#apologies for hijacking your post op

[codename-adler]

it seems the aftg fam is coming to realize how dangerously close it could have got to Aaron being the target of Riko’s rage, instead of Seth, in TFC. well well well. been there done that!

read dance ‘til you find someone to die for on ao3 or head over to my blog under the #dance ‘til you find someone to die for OR #dtyfstdf <3

AU where Riko targets Aaron instead of Seth, yet Aaron somehow is saved by the great Kevin Day, and all are left to deal with the aftermath. the damage doesn’t stop there. the road ahead is paved with danger. Seth lives. but at what cost. loyalties are tested. the feelings are coming for Aaron and Kevin. Neil is still his great little shit self.

okay. i'm curious.

you are welcome, nay encouraged, to debate

[spacenintendogs]

3 10 16or 17 for the httyd asks!!

3. Did you play School of Dragon? If so, what dragon(s) did you have?

i tried back in 2018 but my laptop couldn't handle it. i never got past the tutorial with toothless and immediately uninstalled it and then was still devastated when they shut it down :')

10. What are your favourite songs from the soundtracks?

the big 3: forbidden friendship, test drive, and romantic flight.

see you tomorrow is a BANGER

all of the jonsi songs!!

once there were dragons is also so good... listened to that on repeat after i saw the hidden world in 2019

16. What is your favourite plot arc?

edit: i realized this said plot arc and astrid's character arc doesn't rlly count but for plot arc: hiccup & snotlout's arc of learning to respect each other more in riders/defenders of berk. basically the screaming death arc!!

astrid's in the first movie... it's near perfect and her role in the story is so vital bc her mind being changed makes stoick's mind being changed so much more believable. astrid's arc is such an interesting throughline to see the movie through. astrid being the most viking like of the teens and taking everything so seriously only to decide to give hiccup a chance (yes she was hanging off a tree rlly high off the ground and then only apologized bc toothless was whipping her around as payback for her attitude lol) but once toothless calms down that's when astrid rlly sits back and gives toothless & hiccup a chance & you just. see her relaxed for the first time in the movie and smiling so wide and it's SOOOOOOO. i love her so much.

17. Do you read or write HTTYD fanfic? If so, give some recommendations!

i do both!!

for reading, i haven't done a lot & i am kinda particular abt what i read (i heed tags & stuff seriously!! they're there for a reason!!) but!! from recent memory & my bookmarks

promises, promises is by @artinandwritin and it's abt her httyd ocs and @beebooca's oc set post the hidden world (except the dragons are still there!!) and it's such a fun exploration of the effect things can have on oc characters based on what happens to the canon characters they're connected to!! it's very good (and i am honored to have helped beta read :'))

translations by @bignostalgias is a hijack fic where jack frost ends up on berk after following silver dream sand (and ends up becoming "alive" again) and there's the whole thing where he's confused abt how berk exists and seems to be behind modern day and dragons exist. everything is so thought out and carefully put together and i just can not wait for more!!

frowny kisses by @tysonrunningfox bc my snotstrid loving ass adores those losers so much and op has got them DOWN!! the original snotstrid person fr fr i am begging y'all to pls check out their stuff!!!!!!!!!

also fics by @eemoo1o-tfrmoo & @kolasharkattack are also rlly rlly good!!!!!!

and yea i write fics lol but i go through spurts of YEAH UPDATE LET'S GO WOO and then quickly losing steam & updates come rarely even tho they take up so much space in my brain bc writing hard :')

the summer snotlout jorgenson got laid is tied to my modern au & it's abt the brief period astrid & snotlout decided to try dating & obv they break up but hey. unrestrained summer fun :)

burn is a series following astrid & snotlout's friendship. there's only 2 fics rn but windburn is complete and heartburn is a work in progress. i have a few fics for series stewing around in my brain as well but!! yea!!

then there's the calm dragon nip provides which is basically my fishlout smokes weed fic and it's not even a year old yet & tbh i'm not happy with it at all but i don't regret it enough to delete it. u can read it if u wish but i'm not proud of it. c'est la vie.

and those are my most recent fics!! and then my docs are just. full of incomplete bullshit lol <3 ty!!

[29daffodils]

@luveverlong's KinnPorsche Triggers (and if they were results of the vegaspete madness)

hello OP! apologies for hijacking your post, but your reblog made me giddy and i didn't want to bombard your post with vegaspete in case they are not your thing!

**

okay, so @luveverlong made this post which i reblogged and then i started wondering how many triggers actually were there, and thought i'd count and classify which i feel were results of vegaspete madness 😅 here we go.

DISCLAIMER : i probably got some of them wrong, because i keep forgetting certain things happened (like, ken losing his head) . don't take this too seriously!

total triggers (so far) : 57

vegaspete contribution : 30

%age contribution : 52.6%

conclusion : so i was wrong, it's not 90% but it's more than 50% which is saying SOMETHING lmao

abuse >> gun and korn

alcohol use >> pretty much all the theerapanyakul cousins (except tankhun, maybe?)

animal death >> vegaspete + khun spikes 🥹

ass eating >> definitely vegaspete (and he did it with such enthusiasm too!!

assassination >> who??

attempted assassination >> definitely on kinn

attempted murder >> whose??

attempted underage drug use >> lmao porchay

attic wifery >> nampheung goes whoop!

blood >> vegaspete (first & foremost, but also everyone else since mafia)

bondage >> vegaspete (bcz kp are too damn vanilla lmao)

cheating >> who??? who's cheating??

child abuse >> vegaspete (my poor liddol meow-meow and my sweet summer child 🥹

choking >> vegaspete, sensually, but also kinnporsche literally

death >> vegas (i'll never forgive him for that, but also pete aiding in the undeath, hence, this is primarily vegaspete, i take no arguments

decapitation >> vegas (and pete watching from the distance)

edit : okay, it was ken. apologies for my bad english 🥲 (p.s. : i also did not count it under vegaspete in the original post! hence why vegas and pete are written separately, and not as the ship name!)

degradation >> vegaspete

dehumanization >> vegaspete

domestic violence >> technically also VP bcz their dads were shit, but let's count them out of this one because I'm not too sure

drugging >> oof, vegas (but not VP)

electrical torture >> vegaspete *evil laughter*

emotional blackmail >> vegaspete + granny saengtham lmao

flashing lights >> vegaspete (in their neon lit sex room)

force feeding >> vegaspete

gaslighting >> don't think this was VP, but let me know if i forgot a specific scene

gore >> vegaspete (iykyk)

guns >> okay, VP, but kinnporsche can have this one. that one spinning+shooting scene was epic.

gunshot wounds >> vegaspete wins this one. motherfucker survived 5 gunshots, and pete gave him one of them

hostage situations >> vegaspete go whoop!

illegal fighting >> lmao porsche

incest (???) >> definitely NOT VP (they are the only ones not involved in cousin fuckery and yet the most unhinged out of all of them)

kidnapping >> omg chay 🥲

manipulation >> vegaspete, via granny saengtham

munchausen by proxy >> i have no idea what this is, sorry

murder >> pretty much everyone lmao

mutilation >> vegas!!!

ownership >> vegaspete

panic attacks >> okay, I can't remember who got panic attacks, help out a fella here

petplay kink >> vegaspete

poisoning >> heh? somebody was poisoned??

prostitution (???) >> who??

scars >> vegaspete

self-harm >> vegaspete go whoop!

sex scenes >> vegaspete (but also kinnporsche) (but I'm biased and vegaspete were superior so……)

sexual assault / dubcon >> NOT VP 👀

sexual torture >> vegaspete (!!! 😳)

smoking >> pete alone can add up the points for this one lmao

stalking >> vegaspete lmao

stockholm syndrome >> vegaspete (but I'm rolling my eyes)

suicide >> who??

suicide attempt >> definitely only vegaspete

tasering >> vegaspete

theft >> vegaspete at its very core (iykyk)

torture >> vegaspete

vegas >> lmaoooo, he is a trigger warning by virtue, but accentuated by pete

verbal torture / abuse >> gun theerapanyakul 😤

vomit >> porsche 😂 (i think?)

[heardofit]

if that is the case i have something that may interest you

I love it when a Danmei make fun of a certain cliché or genre but has serious message under it. I love intriguing comedy if that make sense. Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System) make fun of Stallion novel. You Yao (Are You Ok) make fun of transmigration genre. Tian Ya Ke (Faraway Wanderers) make fun of Wuxia. Mozun Ye Xiang Zhidao (Devil Venerable Also Wants To Know) make fun of Cultivation world.

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

vagueing. well, specific-ing, really. but too much a coward to reblog the post i'm annoyed about, because i know that wouldn't go well

i'm sick of this post, and of the sentiment in general. "i don't think tumblr's ready for this take yet" op says, and granted it's from two years ago and maybe it was true then? in fact i think i would've appreciated this post then.

ok, maybe not that year. but, like, in 2018 or so i might've.

now i feel pretty over it though. like? i remember having the frustration op talks about--the feeling that since mental illness is the kind of disability we have the most scripts for, it, like, owns the disability narrative and so may co-opt posts about parts of it not actually applicable to able-bodied mentally ill people--but that last addition, god. they lay out all these specifics about how mental illness depression is different from physical disability chronic pain (because those are the only two disabilities /s) and they're such. shallow differences??

"Being insomniac compared to the physical pain not letting you sleep" i mean. we call it "painsomnia" for a reason? these're squares and rectangles! i spend most nights with some "can't sleep because pain," some "can't sleep because adhd," and some "can't sleep because temperature dysregulation." i don't get the urge to guard the sacredness of "can't sleep because pain" against these other forms of insomnia, especially not if, as the person who wrote this part of the post claims, it's not about asserting that chronic pain is Worse than mental illness

"Being unable to cook because your attention keeps dropping off and you accidentally burn it/cut yourself vs being unable to cook because the pan will suddenly become to heavy as your shoulder spontaneously dislocates or you literally can’t stop your hands trembling to safely cut or put things in the oven ect." ????? you've just... listed three different reasons someone might not be able to cook safely. and they're such completely different reasons* that i cannot for my life figure out why they think the latter two examples have more affinity w/ each other than any other two out of the three. like why should a person who only experiences difficulty w/ cooking because of the third reason feel more solidarity w/ someone who can't cook for the second reason than w/ someone who can't cook for the first?

also, in what alternate universe was spoon theory "taken over" by mentally ill/physically healthy people? "they also use it"=/="it's not ours anymore." when have you ever heard an able-bodied mentally ill person call themselves a "spoonie"?--vs., on the other hand, how many times have you seen a mentally ill anon ask a physically disabled tumblr user whether they're allowed to use the spoon metaphor, with elaborate apologies on either side of the question for fear of overstepping, and seen that tumblr user respond that yes, of course you can?

"hijacking" my ass, in a community where we have a strong discourse norm against gatekeeping. more people blog about mental illness than about chronic illness, is, i think, the trend you are noticing here.

*though all three are good examples of why i personally suck at cooking

[panharmonium]

“now you can still make that happen.”

just a few thoughts prompted by this awesome post by @clotpolesonly, which i did not want to hijack - it is fantastic on its own and does not need my thoughts attached to it.  and you should definitely go read it before you proceed here, because a) it’s great, and b) this particular post of mine is not going to make a lot of sense without it. 

(a preview, for those who haven’t already clicked through: the linked post above is a terrific analysis of why the second part of will’s line “you’re a good man, merlin.  a great man.  and one day you’re going to be servant to a great king” feels a little bizarre in comparison to the rest of his dialogue, and how it seems contradictory to what we’ve learned about will’s character previously.)

i LOVED hearing somebody pull this moment out and question it, because this is a moment that i have also thought about a LOT, and while i personally have ended up in a place where i do understand why will might say something like this in this particular context, i ALSO fully agree that this is the most muddled line he has, characterization-wise, because i don’t think the average viewer is going to sit around thinking about how to fit this slightly unusual moment into will’s established characterization, or even recognize that’s it’s unusual at all; they’re just going to CHANGE will’s established characterization to align with this line.  and what i mean by that is that i'm pretty sure this line is solely responsible for every fic i’ve ever seen where will’s reaction to arthur is portrayed as either a mistake, an overreaction, or anything other than a legitimate, valid concern about merlin’s safety/well-being, and for that reason alone i’d be happy to have it modified.

but despite this (because i HAVE sat around thinking about how to fit this moment into will’s established characterization), i actually do look at this line in a way that makes it feel natural to me in context, and now that somebody else has brought it up, i figured i’d just write my own thoughts down, in case anybody else has ever spent any time thinking about this.  (an unlikely possibility, I realize, given that will only shows up in one episode, but i have given up pretending that i am not super over-invested in this character, so - here i am, once again offering you yet another very long post about a very niche thing.)

so.

first of all, the absolute most important takeaway from the whole “you’re going to be servant to a great king” moment is exactly what OP says (and it’s also exactly the same thing that this particular line is in danger of obscuring, for folks who aren’t thinking carefully about it) - just because will realizes that arthur wasn’t going to let the villagers die without risking his own neck doesn’t mean that will is now riding the arthur pendragon bandwagon.  will doesn’t save arthur because he’s suddenly become arthur’s biggest fan; he saves arthur because it’s the right thing to do.  will doesn’t have time to sit around and think about it and debate with himself like ‘hm i don’t like this guy but merlin thinks he’s ok and the man did risk himself for our village so maybe i should still help him out.’  he just jumps.  instinctively, automatically.  he sees somebody in danger and his unthinking reflex is to get in the way.  it’s just who he is.  he would have done that for anybody who was standing in front of him.

will has not suddenly turned into an arthur stan just because arthur did one okay thing.  will still witnesses arthur aggressively interrogating merlin about sorcery, and, like OP says, will still lies.  he still doesn’t trust arthur, not with merlin’s life.  he still doesn’t think camelot is a good place for merlin.  and he still doesn’t think merlin’s “friendship” with arthur is real or safe or healthy or anything equal to what merlin deserves.

so the question then becomes - why on earth does will say what he says???

you’re a good man, merlin.  a great man.  and one day you’re going to be servant to a great king.  now you can still make that happen.

(i’ll be honest, before i get into this - i think OP is right.  i don’t think the writers really thought about it this hard.  i think it probably was, in fact, just meant to be our customary reaffirmation that arthur is cool and merlin is on the right path, even though that fact looks kind of...questionable by any logical assessment of the situation.)

HOWEVER, i am stubborn, and i’m personally committed to making as much of the show’s canon work for me as possible, so back when i was doing a bunch of characterization work on will last year, i thought about this line a lot.  because the linked post above is RIGHT; it doesn’t fit, at first glance, and it would be easy to draw the wrong conclusion from it, if you weren’t paying attention.

and ultimately, after i thought about it for a long time, i ended up in a place where i felt like i understood where this line was coming from, and i no longer felt that it was necessarily out of character (though again, let’s be real - you shouldn’t have to do that much thinking about something to figure out how it could fit with someone’s characterization.  the writers could have been a bit clearer.)

but anyway, that said - the following is how i conceive of that bit, if it helps anybody feel better about that scene.  this isn’t the only way to think about it, by any means, or the “correct” way (as i said earlier, i do think it’s completely reasonable to say “this wasn’t a super well-thought out line” and discard it).  this is just the interpretation that feels most natural to me.

i think, ultimately, what helps me understand this line is acknowledging that will, in this scene, is giving merlin a gift.  by lying for merlin, will protects the Big Secret from being discovered, but when he does so, he’s giving merlin back more than just his physical safety.  he’s giving merlin the freedom to pursue all of the things that will himself was so adamantly against for the entirety of this episode, all of the things that will repeatedly told merlin it wasn’t good for him to want.  his lie saves merlin’s life, yes, but it also ensures that merlin can return to camelot, continue to work as arthur’s servant, go back to the very life that will himself thinks is stunningly unworthy for merlin, but which merlin, for some inexplicable, unfathomable reason, feels is bafflingly important.

will gives merlin a gift, in this scene, despite his own misgivings.  and when he says “one day you’re going to be servant to a great king,” that is a gift of another kind: trust.  merlin is the one who first described arthur with those particular words, up in the hedgerow, when he and will were arguing with each other.  “one day arthur will be a great king, but he needs my help.”  and what will is doing here, by using those words, isn’t so much him declaring his own support for arthur as a ruler; it’s him saying to merlin, “i heard you.  i listened to you.  i don’t know why you’re so convinced of this, and i know we were having a row, but i was still listening to you.  i trust you.”  

will says this to merlin, in his last few moments, even though will himself isn’t sure about arthur, or camelot, or any of it.  it doesn’t matter that will isn’t sure.  will doesn’t want to dole out more warnings right now.  he doesn’t want the last thing merlin hears from him to be another admonishment, another critique, another “you don’t know what you’re doing and this is going to blow up in your face.”  will wants the last thing merlin hears from him to be i want you to have what you want, even if i don’t understand why you want it.  i'm giving you what you asked for, just because you asked for it.  i’m choosing to trust you. 

will has already said everything he needs to say about arthur.  he’s already told merlin what he thinks of this whole camelot situation.  but sometimes, when you love somebody, you have to take your hands off the wheel.  will tells merlin “one day you’re going to be servant to a great king” (repeating something merlin specifically said to him, something merlin said in the middle of a heated argument, something merlin prefaced with “i don’t expect you to understand”), because will is telling him “i heard you when you told me this, even if you didn’t think i was listening.”  he’s telling merlin “i have faith in you, even if i don’t have faith in him.”  it’s him relinquishing control over the situation. 

will has absolutely no reason to trust arthur.  he doesn’t trust arthur, truly.  he says what he says for merlin.  it’s something he offers to merlin, as a gift.  it’s part of their reconciliation.  it’s why merlin immediately follows will’s now you can still make that happen with “thanks to you.”  merlin acknowledges everything will is giving him, in that moment, brushing past the mention of arthur like it’s not even there, immediately re-centering will in the discussion.  “thanks to you.”  you did this for me.  you’re giving this to me.  

“one day you’re going to be servant to a great king.”  just this line, itself, is a gift.  for will to say that to merlin - it’s a gift.  it’s an acknowledgment that merlin’s convictions are worthy, even if will doesn’t understand them.  it’s will apologizing for saying that merlin doesn’t know what’s best for his own life, it’s will handing merlin the reins, it’s will saying i don’t trust him on his own merits; i trust you.  i’m trusting what you told me.  i trust you to know what you need, so i’m going to give you everything you want, even if i don’t know why you want it.

and i do think that this is absolutely, 100% influenced by the timing.  in a different situation, will wouldn’t have backed down like that.  he would have continued to give merlin grief, to ask hard questions, to criticize, to say “why are you being like this; you can do better than this; why are you making bad choices; why are you settling for so much less than you deserve?”

but will is dying, and i don’t think he wants to leave merlin on that note.  merlin has already lived his entire life almost completely unsupported by the people around him, mistrusted by his neighbors, hunted by the ruling powers of multiple nations, prevented from pursuing any answers that might have helped him accept himself, always mired down in a bog of self-doubt.  will can’t bring himself to leave merlin that same way.  he doesn’t want to leave merlin with more ‘i don’t trust you and i don’t support you and i don’t think you should do the things you think you need to do,’ even if it’s offered in the spirit of “i just want the best for you.”  he can’t bring himself to do that.  so instead he makes a concession, for merlin’s sake, and chooses to offer merlin complete, radical trust, in spite of his own doubts.

it’s...this is a trust fall.  this is will saying i trust you to drive this car, even though it looks like you’re about to drive us off a cliff.  and merlin, for his part, knows full well that will probably would have pushed harder, under different circumstances, but he also recognizes will’s concession for the gift that it is.  he understands that will’s personal opinions may not have changed, but that will is saying ‘i believe in you, despite everything.’  he understands that will is stepping off a bridge with nothing but merlin’s word to assure him that the drop is survivable.

i do still think it’s totally reasonable to feel like this is an unusual thing for will to say, for sure.  but for me, personally, when i look at it this way, i see it as fully in-character, because the core thing about will, for me, is that he consistently does things that go against his own interests in order to help merlin.  coming back to fight a battle he knows can’t be won, saving arthur’s life, pretending to be a sorcerer - his decisions consistently make his own life worse and merlin’s life better.  the things he does are always done for merlin’s sake, at his own expense.  

and sometimes - like in this scene - i think the things he says are said for merlin’s sake, too.  

merlin and will both know each other too well for merlin to really think that will is jumping on the arthur train.  merlin knows exactly what will is really trying to say.  he knows it’s a parting gift.  he understands that it’s just will’s way of saying, “i’m leaving and i want you to know i love you this much, to jump when you jump, even though i personally think the drop is deadly.  that’s how much i trust you.  that’s how much i believe in you.”

merlin understands, and will feels understood.  they leave arthur and camelot behind, after that exchange.  they’ve both said everything they need to say about it.  they’ve put that argument to bed, in the best way they can manage, with the time they have available to them.  will has made his feelings about arthur and camelot clear, and now he’s also made it clear that he trusts merlin to know what’s right.  whether or not that proves to be true, later, isn’t relevant - only merlin can make decisions about where his life is going, after all, and will acknowledges that fact, here, at the end, as a gift to his only friend.  he might have taken a different tack if he weren’t dying, yeah.  but since he is, he decides that merlin deserves to walk away from this moment with at least the small comfort of knowing that will, when the chips were down, chose to trust merlin implicitly.

that’s the only reason why arthur’s future as “a great king” even comes up in that conversation.  the rest of that scene is just about merlin and will, and how much they care for each other.  

and for two people who never had anybody else, that’s just as it should be.

[broadwaytheanimatedseries]

I’m not really invested in sander sides but I’d like to hear about your au if that’s alright?

Ahhh it's the op! First of all I'd like to apologize for hijacking your post in the name of my undying Sanders Sides obsession.

Second, I'd be more than happy to tell you all about it, as soon as I figure it out a little more.

I mean so far I know which character is gonna be what color and based on that I know what the team dynamic is gonna be like and who joins when in the story, but in terms of what their powers are, who they're fighting, or literally anything else about the story, I got nothing currently.

But like who knows maybe if you ask me specific questions I'll be able to come up with something, develop the concept a little.

You know, only if you want to.

[casijaz]

Xenophobia is not racism part 24,450 - Electric Boogaloo

@angelina-galkina you have so much to say so I’ll just put your argument right here and comment on it.

I am putting this under a read more tag for all my followers. If you’re interested, please read.

Angelina, your English seems to be well enough for you to understand my original posts, so I figure you will be able to understand me now. I am also not a native English speaker, so if there is miscommunication between us do tell me.

angelina-galkinaheeft gereageerd op je bericht “On Xenophobia and Racism”

Actually, the reason Europeans hate Slavs is because they think Slavs are Asians or all mixed with Asians. Slavs were seen as low as blacks people on the Nazi “racial hierarchy” scale. It was because Slavs were not considered white, (which was decided by those white European men you mentioned earlier who classified race.) They think Slavs are “secretly asian” or something like that. To be specific, manyyyyy Russian Slavs are mixed with central asian/ middle eastern at this point.

In Poland and Ukraine, the white nationalists there (like you said, there are a lot) dont consider Russian Slavs white (I am a Siberian Yup’ik, so don’t think I’m getting defensive, I’m not white lol) Russian Slavs experience xenophobia, and that xenophobia is rooted in racism in Europe. In America, the hate of Russians is rooted in dumb political reasons.

When I say that the xenophobia against Slavs in Europe is rooted in racism, I mean to say that they hate Slavs because Slavs aren’t white to them. Again, many Slavs are only partially white (so I guess they are only partly Slav?) This is sort of confusing, apologies.

Also, when you say that the hate of Slavs is geographically based, that is partially true. Because Slavs are so Eastward, they have mixed many times with Central and west Asians. So it is rooted in racism, but the insult is that they are part non-white so it’s not directly racism. I just don’t like misinformation being spread.

Note: {I am from Russia, (English isn’t my first language, sorry) and I know primarily about Russian Slavs, so I am only speaking about them.} Russia is both a multi-racial/multi-ethnic country. 

angelina-galkina heeft gereageerd op je bericht “Okay non-European tumblr”

They were talking about their own issues within Europe. It had nothing to do with people of other races. They were talking about how white people hate other white people, BASED ON racism against other races. It isn’t white racist people hating other white people, it is white racist people hating on other white people who “aren’t white to them” They never said anything bad.

Let’s unpack all of this for a second.

First off all. Who do you refer to when you say Europeans? People of Slavic descent are European. If by European you mean north/west ones I can tell you as one from that area that they are definitely European. These white people do not think they are Asian. Racial discrimination against Asians is something that is experienced by a lot in my country, but not by eastern European immigrants.

“Slavs were seen as low as blacks people on the Nazi “racial hierarchy” scale. ” In my original post I said whiteness was a social construct subject to change. While Nazis have had a hand or two in defining races, the construct of race was not created by them. It was European men in the 1600s. What you are also implying is that Slavic people only experience racism by being related or in proximity to ACTUAL non-whiteness. This is a tactic that has been used a lot in the defining of racism. But let me tell you. The people they’re compared to are always off worse. Also. Don’t ever say blacks again. It’s a racist term.

I have no insight in the genetic background of all Slavic ethnic groups in Russia. However from what I could find from these studies: http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/russians.html and https://bmcgenet.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12863-017-0578-3 is that there’s virtually little to no Asian heritage among Russian and eastern European Slavic peoples. There was almost no middle eastern genetic heritage found among these groups either. This was a study done with a group of 1000 people. You could make an argument that they misrepresented the population, but I actually have a problem with people claiming non-white heritage just for an excuse to absolve themselves of white privilege.

Xenophobia is a complex issue that IS tied to racism but is not racism. Please re-read the post I made. In Europe, xenophobia can be strengthened by racism. For example, in a lot of northern countries the south of Europe is seen as more ‘exotic.’ This is because they are in proximity to non-white countries. In the United States of America, xenophobia is not just all about ‘dumb political reasons.’ The United States of America is a former colony placed on stolen indigenous land by white Europeans from all over the place. They brought their values and systems regarding race along with them. This means Europe and the U.S. have similar systems, simply because it’s the same people who made them.

I think you’re onto something when you say ‘not white to them,’ but you need to realise that they still are white. I don’t know what your experience with racism is if you’re part of a non-white ethnic group in Russia. I can tell you my experience as mixed black person who is not white passing and lives in Europe. Whatever Slavic immigrants face for discrimination, and what I face, are completely different. Their discrimination is not nor ever based on their race. They are white. They don’t get blackface thrown in their faces. They don’t get called racial slurs. They don’t get their bodies or cultural aspects dubbed dirty or inferior on basis of their race. If they do experience discrimination it is based on the geographical history we’ve had in Europe.

What I can definitely agree on with you is that southern and eastern Europeans experience xenophobia on basis of their relation to non-whiteness on a geographical and historical basis. Many countries were colonised by the Ottoman Empire once. In the 1900s they were described as being ‘too close to the east.’ However note that I say ‘too close,’ but not ‘IN’ the east. In the 1800s while northwest European men were defining races they deemed a lot of races not quite white by relating them to races they had definitively deemed not-white. But we no longer live within the racial confines of neither the 1800s nor Nazi Germany. The racial hierarchy scale however is here to stay. It is subject to change, has been, and always will be, but there are certain groups of people whose claim to whiteness can never happen. Among them are black people.

Now to the reaction I made to the non-European Tumblr post going around! I am European! I was talking about my own issues too! These are my issues! White people hate white people because of geographical and cultural differences. They are both white. So they can’t be racist against each other. Both are at the top of the racial hierarchy. They did say something bad. When us ACTUAL non-white Europeans try talking about racism they try and hijack the conversation by stating they can’t possibly be racist because it works differently in Europe. It doesn’t. The U.S. and Europe have the same racial systems. The U.S. even has some of the same xenophobic basis for discriminating groups of people as Europe because the white population of the U.S. consists out of solely (people descended from) European immigrants.

Don’t ever tell a European of colour to not talk about their own issues. These are my issues and I will only stop talking about them when racism and xenophobia cease to exist.

[transmedicalism-saves-lives]

I am pretty sure I was blocked by the OP of this post, so. 

tervenwitch

the brain sex theory is inherently misogynistic and was debunked years ago. Try reading Cordelia Fine for a change instead on blindly clinging to the delusions of misogynists

@tervenwitch You mean the feminist philosopher? Why would I get any information on neurology from her, she’s not a neurologist? Studying the philosophy of science does not equate to studying science itself.

Also, we’re a sexually dimorphic species. Down to a cellular level, our organs are different between males and females. As a transsexual I am extremely aware of the female-ness of my body, it’s in my vocal chords, my fat distribution, and the size and thickness of many body parts. Why is acknowledging that one of the things that’s bigger in males is the brain stem “misogyny”? Brain sex isn’t about how smart you are, or whether you’re naturally emotional, or anything of the sort- it’s just about the physical differences between the physical organs, and there are several of those. I’ve compiled a list of sources for this claim, and if you’d like to read what actual neuroscientists, not philosophers, have to say on the topic of brain sex, feel free to give it a look.  

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives Firstly its not possibly to be “neurologically a woman” because there is literally no such thing as a “female brain”. Brains are not gendered. The only human organs that are gender are sexual reproductive organs. The idea of “lady and gentlemen brains” is antiquated Neurosexism akin to eugenics or phrenology. So just stop that nonsense.

I can’t tag her, unfortunately, so apologies for that. I’m not sure you understand that, as stated above, we are a sexually dimorphic species. Voices, for example, aren’t at all related to the reproductive system and yet, in males, vocal chords are thicker than in females. Most organs have a differentiation between sexes. Now, maybe when you think “brain” you think “intellect,” but that’s only a small part of what brains do, how they function. The brain is a physical organ, and there are many small differences between male and female brains. It’s been shown, in transsexuals, that our brains are the same as those of the opposite sex. Here’s my list of vetted sources again. 

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives Women’s historic and continued subordination has not arisen because some members of our species choose to identify with an inferior social role (and it would be an act of egregious victim-blaming to suggest that it has). It has emerged as a means by which males can dominate that half of the species that is capable of gestating children, and exploit their sexual and reproductive labour. This is why Title IX protections exist.

No, it’s got a lot to do with the fact that testosterone makes you a lot more physically strong and in less advanced societies that matters quite a bit. However, in the current first world countries, women are absolutely not oppressed. Women graduate every level of education at higher rates than men, are imprisoned far less frequently for the same crimes, are more likely to be hired, and have every legal right that a man has, plus a few that men don’t have, such as the right to refuse genital mutilation, and human rights that are not contingent on signing up for the selective service. As a matter of fact, most Title IX violations this year have been all-female groups that don’t allow men in. Ohio State was sued this year for discriminating against men, and Title IX was the reason. 

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives The term “terf” is a manipulation intended to reframe feminist ideas and activism as “exclusionary”, rather than foundational to the woman’s liberation movement. In other words it as an attack on women centered political organizing and the basic theory that underpins feminist analysis of patriarchy.

What “feminist ideas,” exactly? Because first off, y’all never actually proved patriarchy theory, so if we’re going after antiquated theories here... 

But I digress. What exactly would you call yourself? You have an entire blog dedicated to the exclusion of a small minority of people. You seem obsessed with trans people, and our exclusion from your group (well, at least, trans womens, I’m not sure your thoughts on me, but it’d be a bit funny if it was only the straight guy you found to be acceptable, all things considered). Why do you put so much time and effort into excluding trans women, and then get upset when people point that out? It’s ridiculous to me. 

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives ‘Cis’ is a term that has been hijacked from the field of chemistry. It basically refers to isomers of the same molecule on the same side of a plane. This term was never meant to be used to erase the differences between biological women and biological men who want to be biological women, whether from a dysphoria or anything else.

No, it hasn’t been hijacked. It’s a prefix. It’s Latin for “this side of,” and the opposite of the prefix “trans,” which means “across” in Latin. “Transsexual” means “crossing sexes,” whereas “cissexual” means “remaining on the same side of sex.” It’s not altogether that deep. 

Also, believe me, we’re aware of the differences. We wouldn’t go through all the trouble of getting surgery and taking hormones for the rest of our lives if we weren’t very much aware of the differences. However, those differences can be altered to a pretty dramatic effect, and ignoring that seems dishonest at best. I highly doubt you’d look at me, for example, and think “woman,” and I haven’t lived socially as a woman for years. There’s also the fact that my brain is physically male, but we’ve already covered that... 

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives No one – women, men, children, or transgendered persons – should be subjected to any form of exploitation or targeted for discrimination. Transsexual and transgendered persons are entitled to the same human and civil rights as others.

Thanks, I agree. Everyone should have human and civil rights, no matter what, and I believe everyone should be as kind as possible to everyone else. That includes you. 

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives Recognizing these rights, however, does not mean that we must accept that hormones and surgery transform men into women and women into men; or that persons who self-identify as members of the opposite sex are what they subjectively claim to be. So stop suicide baiting.

Where did I suicide bait? I’m sorry if that seemed to be apparent in anything I said, but I’m very much against any kind of suicide or self-harm. If you’re feeling suicidal, I’d recommend calling a mental health hotline: 1-800-273-8255 is the number for the American National Suicide Hotline. 

That said, HRT and surgery aren’t completely perfect, but they can get us pretty far- by the end of transition, I’ll be closer to biologically male than biologically female, for example. Not entirely biologically male- I’m still going to have a lot of sexual difficulties, and to have biological children will require an invasive surgery involving bone marrow- but closer. 

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives “Cis” implies that women—lesbians, call center workers, single mothers—have an inherent privilege over trans people. Again, let’s not forget that trans is an umbrella term. A gender non conforming male is not more ‘oppressed’ than a lesbian. The cis/trans dichotomy obscures that and allows men to shout ‘oppressor’ at women. Sex change is impossible and unnecessary. Stop using trans activism to perpetuate your misogynistic internalized homophobia.

I don’t believe any group has an inherent privilege over any other group. Being a member of certain groups might change your probabilities of experiencing specific forms of oppression, but no group is entirely full of oppressed people, and no group has no oppressed members- except, perhaps, the billionaire class. When it comes down to it, privilege is based in money, and there are people of every race, sex, sexuality, and religion living in poverty, and people of every race, sex, sexuality, and religion in the ruling class too. The percentages, however, are a bit different.

So no, being trans doesn’t make someone oppressed, and being cis doesn’t make someone not oppressed. However, being trans does increase chances of oppression, particularly being a trans woman, as they’ve almost all been forced into sex work up until the late eighties to early nineties, which is closely associated with poverty and low quality of life in countries where it’s not regulated legally, such as America. 

And for the record- transsexual is not an “umbrella term.” Don’t lump us in with drag queens or GNC people in general. Trans means someone suffering from gender dysphoria, nothing else. 

Sex change is not impossible, and it’s absolutely necessary for trans people to have any quality of life at all. We have a serious neurological disease. We cannot physically change our brains yet. I’d love to be able to be a normal female woman, that would be a great thing for me, it’d be a lot easier than this, and to be honest, I made a damn pretty girl, life is very easy for pretty girls. Unfortunately, my chest tissue makes me so dysphoric that I’ve taken a knife to it multiple times, can’t concentrate if I don’t bind, and as for my genitalia, well, let’s just say that I really wish that was in a better order because being a teenager with a sex drive and dysphoria is extremely, unendingly frustrating. 

As for internalized homophobia on my part- I genuinely thought I was bisexual until I started taking HRT. I didn’t even know I only liked women before. Maybe I didn’t. Who knows? But yeah, if you actually believe I’m a lesbian, or that I’ll be a lesbian next year... well. Have fun with that. 

Have a nice day!

[robobee]

SUCCESSION ▸ 4.06 living+

[fandom-rants]

How to Tell if Someone is Being a Giant Ass Basket

You post an opinion piece. Say you do as the previous person I reblogged did and make a polite post critiquing a character. You make a couple of comments alluding to a pairing you like.

Someone jumps onto your post to tell you how liking that pairing is "wrong." Like, not even saying they don't like the pairing, which is random enough because why should OP care?? But to tell them that it's wrong. Like. Morally.

OP calls them out on their shit, because not only is this egotistical as fuck, but also something OP literally touched on in their post.

This person replies with, not an apology, but a rebuttal. Then follows it up with, "I'm just speaking my opinion like you."

Block this fucker.

Not only have they hijacked the post from its original intent, not only have they paraded their opinion as a moral high ground in order to, as OP accurately states, "correct" her for a ship she likes, they have done so with the excuse of "just stating their opinion."

Please.

You "state your opinion" on your own blog. You start an argument on someone else's.

The hilarious thing is, OP notes how people who take the moral high ground are self-righteous, elitist exclusivists, and then. This person. Comes in and does the exact thing OP calls out. Like. Wow.

Imagine being that oblivious to recognizing that a call-out post is about you.

But back to why you need to block people like this. Not only do they throw their opinions out as Moral Truths, they do so while hiding behind accusatory language. "Hey, you posted an opinion on the Internet. If you didn't want it argued, then you shouldn't have put it in a public space. I'm just doing the same thing you did."

No.

See, no. That attitude is bullshit.

It's an attack on the person speaking their mind, a way to make them feel guilty and shut them up. A person does not say "the cold sucks" so someone can argue about how it's actually great and heat sucks. People hate those who pull that shit, and with good reason. Shockingly, not everyone has to agree with you. A person can just say the cold sucks because they don't like it and they want to say so, not so that someone can "prove" that their subjective opinion on the weather is "wrong."

Telling someone you're just "stating your opinion, too" when you out-and-out say, "just... no" and start telling them why they're wrong? Yeah, that's not an opinion. Saying it is is a great way to play the victim game when they call you out again, though. Congrats! You've made this about you and have turned the person disagreeing with you into a bad guy, proving that you're the good person and they're the bad person - thus that their opinion is wrong (because bad people are always wrong, duh) and you are right.

Don't bother playing their game. Just block their despicable asses and live a life that much more beautiful for erasing another stain from it.

[elfyourmother]

Hope it's okay to send asks! It wasn't my intention to gloss over the racism, I mainly didn't address it because I AM white, and there are people far more qualified than me who have written excellent posts about everything wrong with the concept of the game. (~dalishious wrote a great one!) The only reason I'm asking people to make their own posts is because people are '''hijacking''' it not to discuss things, but to just go OP UR RACIST and contribute nothing else. (1/2)

(2/2) I'm def not trying to shut down discussion -- I'm an old lady in internet years, and I'm able to enjoy media while ALSO acknowledging what's fucked up about it. (See: DBH, which I found fun, but also found it to be the most poorly handled racist trash garbage on this green earth.) So I apologize if I came across as NO DON'T SAY BAD THINGS ABOUT THIS GAME. I just don't want to deal with people who have no critical thinking skills, and just want to name call rather than discuss.

---

okay listen, i I’m an old broad myself, old enough that my first RPGs were 8 bit cartridges i had to blow into, and my first CRPGs were the Gold Box D&D games on an Apple IIe and ancient Macintoshes. my first MMORPGs were goddamn MUDs and the OG Neverwinter Nights on AOL back when it was pay by the damn hour

I say this not to flash cred or anything but to tell you that I’ve been playing video games for a very long time, and I’ve been a black woman for even longer (almost 40 years even), and that these two things put together have made me Very Tired and Wary

whether or not you intended to shut down discussion is irrelevant. frankly as a white woman it’s not your place to tell people how to feel or talk about racism on a post you made or anywhere else for that matter. like real talk, how do you define “critical thinking” skills? is it by the standards of whiteness, where people of color only get listened to if we perform our outrage in a certain way that doesn’t make you too uncomfortable? people of color in gaming fandoms esp fantasy gaming fandoms have dealt with shit like this for a dog’s age and we’re tired of it and maybe some of us don’t want to have discussions and be patient and kind and Proper towards obtuse white fans who don’t actually care about us or the things that hurt us, maybe some of us just want to call bullshit and keep it moving. and real talk, we are 100% entitled to do that without condescending shit from old white women. this is honestly just another form of tone policing, and a legion of white people caping for game developers have shown time and again that it doesn’t matter how nicely we bring these things up, y’all will still plug your ears and keep demanding we give these companies coins for whatever spurious reasons you come up with

this is a mess and i don’t appreciate you coming into my inbox like this tbh. instead of being defensive and hollering at people and coming into black lady inboxes after they call out your weird behavior, maybe take a step back and think about why people are reacting the way they are.

because as it stands you just sound and look like White Fangirl #489347834 shilling for the same old tired white people video games being oblivious to why 

cuz I mean no shade but perhaps there’s a reason this game isn’t getting much attention, maybe it’s the fact that the trailer and the dev notes make it look like the 90000th attempt by a random developer to ape Bioware’s fantasy games and specifically Dragon Age, complete with generic grizzled white men on the box/trailers, ugly brown aesthetic everywhere, Dances With Elves, and insulated white writers trying to say Important Things about social issues and specifically race that they are wildly unqualified for. there is absolutely nothing noteworthy or exceptional about that, certainly not enough to warrant caping for it the way you’re doing

[samisadeangirl]

sorry to bother but what's a destiheller? i just joined tumblr and i see this word used everywhere. i'm just assuming it means an obsessive destiel stan or a destiel stan in general

Hi Anon,

No need to apologize, my friend!  I’m always open to polite questions like this.  We can’t learn if we don’t ask questions, after all.

Your assumption is pretty close there.  A Destiheller is a rude, entitled type of Destiel fan who does things like demand that their ship be made canon (even though the majority of SPN fans don’t want that), shove their ship in everyone’s faces by spamming the general tags, hijacking unrelated posts, etc., harasses the actors, crew, and other fans to validate their ship or because they disagree with them, acts inappropriately at conventions (asks inappropriate questions at panels, brings inappropriate art to autograph sessions, requests inappropriate poses or tries to grope the actors at photo ops, etc.), and so on.  

We use the term Destiheller to differentiate these sort of assholes from the normal Destiel fan who is content to ship their fanon ship in peace and not bother other people about it.  It’s the Destihellers that so many of us have a problem with, not the regular fans of the ship.  They’re a minority among the Destiel shippers, but they’re so loud and obnoxious that they give the entire ship, and sometimes even SPN fans in general, a bad name in many people’s minds.

[aussie-sclerophyll]

[flyingcatstiel]

1. Hello again, I am the same anon who sent both of your latest two anonasks. I think there was some confusion so I'll clarify. I don't even ship stony(I've only read handfuls of fics), I ship destiel and I like all mcu characters equally and I am not team cap nor iron but I am a bitter cas girl. There was NO intention to bring any wank or ships/characters bashing to your blog. I was just so angry with 'we are' and your answer to the first ask got me thinking about stony.

2. But my ask was poorly and inadequately worded to confuse you of the ulterior intention and I apologize. Though I shouldn’t have use the ship names when I meant their general relationship both in canon and fanon, what I meant was in regard to the same situation, which is their mother’s deaths, Tony actually drew blood and all Dean did was say some words,

3. so one might think that actual physical conflicts not induced by any supernatural event indicate bad relationship but I feel Dean and Cas’s friendship and general relationship more unhealthy and unbalanced.

4. Now I just decided for my self that that’s probably because Tony and Steve has different visions, families, groups of friends and support system so even if there is conflict between them, Tony still got Pepper Rhodey and Happy and Steve got Bucky Nat and Sam.

5. So no one is left alone in the world. But if Dean’s angry with Cas, Cas is alone in the universe. I meant unhealthy like that. Cas has no one except Winchester families and if that makes Cas desperate for sense of belong and makes him apologize like that, that imao is unhealthy. But all in all, I am sorry for the confusion. I shouldn’t have been so blunt and out of the blue. Post 1502 made me go blind with unreasonable fury.

6. On a different note it’s interesting how wording and context make differences between being perceived as wank baiting anon hate or anon thanks. And I hope that this message is accepted as the latter because I am always grateful of all your reasonable words about Spn and fandom fruits. :) thanks for reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heey, sorry for total misunderstanding with the previous ask and thank you for coming back and clarifying it! And yes, I’m kinda jumpy lately, since couple of my spn critical posts were hijacked by destiel haters and also earned me the blocking from destiel positivity crowd. That’s the fandom we have and that is one huge reason why I’m slowly sauntering into MCU fandom. To be brutally honest, that’s my advice to all bitter Cas girls - get out before you get too frustrated and hurt. The show will continue Cas whump because they don’t know what else to do, and destiel metas will spend all their energy justifying it. Instead of, you know, just saying that bad writing is bad writing. You can always come and vent in my inbox or via DM tho, I’ll try to answer as much as I can, because I feel you. 

OK, very quickly about CW movie and Tony’s anger vs Dean’s anger. I don’t think Tony’s situation is comparable at all here. Tony learns about Bucky killing his parents on Hydra’s orders after a long chain of very intense conflicts. That was literally the last drop, there’s little time to process it, and it is the culmination of the movie. On the other side, Dean and Cas conflict is never the centerpiece of SPN, it’s all subtext and Dean’s POV. Dean blaming Cas for Mary’s accidental death comes absolutely out of nowhere. They all knew that Jack is using his soul to do stuff, they all knew Jack needs supervision. FFS, Jack just brought Sam back from dead by using his soul. And now Cas is to blame for it? Not to mention that Dean and Cas relationship is way more complicated than MCU stony. Even if we take out romantic destiel subtext out of it, textually, Cas still is the closest person to Dean after Sam. Dean has called Cas his family, his brother several times. Dean grieved Cas in s13. And now, suddenly, it all means nothing because Dean is angry? Unpopular opinion about SPN writers under the cut.

I said it already back then and I still stand by my words - Berens wrote the line “You are dead to me” deliberately to yank the fandom. There are plenty of other words he could have used if he simply wanted to show Dean’s grief and uncontrollable anger towards Cas. Instead, SPN focused on one thing that would hurt the most and then used it in the promo. I literally saw post on my dash saying that OP was not gonna watch the episode because SPN is just meh, but, after seeing that promo, OP wanted to know why Dean said something so hideous to Cas. Remember how fans hoped that it’s a misleading promo? Remember how fans hoped that Dean will apologize to Cas? There’s an understanding that that line was too much. And, after s14 finale, I saw posts talking about how this is not relevant anymore because surely Jack’s death and Chuck’s machinations override whatever anger Dean could have towards Cas for not telling him about snake. And then 15x01 brought us that passive aggressive scene and, well, 15x02 took the cake. 

So, while I totally agree with you that the scene between Dean and Cas was terrible, my way of dealing with it is to blame SPN writers. First of all, I don’t understand what Dean is talking about there. Nothing was real? Does he mean some kind of Matrix type of reality where the real Dean is sleeping in a pod? Otherwise, it was all real. Tell Kevin Tran that his death and time after death was not real. Tell it to Jo, Charlie, Eileen that their deaths were not real. Cas speech is nice, but, honestly, not a groundbreaking revelation. Whedon’s Angel said it wittier, Dumbledore and Gandalf said it more fitting for their stories. There’s a Jewish proverb with similar sentiment. Like, this is nothing new! Our choices matter, sometimes it is the only thing that matters. I mean, everyone who has lived under authoritarian regimes, everyone who’s a minority and has to deal with privileged majority, knows this. To make Dean to refuse it in s15, is honestly very baffling. 

Like, I see that SPN writers want to draw some parallels with s4 by flipping Dean and Cas beliefs, but, scene subversion works only if you know why the first scene worked in the first place. I think this scene would have worked better if Dean would be just venting his understandable frustration with the situation. But instead, we got Cas apologizing, Dean still blaming Cas for Mary’s death (seriously wtf?) and then Dean walking out on Cas and refusing Cas’ belief in their choices being real. 

And here I come to my last point. Dean saying that their choices were not real because Chuck manipulated everything sounds very much like privileged middle class white people suddenly realizing that they are not calling the shots and then throwing into a towel. This really looks like the most “profound” revelation Bucklemming could’ve come up with. They gave similar moronic lines to Cas in 9x03, when Cas, former angel who watched humanity for thousand of years, was surprised that poor people are kind and generous. 

So, to me it looks like SPN writers are trying to be deep but in the end they write what they know best - angry white man is always right trope and le omg, if I’m not the center of the universe then everything was not real story. Which sucks, tbh. And clashes with older seasons of SPN. But here we are. And, since the conflict between Dean and Cas is based on such a weak argument, there can’t be real resolution, catharsis and growth. The current conflict serves only one purpose - to keep Cas and Dean on bad terms and to make Cas leave (because Misha’s contract something something). My worst fear - this stupid conflict will set Cas on self destructive/sacrificial path, and that will be it. Because let’s be serious, destiel is not the most important thing in s15. It’s just not. 

[jambrass0-blog]

Tom Engelhardt: The Unhappy 17th Anniversary of the Afghan War

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Yves here. Those of you who paid some attention to our post 9/11 nation-breaking exercises in the Middle East may recall that there was a phase when disillusionment about the Iraq War set in, that media and the pundits depicted invasion of Afghanistan as necessary and by implication justified. After all, a Great Power had to Do Something after a blow like the 9/11; it was the war on Iraq that was de trop. 17 years later, that justification looks pretty thin.

By Tom Engelhardt, a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His sixth and latest book is A Nation Unmade by War (Dispatch Books). Originally published at TomDispatch

We’re already two years past the crystal anniversary and eight years short of the silver one, or at least we would be, had it been a wedding — and, after a fashion, perhaps it was. On October 7, 2001, George W. Bush launched the invasion — “liberation” was the word often used then — of Afghanistan. It was the start of the second Afghan War of the era, one that, all these years later, still shows no signs of ending. Though few realized it at the time, the American people married war. Permanent, generational, infinite war is now embedded in the American way of life, while just about the only part of the government guaranteed ever more soaring dollars, no matter what it does with them, is the U.S. military.

This October 7th marked the 17th anniversary of that first of so many still-spreading conflicts. In league with various Afghan warlords, the U.S. military began moving into that country, while its Air Force launched a fierce campaign, dropping large numbers of precision munitions and hundreds of cluster bombs. Those were meant not just for al-Qaeda, the terror outfit that, the previous month, had dispatched its own precision air force — hijacked American commercial jets — to take out iconic buildings in New York and Washington, but the Taliban, a fundamentalist sect that then controlled most of the country. By early 2002, that movement had been ejected from its last provincial capital, while Osama bin Laden had fled into hiding in Pakistan. And so it began.

The 17th anniversary of that invasion passed in the heated aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings, as the president was rallying his base by endlessly bashing the Democrats as an “angry mob” promoting “mob rule.” So if you weren’t then thinking about Afghanistan, don’t blame yourself. You were in good company. 

On October 8th, for instance, the front page of my hometown newspaper had headlines like “Court Showdown Invigorates G.O.P. in Crucial Races” and “20 Dead Upstate as Limo Crashes on Way to Party.” If you were old like me and still reading the paper version of the New York Times, you would have had to make your way to page seven to find out that such an anniversary had even occurred. There, a modest-sized article, headlined “On 17th Anniversary of U.S. Invasion, 54 Are Killed Across Afghanistan,” began this way:

“Kabul, Afghanistan — At least 54 people have been killed across Afghanistan in the past 24 hours, according to a tally based on interviews with officials on Sunday — 17 years to the day [after] American forces invaded the country to topple the Taliban regime. The violence was a reminder that the war has only raged deadlier with time, taking a toll on both the Afghan security forces and the civilians caught in the crossfire…” 

And that, really, was that. Little other mention anywhere and no follow-up. No significant commentary or major op-eds. No memorials or ceremonies. No thoughts from Congress. No acknowledgement from the White House.  

Yes, 3,546 American and NATO troops had died in those long years (including seven Americans so far in 2018). There have also been Afghan deaths aplenty, certainly tens of thousands of them in a country where significant numbers of people are regularly uprooted and displaced from their homes and lives. And 17 years later, the Taliban controls more of the country than at any moment since 2002; the U.S.-backed Afghan security forces are reportedly taking casualties that may, over the long run, prove unsustainable; provincial capitals have been briefly seized by insurgent forces; civilian deaths, especially of women and children, are at their highest levels in years (as are U.S. and Afghan air strikes); al-Qaeda has grown and spread across significant parts of the Middle East and Africa; a bunch of other terror outfits, including ISIS, are now in Afghanistan; and ISIS, like al-Qaeda (of which it was originally an offshoot), has also franchised itself globally.

In other words, 17 years later, what was once known as the Global War on Terror and is now a set of conflicts that no one here even bothers to name has only grown worse. Meanwhile, the military that American presidents repeatedly hailed as the greatest fighting force in history continues to battle fruitlessly across a vast swath of the planet. Afghanistan, of course, remains America’s “longest war,” as articles regularly acknowledged some years ago. These days, however, it has become so eternal that it has evidently outgrown the label “longest.”

(Un)Happy Anniversary indeed!

Wedded to War

If you consider this the anniversary of a marriage made in hell, then you would also have to think of the war on terror that started in Afghanistan as having had a brood of demon children — the invasion of Iraq being the first of them — and by now possibly even grandchildren. Meanwhile, the first actual American children born after the 9/11 attacks can now join the U.S. military and go fight in… well, Afghanistan, where about 14,000 American military personnel, possibly tens of thousands of private contractors, and air power galore (as well as the CIA’s drones) remain active indeed.

And keep in mind that Americans aren’t the only people wedded to war in the twenty-first century. However, when it comes to the others I have in mind, it’s not a matter of anniversaries ignored, but anniversaries that will never be. Let’s start with a recent barely reported incident in Afghanistan. On October 5th, either the U.S. Air Force or the Afghan one that has been armed, trained, and supported by the U.S. military destroyed part of a “wedding procession” in Kandahar Province, reportedly killing four and wounding eight, including women and children. (By the way, on the day of the 17th anniversary of the war, an Afghan air strike reportedly killed 10 children.) We don’t know — and probably never will — which air force was responsible, nor do we know if the bride or groom survived, no less whether they will marry and someday celebrate their 17th anniversary. 

All we know and probably will ever know is that, in the melee that is still Afghanistan, the obliteration of that wedding procession was just one more scarcely noted, remarkably repetitive little nightmare to which Americans will pay no attention whatsoever. Admittedly, when directly asked by pollsters 17 years later, a near majority of them (49%) do think that U.S. goals still remain unmet in that country and, according to other recent polls, somewhere between 61% and 69% of Americans would support the withdrawal of all U.S. forces there. That, however, is anything but a stunning figure given that, in 2011, a Washington Post-ABC News poll indicated that two-thirds of Americans believed the Afghan war “no longer worth fighting.” Evidently it’s now simply no longer worth giving a moment’s thought to.

Essentially unnoticed here, the destruction of wedding parties by U.S. air power has, in fact, been a relative commonplace in these years of endless war across the Greater Middle East. The first time American air power obliterated a wedding in Afghanistan was in late December 2001. U.S. B-52 and B-1B bombers mistakenly took out much of a village in Paktia Province killing more than 100 civilians while wedding festivities were underway, an event barely noted in the American media. We do not know if the bride and groom survived. (Imagine, however, the non-stop media attention if a terrorist had attacked a wedding in this country and killed anyone, no less the bride or groom!)

The second incident we know of took place in Khost Province in Eastern Afghanistan in May 2002 while a wedding was underway and villagers were firing in the air, a form of celebration there. At least 10 people died and many more were wounded. The third occurred that July in Oruzgan Province when the U.S. Air Force dropped seven 2,000-pound bombs on a wedding party, again evidently after celebratory firing had taken place, wiping out unknown numbers of villagers including, reportedly, a family of 25 people. In July 2008, a missile from a U.S. plane took out a party escorting a bride to the groom’s house in Nuristan Province, killing at least 47 civilians, 39 of them women and children, including the bride. The next month in Laghman Province, American bombers killed 16 Afghans in a house, including 12 members of a family hosting a wedding. In June 2012, in Logar Province, another wedding party was obliterated, 18 people dying (half of them children). This was the only one of these slaughters for which the U.S. military offered an apology.

And that’s just what I happen to know about wedding parties in Afghanistan in these years. Don’t forget Iraq either, where in May 2004 U.S. jets attacked a village near the Syrian border filled with people sleeping after a wedding ceremony, killing at least 42 of them, including “27 members of the [family hosting the wedding ceremony], their wedding guests, and even the band of musicians hired to play at the ceremony.” Of that attack, the man who was then commander of the U.S. 1st Marine Division and is now secretary of defense, James “Mad Dog” Mattis, said dismissively, “How many people go to the middle of the desert… to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?”

And don’t forget the 15 or so Yemenis on the way to a wedding in December 2013 who were “mistaken for an al-Qaeda convoy” and taken out by a U.S. drone. As I’ve written elsewhere, since September 11, 2001, we’ve been number one… in obliterating wedding parties. Still, we’ve had some genuine competition in recent years — above all, the Saudis in their brutal American-backed and -supplied air war in Yemen. From an incident in September 2015 in which their missiles killed more than 130 Yemenis at a wedding reception (including the usual women and children) to a strike on a wedding in April of this year that took out the groom, they’ve run a close second to the U.S. And then there’s ISIS, which, from Afghanistan to Turkey, seems to have a knack of its own for sending its version of a precision air force (suicide bombers) to take out weddings.

All of these, of course, represent anniversaries that will never be, which couldn’t be sadder. In truth, if you live in any of the battle zones of the still-expanding war on terror, you should probably think twice about getting married or at least having a wedding ceremony. Since Americans don’t focus on such moments in our never-ending conflicts, they have no way of seeing them as the heart and soul of the twenty-first-century American way of war. And of course there’s always the question that General Mattis raised to take into account: What are you going to do with people who insist on getting married in the desert — other than slaughter them?

Afghan Previews?

Only days after the 9/11 attacks, every member of Congress but one voted in favor of the Bush administration’s authorization of military force that opened the way not just for the Afghan invasion, but so much else that followed. The sole no vote came from Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), who warned that “a rush to launch precipitous military counterattacks runs too great a risk that more innocent men, women, children will be killed.” How right she proved to be.

By now, there is the equivalent of unending “towers” of dead women and children in the Greater Middle East, while millions of Afghans and others have been displaced from their homes and record millions more sent fleeing across national boundaries as refugees. That, in turn, has helped fuel the “populist” right in both Europe and the U.S., so in a sense, Donald Trump might be said to be one result of the invasion of Afghanistan — of, that is, a twenty-first-century American push to unsettle the world. Who knows what else (and who else) America’s wars may produce before they end, as they will someday?

Here, however, is one possibility that, at this point, isn’t part of any thinking in this country but perhaps should be. In the wake of America’s first Afghan War (1979-1989), the Red Army, the stymied military forces of the other Cold War superpower, the Soviet Union, finally limped out of that “bleeding wound” — as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called Afghanistan. They would return to a sapped, fragmenting empire and a country that would implode less than two years later.

In that post-Afghan moment of victory — the end of the Cold War — nothing of the Russian experience was recognized as instructive for the last superpower on planet Earth. Here’s my question, then: What if that first Afghan War was the real-world equivalent of a movie preview? Someday, when the second Afghan War finally ends and the U.S. military limps home from its many imperial adventures abroad as the Red Army once did, will it, too, find an empire on the verge of imploding and a country in deep trouble?

Is that really beyond imagining anymore? And if it were so, wouldn’t that be an anniversary to remember?

This entry was posted in Doomsday scenarios, Guest Post, Middle East on October 22, 2018 by Yves Smith.

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Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/tom-engelhardt-unhappy-17th-anniversary-afghan-war.html