#THIS IS A WAR OF ATTRITION AND HE WILL NOT WIN

[stormtide-leviathan]

An order of events:

My changeling character makes a deal for information with a dryad for information, the cost of which is that the dryad feels my emotions for a day instead of me. (Bad deal for the dryad, my changeling Went Through It in the next 24 hours, that dryad felt some shit)

While under the effects of that lack of emotion, my changeling makes a bad deal with another goblin she probably wouldn't have while emoting as she normally does. The cost of that deal was that I would give him an update about the child of one of the PC's fetches (doppelgangers created to take a changeling's place in their life after the changeling is abducted). This is interesting, cause by all rights it's impossible for a fetch to have a child. While researching in the process of trying to learn enough for that update, my changeling learns something she'd have to share which would endanger that child if it got out- that the blood of a fetch's child is a potent weapon.

My changeling makes a third deal with a third being, far away from the other two, the cost of which is she has to give them "an interesting piece of information she learned recently". She gave up the fact that "a fetch's child's blood is a potent weapon", disconnected from the fact that such a child exists, and now can't share that particular tidbit with the goblin from the second deal.

Never gonna come back to bite me baby, keep wheeling and dealing 😎

[shou-scribbles]

All I’m saying is that after hours of wandering around an ancient vampire alien spaceship, you might run out of things to say. And I know for a fact Jason is team rat.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Why the hell was V3 such a bad politician and general in Animorphs?

Several things!

He gets put in charge of a planet he doesn't want, while forced to run his rival's playbook. Visser One is responsible for the covert infiltration, The Sharing, recruiting voluntary hosts, etc. Visser Three is a blunt instrument forced into a role that requires restraint and finesse. (Visser)

The reason he's in charge? He's more of a figurehead than a leader. The yeerks want their one and only andalite-controller highly visible, and so they give him an entire campaign — but he doesn't have a record of leadership, and he didn't put in the hard work to get good. (Andalite Chronicles)

Oh, and he's being sabotaged. V1 sends spies to observe and mess with his plans (MM4) because she's livid that he's "lost Earth, despite the fact that [she] handed it over in perfect shape" (#15). No wonder V3 has trust issues.

On top of that, Earth isn't the yeerks' priority. They view it as a slow frontier that will handle itself, where the bulk of their forces are on Leeran and Anati. Think of the U.S. sending its military against Canada in the War of 1812, while largely ignoring its war with the indigenous nations. Or focusing all power on Iraq because the invasion of Afghanistan was going so badly. For the yeerks, Earth is Oregon in 1812 or Afghanistan in 2003; their attention isn't there for 80% of the war because they figure it's a slow conflict of attrition and will sort itself out even without resources.

Almost every yeerk we see is in the worst sort of middle management: V3 gets inspectors (#37) but not a budget (#28), must finish others' projects (#25) but gets his expertise on Earth ignored (Visser). He's a public school teacher who can be punished for an infinite number of (arbitrary) infractions, but can excel all he wants without getting the tools to succeed.

So V3 is still the worst boss imaginable. And he doesn't exactly rise to the challenge of being an amateur general holding the line on a backwater frontier with severely limited resources and a debilitating need for secrecy (i.e. Jake). But he also has a ton of forces working against him, isn't allowed to play to his strengths, and doesn't have either the personal or the material resources to win the day.

[peonysgreenhouse]

-`♡´- silent archives.

summary: mistletoe kisses. (gn!reader x jonathan sims, martin blackwood, tim stoker, sasha james, and elias bouchard + helen/peony)

tags: kissies, fluff, helen distortion x my oc (peony) for funsies :], happy holidays everyone!!! <3

The stairs down to the Archives are narrow, dimly lit; you watch your feet over the stack of manila folders in your hands to make sure you don’t miss a step. You can hear the buzz of the old fluorescents, the clean smell of linen and parchment of the upper floors making way to something less pleasant and dusty; like the smell of a page starting to yellow. 

You’re a step behind them, elbows tucked close to your body, trying to avoid the cobwebs woven between the wall and the handrail. No matter how many times you had dusted the place, come morning the webs would be spun anew. Whatever spiders made their homes down here were winning the war of attrition. 

You stop when you reach the bottom step, lingering by the entryway to continue your discussion about… something that slips from your mind the moment you look up. Taped clumsily to the top of the entryway, tied with a small red bow is a fistful of mistletoe. 

Their gaze follows your own upward, and…

-`♡´- jonathan sims

...And Jon scoffs.

“Tim put this up, I presume?” Jon says dryly, readjusting his glasses. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world but here.

“Dunno. I haven’t seen him today.” You say, adjusting the files in your hands. “Sooo…”

Jon lets out a breath, then rubs at the bridge of his nose, under his glasses. This close, you think you spot a few more greys that weren’t there the last time you saw him. “Tell him to take it down, if you see him. I’d rather not have people… fraternizing in the Archives.”

If he didn’t sound so tired, you might’ve laughed. “Right. But, uh, just so I don’t get cursed, do you mind if I…” You shift the files to one hand, and reach your free hand up to point at your cheek. 

“If you really believe such a superstition, I question if this job has affected your discernment.” Jon rubs his hand over his own cheek, as if contemplating. After a moment, he sighs again. “Fine. You can…” He makes a vague gesture, then turns his head closer to your own. 

You hesitate for a moment, finding the sight of your boss waiting expectantly almost… cute. You lean over and press a kiss to his cheek; soft lips against rough stubble. 

“...You’re ridiculous.” He says, reluctantly fond. For a moment, he looks like he might say something else. Instead, he settles on: “Get back to work.”

-`♡´- martin blackwood

...And Martin’s eyes go as wide as saucers.

“Oh, uh, I wonder who put that there.” Martin coughs into his fist anxiously, then rubs his hands together as if to soothe.

“I wonder.” You say playfully, though you have an idea of who the culprit was. 

“We don’t have to… do anything, that is if you don’t want to.” Martin scratches his neck anxiously, playing with the baby hairs on the nape of his neck. The action is almost performative in its cuteness. “It’s just a silly tradition…” He laughs sheepishly. 

“And if I want to participate in this silly tradition?” You respond, stepping just a bit closer, the edges of the manila folders in your hands tapping against his chest. “...With you?”

“Oh!” He nearly squeaks out. You don’t ever think you’ve seen him quite so speechless. “Oh, that would… That is to say… I would…” Martin groans, seemingly annoyed at his own inability to speak clearly. Then he leans down, pressing his lips to your temple, a sweet display of affection.

You lean into his lips, almost chasing them as he pulls away. “That was nice. I almost want another.”

“Ah, well, I’d be… happy to provide.” Martin visibly brightens. “Just… Maybe not in the Archives? I’d hate to have Jon walk out, and uh…”

You laugh, picturing Jon’s exasperated expression. He’d probably send Martin away for good if he had to see that. And you as well, for good measure. “Mm, after work then? Maybe we could get drinks?”

“Yes!” He says, over eager, then he adds, “I mean, yes… That sounds lovely.”

-`♡��- tim stoker

...And Tim gets the goofiest grin on his face.

“Well, well…” He wiggles his eyebrows, sounding overly amused with himself. “Look what we have here.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes, but you can’t deny his attitude was infectious. “...Really?”

“Don’t give me that look. I certainly didn’t put that up there.” He holds up his hands, the picture of innocence. “But I’m certainly not complaining that I was caught underneath it with my gorgeous co-worker and best friend. Perhaps this is… destiny.”

“You’re so dramatic.” You respond, playfully dry. Still, you can hardly even pretend to be annoyed at him. “C’mere.” You lean up and press a lingering kiss to his cheek. He smells like something clean and floral, and his skin warms underneath your lips.

When you pull back, he touches the spot you just kissed, as if to chase the slowly fading feeling of your lips against his skin. The corners of his eyes crinkle as his smile turns almost sheepish.

“Do I get to return the favor?” He asks, cheekily, his hand brushing against your shoulder as he steps closer, encroaching in on your space. Not that you really mind.

“I’m waiting.” You say, and Tim doesn’t wait a second after getting your permission. He grabs your cheeks in his hand, his lips kissing the side of your mouth with an unnecessarily loud smacking sound. You can’t help but laugh as he pulls back, his hands still cradling your face, unable to look away. 

“Maybe one more for good measure, yeah?” His thumb strokes down your cheekbone. “Maybe it’ll make us extra lucky.”

“Excellent idea.” You say, already moving in to kiss him – proper, this time. 

-`♡´- sasha james

…And Sasha gasps, playfully scandalized.

“My, my…” She says. “A real predicament we’ve gotten ourselves into, hm?”

The look in her eyes makes you nervous; like she’s expecting something, and she’d hate for you to disappoint her. Or perhaps that’s your own projection – she’s so close, and so beautiful. Your arms tighten around the files you’re holding.

“Seems like it.” You respond, the words more confident than you feel. “We don’t have to, if you don’t want to…”

“I’m well aware.” Sasha laughs, and for a moment it looks like she might tease you further. You can feel your cheeks warm. “But lucky for you, I think you look quite adorable right now.”

Sasha moves in closer, and you close the gap, your lips meeting her own. How could you ever forget the gentle way her lips move against yours? Soft, sticky; her lip gloss tastes like peppermint, and it makes your mouth tingle. When you pull back, her hand is covering her mouth as she laughs.

“You have a little…” Her hand comes forward, and wipes her smudged gloss off of your lips. It feels almost as nice as the kiss itself.

-`♡´- elias bouchard

...And Elias looks at you, unreadable as always.

“Ah.” He tuts. “I suppose this was someone’s idea of a prank?”

Just your luck to be the first victim. And just your luck to be caught underneath it with Elias. You pretend to have not noticed, looking up again after he poses his question.

“Oh. That…” You lie, rather lamely. “I’m not sure, I haven’t seen it until now.”

“I see.” He pauses, and you shift your feet, the silence growing uncomfortable as he watches you. 

“Would you… like me to take it down?” You ask, moving to make yourself useful. Before you can get too far away, he speaks up. 

“No, no. It’s just harmless fun.” He makes a dismissive gesture, and you visibly relax. You don’t want to think about how ridiculous you would look balancing on an office chair trying to take the mistletoe down. “Might… improve morale down here, as it is.”

“I’m surprised you’re alright with it.” You say, giving him a sideways look. “Sounds like a HR problem waiting to happen.”

Elias laughs at that. "I assure you it will be fine.” He pauses, then. “It would only be inappropriate if someone like me initiated, so to speak.” Elias looks down at you, the ghost of a smile on his lips. His words are suggestive, challenging almost. Before you can lose your nerve, you lean over and kiss his cheek.

“So… that’s alright, then?” You ask. The scent of his expensive cologne follows you, even as you pull away.

“Precisely.” Elias says, sounding pleased with himself, pleased with you. "Though, if you'd like a little... reciprocation, I recommend we go back to my office."

You can't find it in you to say no.

-`♡´- helen/peony

Helen is the one holding the little bundle of mistletoe over Peony’s head, a sharp-toothed grin on her face.

“Look what I found, darling.” Helen says, shaking the plant overhead, as if Peony didn’t see her approach with it. It looks comically small in Helen's unnaturally large hands. “This does bring back memories, doesn’t it?”

“Those memories aren’t yours.” Peony corrects, moving past Helen to her desk. When she sets the stack of folders down, Helen is leaning over Peony’s shoulder, boxing her in.

“Spoilsport.” Helen tuts, feigning disappointment that she’s not playing along. “I don’t want to argue semantics with you again. I’m in a good mood, after all.” 

Peony turns, looking up at Helen; Helen’s features shift ever so slightly the more she focuses on certain points of the Distortion’s face. Sometimes she looks like the Helen Peony remembers; or perhaps Peony is just searching too hard for something that was never there. Still, she can’t help but look every time. 

“Did you come here just for…” Peony motions to the mistletoe, still held out in Helen’s palm. 

“Is it so wrong to want some affection from my favorite person?” Helen says, sweet as honey. “I get lonely too, you know.”

It’s so ridiculous Peony almost laughs, like it wasn’t the Distortion’s fault for Peony’s own loneliness. 

Still, the Archives were much too quiet nowadays. Peony aches for the familiar comfort of another, and she’ll take it even if it’s from something as cold and inhuman as Helen. Peony’s eyes flick down to Helen’s lips. Yes, they almost looked the same. Would they taste the same as her Helen’s once did?

“...You just want a kiss?” Peony asks, quietly. Helen narrows her eyes, looking far too pleased with herself. Peony can almost hear the sound of metal teeth snapping shut.

“If that’s what you’re willing to give me, darling.” She bends down, her face just above Peony’s. Peony doesn’t give herself any time to think this through, instead moving forward, pushing her lips against Helen’s in a slow, tentative kiss. Peony feels one of Helen's fingers run down her back, sharp, even through layers of clothes, and she shivers.

With Peony's eyes closed, it was easy to pretend that this is a stolen moment of normalcy; for a moment, she's back in her Helen's house, pressed up against her on the couch as they wind down from their long work days.

"...Now, was that so hard?" Helen muses, and Peony's eyes flutter open. Peony touches her lips, feeling her smudged chapstick, and she sighs.

Peony leans in for a second kiss.

[secondaryartifacts]

In 1964, Ford moved to Hollywood to become an actor.

“But I arrived on a metaphoric bus full of people who had the same ambition,” he said.

So he came up with this plan to prevail over the competition:

As Ford spent time around the other aspiring actors on that metaphoric bus, he became aware of something:

Most of them were in a hurry.

They were in a hurry to “make it” or to make lots of money or to prove something to someone.

Whatever the reason, most were on a tight timeline.

So Ford's plan was to do the opposite: to lengthen his timeline.

To do so, Ford said, "I had to have another source of income. So I became a carpenter."

“By doing carpentry," he explained, "I was able to wait it out.

And as the years went by, the attrition rate eliminated many of those people from the competition pool until finally, there were only a few of us left on the bus from that entering class.

I always saw life that way—you just have to find a way to stick it out, to prevail.”

Takeaway 1:

Ford chose carpentry for two reasons.

First...when he first moved to Hollywood, he taught himself the basic carpentry skills needed to fix up his dilapidated house. He was immediately attracted to the process of fixing things, calling it "a form of meditation."

Second...he thought—since Hollywood is an everybody-knows-everybody kind of town—a carpentry job could lead to an acting job.

Indeed.

Ford became known as the "carpenter to the stars." His roster of clients included Francis Ford Coppola, James Caan, Richard Dreyfuss, and Joan Didion.

Most famously, in the early 1970s, Ford was building "an elaborate portico entrance" at Coppola's offices where Coppola's friend, George Lucas, was leading casting meetings for Star Wars.

One day, Ford said, “I was asked by George if I would read with the other actors. There was no indication that I might be considered for a part in the film."

"I read with about 300 actors and weeks later, they asked me if I wanted to play Han Solo."

Takeaway 2:

Ford's “stick it out” strategy is a civilian version of what military strategists refer to as "winning through attrition."

In a study of the major wars that shaped the course of history, the strategist and historian B.H. Liddell Hart found that only 2% of battles were won as a result of a direct attack.

The majority of successful armies throughout history, Hart writes, all had the “power of endurance to last.”

As Ford put it, "You just have to find a way to stick it out, to prevail.”

"Lengthen your timeline...It always takes longer than you think it’s going to take. That’s Hofstadter’s law. And even when you take the law into account, you’re still surprised."

Via — Ryan Holiday

[windwardrose]

I'd venture to say that 90% of the stuff that happened in War of the Rohirrim is due to the fact that Wulf doesn't just want things to happen, he wants them to happen in the WAY that he wants them to happen. which is the way that makes him feel good, and noble, and justified.

he wants Hera - but not grudgingly, or as a calculated sacrifice on her part! as a happy bride! he wants to be part of something, but not by just joining the hill tribes or taking care of the Dunlendings, he has to make ALL OF ROHAN accept him. he wants victory at the Hornburg, but not by attrition or ignoring, by a decisive sacking even if he has to lie about it to his troops and leave the rest of the country to suffer through the winter!

in the end he wants to defeat Hera, but not by having his soldiers kill her, by having a big cathartic moment with her himself (never mind that she just won a duel against him already). the reason it doesn't feel like an Idiot Ball moment is that all along Wulf's been like that. He has to win by his rules or it isn't enough for him.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Keith Edwards at No Lies Detected:

Since Election Day, I’ve felt an eerie quiet fall over America.  Liberals are showing little of the defiant energy that marked their preparation for Trump’s presidency after his shock 2016 win. Americans are reporting exhaustion and coping by hopping onto planes or into unreality. Stories of Americans deciding to flee abroad have become common, an ironic turn for the greatest hub of migration in human history. Some billionaires are even telling themselves that maybe Trump won’t be so bad. Checking out surely is easier.  In the closing days of World War II, people on the ruined streets of eastern Europe hailed passing Soviet tanks as their deliverers from decades of war, dictatorship, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. As it became clear that they had merely traded one totalitarian dictator for another, people coped not only by retreating inward, but even by giving themselves over to the regime mind, body, and soul. During the Soviet occupation of Poland, anti-communist writer and poet Czesław Miłosz likened the phenomenon to a patient taking a pill in his book The Captive Mind:

[Despite [the intellectual’s] resistance and despair, the crisis approaches. It can come in the middle of the night, at his breakfast table, or on the street. It comes with a metallic click as of engaged gears. But there is no other way. That much is clear. There is no other salvation on the face of the earth. This revelation lasts a second; but from that second on, the patient begins to recover. For the first time in a long while, he eats with relish, his movements take on vigor, his color returns. He sits down and writes a "positive" article, marveling at the ease with which he writes it. In the last analysis, there was no reason for raising such a fuss. Everything is in order. He is past the "crisis." ]

Miłosz fancifully called it the “pill of Murti-Bing” after a character from a then-current science fiction novel. But as we can see today, liberal public figures are taking the pill, they are “writing the positive article.” Taunting conservatives as they deluded themselves about Trump – from my own friends and family to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal – was a common experience after his first victory; looking on as liberals lie to themselves after his second is a new and bewildering one. This is exactly the wrong time to check out.  Not only does it amount to “obeying in advance,” it emboldens would-be autocrats to proceed with their plans. As if aware of their guilty consciences, history’s dictators have always been profoundly afraid of the people they seek to oppress, especially before they solidified their grip on power. Even the most cunning of them won’t make a play for absolute power without a hand so strong and the opposition’s so weak that victory is assured: It took Vladimir Putin twenty years fully to establish personal rule in Russia, and only then when fear of a global pandemic kept people confined inside.

Fortunately for us, our country is not the Russia of the 2010s, which had only a short experience of democracy and even shorter experience of democratic institutions. Unfortunately for us, Donald Trump was seemingly designed in a lab to overwhelm our capacity for outrage and benumb us to his ever more brazen violations of our norms and laws. As Tom Nichols has written, Trump is counting on this. His firehose strategy of obnoxious cabinet nominations is a small taste of his planned war of attrition on the American psyche. 

Trump will not be invincible in his second term. The good guys scored a major victory in forcing accused sex-pest Matt Gaetz to withdraw before his nomination even came before the Senate for a vote. This has the double effect of taking this (hatefully coiffed) piece off the board, but it exposes the next most vulnerable picks – say, the increasingly tragicomic Pete Hegseth or the cartoonishly villainous Kash Patel – to media, public, and ultimately Senate scrutiny. It seems likely others will share Gaetz’s fate.

Keith Edwards has a perfect article in his Substack that liberals should not check out of the political process, because fighting Donald Trump and Trumpism is importing.

[sayruq]

The Vietnamese leadership measured the impact of its military actions by their political effects rather than by conventional military measures such as men and materiel lost or territory gained. Thus Henry Kissinger’s 1969 lament: “We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.” That logic has Jon Alterman of the not-exactly-dovish Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., to see Israel as being at considerable risk of losing to Hamas: Hamas’s concept of military victory…is all about driving long-term political outcomes. Hamas sees victory not in one year or five, but from engaging with decades of struggle that increase Palestinian solidarity and increase Israel’s isolation. In this scenario, Hamas rallies a besieged population in Gaza around it in anger and helps collapse the Palestinian Authority government by ensuring Palestinians see it even more as a feckless adjunct to Israeli military authority. Meanwhile, Arab states move strongly away from normalization, the Global South aligns strongly with the Palestinian cause, Europe recoils at the Israeli army’s excesses, and an American debate erupts over Israel, destroying the bipartisan support Israel has enjoyed here since the early 1970s.

[roo-bastmoon]

Things needing immediate attention in MUSE era...

We have GOT to diversify streaming platforms. Last year as a present to myself I went ahead and purchased a premium family bundle (for 6 email accounts each) for YouTube/YT Music, Pandora, and Spotify--plus a premium Apple account hooked up to Stationhead, and I currently have free trials going for Tidal, Qobuz, and Amazon. Premium streams are essential for charts.

Every day I make clicking through playlists on all these platforms as part of my routine: before breakfast, at lunch, and before bed at a minimum.

We also need to be very diligent about voting. Once I sat myself down and took the time to download the apps, set up accounts, and watch a few YouTube tutorials about how to do it, it's actually pretty easy and usually only a once or twice a day sort of thing.

Then there are the polls that have unlimited voting. That is a numbers game, a war of attrition. So while I wait for my lunch to heat up? I vote. Stuck in a waiting room for an appointment? Voting. On the phone with someone who is just gabbing away? Uh huh, mm mhm, but clickity click, I'm voting the whole time. I aim to hit that Vote button about 100 times a day. All told, takes less than 5 minutes.

Also our boy just posted on Insta after 126 days of silence. Please interact with the story and show him the love!

All in all, I think we really need to get into a routine where we fire on all cylinders. Streaming parties, funding parties, outreach & hype parties... We are hyper-focused on Spotify and YouTube videos and that stuff is absolutely important, but it leaves too many gains on the table. Let's use every tool in the box, okay?

Finally, I want to wrap up this post with gratitude:

I know I encourage you guys a lot to push yourselves and work hard, and I don't mean to come off as your taskmaster, but rather as a cheerleader.

We took a mostly Korean song with an insultingly low level of promo, plus no ads, no playlisting, no radio, only one version, with less than a full week to chart, which dropped during a major US holiday -- and it's very likely it will land on the Hot 100. That is...outstanding.

If nothing else, Jimin will see that he's loved and appreciated and we have his back. Whatever the assholes online try to say about vpn and bots and other bullshit, it was your blood, sweat, and tears that gave Jimin his well-deserved seat at an otherwise unwelcoming industry table. I'm so grateful to you and to this community for that.

We all know that Jimin is organic, authentic, and uniquely talented, and therefore isn't even in competition with anyone else. But we can still get him some good wins. What we do for him, we do out of love--not obligation or bragging rights. His music and his artistry are a source of JOY!

WE ARE OFFICIALLY IN OUR MUSE ERA!

We have two weeks to study up and get premium accounts and gather all our energy to support a whole album. How lucky we are to be so well fed and loved.

FIGHTING!

[rei-ismyname]

Magneto's revolutionary war

Part 2/2 here.

An 'unstable' Wanda has rewritten the world to give people their heart's desire - turns out Magneto's is to rule a mutant-dominant Earth. The problem is that humans have mutants under the jackboot. As much as there's a historical point of divergence equivalent with the prime reality - it's Bolivar Trask replacing Spiro Agnew as Richard Nixon's VP. He squashed Watergate, overturned the 22nd amendment, and together they've been putting mutants in camps and worse.

Mags engages beast mode and starts wrecking sentinels and liberating mutants. Apocalypse joins him as a fair weather ally with his own insane agenda of total war and genocide.

When Mags puts his foot down on literally killing everyone Apocalypse calls him a pussy, publicly using populist rhetoric to undermine him. Big blue pushes it too far so Mags challenges him, goading him into usurpation. He fucks him up by frying his brain but spares him - making him his official 2iC IF he defers to Mags. More importantly he shows mercy and strength, cementing himself as leader. It's Peeper! My dude spots an incoming sentinel fleet.

Mags does his favourite thing - hurling vehicles around, including smashing sentinels together and tearing them apart. The soldiers and assassins get it too, though he elects to not commit a war crimes by sparing journalists. He takes advantage of their presence to issue a formal declaration of war citing governments collaborating on wiping out mutants as his casus belli.

It's also a promise of liberation heard around the world. Wanda and Pietro hear it, Lorna too, not to mention the most naive man in the world - Charles Xavier. Everyone hears it and most brush it aside at first. So far Mags has been using hit and run tactics to free mutants. It's effective but it's slow and the enemy can win a war by attrition. He's just one man, powerful as he is.

Mags and his kids (though they don't know) liberate countless mutants from camps and smash every sentinel they can find. Many willingly join the fight once freed and the movement picks up momentum into a real fighting force. So does the opposition, with Trask especially treating mutant genocide as his personal crusade.

After a successful campaign in the US Chuck approaches Mags needing to talk. He's a real wet blanket and unbearably naive - agreeing with the goal of liberation but objecting to violent means. He predicts that the US and their allies will escalate (fucking durr) while urging restraint and incremental progress. He really looks like a fool here, as sentinels are in mass production and mutant concentration camps are widespread. He doesn't really offer any alternative, just tut tuts at violence in general.

Also, they're starting to implement anti-Magneto technology - limiting him and Lorna as combatants. They need more people than Asteroid M can hold if they're truly going to challenge the superpowers.

Chuck's reaction to increased focused sentinel production is to suggest slowing down. He also lectures Mags about doting on his children (citation needed) while they're unaware of the truth. Mags doesn't want to endanger them by giving the US more ways to hurt him. Chuck asserts that there must be a better way, though historically asking politely to stop genocide is foolish. It always requires violence, though Mags admits Wanda has urged restraint. Not to the degree Charles is, but prosecuting a limited war on military targets only.

They show Chuck the slavery of Genosha first hand in the minds of survivors. The images are horrifying, deliberately invoking the Holocaust. Chuck is horrified - he knew about apartheid but this degree of oppression floors him. He implies that exposing these practices to the rest of the world would make a difference; Mags scoffs that he's not *that* naive. Sorry bro, he really is.

Not only do the superpowers know, they benefit from it and are following suit. It's implied that Nixon is all for the slave labour plan while Trask wants extermination. Richard Nixon is the more pragmatic of the pair. Both evil men, but Nixon is operating in a capitalist framework next to his VP's fearful reactionary genocide.

Learning all this has the unprecedented effect of radicalising Chuck, at least temporarily. He'll drift back to his delusional worldview and aversion to defensive war, but he agrees to the liberation of Genosha. I'm sure he weeps privately for the dead slavers, but he brings X-Men onboard. 'TOMORROW HAS COME!' is the battle cry as they storm Genosha in a surprise attack.

The plan is to free as many mutant slaves as possible to empower a true slave rebellion and consolidate disparate resistance movements. Chuck and the magnet kids handle that quite successfully, with many mutants jumping at the chance to fight back once freed.

The ruling class fights pretty dirty though, attempting to kill the slaves rather than have them freed. Mags focuses on them, forcing a surrender with a staggering display of power. His offer is to abide by the Geneva Convention if they surrender, and they walk right into the Magneto classic.

'You fool, we have you surrounded and outnumbered. Why would we surrender to you?'

*smiles* 'Magnets, biiiitch!'

Then he levitates the entire island of Genosha, vowing to destroy it all rather than accept another day of bondage. They fold. The Genosha campaign is won, but the war is not. Next up is Magneto and the unified mutant coalition vs the USA, who are really quite good at war. We know he wins, because this is a prequel of sorts to House of M, but the how is pretty interesting. It's the kind of mutant coalition and outcome that would never be allowed in regular continuity, so it's fun to see what a W might look like without the shackles of the status quo. The Genosha campaign especially is really close to Daenaerys' Storm of Swords plot in A Song of Ice and Fire. She started a revolution through enabling a slave revolt and stopped halfway, leaving powerful enemies with the ability to rearm and organise. Macchiavelli would shake his head at that - let's see if Mags does any better.

Continued here.

[fullscoreshenanigans]

We know Norman would be super flirty with Ray, but what would flirting be like for the rest of the trio?

Love the collective agreement about Norman unashamedly loving to push Ray's buttons on this lkdfjlk

(The Language of Cooking by banana_slug_army)

Really that whole aspect of the Norray dynamic of showing their prideful and competitive sides to only each other for so long, and in Norman's case being openly cold and disdainful. As they get older, the number of people who see this side of them grows, but there is an additional layer to it between them and Emma.

I also enjoy how a lot of people agree that Norman initially cannot handle what he dishes out at all when it comes to Emma. Instantly crumbles when her attention is turned on him, a flustered mess. The same can be said of Ray, though he's more likely to bluster to try and cover it up. Emma would be lying if she said she didn't delight in all this because she finds it adorably endearing.

But another thing all them appreciate and value in each other is their competency, so once the boys become more comfortable and confident in expressing themselves in these matters, there's a mutual rising to meet the challenge, with each of them finding new ways to surprise and have fun with their partners. (E.g., Ray initially not being receptive to their game of pretending to be strangers when they split up and regroup at events/doing errands and using cheesy pick-up lines on each other, but eventually coming around to it).

Little assortment of things that tie into this post and this post of my general headcanons for them:

The first time Emma calls Norman "Boss" he nearly combusts.

NE have a lot of fun escalating the nicknames/terms of endearment for Ray in a war of attrition to have him concede to the ones they actually want to use for him like Sunray (Norman will never tire of saying he loves being greeted by his Sunshine and Sunray first thing in the morning)

Emma is the one who starts saying she needs to "Ray-charge" when cuddling/hugging Ray. In typical fashion, Norman follows suit, and Ray pretends he doesn't enjoy it for some time before surprising them one day when he catches them in a hug and playfully tells them to give him a minute, he's Ray-charging. They knew they'd eventually win him over, as they always do.

Emma loves invoking girlfriend privileges to wear the boys' sweaters and hoodies in winter around their home or when running errands because it's like they're hugging her and keeping her warm as she's out and about. The boys also do this with each other but with less preamble even if it's for same the reasons.

When they share a booth in a restaurant and the two on the edges lock eyes to hatch the time-honored scheme of tag-teaming the one in the middle with surprise kisses. Also comes into play when they're out on a walk in the park and end up sitting on a bench together.

Emma's at the perfect height for surprise kisses at the back of the boys' necks, and she takes full advantage of it.

They love playing with each other's hair, in silly ways like poking at Emma's antenna or stray strand at the back of her neck, poking at Norman's cowlick that's curled so perfectly it must adhere to the golden ratio, or batting at Ray's puffball ponytail like cats (if he's grown his hair out), but also the boys gently running their fingers down Emma's braid or Emma or Norman brushing Ray's fringe from his face when they're talking.

I’m always going to advocate for Norman and Ray going antiquing or to junk shops for items they can fix up and potentially gift to each other, especially if they end up finding a duplicate of the music box Isabella gave Emma on her sixth birthday.

If we're sticking with canon, Norman and Ray sending each other flirty messages during particularly long, dull meetings or playing footsies under the table.

Sometimes Ray likes adding random sticky notes to Emma's and Norman's lunches.

He's also the one to kick off the trend of sneaking candids of his partners, printing them out on one of those little cell phone mini polaroid printers, writing a little love note on them, and adding those to their lunches or hiding them in places they'll find them later, like a coat pocket or purse. (Inspired by this bit of Candid by banana_slug_army)

[deusvervewrites]

Goliath au: potential sports festival outcome:

1st round: pretty easy considering Izuku’s speed, strength, and durability would make the robots trivial. The tightropes portion would be easy for him to jump from cliff to cliff and the mines are no issue with his durability. Overall, he’d take 1st place

2nd round: given that the class has the same relationships as canon, I don’t see any team changes, though I do think Izuku would be the front horse as him being the rider would restrict him hulking out and thus weighing down the team, so he’d fill the same roles that iida and Eijiro do for their teams. Shoto would still go after him as he would realistically have the 1 million headband but the overall outcome should remain the same

3rd round: Assuming the same students are in the bracket as in canon, Izuku has some good odds to win. Eijiro and tetsutetsu are easy wins, just pick them up and ring them out or punch them till their armor breaks. Momo doesn’t fair well in one on one combat at this stage and Izuku would concise her a big threat and rapid strike her for the win. Plus I doubt Momo would have the caliber to take him down without excessive force. Sero is an easy wins, either he’d dart around the tape with his speed, flex the tape off, or hulk out and be too heavy to ring out and beat sero. Tokoyami and ibara would pose an issue, but I do think Izuku would eventually get to them given that they’re both stationary long ranged fighters. Yuga is also fairly easy given that Mina was able to avoid his laser so Izuku should be able to do so with his speed. Denki might pose a problem but Izuku should have encountered his indiscriminate shock during the second round so he would know if it and how fast it is and thus jump above it before taking down denki while he’s vulnerable. Mina would stick to mild acid but the pain would trigger an increase in his durability and thus would snowball into overpowering her. Bakugo would probably try to dart around and constantly be on the move, trying to wear him down and avoid getting hit with the open air arena. However, I don’t think bakugo would win the war of attrition before his arms give out and he would keep Izuku nice and stressed during the fight. Shoto would be a toss up. If all might pulls Izuku aside, shoto might still do his declaration of war. His ice shouldn’t be too bad given that iida was able to avoid it for a bit so combine Izuku’s speed and strength should prevent him from being frozen. Even if shoto makes a huge glacier, I would imagine that being trapped in ice would stress him out to hulk out and burst free. I’m not sure if Izuku can handle fire, but is increased weight and durability might keep him from ringing out. Shinso might get him, but Izuku probably has some emotional control so he shouldn’t be as triggered by shinso’s comments plus ojiro would still give him his tipoff.

Overall, Izuku has some high odds, though he may become the new target for the training camp attack with his scary, rage fueled quirk

All of this sounds correct to me, though there is a decent chance that class dynamics so shift in this AU. We know Bakugou is more outwardly aggressive about Midoriya in this AU, for example, and Midoriya's friendship with Tokoyami and Sato, but overall this could easily be how the Sports Festival goes

[grandwitchbird]

I saved some of this from my longer rundown on thematic elements and textual approach because now we’re getting into the stuff everyone knows. We’re just actually getting into it.

The Witcher is Polish. It’s also a kind of fairytale.

Obviously. Everyone knows that. The folklore, visual sensibility in the 3rd game especially, everyone knows this is a Polish series with Polish creators. But do they really? Because I see a lot of Americans misreading this series (including whoever was behind the show). Here’s what was happening when these stories were first written:

And this isn’t a new thing. Polish resistance based on broad coalitions and the regimes they oppose stretch back basically forever. The brand of humane cynicism that kind of environment creates is distinct.

The Scoia’tael are a broad political coalition amongst nonhumans in the books. They’re losing. The novels are not sympathetic to this in the way you’d expect if you’re misreading them as a ‘noble savage’ trope or some other misrecognition. Here, losing to the authoritarians is just the sort of thing that happens. Ciri is sympathetic (and Geralt; he’s just old) because Ciri sees them through the eyes of a child who has lost her home. She’s projecting when she first encounters the Scoia’tael and promptly gets attacked by them. She’s not wrong. There is something noble in their fight, even as they’ve been driven to banditry and attacking our heroes (who are also all from marginalized groups and mostly nonhuman). There’s always something noble in fighting your own demise. But Ciri is young. She is projecting. And she’s really not wrong. Being right just isn’t enough.

This is no ‘both sides are bad’ defense of status quo. This is a resigned and honest look at the costs of fighting a war of attrition. How do you deal with it when you know the tyrants always find a way to win? When trade deals are more important than ‘human’ rights? When even fighting strips you of everything you were and could be? Because these novels are so specifically Polish, so grounded in their real loyalty to the resistant position from a materially-informed history, they hold up under these inquiries. There’s no flinching away from examination here.

This also acts on a literary level because everything here is a literary metaphor or allusion. Elves specifically are truly fae here. They’re not nice. They’re not the half-hearted attempts to reclaim an illusory wild past you see in most fantasy. They’re the terrible tyrants of an older age. They’re the fear of the other. They’re the desire for the other. The recognition of the other in self and the self in other. They’re what fairytales are actually meant to do for us, psychologically. Ciri’s focus on the elves is that series of recognitions. She’s seeing herself because she’s literally the resistant will made manifest and all the terror of potential tyranny. She’s Lara Dorren’s legacy carried through every human regime. Maybe Lara won after all.

[whencyclopedia]

Battle of Cowpens

The Battle of Cowpens (17 January 1781) was a decisive battle in the southern theater of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). It saw a detachment of Continental soldiers and Patriot militia under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeat a British force under Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton. The battle helped lead to the end of British domination in the American South.

Background

On 2 December 1780, Major General Nathanael Greene rode into the American military camp at Charlotte, North Carolina. A 38-year-old Quaker from Rhode Island, Greene had been entrusted by General George Washington to take charge of the remnants of the Southern Department of the Continental Army after its disastrous defeat at the Battle of Camden (16 August 1780). What Greene found at Charlotte was less an army than a rugged gathering of 1,400 disheartened men. The troops were undersupplied, underfed, and lacked clothing. Several men sat huddled around the campfires practically naked, with only rags or blankets to protect them from the elements. Many of the soldiers stirred themselves only to plunder the surrounding countryside for food, and the officers had grown jaded enough not to care. It was a ghastly display of dejection that must have reminded Greene of the state of the main army at Valley Forge three winters before.

It was not hard to see why the army was in such a depressed state. The Americans had suffered nothing but defeat since the British had first invaded the American South in late 1778. Having grown frustrated with their unsatisfactory military campaigns in the North, the British had shifted their focus to the South, which was rumored to be replete with Loyalists as well as the source of much of the United States' commercial wealth. The capture of the South, it was believed, would not only cut the United States in two but also cripple its ability to keep fighting. The British implemented their so-called 'southern strategy' in December 1778 by seizing Savannah, Georgia; the following year, a Franco-American attempt to retake the city failed, and Georgia became the first state to fall back under British control. In May 1780, the British won the Siege of Charleston, taking the largest and most important city in the entire South. Under the command of Lord Charles Cornwallis, the British then set about pacifying the rest of South Carolina. This sparked a bloody regional civil war, as the state's Patriot and Loyalist militias brutalized one another in the South Carolina backcountry. The southern Continental Army, under General Horatio Gates, had tried to retake the state but had been decisively defeated at Camden.

Now, as Greene took over command of the depleted army from Gates, he realized the monumental task that rested upon his shoulders. Should he fail, there would be nothing to prevent Cornwallis from conquering North Carolina and Virginia, completing the British 'southern strategy'. Greene was a cautious commander who pursued a 'Fabian strategy'. That is, he tried to avoid fighting any pitched battle that he was not sure he could win, instead wearing the enemy down through attrition and guerilla fighting, striking only when he spotted vulnerability. The Patriot militias already operating in South Carolina could serve this purpose well; Greene hoped that they could keep the British distracted long enough for him to whip his army into shape and maybe find new recruits. However, he would need someone he could rely on to go down into South Carolina and keep the militias supplied and organized. As it happened, Greene already had just the man in mind.

Continue reading...

[mayhemmaybe]

"You'd be surprised what sort of atrocities you can get away with if you lead authorities around in exhausting enough circles. My little brother is most definitely capable of winning that war of attrition, if only because he isn't just playing dumb."

[the-handsome-stranger]

Top 10 Hard Truths for Zelenskyy...

Ukraine cannot defeat or cause Russia to give up its aggression.

Ukraine has a dwindling number of soldiers and potential soldiers. Unless Turkey gets involved with its troops for Ukraine...then, it's WW III.

Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition; Russia can.

Each day of non-peace will bring the use of Russian tactical nuclear weapons and then, World War III a day closer.

IF Putin is not overthrown, he will continue to escalate this war to carnage levels unimagined.

Ukraine can go on to bloody Russia very badly, and then, Russia will wipe Ukraine out.

Counting on the always politically wavering EU to supply your essential combat and funding needs will produce a deadly disappointment.

Without the United States' HIMARS missile system, how long can you hold off massed Russian forces? Answer: You cannot.

You have NO cards to play, and contrary to your opinion, this IS a game where losing cannot be an option for you.

Kiss the American's ass, APOLOGIZE TO and Thank America PROFUSELY for its gracious support, wear a damn Saville Road suit (you can afford it with your pocketed Amercan cash) and sue for peace with American investment and its commercial presence in Ukraine to fend off any further Russian aggression.