#and watching the people that opposed them flee the country

[hussyknee]

Trying to explain what the fuck just happened in Lankan politics today.

The leftist party has won 159 seats out of 218 in the Parliamentary elections. The single biggest landslide win since we broke from the British and achieved universal franchise in 1948.

Any party achieving a super majority in the executive and legislative is, objectively speaking, bad. It disables checks and balances, which is a catastrophic thing for any democracy, and the only two other times it's happened for us has irrevocably eroded the fabric of civic rights and democratic freedom. Also, the reason the NPP won the North and East is that the colonized, genocided and subjugated people there have no faith in electoralism anymore. The way this government has engaged minority issues has been utterly abysmal and now they've been rewarded for it.

On the other hand:

The winners. Are all. Grassroots. Candidates.¹

We have voted out every single career criminal that's been barnacled into the Lankan political arena since before I've been alive. The fascist party has only three seats.² The other fascists didn't win a single seat. The neoliberal legacy party won none. There are only forty people in Parliament that represent any sort of dynastic political legacy. After 76 solid years of nothing but political dynasties.

This is barely five years after the Rajapaksas swept in and absolutely glutted the Parliament with their family members and cronies end to end.

This is the illegitimate interim government we had for most of the last 18 months. We literally, physically, chased the Rajapaksas out of the country and this fucking demon set up a puppet government just so he could finally sit in that goddamn chair and be the despot he'd always dreamed of in exchange for letting them all come back. He's now gone. His entire circle is gone.

THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GONE.

In US terms, just imagine that, five years from now, when Trump's GOP has control of everything, the entire GOP and the worst of the Dems are all purged from Congress and Senate, the Green Party in control of all three branches of government under a pro-union left-wing President and an unmarried female LGBT rights activist Vice President, and the Dems reduced to barely 20% of the House.

This is my anthropology professor. She joined politics from the small nascent leftist coalition to help keep the government accountable. She's now the Prime Minister and the most popular Parliamentary candidate in the nation's history. (Edit: She was knocked off first place by a dude in the final result. Boo.)

(On the other hand— the woman who helped make me a radical anarchist and literally helped write a book on political dissent and resistance...now is the state. Uh.)

But there are so many women in Parliament! We had the lowest female representation in a South Asian Parliament and some of them were from the list of seats reserved for parties rather than elected ones. Most were either anti-feminist conservative embarrassments, widows and daughters of elite politicians and neoliberal shills. It's still only an increase of a few percentage points (Edit: from the previous 5% to 10% in the final result!) but now we have elected academics, feminist advocates, activists! There Is a representative for Malaiyaha Tamils in the Central Province for the first time in history and it's a young woman! (Edit: now it's two female Malaiyaha MPS!!) This is the plantation community that still live in conditions closest to the slavery the British forced upon them two hundred years ago!

I'm like. Completely mindfucked. To be very very clear, the NPP coalition formed around the nucleus of the JVP that used to be communist but haven't been in 30 years, they're now just social democrats who are left of places like the US and UK, whose "left" is now center-right. They're only threatening to the Western mainstream media for some reason who can't stop bleating about how we have a "Marxist" government now. In reality, the actual chances for radical reform are still quite low, and the opportunity for further erosion is quite high with a super majority government regardless of affiliation.

On the other hand:

What the fuck.

Sometimes living through historical events is really damn amazing.

---

¹ Well, nearly. There are a few career politicians and a nepo baby but they aren't so bad either.

² Goddamn it, Baby Rajapaksa and Sri Lanka's answer to JD Vance have wormed their way in using the list of Constitutionally reserved party seats for non-elected members. FUCK the National List.

[dyinginfandom]

Been trying to put my frustration with what Israel is doing in Gaza into words for months. But I’m done with the bullshit from Zionists and their supporters

My grandfather was Hungarian and as part of a non political paramilitary youth organisation likely had to have a hand in the war I know this from his POW papers from 1945 in an American pow camp in Germany . He would later flee the soviets in Hungary after taking part in their attempted revolution. He abandoned his family; a wife and son and we don’t know what their fates were. He first went to Austria then to Turkey then the uk where he met my gran and they married in 1963 and moved away from her entire support system to a city with many Hungarian refugees like him working in cutlery works and steel factories. He’d never talk of the war or of his first family past them existing, his siblings families don’t know their fates other and with no one from his generation left we can only guess. He was an awful man who died an awful death alone because of his own actions.

I use this to preface what I’m about to say

He was forced to take part in a genocide and support it, I’m watching my government do that now, watching as universities label anti Zionism as antisemitism while my uni hosts one of the Brits who went over and fought for the IDF and was allowed to return while a girl who joined isis almost a decade ago just lost her appeal for her citizenship back. Both went over to partake in a foreign war and commit acts of terror, one is stateless and the other is allowed to walk around with no consequences. We aren’t allowed to protest on campus so the Palestine society held one off campus to try and stop him from visiting.

The university of east anglia has labelled these two quotes graffitied on campus as antisemitic and the BBC is reporting on this as such, antisemitism. They are anti Zionist. ‘Judaism opposes Zionism’ and ‘Zionism = colonialism’.

Aaron Bushnell an active duty US service man set himself on fire in protest of the war on Gaza.

Brazil’s president spoke out against the Zionism and Israel decided to have a word with the Brazilian ambassador but knowing what was coming Brazil recalled him

China has called out that Hamas should not be labelled as terrorist under international law as it is armed resistance.

Countries have cut funding to the UNRWA a relief group that exists because Israel refuses to call the Palestinians refugees or allow their return to their ancestral homes once it has stolen it

Israel is knowingly committing a genocide and has said it won’t listen to the ICJ

They are killing their own hostages that are being held by Palestine then cheering when 2 are saved while others lay dead murdered by their own hands.

They are executing young children in front of their parents who are then carrying them to hospital to hope for salvation.

They’re stealing belongings from walking canes to underwear from those they’ve killed or displaced to humiliate them for owning normal things.

They killed the Family of a six year old girl, Hind, while she was in the car with them then when the Red Crescent ambulance arrived which they allowed in they bombed it and killed her and the two paramedics, Ahmed and Yousef, who were there to save her.

During the Super Bowl they displayed propaganda while they bombed Rafah, the safe Zone they had told people to go to. There was a little girl, Sidra, hanging from a window!

They are targeting journalists and their families. Wael’s family was killed while he worked and he was reported, he was attacked with his camera man who was killed and he reported on it. Over 25 journalists killed

They have attacked every place where documents can be found to destroy them, mosques, churches, government buildings, universities, everything gone.

Egypt is building a buffer zone in the desert, Bissan a brave young journalist has talked of her fear of this desert buffer zone killing them

Canada has removed Palestine as a country of birth on passports

ITV filmed as a man with a white flag they had just interviewed and was walking way as he was murdered by a sniper

In the West Bank IDF shot a teenager at a family bbq then prevented his family getting him to an ambulance

Also in West Bank IDF dressed up as civilians walked into a hospital and assassinated a man incapacitated in a hospital bed and those at his bedside

THEY HAVE LABELLED ALL PALESTINIANS AS TERRORISTS!

Heck they’re allowed to stay in Eurovision, ‘October rain’ in name alone has political connotations meanwhile Russia and Belarus are banned and the Palestine flag has been banned - Iceland was fined the other year for a free Palestine banner.

This occupation, this genocide has been happening for over 75 years since the creation of Israel in the aftermath of ww2 but their want for this land goes back further. When Zionism was founded in the late 1800s they chose Palestine, a peaceful place where the abrahamic religions lived in peace, to be their land and no one else’s (did we not learn from the crusades?) in 1903 they got the support of the British govement then ww2 and the Holocaust happened and Britain ‘owning’ Palestine gave them what they wanted, Palestinians who had not been consulted or considered in this who’s homes were stolen fought against it and you get the war of 1948 where this kicks off.

When you look at their defenses for this we have ‘self defence for October 7th’ that isn’t an excuse for genocide and reminds me of Germany faking a polish invasion to invade them and kick off ww2. ‘They have hostages’ so do you and you’ve refused to exchange hostages for a ceasefire heck you’ve killed your own hostages in Gaza. ‘Palestine started it’ see my very very cut down explanation of the history.

Then there’s the classic ‘we can’t be committing a holocaust cos that happened to us’ see the cycle of abuse, the number of Holocaust survivors in poverty in Israel, and the other victims of the Holocaust cos everyone focuses just on the Jewish casualties of the Holocaust that 6 million number cos they’re the biggest proportion but there were 5 million other victims, political enemies of the reich, disabled people, lgbt, poc, Romani, Soviet pows, by making the Holocaust just a Jewish genocide in discussion you erase the rest of that genocide.

I put on les mis for a fanfic I’m writing and all I can think about instead of what I’m writing is what Palestine was and how we treat Palestine today.

I was labelled a nazi for my heritage growing up, just like Israel is calling Palestinian children Hamas. Only difference is that Hamas is closer to those of the Warsaw Getto or the French resistance than the Nazis. Because Israel’s laws against Palestine are extremely close to the Nazi laws against the Jews.

End Zionism on Israel and return Palestine to the Palestinians

FREE PALESTINE

[pumpkinsy0]

HAITIAN SHEPARDS HISTORY WOOOOO

TLDR: the shepards are immigrants from haiti who escaped from this dictatorship and found themselves in tulsa, tim made himself to be this intimidating guy because he wanted to protect his family, especially angela and curly, and that's also kinda how the shepard gang came to be

ALRIGHT SO QUICK CONTEXT, In the late 1950s, haiti was already facing political instability and economic challenges, so in the 1960s in haiti, this guy named papa doc came into power. He was ur average politician, when trying to get into office, he would cater to the needs of poor people and other marginalized groups, promising to address to their needs. Skipping past some electoral fraud, papa doc won through bribery, intimidation, and all around manipulation. When he was in power, he quickly made sure to try and keep that power and grow it, even creating this paramilitary force called the tonton macoutes. Anyone who opposed him were crushed,LITERALLY ANYONE who went against him were mostly jailed, tortured, or even killed, civilians, other haitian politicians, activist, ANYONE. And as you would guess, he would also censor the media, and made sure people were only glorifying his rule, and papa doc would essentially steal resources for himself, and ignore the needs of the haitian people.

NOW THE SHEPARDS IN HAITI, i would imagine that they of course had to flee, in fear for their lives however, of course it wasn't easy to do. Bc of papa doc, there were restrictions on immigration. Papa doc viewed immigration a threat to his power and would heavily surveil ppl who he saw as his enemies (aka people who went against what he wanted them to say). NOW i hc the shepards mother to have been this activist or AT LEAST someone who spoke out against what he was doing. Before she say him as this hope, but she quickly realized what was happening, tried to speak out against him, and got on his bad side, and was now not only heavily censored, but also bc now she wants to leave haiti, she's also being watched by papa doc's people. To make it clear, (NOT DOING MY MATH JUST GOING ON MY HEAD), tim is like AROUND a tween and angela and curly are like idk 9 or something, curly and angela dont really understand what's going on because their mom is changing, she's less outspoken and more depressed, but tim understands because he's been reading what his moms been saying and listening into her conversations with other activist. But back to what I was saying, their mother wants to leave haiti but papa doc's people is harassing not only her but her family, trying to stop them from leaving the country and spreading what's happening. At some point, their mom pulled tim aside and told him to protect angela and curly and that's just always been engraved in his mind. Now skipping over some other things that would really just deter me from what I want to do in this post, immigrating to the US was HARD, because of papa doc, but also bc the us is just SHITTY. It was literally just hard for haitians who wanted to move to get the legal documents the legal documents they needed to get to emigrate legally and even if they did, it would always jut be a very lengthy and complex journey, with NO guarantee of success

now up to this point, you can either see the shepards as legal immigrants or illegal immigrants, however because they get into a LOT of legal problems, im gonna say that they are legal immigrants cause they def would've been deported or somethin

NOW WHEN THEY GET TO THE US, haitians MOSTLy moved to states like florida or new york, and some other states I can't name off the top of my head rn, but I think they did have someone in the US who was willing to help them and that's how they got there, if i didn't just imagine this shit, the shepards canonically have a step father, and so I feel like that's how they got to america, maybe their mother married him for a green card or whatever, Im not fully fleshing this idea out, maybe ill do it later, but y'all get what i mean, someone helped the shepard immigrate out of haiti, and either their mom, their bio dad, or their step father got the job, and so they found themselves in tulsa

obviously theyre facing racial discrimination, its the 1960s in america, its like dead middle of the civil rights movement, noirisme in haiti is still popping off and goin strong, so while the shepards are in a VERY racist time, they themselves, dont feel down or bash themselves for being black, they are VERY MUCH comfortable being who they are and wouldn't change that, and because people stereotype that in black people as being "rude" and "aggressive" sometimes, that's exactly what happened to the shepards, ESPECIALLY because theyre dark skinned I wanna make that be known right now

Going deeper into how this impacted tim, curly, and angela now!!!

So obviously, they have thick haitian accents, how they pronounce their r's isn't really pronounced, they speak kinda slow bc they have to translate what theyre saying, and they get laughed at for that, and that's where tim like, wanted to prove himself and wanted to protect his family. Even before moving to the us, tim HAD to step up and take care of angela and curly because his mom was really caught up in other things, so when their in a COMPLETLEY NEW ENVIORMENT??? that ramped tf UP, tim tolerated absolutely no disrespect from ANYONE about his family, and like I said, because of those stereotypes about black people, ESPECIALLY dark skinned black people, he was basically villanized, ADDING ONTO THE FACT NOBPDY REALLY UNDERSTOOD HIM BECAUSE HES A HAITIAN IMMIGRANT AND COULDNT EXACTLY COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE THE WAY HE WANTED TO?????? yea he was villanized BAD, and this would happen with curly and angela too, dont think it didn't, and that's how the shepards started building this idea of being 'intimidating' and people you 'shouldnt mess with', they knew the area they were in was really dangerous, and so they used this system that was already against them to protect themselves and their family, but also because they can be really intimidating people and WILL beat a bitch up

And long story short since this post is ALREADY long as shit, but that's also how the shepard gang came to be!!! as they got more and more used to being in america, they made friends with the people they could trust and started out as this group of friends like the curtis gang, but then they saw how important it was to have a gang in these times, especially when it came to greasers vs socs, and became this scary gang

ANYWAYS YAP SESH OVER, i didn't really spell check or flesh out some ideas or anything like that cause im running off of my asthma medication rn and im very shakey but omggg if y'all have any questions about this do tell me this is very fun for me to do

[landfilloftrash]

It Begins

***

****

Summer days tended to be her least favorite of the seasons. It was a bright day, brighter than her eyes liked as the sun glared through the sea’s waves back up into its eyes, and she’d pulled up her hood, contracted her pupils, and closed its third eyelid to combat that, but even so, she sunk deeper into the folds of her robe like a petulant child at the audacity the waves had to be reflecting like knives into its eyes today.

When someone needed out of the country, or simply out of Ӕngelӕnd, they usually left in the night; the cover of darkness shielding the fleeing subjects and the owlin's eyes easily cutting through the shadows to discern what was actually there. At least the moon was always kinder to her eyes on the waters than the sun had ever been. But it wasn’t so stupid as going as far to nag the sun for something about the ocean, and she wasn’t going to hiss at the sea for a feature that made it beautiful; she just felt like complaining about a hurt within the sanctity of her mind as it waited for the ship to be off.

She had been sitting in the crow’s nest as she waited. And wait she did— Both to stay out of the crew’s way (they had more than enough people to set the riggings right, that rations and spare sails were stocked up, that everything was running as a tight ship should) simply due to her size, reputation, status. And staying up here was to have a, hah, bird’s eye view of the situation.

Ӕngelӕnd had a very specific set of superstitions— she wasn’t 100% sure if it extended past this place or if it was simply the Ӕnglish, however. 

A Priest on a ship was one thing, to get tongues wagging about religion and how badly it mixed with the sea, nevermind the gods of the sea and how temperamental they could be on their own. A woman on a ship was said to bring bad luck; everyone else on the spectrum was fine, but when a woman got on board it simply spelled doom. That had always made her laugh. A Priestess of the Blood Clerics set all the wagging tongues to silence, and pure fear in her presence. Eno was well aware of what blood clerics' reputations were. She herself had been one for more than a few years at this point, and the change from having outsiders of the church approaching her every day for everything and nothing at all, to them out right avoiding her was a stark contrast.

Not that it could blame them to be honest; the idea of someone being able to puppeteer your body into doing whatever they wanted you to do simply because you have blood was a horrifying concept— and the main reason she had stayed under counseling of the teachers and Saints for half a decade longer than her peers.

Quite honestly, it was rather eye-opening to see the shift of severity, if still open-minded teaching, that the Blood sect of the Church had. She knew going in, that it was going to be a little bit more firm in its guidance, opposed to something like Tempest or Life— but watching her Father eye each and every one of them with a fierce fire in his eyes as he talked calmly about what would happen should they have decided it would be funny to try their powers on an unsuspecting civilian was quite… the memory.

The snapping of the staff he had been holding in demonstration like a simple twig had also been quite expressive of his feelings on the matter.

(It had been after leading an afternoon sermon that a man approached her– the strong smell of medicine, along with the strict air suddenly surrounding her, giving away who it was as she turned to anticipate him.

“Father Dolmayan,” it greeted with what humanoids treated as a smile and a bow of the head, “what can I do for you? I hope you do not need me to be a test subject for your students again, I don’t have any injuries at the present moment.”

“Priestess Folook,” he gave a small bow from the shoulders in return, “Thankfully, no. I come bearing official business at the moment.”

More official than what he practiced? She let the ‘smile’ drop in favor of her curiosity— tilting its head in an offer to continue.

“You are not busy I take it?”

“Not anymore– is there somewhere you’d rather discuss this?”

He seemed to consider this for a moment. “Why don’t we take a walk in the forest? It would do me some good to walk and talk.”

Eno would be the first to admit one of its favorite pastimes was to simply exist in the forest and hear the sounds surrounding her, quiet any thought she might have had, but the idea of taking a walk and discussing official business had her on guard already. They should’ve sent Rollo with this news, it internally joked. He’s much better at all this.

They went together out into the woods and discussed smaller things first; how their respective jobs were going, small concerns or gripes, little victories and achievements, but nothing unusual until they were halfway through the woodland hike near the church.

“We have received word from the King that they request a cleric to be on a voyage to Nassau, and myself with a few others deemed that it should be you.”

“To Nassau?” she questioned, thinking of the People’s Republic. The enemies of the crown, a fierce and protective people, and often collated with a cult, which was incorrect if she had her sources straight. None of this was said aloud in the seconds that passed. “Whatever for?”

He side-eyed her, seemingly waiting for her to catch up, but it genuinely could not connect why they would want a cleric on this voyage. Priests already were frowned upon by sailors; she could quite literally only try to imagine why the King would want her kind of presence on board. And who had even decided it’d be her? She was no good with laws when they went against what it believed in, but then again, she wasn’t completely vocal with that particular opinion; and for good reason.

“It seems to be an attempt at taking the rebels back ‘into the fold’ as it were;” he finally explained at her continued confused look— perhaps she needed to work on conveying that expression. Only the Saints and the other beast-people seemed to understand that one; “finally re-become a part of the King’s nation.”

Ah. That explained a part of the puzzle, including an explosive argument between the King and her Saint, but didn’t explain her part in it all. “I can think of several better candidates for this than myself,” it mused, thinking of Eamon and Alvaro in particular with their more zealous determination; Order domain as they were, they’d be perfect for enacting the law and duty to the King. “It would be a couple days to summon them, but they would no doubt be up for the task. Far more invested in this sort of thing, you know?”

Dolmayan had started shaking his head about half way through its suggestion, and before she could try and convince the man that she was not the one to be tasked with this— he continued.

“The King seeks a Blood Cleric to attend on this mission.”

And suddenly things made a lot more sense; dread made itself at home, curling in a looping spiral around her heart and guts.)

But none of that was important at the moment, because she was keeping an eye out for a very specific someone.

This someone should theoretically be easy to spot. Especially considering the man was— Well. A triton. There was nothing intentionally racist about the thought, it was simply, tritons kind of stuck out in a place of land-faring people. Not to mention he was an entire admiral. Both these visual cues combined should make spotting him fairly easy. He just. Hadn’t arrived yet. At least not under her watchful eyes. Maybe he’d shown up days beforehand? Simply lurking in the Captain’s cabin? She’dve assumed it would have heard something from him at this point, especially considering the frazzled look of the one who greeted her when it had arrived, so it had to assume he wasn’t here. So perhaps, was he going to be one of those people that showed up at the very last second? She wasn’t sure, but it was certainly reaching that point in time amongst the ship’s crew.

And just as she was wondering about all of that– she spotted him. A little hard not to; he was the shade of something dark in a sea of pale, wearing a mother of pearl armor set and wielding a trident— presumably befitting of his station.

She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, lie. He was absolutely stunning.

Eno watched him strut— because, that’s what the man was doing, he was very clearly strutting— onto the deck of the ship and watched with a sharp eye what everyone was doing. Clearly, he was in his element.

His aura… well, whatever she’d been expecting, and had previously experienced from similar ranks of army men, was not at all what this man exuded. Underneath some face paint, or simply a creative use of makeup, it couldn't tell, to boot. Confidence, arrogance, sure those were standard, and were detectable, but the main thing that caught its attention at the moment was the fact it nearly wasn’t, under the.. nigh almost stabilizing facade he seemed to bear in the face of his underlings. Not the best word to use but it was the only one she had. He was sharp, but not a cold presence as he walked beside the gesticulating man. Cutting through chaos with aplomb, but with a slide to his step so as not to disrupt anything. 

So this was Chief Admiral Sir Gaura Arzorath. 

Definitely not what she’d expected, but that, in of itself, was to be expected, she thought. Can’t judge a book by its reputation, and definitely not just because of its fancy cover.

Eno watched him for a little longer, trying to see if he was perhaps abominably rude from up here, but it was simply too loud for her to hear any conversation not yelled at 60 decibels louder than a normal conversational tone. But luckily– and just as unluckily for her sensitive hearing— it didn’t have to strain too hard to be able to hear something after the man talking to Admiral Arzorath disappeared from her current viewpoint. There was a specific sound approaching her– the creaks of the ropes and wood getting louder as someone climbed up to the crow’s nest.

The apprehensive face of a human peeked over the sides of the nest, and she eyed the man with unconcealed curiosity; the expression tended to look very, very creepy to non-avians, and that was exactly what she was aiming to stir.

“Ah– Madame Priestess?” he stuttered, his eyes darting across her face, and she could almost hear the wood give a creak from how tight he was holding it.

“That is I,” she rumbled out, ignoring his fear politely, “what do you need?”

“A-ah, begging your pardon, ma’am, but Admiral Gaura Arzorath is formally asking for your presence.”

“I will be down in a moment,” it hummed. “Run along.”

The human didn’t need to be told twice. He nodded earnestly and startled hustling his way back down from the crow’s nest, giving her a moment to ponder her options.

She didn’t know quite how to approach this. Clever woman she was not, but it was at the very least an imaginative one. Everything she’d heard on the streets about this Admiral pointed towards him being a very bad person to approach with the idea of perhaps not binding the Nassauean people’s will to her own, and forcing them upon the ships as prisoners— or killing them should they be able to resist her hold; but from how the people surrounded him, he was not all the stories spoke of him to be; but that proved absolutely nothing about how he felt about this particular mission.

As the blood cleric tasked with this duty, she would very much like to protest this course of action— possibly directly to the King himself, if it didn’t think it might get immediately arrested and possibly hanged for it. She doubted the second part, but hey, her imaginative anxiety was allowed a little free reign; Eno wasn’t quite sure of the King’s policy of a sole someone protesting about a given order right in his face, especially in regards to what amounted to conquest.

For now, she thought, climbing onto the railing of the nest; perching, I’ll keep this facade. Best to have people not questioning my secrecy if that’s what they expect from me, rather than them know me as I actually am.

She leapt down from the top of the crow’s nest, feeling the air rushing past but not hearing a sound, and with an easy swoop of its widened wings to catch the air and slow the fall just enough as she landed with a crouch– perhaps a bit hard on her knees— before rising to its full height and tucking her partially extended wings back behind her. 

It made for an entrance, and one that will keep people from bothering her. 

“Admiral Gaura Arzorath,” she intoned with a bow of the head.

“Ah,” he exhaled, eyeing her in wary curiosity, but keeping polite. Smart. “You’re our blood cleric then?”

“That would indeed be I.”

“Well then, Priestess… ehm,” he blanked, until the human from earlier whispered ‘Folook!’ to him, “Folook, my apologies, busy morning– welcome aboard my vessel. I assume you’ve been informed of the task you’ve been assigned?”

“Yes, sir.” She hummed, pulling the letter from the King from with the folds of her sleeves.

“Good!” he nodded, clapping his hands together with a little flick of his tail, and eyed her letter’s seal with a careful eye before ignoring it entirely. “Good, good, good. Arthur!” 

“Aye, sir?” the human next to him startled to attention. So his name was Arthur. That was nice to know.

“Can you bring some buckets to my cabin? Don’t need to be filled or anything, I can do that, but it did just occur to me. It would be wonderful if that could happen.”

“A-aye, sir? Filled with..?” 

“Seawater,” he responded with aplomb. “But again, I can do that.”

“Also,” he pointed a finger up in sudden remembrance, “Would you mind gathering the men once we’re about to make way? I’d like to say a few words before we shove off.”

“Aye, Admiral,” he nodded, and hustled off to start shouting something to the helmsman, lost within the general cacophony.

Sir Admiral Gaura Arzorath was a tad… goofy. 

She refrained from giving a smile at the thought. Just because he’s goofy does not mean he hasn’t earned the title of ‘The King’s Favorite Murderer’, just means there’s a person behind it, like there always is.

So instead she watched Arthur run off, slightly amused. It was always interesting to watch someone go about their job, and seeing the person-to-person interaction, even briefly, where the only reason why Arthur seemed to be so on edge was due to her and the ship about to set off?; she enjoyed that it was only that and not the Admiral himself.

“Now, ehm,” it turned its attention back to the aforementioned Admiral, who’s smile turned slightly rueful as she turned back to him, “Madame Folook. If you wouldn’t mind, I have a couple of questions for you?”

Questions? This could very well be interesting. “Ask away, Admiral.”

He pursed his lips as he lifted his hands in a steepled position for a moment, debating something, before pointing at her with the hands’ positioning continued. “What does a Blood Cleric… do?”

..Huh?

“I beg your pardon..?”

“I mean no offense–!” he quickly waved his hands in a gesture so fast they blurred, “I just! Don’t know what Blood Clerics do! Or why you’re specifically on my ship!”

His hands stopped moving so fast so that he could apparently cross his arms across his chest in a bit of a defensive maneuver. “I like knowing these things, y’know? Good for an Admiral to know the role of everyone on his vessel.”

Oh. Heavens.

She fought the simultaneous urges to start giggling uncontrollably and to stare at him in incredulous shock. It was getting whiplash here. He had no clue what she was. He had no idea what its purpose on this voyage was. It settled for a weird in-between where it gave him a strange, if a bit ominous, smile.

“Let’s start simply. Do you know what Clerics are capable of?”

“Of course, of course,” he waved a hand in dismissal before crossing it back across his chest. “I’m not that unknowledgable on the subject, just specifically your sect.”

“Then you’re aware that us spellcasters have different domains that help us in a range of different ways, and those domains are usually titled after what they are related to, or have major control over.”

He nodded diplomatically with curiosity in his eye as his tail flicked in her direction. ‘Go on.’

“Clerics of the blood, control that.”

Arzorath stared at her blankly for a few moments as his tail continued gently swishing side to side, gears clearly turning within his head. And then– 

“Oh!” He exclaimed, his eyes going bright with realization, before a slight pause caused his brow to become ever so slightly furrowed in continued realization. “Oooh. I see. Hm. Yes.”

The admiral raised a curled finger to his lips as Arzorath looked down in thought, muttering loud enough for her to hear as the swishing of his tail became sharper. “Hm. Alright, yes, now I see. Well. Your services won’t have any need of use, hopefully, once we approach them with our ships. Three Galleons against a small group of pirates? They’ll bend a knee quickly.”

Before she could think of trying to disagree with it being a ‘small group’ or agree with his hope of not using her abilities, he clapped his hands together with a fierce final slice of his tail through the air. “Alright! I understand perfectly now. It is truly rather unfortunate that your abilities are even possibly needed. Barbaric, you know? Glad to have you on our side— and once again; Welcome aboard ‘The Queen Eliza’.”

She blinked as he twisted on his heel and marched towards the helm with a determined air.

Quick and thoughtful; the tactician he was rumored to be shining through with a threatening gleaming blade, but just a bit oblivious to situations at hand, dulling that shadowy shine.

It truly had no idea what to think about this strange triton.

All it could truly do was eye him as he got to the top of the galleon’s stairs, to the railing peering over the rest of the deck, and called for the rest of the people’s attentions with a sharp whistle that sliced through the general noise like a guillotine.

The noise didn’t silence instantly, lingering briefly like a consciousness, before eyes were dragged to the man himself. He quietly cleared his throat, for none but those nearest and the sharpest ears to hear. “Men, some of you know what we are gathered on board for, what our next task is. Some of you may not. Regardless of whether or not either of these facts are true, I am here to inform you exactly what that quest is.”

“You all have, no doubt, heard of the pirates that plague our waters. Their leader, the pirate lord Lockwell. May have even encountered them yourself on the seas for one reason or another— you may have also heard that our King has been attempting peace treaties with those scallywags, and you may have heard that they have been failing.” His eyes swept across the deck with ice steeled there. “Today marks the day that those rumors come to fruition; they have rejected our words of peace and stand staunchly against us.”

There was a ripple amongst the crew; the beginning of a complete understanding of their undergoing. Arzorath only continued cementing their realization as his voice raised amongst the murmurs; “We are to storm the heart of their power, their rebellion, and to show them our might. In three days, we will arrive on the shores of these rebels, and finally take them into custody. By force if we must, willing if at all possible, but by all means necessary. We fight for our country, for honor, and for duty. For this is our duty to the King, it is our duty for God. Remember above all else; God is true, under Him we are permitted. Give what you must, take it all back.”

The brief silence that took hold of the ship was backed by the calls of the docks, the rush of the sea. She peered at him from the bow. Small on this monster of a ship, yet commanding the area with little effort.

“We make way immediately; for Nassau,” he ordered sharply. “Godspeed to us all.” 

“You heard him, men!” called Arthur with a bellow, “Unfurl the sails, raise the anchor! To Nassau!”

As the admiral swept away into the depths of the ship, a flurry of activity seized the crew once again with a fierce rejuvenation, putting the activity from earlier to shame. Calling to one another up in the riggings and masts, swinging to and fro with pure confidence, and down below, an echo from the boards underneath as they were pulling the anchors in triplicate.

An admiral indeed.

As it felt the ship begin to groan and move, echoed like a howl from a pack from the following two vessels of 'The Queen Eliza', it turned her head westward.

Upon the high seas it was to be.

***

Prologue; One - Two - Three - Four

High Seas; It Begins (here you are!) - Something's Wrong - Blood in the Water pt. 1

[megashadowdragon]

New Amazon Show “Venerates Satan & Demons,” Crew Debates Religion & Fiction

youtube comments

They made Lilith the first Feminist....and Lucifer was just a creative liberal art student that his conservative family didn't like

Hazbin Hotel is to the Christian faith as Disney's Hercules is to the actual Greek mythology they absolutely have nothing in common.

My main gripe with the show is that when Charlie interacted with Adam, he talked just as degenerately as the people in hell, every other word out of his mouth was the F word. It would make so much more sense if they behaved in an over-the-top moral way to the point that it's even annoying. The way they did it makes no sense.

Blasphemy isn’t supposed to make sense. This is the diabolical intent of the show. “Being primarily a sin of the tongue, it will be seen to be opposed directly to the religious act of praising God. (2) It is said to be against God, though this may be only mediately, as when the contumelious word is spoken of the saints or of sacred things, because of the relationship they sustain to God and His service…” See everyone, no difference between heaven and hell, do as thou wilt. See, it’s funny too. Nevermind that when you watch media your brainwaves enter a sleep like state and you are easily programmed….There is a reason they call it programming.Show less

They got a lot of shit for Alastor's playing card having voodoo symbols, because they didn't get "permission" to use voodoo symbols. I wasn't aware there was an authority on voodoo that had to give permission for it to be used in art works or that it was supposed to be exclusive to any race.

A five minute search could teach you more than Tim does about the subject in this video. This inversion of the Christianity is nothing novel or new, it has been done by Luciferarians who portray Lucifer as the enlightened bearer of light. Variations of this theme are found in the occult and in the fables of the Freemasons. Before that it can be found among the Cathars and Gnostics who portray the God of the Old Testament as evil.

How could lillith be “strong and independent “ and then decide to flee if she didn’t initially have free will

It’s funny that they present Adam as some sort of tyrant, when he was a pretty weak willed man in the actual Bible. He just sort of did his thing, then Eve came over & was like, “that over there told me to eat this thing we were told not to eat, you should have some to.” & he was like, “well…you’re my wife & I want to be with you, so I guess…”

I agree with what Libby had said. The glorification of evil is not something we should let be pushed into society. Yes I get you say that it also kind pokes fun at woke people by them being the ones in hell, but if some kids sees it and doesn't get those points except what the main stuff thats being said. I know people will say "well kids see worse" or "this isn't for kids away". When I was growing up I saw South Park, the Simpsons, Family Guy, AquaTeam Hunger Force, Moral Oral, Robot Chicken, and other crude shows. I used to say alot of things that even some stuff I didn't fully even understand, but I would say it cause I felt like the edgy thing to do.Show less

The initial pilot was pretty funny. Very adult orientated though. Then, during the 'Summer of Love' the producers and cast literally held a YT livestream where they raised funds to pay the legal fees of rioters.

That's very disappointing to hear. I love the show because Episode 4 is basically anti-pron propaganda. I want to support that, but I don't want to support destroying this country.

Let's just say there's a reason Hollywood and the media will openly mock Christians and Christianity but not Islam and Muslims. Now think of the difference between the two in how each group handles said critique and insult of their religion.

@bottlepiecemuses

this show is 500% NOT FOR KIDS when will boomers learn that animation =/= childrens content you'd think the past two decades of shows like southpark, rick and morty, and "happy tree friends" would have proven this much to them

Lilith is... part of biblical apocrapha. Technically non-canon but she pops up frequently as well. Sort of like how hell being divided into nine circles is also, technically, non-canon but frequently shows up in depictions of it.

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

god I remember being a teenage girl (well "girl" but I hadn't connected the dots there yet) in 2016 and being told I knew absolutely nothing about how the government worked and that all of my opinions were copy-pasted from the internet and therefore wrong. I went to a Christian based career academy and watched classmates and teachers throw parties and bring in red cupcakes after the election and felt like I was going insane. Now a lot of those classmates and teachers drone about how they "couldn't possibly have known how badly trump would run the country" as if I hadn't been told I was an idiot for daring to disagree with them. And the ones who haven't woken up just double down and act like republicans are some second coming of christ while me and my friends flee our home state because it's against the law to take a shit in a public restroom. It's fucking insane and I refuse to dote on idiots who voted for trump in 2016 bc they "didn't know better".

I'm sorry, anon. I remember 2016 all too well, it was my senior year of high school into my freshman year of college, and I had a bit of an advantage with living in one of the bluest cities in the country. I would have felt even more insane if I had still been in Catholic school and if most people I knew were Trump voters. I had the bad experience of two white dudes coming into one of my college classes the next day with MAGA hats, but trust me, most people on campus that day were absolutely despondent and in despair, and rightly so. I can only imagine how it must've felt to have had the whole rest of the school in MAGA heaven.

Everyone who acts like they didn't know things could possibly go so badly as a result of 2016 are liars, honestly. It was so clear, it was cartoonishly clear, but for various reasons, people didn't take it seriously and are trying to do damage control for how badly they fucked up. We have the right to judge them forever for it, both the Trump voters (them most of all, obviously) and those who opposed Trump but refused to vote for the only person who could've defeated him. The stakes couldn't have been higher, it couldn't have been an easier morality test, and they failed miserably, and that's no one's fault but their own.

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

Hey. I wonder if I could ask some hot stuff about 🇮🇱 & 🇵🇸, bc you seem to have made up your mind about it. I'm personally torn and feel terrible about it. From a worldly standpoint, 'Free 🇵🇸' makes sense. 🇮🇱 got overthrown by the Romans like many empires have been. That didn't give them a rightful claim to the land again in 1948. Now if you operate strictly based on who lives there presently, in a secular society both parties would have rights to the land if they could look past the religions, bc - from a worldly view! - a religion is not land-based. Either you can live your faith anywhere, or smth is wrong with your religion because it isn't universally inclusive. This is the upside for Christians - that we are citizens of heaven and of the Spirit. Thus we can live and practice anywhere. HOWEVER. From a BIBLICAL standpoint. Israel is Israel. Whenever 🇮🇱 decides to fight for its borders, God will support it bc he wants them to have this particular piece of the earth, even though they NEVER managed to fully pursue this command throughout history so far. But as soon as 1 Israeli decides to fight for the land of God's inheritance, they will have victory like Gideon with his 300 dudes. Bc that's what they're supposed to do. 🇮🇱 is 🇮🇱 not per the rights of any traditional culture, bc that got dispersed centuries ago. If 🇮🇱 is 🇮🇱, it's bc the GOD OF HUMANITY distributes patches of land to people across the earth, and he gave ISRAEL to ISRAEL. What human would go against the word of the everlasting God??? If God says that this - extremely well mapped out - strip in the desert goes to 🇮🇱, it is very stupid to try and fight against that!!!!! Bc as a Palestinian with legit cultural claims to your ancestral home, you STILL suddenly find yourself fighting against the Lord himself, who doesn't care that you're currently Muslim and who has the power and the superior rights to uproot your story. I truly believe that if Palestinians voluntarily "gave" 🇮🇱 back to 🇮🇱, they would receive their own land from God as a reward. HOWEVER. Palestinians are presently not even allowed to flee. They are massacred bc neither Israel or Egypt is giving them the courtesy to at least live, even if they need to restart elsewhere. And THAT'S what truly bugs me about the whole war right now. That Palestinians are slaughtered. And I have to wonder - shit, this is so Old Testament - are they under a curse to be annihilated just bc they are the descendants of 🇮🇱's old enemies? Do they HAVE to be killed bc it is prophesied that the Gaza strip WILL be 🇮🇱's again, and if Gazans lived, they would always be there to object to that? Look,... 🇮🇱 will be 🇮🇱, and it will not be uprooted again. We know that from Scripture. So to fight that is just dumb from the biblical perspective. This is why Western/Christian societies sit on their thumbs and do nothing, bc they know what will happen and that it must happen and so they "help" bring it forth by watching it play out and not intervening and by making it a self-fulfilling prophecy at that. That's why there's no governmental compassion for 🇵🇸. People in high places KNOW. But Palestinians still have the right to live!!! God WANTS Palestinians to LIVE, either in peace with 🇮🇱 or in their own country somewhere else!! So why are they dying??? Why is it so OT over there??? Is it bc to break the OT curses of slaughtering your enemies, they would actually have to all become Christians so that they can enter the NT covenant of love and forgiveness that transcends all cultures, all genocides, all skin colors, and all perceived 'rights' to anything?? I doubt it would work if the region became secular, bc it's so hard for people to let go of justified hatred. So anyway. Why am I still speaking about OT style massacres and curses in 2024??? Do I have a point? My point is: People shouldn't die just bc they accidentally have the wrong faith and God must oppose that simply bc he cannot tolerate anything but the truth. People shouldn't die for that. Yeah I'll go lay in a ditch and get cancelled now, good luck with my post.

thanks for this, anon. I appreciate you reaching out to me to give me this. it's a slab of text I'm not fully comprehending, in truth - but I believe that antisemitism is wrong, that Israel is the ancestral home of the Jewish people, and that this war shouldn't happen. deaths of Palestinians is abhorrent as deaths of Jews are: however also, antisemitism is aimed specifically at Jews and hence there's antisemitism mixed in to the deaths of Jews (I don't know if I'm making sense). if Palestinians gave Israel to the Jews, I don't think a massacre such as we may see in the future would happen. I don't believe the Israelis are monsters. monsters is the wrong terminology, anyway - because even Hitler was human. and I could be wrong! but I persist in my belief that things would work out somehow if Israel was given back to the Jews.

I'm not entirely sure what you were going to ask me, to be honest - please come back and ask questions if you want! anyway, I'll tag as #israel anon so you can find any subsequent posts :) God be with you

[queeranarchism]

I’m not sure why all the leftists seem to be responding to the invasion of Ukraine by posting ‘no war but class war’. Like, what do you mean? Just what action are you advocating for there?

I’ve been trying to analyze who this could be for and I’ve arrived at:

If your followers are mostly Russian soldiers, then you’re telling them to reject the current war and go fight a class war instead. In that case I agree with you. Carry on.

If your followers are mostly Ukrainians, I don’t agree with you. If I lived in Ukraine, I hope I would be brave enough to pick up a gun and fight back because I have spoken to enough Russian activists to know that I do not want to live under Putin’s rule or under any puppet-regime of his. (In fairness, I am probably not that brave and I would probably flee the country instead, but that would have nothing to do with ‘choosing the class war’ and I wouldn’t be proud of it.)

If your followers are leftists from any other part of the world: are you just telling them to keep on doing what they were already doing and oppose any military intervention against Russia? Is that it? Or am I missing something?

Historically, the slogan ‘no war but class war!’ gets used when two countries start a mutually aggressive war against each other and it is said by the population that is subjected to the draft, not by outside spectators.

If I’m honest, it seems to me like a lot of people are just posting ‘no war but class war’ to try to say something that sounds cool, when they actually have nothing meaningful to say.

Because the situation sucks. Most of us don’t want our own countries to go to war against Russia (and it looks like all our governments agree with that actually). And that makes sense because fuck, no one wants a nuclear war and Putin is definitely capable of starting one. But we also see an imperialist dictator just trampling on some other country and probably preparing to install a government that’s loyal to his dictatorship. And we know that’s wrong and we know the people of Ukraine will suffer as a result. And watching an injustice unfold without intervening doesn’t feel great.

Is ‘no war but class war!’ a stand-in that sounds cooler than ‘I don’t want anybody to help Ukraine because that could escalate the scale of the war?’. Is that it? Are you uncomfortable just saying that because it doesn’t sound radical enough?

And look, I don’t have any of the answers or anything more meaningful to say. Unless Ukrainians manage to bog down the Russian army in a long term guerrilla war, I think Putin’s expansionism will probably continue and I do not know what to do against an expansionist dictator with a nuclear arsenal. I do not think that there is any action that I can take right now that will help. I might just have to sit with that discomfort for now.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

In Brazil's Amazon, there's little political cost to destroying the rainforest

Word was spreading across the Indigenous territory: The land invaders were preparing to attack. Remote villagers said they were surrounded by armed horsemen. Authorities warned of violence. A neighboring tribe said that “blood could be spilled at any moment.” And in one bitterly disputed stretch, a slight man stood before a wooden house, fearing that such a moment had arrived.

Kawore Parakanã, a leader of the Parakanã people, had ventured miles into the jungle in May with three warriors to track the invasions that have made this Indigenous land in Pará state one of the Amazon’s most deforested. Up ahead lay an illegal clearing. Beyond it was a wooden shack. Outside the dwelling, a chain saw coughed awake.

“Kawore,” one of the warriors said, “someone is home.”

They considered their options. One was to fight, to take back the land. But they had traveled unarmed, and Kawore believed they’d be killed. Another was to seek help — but from whom? He couldn’t go to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who says restrictions within Indigenous territory have impeded the country’s economic development. He couldn’t go to the surrounding communities, populated by newcomers who eye his territory with avarice.

But most of all, he couldn’t go to the mayor, one of the most powerful and feared men in the Amazon, known by some as “the god of São Félix.”

It’s not just that Mayor João Cleber Torres had aligned himself with the land grabbers. It’s that he has been described — by federal attorneys, police, news reporters, government-funded researchers and a federal judge — as one himself.

Torres moved to São Félix do Xingu in 1981, when it was little more than dense forest. He is then alleged to have built what federal attorneys described in an internal memo as a large criminal organization that butchered the jungle — first extracting its precious wood, then stealing the land and selling it to be cleared for pasture. Torres, attorneys wrote in the memo, orchestrated “dozens of homicides,” assembled a network of 100 gunslingers, and violently seized territory from the weak and the isolated, including in this very Indigenous territory.

Police reports show that he was investigated for homicide in 2002. His criminal file links him to two cases of attempted homicide in 2003 and 2005. Records indicate that he has been charged with illegal deforestation, fined more than $2.4 million for deforestation and accused by federal attorneys, in 2016, of subjecting farmworkers to slavery-like conditions.

The catchphrase that one Brazilian journalist and residents attribute to him: “Either you sell the land to me, or I’ll buy it from your widow.”

Torres, 61, has never been convicted of any crime. He said he opposes illegal deforestation and has always followed environmental laws. He dismissed all allegations of wrongdoing as unproven and said publishing them would potentially be a “criminal act against my honor.”

“In our country, we have a well-structured, well-designed justice system, based on fundamental juridical principles and guided by international human rights,” Torres said in a statement. “No one else is authorized to act as the judiciary, issuing moral convictions against my name, as is happening here, gravely wounding our justice system and my fundamental rights.”

In a region where people amass wealth and power through deforestation, and where the local leaders charged with enforcing environmental laws are often the very people alleged to have broken them, Torres is just one of many Amazon officeholders accused of environmental misdeeds. But few command a city as vast or ecologically threatened as São Félix, which routinely posts some of Brazil’s highest deforestation and carbon emission rates.

One of its most endangered forests belongs to the Parakanã in the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory, where Kawore stood watching the wooden house.

The only thing he could do, he decided, was flee. It was too dangerous to confront the invader. He also worried about antagonizing Torres. In January, three environmentalists had been killed along a forested patch of the Xingu River that property records show had been claimed by the mayor’s brother. The crime remains unsolved. The Torres brothers have denied involvement, but that hadn’t quieted the suspicions in the community.

Kawore turned to leave. He wouldn’t go to the wooden house. He wouldn’t meet the man who lived there, Erasmino Ferreira do Santos, 71. He wouldn’t hear Ferreira say how he’d come to this land, hacked down the forest to graze cattle and felt no remorse. The settler knew the mayor was on his side.

“The best person,” Ferreira said. “He helps us so much.”

In the Amazon, there is little political cost to destroying the forest. Here, a vice mayor in Mato Grosso is cited three times for deforestation and is reelected the next year. A mayor in Amazonas is arrested and accused by federal police of participating in a protest that destroyed an environmental law enforcement base — and stays in office. The “King of Gold Mining,” as he was dubbed by a national magazine, is sentenced to nearly five years for illegal deforestation — but coasts to reelection as a mayor in Pará.

Such cases are not rare.

A Washington Post analysis of thousands of federal infractions and candidate data in the Amazon has found that accusations of environmental wrongdoing against members of the region’s political class are not an anomaly but a defining characteristic. In recent decades, as deforestation has pushed the biome toward what scientists warn could be its collapse, the very people accused of playing a role in that destruction have come to wield significant political power over it.

The Post found that those accused of wrongdoing by federal environmental law enforcement have pumped tens of millions of dollars into political campaigns in the past two decades and won public office more than 1,900 times. Taken together, the electoral victories and campaign financing have formed a parallel political system, law enforcement officials say, that has undermined attempts to safeguard a natural resource that scientists warn must be preserved to avert catastrophic climate change.

“This is the rule, not the exception,” said Alexandre Saraiva, who was chief of the federal police in Amazonas state until last year. “Those who deforest the Amazon completely dominate local politics, both through economic power and through violence. The representatives of the people are, in fact, the representatives of those who deforest.

Continue reading.

[atinystraykid]

I posted 4,923 times in 2022

That's 4,923 more posts than 2021!

288 posts created (6%)

4,635 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@babychicklix

@atinystraykid

@passion-of-my-own-world

@sanchelinz

@yonglixx

I tagged 4,020 of my posts in 2022

Only 18% of my posts had no tags

#stray kids - 1,422 posts

#ateez - 780 posts

#tomorrow x together - 257 posts

#enhypen - 188 posts

#oliver talks - 160 posts

#wonho - 109 posts

#onlyoneof - 104 posts

#the boyz - 63 posts

#beautiful art - 56 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#i think it’s weird how people only mention this related to abortion - it’d be a great way to help poor pregnant people in any circumstance

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

OPPOSE THE BAN ON TRANS ATHLETES IN IOWA

"We are asking Kim Reynolds, the Iowa Senate, and Iowa House of Representatives to overturn the passing of bill HF2416.

This bill invalidates trans girls and women as girls and women. It will inevitably increase rates of depression, suicide, and self-harm in queer Iowans by enforcing discrimination and violence against them.

Trans people need your help NOW. Sign this petition to show you do not agree with the passing of this bill."

233 notes - Posted March 10, 2022

#4

BibleBuild is objectively the funniest name combination ever. It could be the name of a Christian tradwife Instagram account trying to sell you an overpriced book about how marriage should be build on the Bible. It could be some really niche YouTube channel exclusively dedicated to recreating Bible scenes with woodwork. But no, it’s just two actors from the mafia gay sex show

611 notes - Posted November 8, 2022

#3

Here is how you can help LGBT+ Ukrainians now!

"After the invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, LGBT+ and rainbow families, as well as human rights defenders, are facing imminent danger. Many are trying to flee the country.  LGBT+ people were already vulnerable before the attack, and are now even more at risk of human rights abuses by Russian troops. Escaping is difficult, and the conditions are chaotic.  Kyiv Pride, Insight, and other partner organizations are providing support to help get LGBT+ folks safely out of the country and provide critical resources to those who must stay.

The next couple of days are crucial. Every donation will help save lives and provide protection.

Help local LGBT+ organizations on the ground provide safety, shelter, and support to Ukrainian LGBT+ people now!"

713 notes - Posted March 2, 2022

#2

As someone who has never watched KinnPorsche but follows a lot of people who post about it, I feel like I know the entire plot and could perfectly summarize what it is about... and then I see another gifset on my dash and go "What the fuck is this show even about"

1,791 notes - Posted July 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Something that horrifies me is that I keep seeing people who claim they support neurodivergent people and at the same time openly advocate for “erasing” people with Down syndrome. If “Let’s fight for a world without autism” makes you upset, if you can see how wrong it would be if people said “No autistic baby is a wanted baby - parents deserve better”, if “Not giving birth to autistics will save money and vulnerable resources” sounds like a horrifying take to you, then I really hope you keep that energy when people say those things about people with Down syndrome.

You don’t get to pick and choose which people with brain-based disabilities are worthy of human rights.

4,138 notes - Posted September 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[barnesbabee]

𝓹𝓵𝓪𝔂 𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓮 - 𝓯𝓲𝓷𝓪𝓵

|| ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ || ⇜ᴘʀᴇᴠɪᴏᴜꜱ - 21

⟿ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: No sensible person would turn down their boss if they looked good as good as Seonghwa. But maybe they would wish they had…

⟿ ᴄᴏɴᴄᴇᴘᴛ: CEO!Seonghwa x reader, bestfriend!Yunho x reader || Social Media!AU || no gender specified for the reader

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ: (send me a DM or an ask to be added) @ateezappreciation @shinyddeonghwa @lilithpooped @cloudyyeonnie@yeosangmystar @wooyoung-a @sanisms @mingismoon @lovelyvitamin @anawwyd @annasbannas @im-just-trying-to-survive-man @uglychildd @oddlittlefandomist @hwahomie @jin-neck-shaft @lovelyvitamin @yeosangmystar @skmoonchild @lovelymultiwrites @sunwooyoung

Panic settled in the room as Seonghwa's words echoed in your heads. Yunho was dead, Mingi disappeared, San wasn't waking up and the body was gone.

And meanwhile, you were getting railed in Seonghwa's office. You felt sick to your stomach, not knowing what to do, or where to even start.

"Someone say something!" Jongho yelled, at the top of his lungs, finally breaking his calm character.

The silence in the room was heavy and you suddenly felt as if you couldn't breathe, as if someone was gripping your throat from the inside. As if on cue, San groaned and his eyes fluttered open.

"What the fuck?..." He groaned, as he sat up straight with the help of one hand.

San rubbed the back of his head with his other hand, hissing as he moved it up and down slowly.

You and Seonghwa ran towards him and knelt beside the man.

"San what happened!?"

San sat against the sofa, feeling too sick and too dizzy to sit up straight on his own. He took a couple of breathsm trying to recollect what happened before he blacked out.

"There really isn't much to say, right after Y/N left Mingi asked me to get him something from the kitchen and when I came back someone, I'm assuming Mingi, hit me with something in the back of the head. Next thing I know I'm waking up next to Jongho."

Seonghwa stood up, visibly stressed and irritated.

"Y/N I- I can't take this anymore. I'm tired, I'm stressed out, I wake up, go to sleep and go through the day stressed but I try to keep calm and be reasobale but I just can't anymore! I need to rest, I need time!" Jongho said.

His voice was shaky, his face was red and his eyes were desperate and tired. He had huge bags under his eyes, and he looked as if he wanted to cry, but was too tired to do so.

"I... I know. I know what you're feeling because I'm feeling it too, but the body is gone, and you know that if the body is found we'll all be questioned by the police and if he turns himself in he will also be questioned by the police and we both know that in either case they will be asking questions. The body is decomposing! They'll start asking why he didn't come right away, what happened between the murder and the confession, and it doesn't take much for Mingi to break! If he goes down he'll bring us with him!"

Your voice was unstable from crying, and you, just like every other person in the group, regretted helping Mingi. You should have stayed mad at him. You shouldn't have babied him and helped him cover up a murder. But it was too late, friendship and compassion won over you as if you were in a kid's cartoon where the power of friendship could overcome anything. But it didn't.

"Each of you get in one of my cars. We're splitting up and looking for him. Keys are in the ignition, let's go. The sooner we find him, the sooner it will all be over."

Seonghwa turned his back and started walking towards the garage, giving them no time to oppose themselves to the plan, or to complain at all.

Four motors roared in the garage as each of them left in their respective car to look around. He couldn't have gone very far, it had only been a couple hours and Mingi had no car and no money for a cab.

It was becoming increasingly hard for San to throw off Wooyoung. They had been spending a lot of time together and these past few days he had barely talked to the younger boy, making the latter suspicious that either San had gotten tired of him, or that he had found someone else. Either way Wooyoung was panicking and constantly blowing up San's phone, which was just the cherry on top. After the 10th ding sounded from his phone, San pulled over for a second and called Wooyoung.

"Heeey Woo." He said, trying to sound as sweet as possible.

"San what's happening? Please tell me if you're getting tired of me... Don't give me any hopes, because I really like you."

"What? No Wooyoung, I like you, like... a lot. Really. But I've just been busy with consoling Y/N, and there was a bunch of issues in some paperwork from my part-time job so I had to work on that as well, it's just been a very tiring couple of days, I'm sorry... Can I get back to you once I'm done? I need a little rest."

As far as Wooyoung knew you were still upset at Mingi.

"Alright fine, but I expect a nice homemade dinner once you're free."

"Of course baby."

San hung up with a sigh, relieved that he bought his excuses, and started the engine once more, resuming his search.

San was driving around the town, searching places with fewer people and hidden spots where rarely anybody went to. He ended up in a couple bad neighborhoods, which in retrospect it wasn't very smart since he was riding a Rolls Royce, but they hadn't been making good choices the past few days. Seonghwa headed back to the cabin where they had found the body, you searched every bridge and police station and Jongho went to his apartment.

It was minute 12 of driving around when you received a call. It was a group call with everyone involved.

"The body is back in the cabin. It's covered with all the leaves and shit we put here."

"Don't touch it, get out of there for now. I'm still trying to get to his house, anyone got anything?"

Jongho's question was met with a bunch of no's.

"Well I'm almost at his house and I can see- oh my God. I found him. I found him he's standing on a balcony and I think he's gonna jump everyone get here!"

Jongho hung up and you told Seonghwa the address. Thankfully you were close by and got there in no time. Jongho sprinted up the stairs and by the time you and San got to the house he was trying to talk Mingi out of it. Mingi was standing on the edge of his balcony, on the other side of the railing, but still holding onto it. Jongho was crying and begging Mingi to come to his senses and to come back inside, as he gripped his arm.

"It's no use Jongho, just let me go! This is not up to you!"

You and San got up to the balcony as well, trying to talk Mingi out of it.

"Mingi please! We'll get through this I'm begging you, we can't lose you too!" You yelled.

You wanted to stay composed but you couldn't help the tears streaming down your face. Even Jongho, who was usually very uncomfortable displaying his emotions, was crying and begging.

When Seonghwa got to the scene, he was terrified. He didn't know what to do, which was a common thing throughout the past few days, and it was killing him.

Everyone was pulling on Mingi's left side, trying to pull him up along with Jongho, so, without anyone noticing, he jumped outside the railing, and slowly walked towards Mingi without him noticing either.

Once he was close enough, he grabbed the man and pulled him up and over the railing, while holding himself stable with one hand on said railing.

However, Mingi's selfishness was bigger, and in the end, he showed that no matter what other people did for him, he was going to put himself first.

Mingi was mad, he thought his friends were being selfish and had no say in the matter, so while being saved, while going over the railing back into his house, he kicked it away with all the strength in his body, making him fall back.

Seonghwa, who was holding onto Mingi, failed to grip the railing harder and fell with Mingi, looking into your sad, panic-filled eyes as he fell to his death.

You bent over and watched the man you loved fall, in what felt like slow motion. His body hit the ground, and with an ugly cracking noise, Seonghwa's head split open.

You sprinted down the stairs, and once you got down to the ground people were circling the two men, taking pictures and gasping at the scene. You shoved away everybody in front of you so you could reach Seonghwa. His face was nearly intact, but the pool of blood surrounding his cracked skull told you there was no way he'd survive. His chest moved up and down quickly, for a couple of seconds, indicating the intense pain he was in.

"Seonghwa I'm sorry- I-I'm so sorry! Please... I love you..."

Just as the last three words left your mouth, you could see his lips twitch, before his chest stopped moving, before his eyes lost all of their color, before his body went limp in your hands. You stayed there, holding the face of the deceased man you once loved, your clothes soaking his blood and you cried out for forgiveness.

You didn't dare look at Mingi, but you sure hoped he was dead.

But he wasn't. And in the end. When the ambulance and the police came, they took Seonghwa to the morgue and Mingi to the hospital. Mingi ended up surviving after intense surgery, but not for long, because you would end up killing him.

"You don't get to live!" You told Mingi, as you stabbed gagged him and stabbed him over, and over, and over.

He died in a slow, agonizing way, just like you wanted him to. After all he put you, San, and Jongho through, after the sleepless nights, the constant stress, after staying the love of your life he still thought he'd get a second chance!?

You made sure he suffered, and you made sure he knew how much you hated him as you pierced your old, blunt, and rusty knife into his body.

San and Wooyoung ended up fleeing the country, and Jongho joined the military, both too afraid to face the reality and their past actions, seeking any refuge outside of their past lives. They did end up hearing about Mingi's death, and neither of them seemed to care. After everything, they just gave up on him completely.

You were arrested for Mingi's murder, but after confessing everything, and giving a couple touch-ups where you removed Seonghwa, Jongho, and San from the story, and after leading them to Yunho's body, the lawyer from your case pleaded not guilty, and blamed your acts on the heavy toll the incidents of helping your best friend, and the death of your lover, had taken on you, and the judge agreed that you should be under house arrest, with a government assigned professional that would assist you, take care of you, and report back to court.

Was that the end? Was that all there was to your life? That seemed to be the case... Sooner or later you'd end up joining Seonghwa however, you knew that much, you just hoped he was somewhere waiting for you.

[sometimes-petty]

I’ve been thinking...

There's so much to extrapolate from the conceptualization of the Maralto and the Process. When I first watched 3%, I've noticed that the system was further explained and explored every season, each time showing a different layer.

First of all, it starts as being cartoonishly and sickly unjust.

However, for the entirety of Season 1, we only see the Process itself, and only a fraction of the actual life on the Inland. Although unjust, the whole trial feels functional to the plot. The Inland is shown as a grey and awful place where to live, so of course, we only root for the characters to pass all of the tests, or at least not to die trying.

It reminds me of certain criticisms aimed at stereotypical YA dystopian novels/movies, where the worldbuilding displays the society in it as generically unjust, but the characters are never shown truly struggling under the system.

Like in The Hunger Games, during the first season of 3%, the emphasis is less on fighting the system and more on getting out alive from the Process. It's a necessary step, being that it's the first season.

Secondly, in Season 2 the system starts becoming unfair.

It's slightly different than in the previous season, however, it's the first crack in the façade of the Maralto and starts showing how deeply human the system truly is.

Like I said in another post, Marcela considered giving Marco a second chance in passing the Process, because he's her son and she loves him, despite changing her mind in the end and prioritizing the Maralto's laws over him - after he failed another task. The OG Rafael tried to participate in the Process the same way his brother did one year earlier. André outright murdered his own mentor rather than losing the privilege he received in passing the Process. Not to mention the Founding Couple, who overthrew the entire society, causing countless people to die, to prevent their work from being stolen.

To sum up, in season 1 the Maralto can be reached only by one's own abilities and skills; in season 2, we're shown the collateral effects caused by this rule. The only point is not passing the Process, as much as getting to the Maralto, with any possible shortcut. Season 2 is all about the core of the selfishness that comes with the existence of the Maralto.

Thirdly, during season 3 the Maralto is shown in all of its ineffectiveness.

It all revolves around the Concha, of course, and all of the changes that it brings.

We know from season 2 that the Maralto guarantees regular vaccinations to anyone under 20 years old, as usual because they're the only ones who still matter. Nothing is done, nevertheless, to truly help them out of the horrible circumstances they grow up in. The most we see is in season 1 when Ezequiel goes (mostly) out of his way to take care of Augusto (Julia's son; she said that she chose that name for him as soon as he was born), though until it puts at risk his place at the Maralto and as the head of the Process.

Otherwise, kids on the Inland grow up poor, abused, and helpless, with the only actual support coming from the Church, that indoctrinates into worshipping the Maralto. As long as everyone lives like this, they'll all want nothing more than passing the Process and leaving that hellhole. We see it with Joana in season 1 and with Glòria throughout all the series. Thinking about it, the vaccinations are probably only there to make sure no highly contagious illness arrives on the Maralto through the Process' candidates. Elìsa herself never cared that much about the Maralto, on the contrary she didn't see the point in such a stark division, but she too was given the choice to either live in misery or well enough.

Then Michele and Fernando found the Concha. As it's shown at the front door and in practice, everyone is welcome there, and people start having a second chance. Of course it threatens the Maralto's position at the top of society.

It reminds me of the workers' struggles in various countries. I don't remember where I read it, but it was someone joking that, in the 60s, once people started having a TV at home and eating meat more than once a week, the Communist Party started having fewer militants. This is what happens when people's demands and needs are actually met. The point was never the revolution itself; it's only a necessary step after the government refuses for so long to act to improve people's living conditions.

Similarly, on 3%, once people weren't starving or getting murdered and finally had the chance to live a fulfilling life, they wouldn't turn anymore towards the Process for it. Even the Causa disappeared, since the reason for its existence became less relevant.

Finally, in the last season, the Maralto has long been stripped of any greatness it could represent for viewers, and all that's left to see is an illusion.

Once again, Joana face-plants into this new trial when she meets Veronica, and all her resolution starts faltering. Rafael and Cassia find a common ground in the way either the Causa or the Maralto's military gave them both a purpose when passing the Process wasn't an option anymore. André believes himself as the right heir of the Founding Couple and kills himself rather than living without this idea, even when the Maralto itself is gone forever. The same happens to Marco, Leonardo, and Naìr when it's time to flee. Even Natalia, the most determined militant of the Cause, ready to give her life for it, momentarily opposes destroying the Maralto when she sees how much knowledge is stored in their archives.

All in all, everyone is offered their greatest desire when coming to the Maralto - a mother, a purpose, happiness, culture - and only finds lies when they get closer.

The Maralto never worked. Laìs and Vitòr themselves had miserable lives when they'd rather choose the system they created over their only daughter.

The point is, the system was human-made, with all of the faults that come with it, and just as readily could be unmade.

To conclude:

"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine rights of the kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings." - Ursula K. Le Guin

[yourreddancer]

A REFLECTION ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE

Dear Parish Faithful,

The situation in Ukraine is desperate and worsens by the hour. The unprovoked attack on this sovereign country by Vladimir Putin and the Russian military is already a humanitarian crisis unknown to Europe since WW II. There are over a million refugees fleeing Ukraine as of now, and the number grows daily. It is very difficult to find the words to fully express the murderous devastation unleashed by Putin upon an innocent people that he claims, as a Russian, to have such close historical, cultural and religious ties with. Perhaps we can say there is something deeply sinister and even hideous in Putin's willingness to slaughter the Ukrainian people in order to fulfill his fantasy of restoring the former Soviet Empire. As the death toll rises among innocent men, women, and children, it is deeply troubling to sit back and watch this in the comfort of our homes.

How can we fathom the horror of having a sick tyrant do whatever is necessary to destroy Ukraine - a free, democratic country. For that is clearly his goal, as I just heard a former US ambassador to the UN state. There is no "off ramp" at this point in time for Putin to exit onto. This is not the time to call Putin a "genius," or tell us how "sophisticated" he is. Vladimir Putin is a corrupt, autocratic thug, and he has made himself a pariah in the eyes of the civilized world. It is clear that many Russian people are vehemently opposed to this war, and I can only hope that their numbers increase to the point that he cannot jail or silence them all. As a ray of light, we are deeply moved by the courage and resolve of the Ukrainian people as they offer their lives in defense of their homeland. What a contrast between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin!

On the "spiritual level," Putin poses as an Orthodox Christian. Meaning, we can assume that he was baptized as an Orthodox Christian (as was Joseph Stalin); and he appears publicly in church either venerating an icon, crossing himself, lighting a candle, or receiving a blessing from the patriarch. As I have said to others, as Orthodox Christians this can only embarrass us and fill us with shame. His actions are not only "un-Christian," they are completely anti-Christian. (If a Ukrainian considered him to be an antichrist figure, who will argue against that?). Would a Christian leader unleash his war machine against his fellow innocent Orthodox Christians on the eve of Great Lent? Is Putin aware that Forgiveness Sunday is fast approaching? Ukrainian Christians are taking up their personal crosses as Great Lent guides them to Golgotha and the Cross of Christ. Is Putin aware that by next Monday Orthodox Christians across the world enter into the "School of Repentance?” These questions may seem naive in the world of realpolitik, but there are Orthodox Christians - including here in America - who commend Putin for his piety and visibility in the Church. This is profoundly misguided and misleading.

Are his actions what we would want or expect from an Orthodox Christian leader supposedly defending traditional Christian values? I just saw a video of a young evangelical Christian woman praise Putin as a "Christian nationalist" who protects Christian values. What values would those be? I have no idea as to whether or not Putin approaches the Chalice for Holy Communion. If so, and if Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow had any courage, shouldn't he excommunicate Putin? Just one example: We tell young people in love that if they choose to have sex outside of marriage then they should not approach the Chalice. Can the Church, then, with any integrity, allow a mass murderer guilty of war crimes to receive the Eucharist?

Here is a powerful critique, if not a rebuke, of those members of our hierarchy, beginning with Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow and All Russia, who have responded with bland admonishments to "seek and pray for peace" over the war in Ukraine. None of these hierarchs here criticized by Archdeacon John Chryssavgis have denounced Putin's actions for what they are: The immoral and sinful actions of a twisted mind that should be denounced by the Church with the same vehemence as secular writers denounce him. Pious phrases and appeals to humility cannot mask outright evil. Once we realize that that is what we are dealing with, we will then be able to appreciate the victory of Christ over all evil and death itself.

https://publicorthodoxy.org/2022/02/27/orthodox-christian-standing-with-ukraine/

an Orthodox priest from the midwest

[transsexualhamlet]

sherlock holmes reactions part six (aka me losing my mind over the final problem)

Hi, I am once again reminding you all that I've formed a parasocial relationship with the crackhead detective 👍 This made me overly emotional for the fact that he didnt even die

But like

hhhmmmmmmmm those were certainly an interesting 14 pages

Yeah, I already made a post about how the final problem relates to yuumori's final problem and how incredibly sexy it is but yes now I'd just like to relay to you how absolutely heart brocken i am over this lol I will eventually get to reading the post hiatus stories i just. I haven't emotionally recovered from this yet

Yelling below the cut somehow this reaction feels longer than the story itself. but it's about half cracking jokes and half sobbing so be prepared

I mean, starting off strong with "well yknow since i got married my and sherlock's Very Intimate Relations had to be modified and all but we hadnt seen each other in a while so it was kind of jarring to see him crawling in my second story bedroom window clutching Wounds and closing the shutters absolutely fucking wasted losing his mind over some dude named moriarty"

We've been over this but. Oh my god why are they gay

I just like????? Imagine how fucking bizzare that would be to just see your old homie crawl into your window bleeding on your floor and asking to exit the other way in case he's followed like "hey bro can we Talk i hope you're not busy" WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO, SAY HE IS? Imagine watson just like "no dude I'm fucking busy go get killed"

But legitimately. That's certainly something. And like, I see a lot of books starting like this lmao but. Holmes's stuff usually starts off kind of easily with watson going "yeah so lately ive been Experiencing Sherlock Holmes" and spend 20 minutes on exposition with them having a Conversation but no. mans just fucking escaped a hitman and went directly to his boyfriend's house having apparently Never Before In His Goddamn Life mentioned his actual nemesis to this guy. How the FUCK has watson never heard of him before.

And how sherlock starts talking about it isn't any less funny he's just like "UHHH SO THERE'S THIS GUY. THIS ABSOLUTE MAN. AND HES REALLY IMPRESSIVE I MEAN HES LIKE SUPER FUCKING SMART AND HES LIKE DOING CRIMES????? SO I LIKE. I NOTICED AS I DO BUT HE NOTICED THAT I NOTICED AND I MIGHT HAVE MADE A LITTLE FUCKY WUCKY DUDE CAN YOU HELP ME LIKE. FLEE THE COUNTRY" and watson's like my dear sherlock What The Fuck

Im also loving how he calls moriarty a "mathematical celebrity" awhi;grih;oaewhhta;ioh;iaewh;ii;oewh;eh;rg mans just. ok lol hes a Math Celebrity that had to quit his math teacher job because EVERYONE JUST KNEW HE WAS A CRIME LORD LIKE THEY TOOK ONE LOOK AT HIM AND WENT MANS DEFINITELY HAS BODIES IN HIS BASEMENT I DONT WANT HIM TEACHING HERE

But yeah, it was interesting to see what the big deal about og moriarty was... especially since the deal simply did not deliver. There was not really a big deal. It's like reading the first chapter of a book and immediately skipping to the climax. Everything is so hyped up and clearly having been building for years and you just get like NO CONTEXT. I swear Moriarty wasn't goddamn mentioned any time before this. He's just suddenly the big guy and watson has just never fucking heard shit about this guy.

What's so funny about this whole situation is that I just. Cannot objectively know anything about Moriarty at all because sherlock just... does not go into what this dude's alleged crimes even were, other than. The fact that he like. Does them. He's just really involved in crimes. How? Why? For how long? In what way? For what purpose? NO FUCKING CLUE HE JUST. HE JUST DOES. And there's nothing to really suggest that Moriarty was honestly a really evil guy. They're all like trust me he was just. he was just really bad but show absolutely No examples of being such. The most evil thing we saw Moriarty do personally was call sherlock stupid for letting him get into the apartment. And even then he immediately followed it up with complimenting him lol

yeah, my impression of Moriarty was like. I expected him to be worse, honestly. I expected him to be like a cartoon villain because he was kind of made out to be one and then he's just honestly a really polite and refined guy?? Mans strolls the fuck into 221B like hi shawty and it is Not like yuumori obviously man's holding a gun but like. What the fuck they are just. They have never met before but They Clearly Have and it's. its so weird

Like honestly I don't dislike og moriarty. He's really what william tried to be (and fucking failed, but beside the point) but like. Dude's so powerful and for what. He just walks into the apartment with No Pretense like why sherlock holmes is that a revolver or are you just happy to see me oh my goodness you are a dolt why would you hold the gun that way. disgusting. disgraceful. dreadful. Oh my god. I love him I'm sorry

abngnahhghifeah;iewh and Why does sherlock describe him like that hes like "MANS A REALLY REFINED LIZARD /pos" HIEHIFEHW:HGIHOEWFEEW FOR WHAT. FOR W H A T

baaaaaaaaghhhhhh but likeeeee they went STRAIGHT to "you know what I'm here for" "you know how I'm going to respond" "well then" "yeah" "mhm" "damn well it really do be like that sometimes" "ur really smart by the way" "im fucking aware let's kill each other as we both Thought in our Minds" "yes lets" AHDHDHDHDFS WTF THIS IS INSANE

But damn uh. mutual destruction my beloved this is very different from sherliam but im not. im not. opposed to it tucks hair behind ear

I just. Holy shit they really went "if you destroy me I will ensure that we both go down hand in unlovable hand" "I wouldn't mind that"

Annnnd I just noticed that the actual lines for this part kind of. that kind of happened in chapter 31 when sherlock was like i would Gladly die to take down the lord of crime and william was like. hahahah yeahNO NO NO NO

BUT SERIOUSLY THO IM LOSING MY MIND OVER HOW SHERLOCK SAYS THIS WHOLE THING TO WATSON AND HES LIKE DAMN SHAWTY HES LIKE THE REASON FOR HALF THE CRIME IN THIS CITY BUT HES SO NICE THO??? LIKE I EXPECTED HIM TO BE TOUGH AND EVERTHING NO HES JUST SOME POLITE PROPER UNDERSTANDABLE MAN WHO JUST HAPPENS TO BE VERY DIABOLICAL shawty is having a Crisis

And then watson is like wowww that was cool you wanna spend the night and sherlock is like "UNFORTUNATELY BESTIE I AM BEING FUCKING TRACKED DOWN ID LIKE YOU TO NOT DIE WITH ME"

This bit gave me a Moment Moment because oh my god. Then watson is like "no shut up i'm coming with you i don't care" and i just had to Take A Minute because THEY SWITCHED PLACES AAH SHERLOCK IS TRYING TO KEEP WATSON SAFE NOW AND WATSON IS NOW MORE RECKLESS BC OF HIM AND. AHHHH

Completely random but. How sherlock still refers to 221B as "our rooms" to watson even though watson hasn't lived their in years........ shawty i am emotional.........

SO THEY GODDAMN FLEE THE COUNTRY TOGETHER BC WATSON SAYS THEY HAVE TO STICK TOGETHER AND SHERLOCK HAS A MOMENT WHERE HE'S LIKE YEAH NEVERMIND PLEASE GO HOME WATSON AND WATSON IS JUST LIKE. NO. AND HSERLOCK IS LIKE. DAMN OK I HAVE NEVER HEARD YOU SAY THAT BEFORE

But. Ok as funny as this is. They have this fucking Conversation on the train to switzerland where sherlock is like "I have not lived in vain" and watson is like "YOURE NOT DYING" and hes like "i have not lived in vain. like i said. this will not be a bad way to die" UHHHHHH DAMN SHAWTY

hhhhhh and it just Gets. it. it. it Gets. These fuckers get to switzerland and they stay in a hotel and then leave for reichenbach but watson gets this goddamn letter telling him that hes needed at the hotel to basically save this lady's life. And he doesn't. Like. he doesn't even want to go he's like FUCK IT SHE CAN DIE IM NOT LEAVING YOU but sherlock convinces him to go fULLY KNOWING THE LETTER WAS FUCKING FAKED BY MORIARTY JUST AS A PLOY TO GET HIM ALONE

AND THEN HE JUST. WENT ANYWAY AND WATSON HAD TO WATCH HIM JUST LIKE GODDAMN WALK OFF INTO THE SUNSET LIKE "LITTLE DID I KNOW THIS WOULD BE THE LAST TIME I WOULD SEE HIM BUT IT JUST. IT HAD THAT VIBE YKNOW"

God I just. Wow sherlock really did that huh. He really went and did that. And I went over it in the post about this compared to yuumori but it just RUINED me how watson just. Never saw what happened and there's just so little information about it that all they have is these assumptions and pieces that just suggest that these guys met up, walked up to the goddamn waterfall having a nice civil conversation about how talented and smart they both were at this and how they revealed their methods to each other and complimented them because of course they did

And they just sat up there talking to each other so long and Moriarty legit waited politely or even possibly was the one that suggested he write a letter to watson in which sherlock just went "damn lol moriarty's pretty nice actually anyway uhhhh sorry watson ily ✌" and just like. left it up there in his damn cigarette box

But just like. damn the insinuation that moriarty just sat there and watched while he wrote that entire goddamn letter, sealed it up, and then got up and went alright buddy let's go but it makes no goddamn sense if they wanted to actually kill each other and assure they themselves would survive I could name like 23 different ways they could have managed it so easily and they Didn't. they were really set on mutual destruction huh. There's no way they were even trying to do anything but Die Together at that point and that's Something huh

It absolutely baffles me how they could say that these guys had plummetted like, holding each other tho. Like. ok lol but How Do You Even Know

It was certainly a ride. But the fact that Watson had to actively try to think like Sherlock to figure out what happened in the scene was just. The cherry on top. Especially after they'd consciously started to switch roles in this i just. Damn.

In conclusion uhhhhhhhh gay people real I suppose

[96thdayofrage]

Media Rediscover Afghan Women Only When US Leaves

Just as US corporate news media “discovered” Afghan women’s rights only when the US was angling for invasion, their since-forgotten interest returned with a vengeance as US troops exited the country.

After September 11, 2001, the public was subjected to widespread US news coverage of burqa-clad Afghan women in need of US liberation, and celebratory reports after the invasion. Time magazine (11/26/01), for instance, declared that “the greatest pageant of mass liberation since the fight for suffrage” was occurring, as “female faces, shy and bright, emerged from the dark cellars” to stomp on their old veils. In a piece by Nancy Gibbs headlined “Blood and Joy,” the magazine told readers this was “a holiday gift, a reminder of reasons the war was worth fighting beyond those of basic self-defense” (FAIR.org, 4/9/21).

The media interest was highly opportunistic. Between January 2000 and September 11, 2001, there were 15 US newspaper articles and 33 broadcast TV reports about women’s rights in Afghanistan. In the 16 weeks between September 12 and January 1, 2002, those numbers skyrocketed to 93 and 628, before plummeting once again (Media, Culture & Society, 9/1/05).

Suddenly remembering women

Now, as the US finally is withdrawing its last troops, many corporate media commentators put women and girls at the center of the analysis, as when Wolf Blitzer (CNN Situation Room, 8/16/21), after referring to “the horror awaiting women and girls in Afghanistan,” reported:

President Biden saying he stands, and I’m quoting him now, squarely, squarely behind this decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan, despite the shocking scene of chaos and desperation as the country fell in a matter of only a few hours under Taliban control, and the group’s extremist ideology has tremendous and extremely disturbing implications for everyone in Afghanistan, but especially the women and girls.

This type of framing teed up hawkish guests, who proliferate on TV guest lists, to use women as a political football to oppose withdrawal. Blitzer guest Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R.-Illinois), for instance, argued:

Look at the freedom that is being deprived from the Afghan people as the Taliban move into Afghan, or moving into parts of Afghanistan now, and you know how much freedom they had. Look at the number of women that are out there making careers, that are thought leaders, that are academics, that never would have happened under the Taliban leadership…. The devastation you are seeing today is why that small footprint of 2,500 US troops was so important.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R.-Iowa) gladly gave Jake Tapper (CNN Newsroom, 8/16/21) her take on the situation after CNN aired a report on the situation for women:

As you mentioned, for women and younger girls, this is also very devastating for them. The humiliation that they will endure at the hands of the Taliban all around this is just a horrible, horrible mar on the United States under President Joe Biden.

‘America rescued them’

Charity Wallace claimed in the Wall Street Journal (8/17/21) that Afghan “women and girls…made enormous progress over the past 20 years.”

Such analysis depends on the assumption that the US invasion and occupation “saved” Afghan women. In the Wall Street Journal (8/17/21), an op-ed by former George W. Bush staffer Charity Wallace ran under the headline : “The Nightmare Resumes for Afghan Women: America Rescued Them 20 Years Ago. How Can We Abandon Them to the Taliban Again?”

Two days later, a news article in the Journal (8/19/21) about the fate of women in Afghanistan explained: “Following the 2001 invasion, US and allied forces invested heavily to promote gender equality.”

The Associated Press (8/14/21), in a piece headlined, “Longest War: Were America’s Decades in Afghanistan Worth It?,” noted at the end that “some Afghans—asked that question before the Taliban’s stunning sweep last week—respond that it’s more than time for Americans to let Afghans handle their own affairs.” It continued, “But one 21-year-old woman, Shogufa, says American troops’ two decades on the ground meant all the difference for her.” After describing Shogufa’s experience for five paragraphs, the piece concludes with her “message to Americans”:

“Thank you for everything you have done in Afghanistan,” she said, in good but imperfect English. “The other thing was to request that they stay with us.”

Perhaps the most indignant media piece about Afghan women came from Caitlin Flanagan in the Atlantic (8/19/21), “The Week the Left Stopped Caring About Human Rights.” Flanagan argued:

Leave American troops idle long enough, and before you know it, they’re building schools and protecting women. We found an actual patriarchy in Afghanistan, and with nothing else to do, we started smashing it down. Contra the Nation, it’s hard to believe that Afghan women “won” gains in human rights, considering how quickly those gains are sure now to be revoked. The United States military made it possible for those women to experience a measure of freedom. Without us, that’s over.

Flanagan pointed to Afghan activist Malala Yousafzai, whom she accused “critics of the war” of forgetting, saying Yousafzai “appealed to the president to take ‘a bold step’ to stave off disaster.”

Next to last in women’s rights

Such coverage gives the impression that Afghan women desperately want the US occupation to continue, and that military occupation has always been the only way for the US to help them. But for two decades, women’s rights groups have been arguing that the US needed to support local women’s efforts and a local peace process. Instead, both Democrat and Republican administrations continued to funnel trillions of dollars into the war effort, propping up misogynist warlords and fueling violence and corruption.

Contra Flanagan’s insinuation, Yousafzai didn’t ask Biden to continue the occupation. In an op-ed for the New York Times (8/17/21) that most clearly laid out her appeal, she asked for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and for refugees fleeing the country. In fact, her take on the US occupation’s role in women’s rights (BBC, 8/17/21) is much more critical than most voices in the US corporate media: “There had been very little interest in focusing on the humanitarian aid and the humanitarian work.”

As human rights expert Phyllis Bennis told FAIR’s radio program CounterSpin (2/17/21), Malalai Joya, a young member of parliament, told her in the midst of the 2009 troop surge that women in Afghanistan have three enemies: the Taliban, warlords supported by the US and the US occupation. “She said, ‘If you in the West could get the US occupation out, we’d only have two.’”

Things did get better for some women, mostly in the big cities, where new opportunities in education, work and political representation became possible with the Taliban removed from power. But as Shreya Chattopadhyay pointed out in the Nation (8/9/21), the US commitment to women was little more than window dressing on its war, devoting roughly 1,000 times more funding to military expenses than to women’s rights.

Passive consumers of US corporate news media might be surprised to learn that Afghanistan, in its 19th year under US occupation, ranked second-to-last in the world on women’s well-being and empowerment, according to the Women, Peace and Security Index (2019).

As the Index notes, Afghan women still suffer from discriminatory laws at a level roughly on par with Iraq, and an extraordinarily low 12.2% of women reported feeling safe walking alone at night in their community, more than 4 points lower than in any other country. And just one in three girls goes to school.

Wrong kind of ‘help’

In 2015, a 27-year-old Afghan woman named Farkhunda Malikzada was killed by an angry mob of men in Kabul after being falsely accused of burning a Quran; US-backed Afghan security forces watched silently (Guardian, 3/28/15). The shocking story spread around the world, but the only US TV network to mention it on air was PBS (7/2/15), which offered a brief report more than three months after the murder, when an Afghan appeals court overturned the death sentences given to some of the men involved.

FAIR turned up no evidence of Caitlin Flanagan ever writing about Malikzada, either—or about the plight of any Afghan woman before last week.

According to a Nexis search, TV news shows aired more segments that mentioned women’s rights in the same sentence as Afghanistan in the last seven days (42) than in the previous seven years (37).

The US did not “rescue” Afghan women with its military invasion in 2001, or its subsequent 20-year occupation. Afghan women need international help, but facile and opportunistic US media coverage pushes toward the same wrong kind of help that it’s been pushing for the last two decades: military “assistance,” rather than diplomacy and aid.

For more than 20 years, US corporate media could have listened seriously to Afghan women and their concerns, bringing attention to their own efforts to improve their situation. Instead, those media outlets are proving once again that Afghan women’s rights are only of interest to them when they can be used to prop up imperialism and the military industrial complex.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Portland protests see clashes between far-right, far-left groups (Reuters) Protests by rival far-right and left-wing groups in Portland descended into violence on Sunday, as the opposing sides engaged in clashes and at least one man was arrested for firing a gun at demonstrators. Nobody was hurt in an exchange of gunfire—and by Sunday evening there was no word on any injuries in numerous other skirmishes that saw opposing sides brawling, dousing each other in what appeared to be bear spray and breaking car windows of rivals. Police Chief Chuck Lovell said during a briefing on Friday that officers would not necessarily intervene to break up fights between the groups. But he added that “just because arrests are not made at the scene when tensions are high, does not mean that people won’t be charged with crimes.”

Henri hurls rain as system settles atop swamped Northeast (AP) The slow-rolling system named Henri is taking its time drenching the Northeast with rain, lingering early Monday atop a region made swampy by the storm’s relentless downpour. Henri, which made landfall as a tropical storm Sunday afternoon in Rhode Island, has moved northwest through Connecticut. It hurled rain westward far before its arrival, flooding areas as far southwest as New Jersey before pelting northeast Pennsylvania, even as it took on tropical depression status. Over 140,000 homes lost power, and deluges of rain closed bridges, swamped roads and left some people stranded in their vehicles.

Classes starting, but international students failing to get U.S. visas (Reuters) Kofi Owusu occasionally waits outside the U.S. embassy in Accra to ask fellow students what they have done to secure a timely visa appointment. Classes for his master’s program at Villanova University in Pennsylvania are scheduled to start Monday, but his in-person interview appointment for a first-time U.S. student visa is still nine months away. It’s the second time the political science student from Ghana won’t make it to the United States in time for school. Visa processing is delayed as U.S. embassies and consulates operate at reduced capacity around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving some students abroad unable to make it for the start of the academic year. The wait and the hassle threaten both the country’s standing as a preferred choice for international students and their economic contribution of around $40 billion annually to many universities and local economies. New international student enrollment in the United States dropped 43% in fall 2020 from the year prior, months after COVID sent the world into lockdown. The number of new students who actually made it onto campus in person declined by 72%, according to an enrollment survey by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

FDA approves Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (Bloomberg) The pioneering coronavirus vaccine made by pharmaceutical companies BioNTech and Pfizer was granted full approval by U.S. regulators. The government imprimatur is expected to trigger a flood of mandates by municipalities, agencies and private employers that had been waiting for the Food and Drug Administration sign-off. Following the announcement, the Pentagon said it would make vaccinations mandatory for military personnel worldwide and President Joe Biden called for mandates by companies.

Hospitals and Insurers Didn’t Want You to See Their Prices (NYT) This year, the federal government ordered hospitals to begin publishing a prized secret: a complete list of the prices they negotiate with private insurers. The insurers’ trade association had called the rule unconstitutional and said it would “undermine competitive negotiations.” Four hospital associations jointly sued the government to block it, and appealed when they lost. They lost again, and seven months later, many hospitals are simply ignoring the requirement and posting nothing. But data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden. It shows hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services: procedures as simple as an X-ray or a pregnancy test. And in many cases, insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would if they pretended to have no coverage at all. This secrecy has allowed hospitals to tell patients that they are getting “steep” discounts, while still charging them many times what a public program like Medicare is willing to pay.

‘A Beautiful Feeling’: Refugee Women In Germany Learn The Joy Of Riding Bikes (NPR) Like most Americans, I learned to ride a bike as a kid. I still remember the glee after learning how to ride a bike on a subdivision road where I grew up in Florida. But girls around the world don’t always get to experience the joy of a first bike ride. In some countries, conservative societies frown upon women and girls who ride bikes—it’s not considered dignified or appropriate—and gives a girl too much independence. Joumana Seif, a Syrian lawyer and activist, recalls riding a bike as an 11-year-old in the capital city of Damascus. “For the people [watching on the street], and even for the children, it was shocking to them that I was riding a bike. They started to say, ‘Oh, shame on you, you are a girl riding a bike,’” Seif says. “It just wasn’t in our culture.” But it’s never too late to learn. In Germany, a nonprofit group called Bikeygees is teaching refugee women from countries such as Iran, Iraq and Syria how to ride. Since the group first started, it has taught 1,100 women how to ride a bike, says founder Annette Krüger. “It is possible to change the life of a woman in two hours. It is really magical,” says Krüger, an avid cyclist. “It’s a beautiful feeling when a person is riding a bike,” one refugee says with a broad grin.

Gunfire at Kabul airport kills 1 amid chaotic evacuations (AP/Foreign Policy) A firefight at one of the gates of Kabul’s international airport killed at least one Afghan soldier early Monday, German officials said, the latest chaos to engulf Western efforts to evacuate those fleeing the Taliban takeover of the country. The shooting at the airport came as the Taliban sent fighters north of the capital to eliminate pockets of armed resistance to their lightning takeover earlier this month. The Taliban said they retook three districts seized by opponents the day before and had surrounded Panjshir, the last province that remains out of their control. The tragic scenes around the airport have transfixed the world. Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, in addition to the seven killed Sunday. Tens of thousands of people—Americans, other foreigners and Afghans who assisted in the war effort—are still waiting to join the airlift, which has been slowed by security issues and U.S. bureaucracy hurdles. Meanwhile, Afghanistan faces a quickly deepening economic crisis, with financial hardships increasingly affecting those in Kabul and other cities. Banks remain closed, food prices are rising, and the value of the local currency has plummeted. The suspension of commercial flights to Kabul’s international airport has in some ways exacerbated the crisis, halting the flow of some medical supplies and aid.

US special operations forces race to save former Afghan comrades in jeopardy (ABC News) Current and former U.S. military special operations and intelligence community operatives are using their own networks of contacts to get elite Afghan soldiers, intelligence assets and interpreters to safety as they’ve become increasingly disillusioned and fed up with the U.S. government-led evacuation effort in Kabul, ABC News has learned. One informal group, dubbed “Task Force Pineapple,” began as a frantic effort last weekend to get one former Afghan commando into Hamid Karzai International Airport as he was being hunted by Taliban who were texting him death threats. They knew he had worked with U.S. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was therefore at high risk of reprisal. The former elite commando was finally pulled into the U.S. security perimeter at the airport, where he shouted the password “pineapple” to American troops at the checkpoint. Two days later, the group of his American friends and comrades also helped get his family inside the airport to join him. Other former members of the military and CIA have consolidated their own efforts with a separate group calling itself “Task Force Dunkirk,” a reference to the massive evacuation of British and other Allied forces from France in 1940 under threat of the Nazi juggernaut. Task Force Dunkirk and the groups it has banded together with have helped get at least 83 at-risk Afghans out of the country.

Lebanese hospitals at breaking point as everything runs out (AP) Drenched in sweat, doctors check patients lying on stretchers in the reception area of Lebanon’s largest public hospital. Air conditioners are turned off, except in operating rooms and storage units, to save on fuel. Medics scramble to find alternatives to saline solutions after the hospital ran out. The shortages are overwhelming, the medical staff exhausted. And with a new surge in coronavirus cases, Lebanon’s hospitals are at a breaking point. The country’s health sector is a casualty of the multiple crises that have plunged Lebanon into a downward spiral—a financial and economic meltdown, compounded by a complete failure of the government, runaway corruption and a pandemic that isn’t going away. The collapse is all the more dramatic since only a few years ago, Lebanon was a leader in medical care in the Arab world. The region’s rich and famous came to this small Mideast nation of 6 million for everything, from major hospital procedures to plastic surgeries.

China changes law to allow married couples to have three kids (NY Post) China will now allow married couples to legally have a third kid amid concerns that its shrinking number of working-age people will threaten the country’s future prosperity and global influence. China has tried for decades to control the population, beginning with a policy imposed in 1979 that strictly limited couples to one child. Couples who didn’t follow the rule faced fines or loss of jobs—and in some cases, mothers were forced to undergo abortions. A preference for sons also led parents to kill baby girls, causing a massive imbalance in the sex ratio. The number of working-age people, meanwhile, has fallen over the past decade and the population has barely grown, adding more strain to an aging society. With growing fears that the country would grow old before it became wealthy, the family planning rules were changed for the first time in 2015 to allow two children.

Cases up down under (CNN) Australia, like China, New Zealand, and some other countries, has attempted to completely eradicate Covid-19 inside its borders. The strategy had largely worked until recently; Australia has just 44,026 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 981 deaths. But several major cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, and the capital Canberra, are again under lockdown as authorities struggle to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant. On Saturday, thousands took to the streets of Melbourne and Sydney to protest the long lockdowns; hundreds were arrested, and at least seven police officers were injured during violent clashes. In an opinion piece published Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison hinted at an end to the country’s zero Covid-19 infections strategy, but warned Australians to expect a rise in infections as restrictions relax.