, eyes squinting in displeasure at the sight of a small doodle on his skin. 

“It's a heart. You were so focused on your notes you didn't even feel me peel your glove” You replied with a grin on your face. 

How could he be so careless? He didn't even feel the ink with how focused his eyes were on the paper. Riddle didn't look pleased, having drawings on someone's body was extremely distasteful and inappropriate. 

“I don't recall giving you permission for such a childish thing” Riddle said, his eyes returning to the notes on his desk. 

“I thought you would like it, hearts are your thing aren't they? Sorry, I won't do it next time” You sheepishly apologized and went back to read. 

“It's fine. I won't collar you for this, I am not that savage. Just try to ask next time” He gently scolded you trying not to sound too harsh. It wasn't a terrible thing, of course he wasn't going to get mad. He also had his gloves. It would only take pulling them up to hide the silly heart doodle. 

The rest of the evening was uneventful and the studying session ended not so long after. You thanked him and left. Riddle went back to his usual schedule but his mind was elsewhere. 

He couldn't stop looking at the heart on his hand. It was just a heart made out of ink, nothing more. It didn't even look symmetrical, was it really that difficult to draw an even heart? He would need to correct your pulse because that was terrible. 

Even with those petty mistakes, the drawing was so endearing. He had never allowed someone to touch his skin in that way, he would nag at anyone who even dared to try. He still remembered the happy look on your face and your reply. You thought he would like it. It was dumb, such dumb thinking to even consider he would enjoy a foreign drawing of something as simple as a heart. The worst part was that he did! It felt special, as if you thought about him specifically to give him that. You even went through the effort of moving his glove. 

It was a shared secret between you two now. No one else would know the heart was under his dark gloves, just you and him, and that simple thought filled him with delight. A temporary gift from the prefect to him. 

Days went on and he attempted to make the inked heart stay intact there for as long as possible. He was careful every time he washed his hands, but no matter how careful he was, the heart would fade. It only lasted three days. He felt distraught when it was gone. 

Now how could he ask for another one? It would be mortifying to even request for such a thing. He was above childish drawings on his skin! He didn't even need one. Why would he ask again? 

“Today we are studying again. Don't be late, prefect” Riddle said to you one day, and he made a mental note to forget his gloves and bring red ink this time and keep it as close as possible. He hoped you would get the hint. 

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┆    ° ♡ • ➵ ✩ ◛ °             

┆彡   ✩          

[strangererotica]

EXPLICIT CONTENT | MINORS DNI

Steddie Gladiator AU - Emperor Geta x Empress Reader x Gladiator Steve

Includes: lots of drama, power imbalance & abuse of power, infidelity, Geta is a cruel, sadistic husband to reader, forced intercourse & pregnancy, violent language used, character death implied, unhappy ending.

He was a slave who fought in the arena against his will. You were a slave of a different kind, married to an emperor against your will. By all accounts, your paths should never have crossed. Yet somehow, they did.

You didn’t even know the man’s name, and you didn’t need to. It didn’t matter that he was a slave, beneath you in every way…except for when he was on top of you…his muscular arms enveloping you, his thick cock pumping between your legs.

In battle, he was savage, vicious in his quest to survive the arena. But in your bed, he was everything the opposite of brutality. He loved you tenderly, cherishing you. Your husband the Emperor had never made love to you, only fucked you, not unlike the way he treated his concubines.

Geta was cruel to you, deriving pleasure from your sorrow, from both the physical and emotional pain he caused you. One way the Emperor achieved this was by taking you anally every single time he fucked you. With absolutely no concern or care with preparing you for penetration, your husband took what he believed was his by right. He refused to fuck your cunt lest he accidentally come inside you, because denying you the possibility of pregnancy was another way the Emperor expressed his cruelty. One of his more sinister goals was to ensure that his first heir be conceived with a concubine, instead of his wife. What a humiliation for you, Geta reasoned, to deceive all of Rome into thinking a whore could provide him an heir, while his own wife could not.

But your lover, the slave, the fighter, was gentle and sweet with you. He made love to you any way you wished, because for him, your pleasure was his pleasure. He avoided coming inside you, however, to avoid the suspicion of the Emperor. Should you fall pregnant, the revelation of your affair would be inevitable. And you both knew that if your husband learned of your adultery, he’d execute you both, brutally.

In private, the gladiator longed for you. He spent every endless night you were apart dreaming, (as you did) of an escape…of a world in which you could both be free.

Tragically, it didn’t take long for the Emperor to learn of your affair. However loyal your handmaidens were to you, they were not so loyal as to risk their lives to protect your secret. Geta had spies in every corner of the palace, always listening, always watching. The Emperor was a jealous, paranoid man. He frequently put servants to death whom he feared may be plotting against him. Always in the back of his mind, lingered the fear of assassination from one of his numerous enemies. Geta had very little trust in any of the men he kept company with. He trusted his wife even less.

Keeping your relationship with the gladiator a secret was virtually impossible, under the regime Geta operated. And even without Geta’s spies, your attraction to the gladiator could not be easily concealed. You watched him fight, seated beside your husband, who took more interest in your studying the gladiator than he did the fight itself. Emperor Geta wondered what it was about this slave, apart from all the others, who had captured your affection in such a way? He envied the lust you clearly felt for him. Geta saw the way you squirmed in your seat while watching this man fight, in a way you never did for any of the other hundreds of slaves who had fought and died in front of you. Geta noticed the way your hands rested on your lap throughout each battle, how your fingers dipped ever-so-subtly to touch yourself when you thought your husband wasn’t looking.

A twisted new idea bloomed in the Emperor’s depraved mind. How exciting would it be, he imagined, to confront his wife and her lover in the midst of committing their sin? The following night, flanked by two armed guards, Geta ambushed you and your lover in your bedchamber. As his men drew their swords, he threw himself across your body, shielding you. “Do not take her life, I beg of you,” the slave implored, anger simmering in his eyes like fire. “If revenge is what you desire, then pay what is owed with my blood-.” He swallowed, squeezing your wrist. “-Not hers. She is innocent of all wrong. I…” Your lover quickly formed a lie, which he hoped would convince the Emperor to spare you. “…I forced myself upon the Empress, your grace. I attacked her while she slept, unattended by her maids-.”

Geta interrupted by clapping his hands in a sarcastic applause. “Your lies are noble, slave,” Geta jeered. “Quite an excellent performance, in fact. But unfortunately for you and my wife, your efforts at deceit are made in vain.” The Emperor’s wild eyes landed on you, a chill crawling under your skin. “I’ve known of your traitorous affair for weeks, my wife.” He took a step toward you, his pale skin illuminated like a ghost by the single candle burning at your bedside. He reached to touch you; you flinched when his cold skin made contact with your cheek. Geta smirked wickedly, before shifting his attention to your lover.

“It has been reported,” the Emperor continued. “That when you fuck my wife, your seed never enters her.” Geta tipped his head, curious. “Why is that, slave?” When your lover failed to respond immediately, the Emperor shoved his face within an inch of the gladiator’s, and shouted “TELL ME, while you still have the luxury of breath!” He spat at your lover’s eyes, as tears streamed from yours.

“It is a protection, my lord,” you managed to say, your voice high and wavering. “He did not want to overstep a line, by making me with child-.”

Geta interrupted with a cruel, maniacal laughter that startled even the guards behind him. “Overstep a line?!” he parroted back at you. “As if allowing a filthy slave to touch you was not?? His body still caked in dirt and blood from the arena-?” Geta struck you across the cheek, making you cry out. Your lover lunged for the Emperor, and was met with the tips of two swords placed at his neck.

“I once thought,” Geta mused, an eerie calm tinting his speech. “That to sire an heir with a concubine would be the ultimate method of humiliating you, my darling.” His fingers caressed the raised welt forming on your cheek where his hand had struck you. “But I clearly lacked imagination,” he continued. “Because perhaps nothing would shame you more, dear wife, than to be forced to carry the child of a slave…” Geta smiled villainously, his body teeming with a quiet rage. “…Forced to watch your lover killed,” he continued. “Brutally, horribly…while carrying the bastard child he’ll never have the chance to know-.”

The gladiator jerked, prompting the guards’ blades deeper against his flesh, piercing it slightly. “-That,” Geta concluded. “Would be the ultimate punishment befitting a traitorous whore like you.” He stepped back, encouraging his men to do the same. As their blades left your lover’s neck, he turned to face you, his eyes desperate and longing, moving a hand to tenderly caress your wound.

“You will impregnate her,” the Emperor demanded, nodding to the bed on which you both were seated. “Now.”

The gladiator took your hand, squeezing it gently, his expression defeated.

“Let her know the pain,” Geta added, a sick grin on his lips. “Of feeling a dead man’s child kick and squirm in her polluted womb…”

You bit your lip to restrain a flood of tears that begged release, looking into the eyes of the man you loved. His tenderness was the only love you’d ever received, and he’d given it freely, knowing the risk it carried.

“NOW!” Geta shouted, his voice rattling with rage, spit flinging from his mouth. The gladiator nuzzled his nose against yours, his hand still softly caressing your cheek, his voice low and gentle as he whispered, “it is only us…” You tried not to sob as he repeated, his words a hypnotic balm, “it is only…us…you and I alone, my love…”

As you sank gratefully with him inside the fantasy his words encouraged, the world around you both began to fade. Your husband’s voice felt far away, as he shouted once more for the slave to obey his command. And like a dream, a beautiful dream you’d lived so many times before, your lover laid you softly back against the bed…and made love to you, for the very last time…

[spot-the-antisemitism]

I think disturbing aspect of some leftist groups is fetishization of victimhood. They don't see ethnic and racial groups as people, they see them as victims defined by historical tragedies.

So Jews are defined by Holocaust, Blacks by slave trade, Natives and Latino Americans by colonization, etc.

Thing is, since this is a phenomenon present mostly in Western societies, people observing the world like this don't have much to show in terms of victimhood.

So they have several choices and all indirectly lead to antisemitism these days.

Self loathing since they are not as victimized as other groups. This leads to some variation of noble savage trope since they view those groups as automatically better than them. And viewing current war through the lens of noble savage trope leads to either conclusion Arabs are enlightened browns oppressed by evil white Jewish colonists or whites manipulating Jews and Arabs into fighting each other (former way more common). So they either demonize Jews or absurdly infantilize them, both fairly offensive.

Inserting themselves into historical tragedies of other ethnic and racial groups. This is usually "If I were in that time period I would have been (insert good guy group name) and saved (insert oppressed group name)." In this case, usually bragging how they would have saved as many Jews as possible during the Holocaust and be part of the Resistance. However, they are now also roleplaying as Palestinians on campus. Another thing that piqued my interest is current Miku trend. Whenever they draw "Palestinian" Miku, she is usually wearing regular clothes with keffiyeh and activist slogan. Their "Palestinian" MIku is not Palestinian, they are drawing themselves as Palestinians. And since they are roleplaying as Palestinians, then Jews are their enemy and oppressing them.

Just make shit up and make yourself a victim. Just pretend there is some secret cabal controlling everything and making your life miserable. And more often than not, it ends up being some shadowy Zionist organization. All of a sudden, they are the biggest victims, barely surviving under oppressive regime that censors their social media (they've sent death threats to countless people), brutalizes them (cop smacked them with baton after they threw a Molotov cocktail at them) and jails them for dissenting opinion (attacked random Jews on street). Of course they are the biggest victims, not those people under enlightened rule of Maduro, Xi and Putin.

Either way, I'd like Western leftists to see Jews as people instead of either defining them as just Holocaust victims or just bloodthirsty child murderers.

Dear anon,

thank you for your essay,

the canards are as follows

White guilt

Cultural appropriation

persecution complex

Not much to add here

Nice spotting!

Please write again,

Cecil

[marxistswiftieism]

It is genuinely so fucking crazy how racist some of you are towards people in the dprk. You sit there and go “ah!!! poor little brainwashed stupid fools! they CLEARLY need me, a westerner, to come and fix their backwards savage authoritarian society! They don’t know how to govern themselves so of course I, as a believer in FrEeDoM™️™️™️™️ and DeMoCrAcY™️™️™️ 🗳️🦅🇺🇸��🏈, need to show them how life should be lived by sending thumb drives containing, inexplicably, episodes of american cartoons and late night talk shows across the border thus proving how vastly superior our glorious liberal democratic republic is to their dictatorial regime!” and then somehow after doing all of that you will open up a history textbook to read about manifest destiny and the white man’s burden and go “oh how awful! Good thing I, a noble and educated citizen of a beautiful liberal democracy, would NEVER do that!!”

[sixteen-bit]

Life on Earth Reimagined OST - Stage Music 3

[ilynpilled]

man i hate it when some people in fandom start going off about how much of a genius tywin is and how dumb ned is. cruelty is not intelligent and compassion is not dumb or a weakness. tywin isnt a complete fool but at the end of the day all he has is fear and when he’s met with a person who has nothing left to lose, that fear no longer protects him.

yeah as much as i joke about tywin he is not dumb and incompetent necessarily, but his outlook on life is ultimately treated by the text as his fatal flaw, and it does lead to his downfall as well as the downfall of his regime. what especially frustrates me though is when people are like “his flaw was just that he ruined his family internally, and now that he died bc he miscalculated they are not smart enough to go on and will drive him to ruin.” which is just. no. tywin himself also drove his regime to where it is right now. you see it in affc and adwd. it is so clear in the jaime riverlands chapters. you see how despised they are. you see how there is no room for negotiation anymore. nobody trusts them, nobody likes them, no one is loyal to them. their regime is built on nothing but fear, blood, and betrayal, and that foundation can only get you so far. it is like trying to build on quicksand. you see the build up for the fall in asos. you see the food crisis. burned and destroyed fields and irreversible damage caused by the men that tywin unleashed on the smallfolk. he was feeding the crows instead of feeding the realm. he is obsessed with asserting his power and dominance and it blinds him. he also places himself above the horrid cruelty he uses, distinguishes himself from the “savages” he utilizes, but it always comes back to him, because it is a part of him. he orchestrated doom himself. lannister hegemony is his doomed project. his children will doom him too, i think all three will play a big role in contradicting and/or destroying his legacy, but it is his obsession and malignant cruelty that put his legacy in the position that it is in, and it is not just about overlooking and misunderstanding his family. and he is not meant to be this “infallible logical and rational utilitarian” character with a single blindspot that is abusing his kids. he is an ‘emotional’ and ‘fragile’ hypocrite in many ways. bringing in that kind of comparison to put down ned shows a lack of understanding of many themes in the text. one major difference is that ned’s ‘emotion’ was rooted in empathy. and that quality of his will not doom his legacy, it will likely save it.

[highfantasy-soul]

I think The Acolyte is such a needed show and people really should seek out minority voices speaking on the conflicts within because it is really bringing to the forefront our culturally-taught biases when it comes to assessing 'both sides'.

I've seen a lot of takes thinking they understand the Acolyte by saying "It's great because BOTH SIDES are the same! They both made mistakes and share an equal part of the blame for what happened!"

And to that, I just have to take a deep breath and say as calmly as I can: Just because the storytelling isn't black vs white, pure good vs pure evil, because the show IS being told with nuance, it DOES NOT MEAN "both sides" are the same!!!

One side is an oppressed group living in solitude after having been pushed out of the 'republic' by a militant religious force. They are minding their own business, by themselves, simply existing.

The other side is that militant religious force who pushed them out of the republic who has come to the planet the coven is on, goes to the coven, interferes with their lives with the express purpose of disrupting who they live, and demanded to take their children.

Any 'mistake' made on the part of the indigenous group is NOT EQUAL to the 'mistakes' made by those coming in and trying to impress their own culture on the native one. The coven didn't go to Coruscant. They didn't march into the Jedi Temple where they were training padawans and demand to test them to give them the choice to come be trained as witches. The Jedi came to them.

I think, especially Westerners, have been so indoctrinated in the idea that it is their RIGHT to go anywhere in the world they want and interfere with every single other people group because well, Westerners are civilized and good - we need to make sure the savage 'others' are living according to our own standards and 'morals' - it's a GOOD thing to "make sure all people are being treated well". Plus, they might have resources that could benefit the rest of the world! It's not right that they hoard it all for themselves! It's our right to come and enjoy the beautiful land and local foods (that we of course change to fit our palettes) and entertain ourselves by watching the natives live in their 'unique and quaint' ways that are just SO FASCINATING to watch!!

It's the white savior mindset that leads to missionaries. It's the colonist mindset that led the Manifest Destiny in North America and the subjugation of Africa, India, the Middle East, South America, and I'm sure I'm forgetting many other non-Eurocentric colonist behaviors.

Read the personal writings of the colonists at that time: many BELIEVED they were doing the right thing. Many BELIEVED that they were 'helping' the other culture they were in fact, really subjugating. I would bet that the nuns who ran the Residential Schools for Native children in the Americas believed they were helping the children they stole - but that doesn't change the horrific harm they caused. The way a lot of oppressive regimes work is that they get people who truly believe they're helping people on board to enforce their will upon others. Those at the top (largely) know it's a lie, but moral superiority has always been a great motivator for humans. And individuals indoctrinated from birth (or 4 years old) can get that self-important self-righteousness so ingrained in them that even when their leaders tell them to leave well enough alone, they've been taught their entire life that they're the only 'correct' way to live, so it's their MORAL DUTY to 'save' others even when everyone else is telling them to stop.

THAT is where the nuance in The Acolyte comes from: The Jedi (specifically Sol and Torbin though Indara chose to bully her way into 'appeasing' Sol's concern about the girls rather than insisting on a sit-down with the adults of the coven) truly believed they were doing what was right, that they were 'protecting' the children of an indigenous group they knew nothing about.

The nuance is NOT "both sides are equally culpable". As though both the witches and the Jedi are in the exact same position with the exact amount of power and resources as the other.

If the forces were equal, one side wouldn't have been wholly massacred while the other all walked away alive - able to go back to a home that wasn't destroyed and all it's people killed.

Yes, it's important to show the repercussions on those who unwittingly caused a massacre (Torbin's Borash vow, Kelnacca's self-imposed exile) but that IS NOT TO SAY 'both sides suffered equally'. It IS to say "neither side was maliciously evil and got a kick out of causing a massacre, both sides genuinely had good intentions for their actions". Which again, is NOT saying "both sides are equally at fault for what happened".

It's just been very concerning seeing how many massacre-apologists there are out here blaming the coven for their own slaughter rather than...the ones who slaughtered them. No, protecting yourself against an invading force IS NOT being to blame for that invading force using your resistance as an excuse to wholesale slaughter everyone.

It is the responsibility of the invaders to bend over backward for the local population to prove they mean no harm - it is NOT the responsibility of the local population to immediately kneel to the invaders and do whatever they want in complete submission so that the invaders don't kill them all.

[humansofnewyork]

(45/54) A jar of soil. That’s all I have left of my home. It’s good soil. A guidebook once called Nahavand ‘a piece of heaven, fallen to earth.’ But there’s blood in the soil too. There have been more wars on Iran’s soil than any other country. We’ve had more battles, more bloodshed, more defeats than any other people. And this has been one of the worst of them. The people who stayed in Iran tried their best. But one by one they fell: anyone who stepped out, anyone who spoke up, anyone who said: ‘This is not working for us.’ They were silenced. It was a savage violence. A violence from fourteen hundred years ago. From the moment of those very first executions on the roof of the school, there has been no coherence. No 𝘥𝘢𝘢𝘥. The smallest act could lead to death: a blog post, a sign at a protest, a few strands of hair showing beneath a headscarf. The regime needs fear to stay in control. And for fear to spread, the violence must be random. So that everyone thinks: ‘I could be next. It could happen to me.’ They’ve turned the country into a dark forest. When there is light, when there is law, when there is 𝘥𝘢𝘢𝘥, you know where danger comes from. You can keep away from it. But in the dark danger can come from anywhere, at any time. Parvaneh stayed. The young woman from 𝘕𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘰. The one with the strongest voice. She tried to work for change within the country. In an interview she told a reporter: ‘Iranians abroad can provide spiritual support, but the front must emerge from within Iran.’ She kept writing. She kept speaking out. She kept fighting for political freedom. Only now she was fighting for one-tenth the freedoms that she had before. One night the intelligence services broke into her home. They stabbed her to death, alongside her husband. Dariush was a tall man, much bigger than Parvaneh. But they stabbed her twice as many times. Either they hated her twice as much, or she fought them twice as hard.”

 شیشه‌ای خاک است، از خانه‌ام ایران. همه‌ی آنچه از زادگاهم برایم مانده است. خاک خوبی‌ست. خاک نهاوند. زمانی کتاب ایران‌گردی آن را “پاره‌ای از بهشت بر زمین افتاده" نامیده بود. خون بسیارانی با آن خاک درآمیخته است. خاک ایران بیش از هر سرزمین دیگری درگیر جنگ و ستیز بوده است. ما بیش از هر ملتی نبردها، پیروزی‌ها و شکست‌ها داشته‌ایم. اما این یکی از بدترین‌ها بود. مردمی که در ایران ماندند، تلاش‌ خود را کردند. ولی آنان را یکی پس از دیگری از میان برداشتند: هر کس پا پیش نهاد، پرسشی کرد، هر کس گفت: “این برای ما کارآمد نیست.” همه را خاموش کردند. خشونت دهشتناکی بود. خشونتی برآمده از هزار و چهارسد سال پیش. از آن دم که نخستین اعدام‌ها بر پشت بام آن مدرسه آغاز شد، بیداد پهلوان میدان بود. کمترین‌ جنبش مرگ‌آور بود: یک پُست وبلاگی، یک پوستر اعتراض، چند تار مو که از زیر روسری نمایان باشد. رژیم می‌داند که خشونت باید ناگهانی و بی‌دلیل باشد تا ترس همه‌گیر شود. تا همه بپندارند: “شاید نفر بعدی باشم. این رویداد برای من هم رخ خواهد داد.” کشور را جنگلی تاریک کرده‌اند. هنگامی که روشنایی باشد، هنگامی که قانون باشد، هنگامی که داد باشد، خطر را می‌توان شناخت. تاریکی اما از هر سو و هر آن تو را غافلگیر خواهد کرد. پروانه ماند. جوان‌ترین عضو نیرو. آنکه رساترین صدا را داشت. ضد شاه بود. از اینرو فکر می‌کرد در امان است، تلاش کرد از درون کشور تغییر ایجاد کند. به روزنامه‌نگاری گفته بود: “ایرانیان خارج از کشور می‌توانند پشتیبان معنوی باشند، اما کارزار می‌بایستی در درون پا بگیرد.” به نوشتن و سخن گفتن ادامه داد. به نبرد برای آزادی، برای یک دهم آزادی‌هایی که پیش از این داشت! یک شب دژخیمان رژیم اهریمنی به خانه‌شان ریختند. او و همسرش، داریوش فروهر را با زخم کارد کشتند. داریوش مردی بلند‌‌بالا و بسیار نیرومندتر از پروانه بود. پروانه را دو برابر او زخم زده بودند. یا کینه‌شان به او دو برابر بود، یا او دو برابر پایداری کرده بود

[opencommunion]

On October 11th the occupation cut off electricity and water from many of the prisons where it incarcerates Palestinians, including children, often without trial or charge, while denying them legal representation. Long before October 7th the occupation tortured Palestinians in these prisons — again, including children — on top of the inhumane conditions that are torturous in themselves. The conditions are getting worse every day, and every day the occupation is abducting dozens or hundreds of Palestinians from the West Bank and occupied interior. The number of abductions since October 7th has reached 1000. The number of abductions since January 1st has exceeded 6000. 25% are minors, disabled, sick, or elderly, and sick prisoners are being denied medical care. Additionally, after forcibly transferring 18,000 Gazan workers to the West Bank, the occupation is now rounding up these same workers and detaining them in existing prisons or new camps, giving the excuse that "it is not possible for them to return to Gaza." The Palestinian Prisoners' and Ex-Prisoners' Affairs Commision estimates, based on occupation reports, that 4000 people are trapped in these camps. In their nightly raids, the occupation targets Palestinian journalists, activists, and representatives of the Palestinian Legislative Council. They also abduct the family members of targets to pressure those targets to surrender themselves. During these raids Palestinians are beaten, teargassed, and shot with rubber and live bullets. Then they are dragged to prisons where conditions are worse than ever. Today, October 20th, Qadura Fares, head of the Prisoners' and Ex-Prisoners' Affairs Commission, wrote:

"Developments in the scene inside the occupation prisons compel us to expose the injustices committed against the prisoners. Many prisoners have had their limbs, legs, and hands broken, and after the beatings, their comrades could no longer recognize them. The Naqab prison has become like Abu Ghraib prison, a center of brutality and savage treatment towards the heroic prisoners. 'Israel' is making the Palestinian prisoners pay the price for its failures, acting solely with a spirit of revenge. We call upon all the countries of the world to raise your voices in support of the principles you claim to uphold, or have you returned to your history as colonial powers?"

In short, in the past two weeks the occupation has: - Made the already brutal conditions in their prisons deadly - Created new camps where they trap displaced Gazans - Doubled the total number of detained Palestinians - Kidnapped numerous Palestinian journalists, activists, and elected officials

Given the occupation's practice of "administrative detention," occupation prisons have arguably met the definition of concentration camps for decades, and now detained Palestinians are being deprived of basic survival necessities. I do not know how to describe these facilities except as death camps. A regime does not need to build death camps in order to qualify as genocidal, and the Zionist occupation has been committing genocide by various means for 75 years. That being said, these are death camps or are on the verge of becoming death camps, and I don't think we have time to waste being squeamish about applying that terminology.

Please follow RNN Prisoners to stay informed about what Palestinian detainees are facing.

[moltengoldveins]

*vibrating out of my skin* b-bbphhh….. beeduo. But its. It’s the Minotaur. and Theseus. Has someone done this? Please tell me someone has done this. 

Tubbo as a boy trapped in the most technologically advanced maze ever made, learning engineering from the walls meant to contain him, his selfish father (Schlatt) so shamed by his ‘mutations’ he spreads rumors that the boy is a monster, throwing sacrifices to the maze every seven years. Tubbo’s never been able to save them in time. Something savage is in the walls, hunting, and while the maze is built specifically to keep Tubbo alive, it is not so for the foreign prisoners. 

Meanwhile, Ranboo is the prince of an oppressed kingdom, forced to give blood sacrifice every seven years. His father (Phil, not the most common dynamic but roll with it it becomes relevant later) tells stories of the kingdom’s former glory, the glory lost when their most famed general fell to the war, taken and by all accounts killed by Tubbo’s father. Ranboo decides to go on a quest to slay the monster his people are being fed to, and further, to live up to the memory of that lost general and kill the enemy king, freeing his people. He promises to lift white sails if he returns alive, and that his men will lift black ones if he dies. (There’s some Lady of Death symbolism happening here, work with me) Importantly, his father gives him an old token of a ‘lost friend’ before he goes, an emerald on a chain. He says it’s for good luck, and guidance. He seems… really sad about it tho. Hm. Surely that’s not important. 

Niki is the vassal/adopted daughter/ healer?? Of Schlatt, who sneaks out now and then to give Tubbo snacks. The maze likes her, and she is the only one the old warden told its secrets to before he escaped with his son. She cannot navigate the twisted paths like Tubbo, who has spent his entire life walking those halls, but she is protected from whatever is in the walls. She could get Tubbo out, but they’d have nowhere to go, so she waits. Every year, she prays she will find a way to get them out. Every seven, she prays Tubbo will not have to watch any of the prisoners die. 

Ranboo arrives and threatens Schlatt, who only laughs at the boys boldness and throws him into the maze first. (Oddly, while he took every stitch of gold from Ranboo’s neck and hands, he left the earring. He said something about it being ‘fitting. It’ll finally die with its partner’) 

just when Ranboo is about to be thrown in, Niki, who couldn’t bear the thought of such a kind looking kid dying so horribly, sneaks him a sword and a ball of golden thread. “It will guide you when you need it. Sam made it as a last resort.” She whispers, right before the gates close. 

Tubbo, furious at his failure seven years ago to save any of the hostages (he was twelve. There was nothing he could have done.) manages to get to Ranboo just in time to keep the monster away from them both. The maze closes around them and for a moment, it looks as if they’ll fight. Then Tubbo smiles, and Ranboo lowers his sword, and the two of them are friends in seconds. Tubbo takes Ranboo back to the little room he’s set up shop in, boasting about his inventions but clearly Very unaccustomed to speaking with Actual People. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Ranboo is the physical child of two polymorphed dragons and the adopted child of an angel and a goddess. He isn’t accustomed to speaking with Actual People either. They get along smashingly. 

Tubbo and Niki have made a plan of escape, but never had chance to use it. Now that Ranboo can offer sanctuary, it’s just a matter of getting out and running, but Ranboo refuses. He can’t leave whatever monster is really in the walls for anyone to find and either die to or take advantage of, even if he does destroy Schlatt’s regime. Tubbo insists it’s impossible to even find the thing, its lair is in the fabled ‘center of the maze’, which even he has never been able to find. And even if he could find it, it wouldn’t matter. He’d be killed in an instant. Whatever the thing is, it’s a better fighter than anything else in the nation: that’s why it was locked away. Ranboo offers Tubbo his signet ring (kinda a proposal gesture, we’re Not Acknowledging That RN Tho, We’re Both Traumatized and Trying Not To Die) and tells him to flee to the Antarctic Empire after Niki’s plan to kill Schlatt succeeds. That way Phil can help them, even if Ranboo doesn’t make it. 

Unspooling the golden thread, Ranboo follows it to the center of a maze, where he finds… a study. It looks like it was torn through by a hurricane, then carefully rebuilt, and half of it is filled with untouched and unfinished mechanical structures. He other half is filled with notebooks, maps of the maze, and frantic scribbling. “Another hunt today” one says “I only knew because my claws were scraped.” “I woke with blood in my teeth” another page says. “I think it was a person. I think I was a person, before. I don’t think I am anymore.” 

He doesn’t have the time to piece things together though, because a hulking figure twice his size emerges from a side door and slams into him. He barely manages to knock the blow of a massive axe away, and squinting in the low light, he sees a long-haired, red-eyed man in a tattered uniform and a cape, face twisted and malformed with scars and massive fangs. The uniform is that of Ranboo’s home country. The cape is eerily similar to the one on Phil’s old portraits, before the war. 

‘Oh.’ Ranboo realizes, right as he gets kicked through a wall of foliage. ‘You’re the reason my dad is so sad all the time.’ 

it really seems like all is lost. The man is clearly rabid, insane and muttering to himself, eyes glowing crimson. But right as he’s about to kill Ranboo, he sees the earring, and he stops. He turns to a drawer in one of the desks and pulls out a matching earring, and the light fades from his eyes. 

‘im sorry’ he says, ‘I’m not a man anymore. They took that from me. It was some kind of curse. They made me kill my own people. They made me a creature.’ 

‘well, that’s nothing new’ Ranboo shrugs. ‘Curses can be broken, and I’m rather good friends with a few creatures at this point. What’s one more?’ 

so they escape, the earrings doing something?? To help keep the man calm. Niki burns the tree in the center of the castle and Techno (because we all knew it was Techno) triggers the self destruct system he’d found in the maze during those few moments of sanity between all the hunting. Niki also remembers a rant or an offhand comment Schlatt made at some point early in her apprenticeship about how to break some curse in the maze, something he was gloating about that she only really gets once she sees the massive fellow being led out of the maze by a very excited Ranboo. 

everyone escapes and there’s more Plot but the important bit is: Ranboo forgets about the sails. As they near the harbor, they see a cloud of ravens flying in from every direction, and Techno Loses His Mind. Turns out that only happens when Phil is Really In Danger, Dying, or, hypothetically, dead of grief from the loss of what he believes to be his last living family member. (Yes we have the option here of perms-killing Phil right in the final stretch but I Choose No, because No) There’s a very dramatic reunion where Techno is midway to War Mode while Phil is definitely post-giving-his-soul-up-to-Lady-Death-now-that-everyone-I-love-is-dead, Just-Back-From-Being-Dead-And-Not-Sure-Why-His-Wife-Didn’t-Keep-Him-This-Time??? before Ranboo Explains Everything. Tubbo and Ranboo end up platonically married like Ranboo’s father and Tubbo’s weird uncle in the walls before them and ruling the country as King and General. Niki gets a bakery and a chance to use her alchemy powers for yummy purposes instead of poison. Everyone lives and is happy. The end.

[secular-jew]

A Dose of Clarity on the Palestinian Storyline

~~ By Valerie Sobel

Whenever Western media, Western governments, Israel, or anyone draws an intentional disconnect between the Palestinians and Hamas, a myriad of lies and warped presumptions are activated.

The political correctness machine, invented by liberals but operated by everyone today with respect to the current war in the Middle East guarantees 100% detachment of the poor Palestinian and his cause from terrorist Hamas. But the cost of this on-going theatre is egregious intellectual corruption; a complete reversal of truth and entire revision of Middle East history.

If Hamas is, indeed, a rogue terrorist regime under which the poor Palestinian is suffering, are we to erase all irrefutable knowledge and evidence of the following?

1. Palestinians elected Hamas as their ruling government in the year 2007 by an overwhelming majority. In their charter, Hamas boldly states aspirations to wipe Israel of the face of the earth in not one but 36 separate articles.

2. Before Hamas, Palestinians produced one Yasser Arafat who founded the art of terrorism and airplane highjacking. No amount of concessions and negotiation with this father of terrorism, for decades, convinced the Palestinians to adopt a two-state solution for peaceful co-existence.

3. Before Yasser Arafat, Palestinians produced another leader, Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem who actively worked against the UN’s two-state solution platform of 1948, led the 1920 Nebi Musa riots against the Jews in the very Jewish Palestine, and established himself as an ally in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by aiding the Nazis recruit 25,000 Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. The more Jews killed the better for this Palestinian also. On meeting Adolf Hitler, he demanded Hitler opposes the establishment of a Jewish national home in Jewish Palestine.

4. Since the failed Oslo Accords of the 1990s, more 2400 Israelis have been killed or wounded in terror attacks by the Palestinians.

5. Beside popular Hamas membership, Islamic Jihad, The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Fatah, Tanzim and Muslim Brotherhood -all made up of “innocent” Palestinian citizenry.

6. Palestinian children, from nursery age are systematically taught to regard Jews as the infidel enemy who took their land. Schools employ maps where Israel doesn’t exist. Children are instructed to kill Jews, join ISIS and Hamas for the glory of Islam. This is proudly exhibited to the world as a moral duty for young Palestinians.

7. Palestinian children are also reared for martyrdom by their parents and families. Islam’s promise of eternal life with 72 virgins and the favour of Allah is the goal of life, not life itself. Highest honor is given to families of martyrs who execute Jews.

8. Palestinian families are paid a monthly stipend for life by the Palestinian Authority when a family member is martyred in the duty of slaughtering Jews. It is estimated out of 2000 Gazan terrorists who came into Israel on October 7th to behead, burn alive and kidnap - one half (1000!) were Palestinian citizens who were promised 17,000 shekels and up for broken limbs, rapes and savage killings. For every person kidnapped, they were promised an apartment.

9. Kibbutz Kfar Azza was entirely penetrated and terrorized by scores of Palestinians on foot, on bicycle and motorcycle for the job of massacring babies, children and anything that moved. This was documented in vivid color by a CNN reporter, Hassan Eslaiah.

10. Maps of Sderot police station (first venue of slaughter), homes, businesses and everything inside, including what the family dog looks like and where the safe rooms are….information all meticulously collected by 20,000 regular Palestinians entering Israel on permits to work daily. Without these details provided by everyday Palestinians allowed to enter Israel on goodwill, Hamas had no way to execute the massacres.

11. For as long as the Palestinians have invented themselves as Palestinians to illegitimately lay claim to Jewish ancestral land Romans called Philistine…they have publicly cheered and celebrated every Jewish death. Whether it’s candy distribution or singing and dancing or setting the Israeli flags on fire. The elation at Jewish suffering is generational and feverish and has nothing to do with Hamas origins.

12. Palestinians are first and foremost Sharia Law Muslims of the Quaran. They are no different than the 22 Arab states surrounding Israel that share no love loss for Israel simply because it exists. For Islamic law, the very existence of Israel is diametrically opposite to Quran’s instruction of slaying Jews “wherever you can find them”. Or Qurans’s 177 instructional statements that Jews are “descendants of apes and pigs” and must be slayed.

13. Every sign of millions of Palestinians on the streets of Europe and America today that reads “from the river to the sea” is from the Palestinian charter of driving Israel into annihilation. Every mouth that utters it is calling for the explicit desire for Jewish extermination.

What’s happening today is simple; this is a religious war. It is NOT terrorism. It is certainly no land dispute. It is Jihad in the name of Allah. And every government of the western world knows it.

So why the continued farce of separating and detaching the Palestinians and their “cause” from known history, from Hamas, from Islamic Jihad, from Fatah, from PLO, from Tanzim and PFLP, all Palestinian groups aiming at Israel’s annhialation?

Because an admission of truth will, perish the thought:

a) Delegitimize the UN at its core

b) Force European nations and the US to admit utter failure of decades of foreign policies

c) Force a myriad of civilized countries to quit financial aid to the Palestinians, hence admitting billions of dollars of taxpayer theft.

d) Elucidate the fallacy and fraud of that two-state solution, which was invented by the west (prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948) in order to appease the 22 Arab states. But more importantly…

e) Will immediately unite the Arab world, including nuclear Iran, in a war against the west. This very real and justified fear of Islam and its 2 billion followers who believe in the supremacy of the sword, in beheadings, rapes, massacres and annihilation of western civilization in the name of Allah is palpable. This very basic of human emotions, fear, is the catalyst for every lie, for all the theatre, for all the fraud around the fabricated Palestinian victimhood. It will continue to the end of time until Islam’s demographical strength reaches a critical mass for the destruction of an entire society of Judeo-Christian culture. And then, and only then, truth will be allowed, Islamophobia will be understood not as racial discrimination but as a rational fear rooted in evidence and posing an immediate threat to our existence. And finally, that survival-of-the-fittest meter will begin ticking.

As for Israel and the Jewish plight - the sacrificial lamb, the Jews will continue to repeat “Never Again!”through every atrocity, every raging antisemitic-crime statistic, every American campus pro-Hamas rally with “Kill The Jews” signs, every Jihad war, every Palestinian stabbing and every missile launched at Tel Aviv…until the end of time. Mindlessly parroting something that has never been true, because there is simply no other hope.

Until the west finds its balls against Islam, nothing changes. Western governments’ and media’s established theatre of lies and fraud narratives for the Palestinians and their cause …IS the very manifestation of real justified Islamophobia. Until the west feels an immediate threat to its survival, no matter how many times Israel screams “You’re next!”, nothing changes.

[readingsquotes]

"Despite a global propaganda machine working overtime to tell us that targeting hospitals is not targeting hospitals and killing civilians is not killing civilians, awareness of Israel’s crimes is spreading like wildfire across the globe. This is due in no small part to the tenacity of the Palestinian armed resistance, which has managed to defy containment by Israel’s 40-mile long ‘iron wall’ and continues to resist an Israeli invasion on the ground. At the same time, Palestinian artists, writers, journalists, and academics have worked tirelessly to dismantle zionist colonization of the global- particularly Western- imaginary, with story, with song, with music, and with art.   This resistance in all its forms is having ripple effects. Since October 7, people have continued to flood the streets in every nation with chants of ‘In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.’ Josephine Guilbeau, a former member of the US military, said on Monday at a vigil for Bushnell that ‘I don’t think this is going to be the last of our military members resisting. I feel like there are many, many Aarons out there. Who will speak for them?’ Israel’s lies have long lacked legitimacy among the peoples of the Global South, and particularly the Middle East. But today Taylor Swift fans show up to protests holding signs declaring ‘Swifties for Palestine‘ and videos of lawyers proclaiming the Israeli occupation ‘existentially illegal‘ before the International Court of Justice go viral on Twitter. Palestinian journalists reporting from Gaza have bigger online followings than the US president, and buildings in the West are emblazoned with their images and quotes. In a statement responding to Bushnell’s protest the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) stated “(Bushnell’s act) indicates that the status of the Palestinian cause, especially in American circles, is becoming more deeply entrenched in the global conscience, and reveals the truth of the zionist entity as a cheap colonial tool in the hands of savage imperialism.” Israel’s legitimacy is crumbling, and it is taking the US empire with it. This is not to suggest that Israel is pulling the strings- rather, it shows how far the US is prepared to go before it will risk its hegemony in the region. The refusal of all but a handful of states to join the US-led coalition ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’ to defeat Yemen in the Red Sea (notable among absentees was Saudi Arabia, which has since joined the BRICS group of nations alongside China, Russia and Iran) was telling. Increasingly, the imperialism of the Western media is being exposed, and voices from the Global South locating these lies within much longer histories of Western colonial violence are being heard in new ways, by a new generation.  In a talk he gave on October 21st, 2023, historian Ilan Pappé stated: ‘Before October I wrote an article saying this is the beginning of the end of Zionism…after last week in fact I’m even more convinced. As happened in apartheid South Africa, this is a very dangerous period. The regime fights for its life….historically I have no doubt that this is what we are experiencing, we are experiencing cruelty and brutality because a certain regime is losing it, not because it’s winning, but because it’s losing.’ Israel’s attacks on Iran and Lebanon, attempting to lure the US into a broader regional war, are another sign of that desperation. "

-

In our thousands, in our millions: On Aaron Bushnell’s final act

What Aaron Bushnell did was an act of fierce, principled love in a situation of extreme desperation. It unflinchingly declared that even in the heart of the empire the lies of Zionism no longer hold.

by Britt Munro March 1, 2024