#from Jan....necessary

[toolazytodecide]

I've seen some people theorise that Netflix Wylan has been out of his fathers house longer than book Wylan, which makes me wonder what that means for Alys.

Wylan's father turned on him when he found out his wife was pregnant with a replacement. If Wylan escaped years ago that would mean the baby would have been born. Which doesn't work plot wise, but imagine Wylan having a brother he's never met because of his father's cruelty.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

Scams, Fakes, Performance, & Belief

Peaceful Property: On Sale, ep. 4

This week's episode was filled with fakes: online order scams, magicians, compromised democratic processes, and a fake ghost. What reasons do we have to believe in anything? Everything is just an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes while the rugs get pulled out from under us so others can make a quick buck and protect their own hide. Who wants to be fooled by all the shams?

Pangpang does. Jan Ployshompoo has been fantastic in this role, and she got to devour this episode. Jan specializes in a 'camp' performance style that's easy to undervalue. 'Camp' acting involves overacting the characters and emotions, and lesser actors often approach it with self-awareness and cynicism. Jan understands my favorite note on camp that Susan Sontag wrote.

“56. Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of “character.” . . . Camp taste identifies with what it is enjoying. People who share this sensibility are not laughing at the thing they label as “a camp,” they’re enjoying it. Camp is a tender feeling.”

The tender affection in Jan's 'camp' hits the themes of this episode home (no pun intended) because she infuses compassion for her over-the-top characters. They get to have range and reasons for their shallowness.

Pangpang's manic overperformance as a social-media influencer has been all about naively buying into every gimmick for herself and from others. Home, probably from his own similarities, points out to Peach how she's doing this as a form of compensation. All along she needed to believe in something because she needed to believe in her brother, to believe when no one else would in his debilitating fear and grief. She didn't need evidence to believe he saw ghosts as he said. She needed to believe she could be there for him even if she didn't know how. Pangpang chooses enchantment because staying true to her brother and her own feelings of loss over their parents are more important than being the winner of some existential argument.

The problem of deception lies at the heart of performance, and I often have a sense that performers and production crews invest a little more when they have to address it (Foei Patara who played Chobkol GAVE!). They have to prove that there is value and truth in the make-believe and assisting people in doing it. For a while, they need their audience to return to the magic of childhood so that they'll clap to show they believe in fairies when Tinkerbell's light begins to fade.

I loved how Peaceful Property symbolized this return to innocence as an egg, a kind of spiritual rebirth. If we want to believe in the magic of fantasy (Kan), the potential in ourselves (Peach), and the value of others (Home), we have to let go of our guarded cynicism. It won't eliminate the harsher truths of reality. They'll arrive one way or another. But we don't need to be the person who crushes our own dreams or who crush others' dreams just because we're scared of being vulnerable. We need to be people like Pangpang who want to believe and help others on their journey to believing good things are possible.

[putri900]

Even i was hoping trump was just going to be only slightly worse than biden but then lo and behold! Out of fucking nowhere, they want to persecute and put every "illegal" in CONCENTRATION CAMPS. And they want to invade mexico. They're still persecuting trans people via legislation. They still had that fucking batshit crazy plan to DISMANTLE the entire democratic process.

So remember that even when your Democrat is basically satan himself, Republicans still figure out how to be satan times 10. Always. They're always going to be worse.

On another, sadder note, i think satan times 10 will win. Because progressives have broadly given up on this new, increasingly shitty status quo, theyll let in something significantly worse. Its not that i even necessarily blame voters when the Democrats themselves make themselves irredeemable, but itd be nice to just hope... that things couldnt get significantly worse.

[annagrzinskys]

honestly so draining to come back to the office after the news bc everyone is being so bitchy

[stil-lindigo]

Bisan is calling for another global strike!

I saw some posts just outlining Jan 21st, and wanted to clarify that Bisan has called for a full seven days of action.

What a global strike would look like is:

calling in sick to work

purchasing bare essentials ahead of the week so you can observe the general boycott of goods / buying as little as you genuinely can

putting in a concerted effort to elevate Palestinian voices and make it clear that this strike is in support of a permanent ceasefire!

For those who will have to purchase necessary goods during this time, please observe the brands that the BDS movement is asking us to boycott!

♢♢♢

Right now is also a good time to mention some better uses for your money during this week.

Available e-sims in Gaza are running low!!

Mirna El Helbawi and her team are working round the clock to continue to connect Palestinians as Israel does its best to cut them off from the rest of the world.

You can learn how to purchase and send e-sims here, and below you’ll find a list of what is currently needed (the areas in brackets indicate what region you should select to buy e-sims in).

--

CareforGaza is an organisation that does verifiably good work, distributing supplies directly to Palestinian families.

They have a Gofundme set up at the moment, but because of Gofundme’s poor track record regarding refusing to transfer funds to Palestinians, I’d recommend continuing to donate directly to their PayPal here.

Good luck to all of you. Don't turn away from Palestine!

[deposedefenddeny]

Clearly written by a mathematics prodigy. Reads like a series of lemmas on the question of 21st century quality of life. It's easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it's simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out. He was a violent individual - rightfully imprisoned - who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary. A take I found online that I think is interesting: "Had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere and at the end of the day, he's probably right. Oil barons haven't listened to any environmentalists, but they feared him. When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution. Fossil fuel companies actively suppress anything that stands in their way and within a generation or two, it will begin costing human lives by greater and greater magnitudes until the earth is just a flaming ball orbiting third from the sun. Peaceful protest is outright ignored, economic protest isn't possible in the current system, so how long until we recognize that violence against those who lead us to such destruction is justified as self-defense. These companies don't care about you, or your kids, or your grandkids. They have zero qualms about burning down the planet for a buck, so why should we have any qualms about burning them down to survive? We're animals just like everything else on this planet, except we've forgotten the law of the jungle and bend over for our overlords when any other animal would recognize the threat and fight to the death for their survival. 'Violence never solved anything' is a statement uttered by cowards and predators."

A review from Luigi Mangione's Goodreads account, published Jan 31, 2024

[lamb-teaa]

` Choose Us, Choose Me

` pairing: colonel!Caleb x mechanic!reader

` tags: canon divergence!! strictly doesn't follow canon timeline!! but might seem similar?? idk tbh. anyway ANGST. full hurt no comfort. vague plot. vague relationship. vague mentions of betrayal and double agents. vvvery short scenario.

` teaa's note: having to wait for 22 Jan for Caleb's full lore to drop, imma indulge in my personal headcanon for this ficlet instead - a special (&painful) treat for all the Caleb girlies (and me ehe!) (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

Your silence is the cruelest punishment he had ever endured.

Yet Caleb too remained silent as he watched you meticulously work on repairing his damaged bionic arm, not once had you uttered a single word since his impromptu arrival at your workshop stationed within the massive spaceship.

You merely glanced at him, your tired gaze instantly flickering towards his shortcircuiting arm before letting out a small huff of annoyance as you slammed the coffee mug on the messy table. Like a routine checkup, you wordlessly pointed towards the empty seat and began working on fixing his bionic arm back to good as new.

All the while the tense atmosphere remained palpable within the workshop. Even your trusty little invention-slash-companion robot, Brownie had jumped over the table, holding out all the necessary tools for you to fix Caleb up, yet the presence of the adorable little brown robot cat wasn't enough to shimmer down the tension in the air.

Your expression remained aloof yet the look in your eyes held a strong suppressed rage. Caleb winced when you purposely handled his arm a tad bit too roughly, shooting a side eyed glare at Brownie snickering at him, a clear message of 'you deserve it!' written all over your little companion's face.

Caleb was tempted to send the smug rascal flying across the room using his Evol.

...But he wouldn't want to risk facing your wrath, not when you're still mad pissed at him right now.

"...You know I had to do it." Caleb decided to break the silence first, his eyes locked onto your face, hoping to ease down your anger even just a little bit. "I was following orders."

You stayed silent, nonchalantly avoiding his gaze as your attention was solely on the holographic screen displaying the restoration process.

Caleb gritted his teeth, growing agitated by your lack of response. Why were you so stubborn? Why couldn't you understand him? Why do you have to subject him to this stupid silent treatment of yours?

Why can't you see he's doing all this for your sake?

"It's done." You finally spoke after a long tense silence, your voice cold and detached as you did the final adjustments on his bionic arm. His piercing stare was suffocating you and you wanted nothing more than to be out of his sight. "Now get out."

You had only turned around for a brief millisecond before his hand suddenly snatched your wrist, pulling you close to him. His taller frame towering over you, his face confronted in a mixture of anguish and pain - a sight that made your heart ache, but you refuse to show any weakness, not in front of him, especially not in front of a cruel man like him.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" Caleb spoke lowly, struggling to suppress his own anger. "Aren't you tired of these charades of yours?"

You glared up at him defiantly, despite the slight tremble from his iron grip. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Don't play dumb with me." He scowled, his grip on your wrist tightened slightly. "How long are you going to play both sides? Do you think they're going to let you off easily once they find out you've been secretly colluding with the enemy?"

His heart sank in dread at your unfazed reaction, as if you've been expecting this to happen sooner or later, that the consequences be damned if it meant fulfilling your own secret mission no matter the cost.

Even at the expense of your own wellbeing.

"..Choose us." Choose me. Caleb shut his eyes briefly before letting go of your wrist, his voice strained with a soft plea as his hands gently cupped your cheeks, forcing you to look up at him. "I can guarantee your safety if you choose our side, please Princess. You'll die if you keep this up."

He sees the flicker of hesitation in your eyes, the conflict swimming in those alluring gaze that never fail to make his heart stutter. But as soon as that raising hope for you turn to his side came, it vanished in an instant when you slapped his hands away.

"I'd rather much die." You spat, your fist clutched the collar of his shirt as you glared up at him, the hatred and disgust written all over your face as your final words shattered his heart into pieces.

"Than to serve the likes of abominations like you.”

[seyvia]

──✩₊⁺⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧──

₊˚⊹♡𝕋ℍ𝔸ℕ𝕂 𝕐𝕆𝕌 𝔽𝕆ℝ 𝟙,𝟘𝟘𝟘 𝔽𝕆𝕃𝕃𝕆𝕎𝔼ℝ𝕊✧˖ °Σ(°ロ°~)

Here's a little Giftie for you! I had intended to give them to you from the beginning, but I truly appreciate all the requests! they kept me going~

(づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ♡

──✩₊⁺⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧──

update info!: I uploaded the boys back before the big update with lashes. So the 'MMSims lashes' and the Kijiko needed meshes are all out of date and need to be deleted. (Here is a link to the updated lashes I used, they are the maxis match set) and kijiko's because they are necessary for the other one to work. (here & here) Thankfully I tested them and that is the only thing wrong. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, I can't update them all by myself at this moment so I appreciate your patients. Updated with alternative download links! Please do!

Credit me. I worked hard on these sims. ( •̯́ ₃ •̯̀)

Tag me if you use them for something!

Change them into your sim style! / give them makeovers!

Please do not!

Please don't claim as your own creations. Don't reupload them somewhere else. Especially dangerous sites where you make money off of my free downloads.

NOTES

Not all packs are required for downloading! Simply substitute any missing components on the sim. All cc included! Even my defaults! If you happen to have any conflicting defaults that you prefer, simply locate the default file that comes upon download and delete it. All of them have outfits, skills, careers, likes and dislikes, lifestyles, etc etc. Everything I thought would fit the characters best, you can check it all out for yourselves! (Some have more than others (ᵕ—ᴗ—)ʱªʱª ) you can change these to suit yourself. on the gallery too, but that doesn't include cc, so they'll definitely look a bit off.

──✩₊⁺⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧──

𝕊𝔼𝔹𝔸𝕊𝕋𝕀𝔸ℕ 𝔻𝕆𝕎ℕ𝕃𝕆𝔸𝔻 (sfs

-old files) 𝔸𝕃𝕋 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 -updated Jan 2025)

Seb was the only one who got a face update because I wasn't happy with his mouth shape, plus, I got better mono-lid cc. He looks better to me now but I'll keep the old files up for anyone who disagrees. ( ´◡` )

-the middle one is with no makeup.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶

𝕊𝔸𝕄 𝔻𝕆𝕎ℕ𝕃𝕆𝔸𝔻 (sfs

-old files) 𝔸𝕃𝕋 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 -updated Jan 2025)

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶

ℍ𝔸ℝ𝕍𝔼𝕐 𝔻𝕆𝕎ℕ𝕃𝕆𝔸𝔻 (sfs

-old files) 𝔸𝕃𝕋 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 -updated Jan 2025)

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶

𝔸𝕃𝔼𝕏 𝔻𝕆𝕎ℕ𝕃𝕆𝔸𝔻 (sfs

-old files) 𝔸𝕃𝕋 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 -updated Jan 2025)

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶

𝕊ℍ𝔸ℕ𝔼 𝔻𝕆𝕎ℕ𝕃𝕆𝔸𝔻 (sfs

-old files) 𝔸𝕃𝕋 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 -updated Jan 2025)

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶

𝔼𝕃𝕃𝕀𝕆𝕋𝕋 𝔻𝕆𝕎ℕ𝕃𝕆𝔸𝔻 (dropbox -old files) 𝔸𝕃𝕋 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 -updated Jan 2025)

──✩₊⁺⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧──

lots of credit to all the cc creators!💖 and done!

[emilianadarling]

"The first woman to successfully sue Trump during his first presidency, his former 2016 staffer Jessica Denson, has spent the last two months advocating for him to be disqualified from the presidency. Denson accused his campaign of harassment and sued to overturn her non-disclosure agreement (NDA). [...]

They are among those who argue that the 14th Amendment bars Trump from becoming president. That amendment prohibits current and former officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office. They claim that Trump’s involvement in the Capitol riot means just that.

The protest, which began today in Washington, D.C. and continues through the weekend, is called 14th Now. They’re using the hashtag #14thNow to promote it online. [...]

Denson emphasized that an “actual physical show of people peacefully demanding that Congress do their job is necessary to change the conversation. Generations will look back to this very precious window of time as the dividing line between freedom and fascism. This is our last chance to make our mark in this moment in history.” [...]

The activists are encouraging those not attending in person to reach out to their members of Congress and ask them to object to certification of Trump’s electoral votes."

The protest will continue for the next two days (Jan 5-6) in Washington, D.C.

[Jessica Denson on Bluesky | nowmarch.org]

[mariacallous]

Writing a comprehensive history of Polish citizens during the Holocaust is a hefty task. A Polish law that criminalizes any mention of Polish responsibility for or complicity in Nazi crimes makes it even harder.

That makes the groundbreaking research conducted by acclaimed Holocaust historian Jan Grabowski for his new book, “On Duty: The Polish Blue & Criminal Police in the Holocaust” all the more remarkable. 

Relying on meticulous documentation, the book argues that Polish institutions were more than willing to assist the Nazis in their extermination campaign, and often led the way through their own initiatives. Grabowski, a professor at the University of Ottawa, spent more than 10 years conducting the research, including years in Poland going through Polish archives, private diaries and records from more than 100 small towns where Jews lived in high concentrations. 

“I read horrifying things in the diaries of Polish policemen describing how many Jews they killed each day,” said Grabowski, 61. “There were anecdotes about a cop asking for a glass of vodka before shooting a Jew, or using hot water to clean the blood off their hands. They killed friends and schoolmates without remorse, even in places where no Germans ever came to check up on them.”

Much of the evidence Grabowski uncovered had never been seen before.

“It’s not easy to write a book like this when you have opposition from massive Polish organizations with teams of PhDs whose job is to go after people like myself,” said Grabowski, who began his research for the book before Poland passed the controversial 2018 Act on the Institute of National Remembrance. “But thorough and independent historical research is necessary to make sure that a nation can’t rewrite its history into a happy story of righteous Poles saving Jews.”

In particular, the book focuses on the actions of Poland’s Blue Police, officially known as the Polish Police of the Generalgouvernement, established shortly after the German occupation of Poland in 1939 and consisting mainly of prewar Polish police officers.

“We are talking about a police force of 20,000 people that previously was in charge of enforcing mundane civilian laws like making sure that horses walking on the street had horseshoes,” Grabowski said. “What fascinates me is how quickly these normal ordinary cops were transformed into ruthless killers.”

Grabowski’s 496-page book is now available on Yad Vashem’s website.

Grabowski has written numerous books and articles focusing on the Holocaust in Poland. His book “Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland” won the Yad Vashem International Book Prize in 2013.

On the eve of World War II, Poland’s 3.3 million Jews formed a vibrant and diverse society, noted Havi Dreifuss, director of the Center for Research on the Holocaust in Poland at Yad Vashem and professor of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University. 

“Many were engaged in Jewish and Polish causes or active in political movements such as the Bund, Zionist, and Orthodox groups. While most lived in cities, these were often small, alongside villages that reflected the richness of Polish Jewish life.”

This last point is a critical issue for Holocaust scholarship, Dreifuss said.  

“Research often focuses on large ghettos like Warsaw and Lodz, each housing hundreds of thousands of Jews. But over 340 ghettos existed in the Generalgouvernement, 83% of them with fewer than 5,000 Jews,” she said. “These smaller ghettos, representing the majority of Polish Jewish communities, remain understudied, despite their significant role in understanding Polish Jewry during the Holocaust.”

Chronologically, Polish persecution of the Jews progressed in three stages, according to Grabowski.

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the Third Reich entrusted Polish police forces to introduce and enforce new restrictions on the Jews. 

“The first phase was the beginning of the inhuman ghettoization of the Jews,” Grabowski said. “The Germans created laws designed to break down the Jews, limiting where they could go and what they could do or own. Yet until now, virtually no historians have examined how the large Polish police force suddenly became so deeply involved with Jewish affairs, effectively condemning them to starvation.”

By 1941, Polish forces began working on the second phase, liquidating hundreds of ghettos. As trainloads of Jews were sent to concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka in 1942 and 1943, Polish police participated in the Nazi evacuations of these ghettos, rounding Jews up, killing anyone who resisted and sometimes even conducting the evacuations themselves.

“It is important to understand that it wasn’t the Germans coercing the Poles to shoot; it was the Polish execution squads making these decisions themselves,” Grabowski said. “In November 1941, Polish police were shooting Jews on a regular basis, much earlier than in Nazi-occupied countries in Western Europe.”

Perhaps the Poles were just acting to avoid facing punishment from the Nazis? 

“The interesting thing is that there is no record of any penalty given to someone who refused to kill a Jew, except maybe some sneers by your colleagues,” Grabowski said. “If you didn’t want to do it, there was always someone else who would be happy to.”

After the ghettos were liquidated, Polish forces continued their killing sprees through the third phase, searching throughout the country for Jews who may have escaped, according to Grabowski.

“At this point, they are murdering with gusto, without any German involvement,” according to Grabowski. “They are working with locals, with their neighbors, and they don’t even inform the Germans about what they are doing.”

As the Holocaust progressed, Polish police acted on their own to kill Jews without coordinating with Germany, Grabowski said. 

“They knew that if they reported their activities to the Nazis they would have been forced to share the money and property they stole,” he said. “They might also incriminate their neighbors who were actively sheltering Jews. And they didn’t want that.”

Poland’s Foreign Ministry declined to respond to the claims in Grabowski’s books, saying, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not comment on the scientific activities of individual people, considering scientific sphere and activity exempt from political assessment.”

While writing “On Duty,” Grabowski faced a powerful barrage of opposition from the Polish government and was slapped with a number of lawsuits, two of which are still pending. 

“It has not been good for my psychological well-being,” Grabowski said. “When you study for a PhD, no one trains you in how to handle attacks from the state for slandering the good name of the nation.”

But exposing the truth is exactly why Grabowski believes his work is important. 

“The Holocaust has become a universal benchmark of evil, but even after decades of Holocaust education, you have governments bending history out of shape to conform with their own needs,” he said. “This is a very dangerous precedent, and we have a responsibility to prevent it to preserve our future.”

[kommunisti]

by the logic of usamerican zionists who say it's justified and even necessary to bomb arab countries and kill their elected leaders to "save the people/world" from oppressive governments and if civilians die, it's their own fault for being in proximity of terrorists and voting for terrorists

if trump (who they say wants to strip away all human rights and destroy the world, pretty serious) won, would it be justified to assassinate him by bombing an event with him present, even if it killed hundreds or thousands of civilians, because they deserve it for supporting him? would it even be justified to bomb ALL usamericans to death, since they allowed trump to win and didn't do anything?

isn't it the same? trump even incited a terrorist event on jan 6th. and if americans allowed him to win, if they didn't take up arms to defeat him, they're all guilty. by zionist logic, not mine. "if they disagree, why didn't they do anything to oppose [x]" yeah well why aren't you gunning down republicans then?

yet even when people fear-monger about trump and how important it is to vote for kamala because trump is the megahitler compared to kamala's hitler lite and would surely end human rights as they are, if he won, these people would do nothing. and they would certainly not say that armed resistance or militaristic invasion or bombing would be the solution

arguably usamerican politics have caused more harm than any other country in the world in the past 100 years, yet none of it would justify bombing their innocent civilians in their minds. american citizens are just victims too and how dare you suggest they could be culpable or that they should do more than vote for a different flavor of genocidal god king of their nation

it's just other countries, countries of brown and black peoples, that deserve it. they deserve the freedom-bringing missiles of the profit-seeking us military and their allies to save them from themselves <3 the united states are uniquely qualified to decide the fate of all other countries, to decide who deserves to live or die, who deserves their country torn apart and looted and drained of resources. after the us destabilized them and destroyed progressive governments and installed radicalized us-trained militants in charge to stop communism. because freedom and democracy

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Pacific Rim Events on January 12th, 2025...

AKA: Triple Event Day

Operation Pitfall will be carried out

Category IV Kaijus Scunner and Raiju emerge from the Breach as Jaegers 'Gipsy Danger' and 'Striker Eureka' are deployed to the Pacific Ocean to destroy it as part of Operation Pitfall - a high-risk mission with the intention of destroying the Breach via thermonuclear warhead

The first Cat. V Kaiju, Slattern, also emerges from the Breach

Cat. IV Otachi's (Jan. 8th) - unnamed and uncategorized - infant Kaiju escapes from the womb and self-strangles on the umbilical cord shortly after in Hong Kong

Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb Drift using the infant Kaiju's (secondary) brain; discover Operation Pitfall cannot succeed without Kaiju DNA that serves as the necessary key to enter/exit through the Breach

Gipsy Danger's pilots Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori kill Raiju; Striker Eureka's pilots Chuck Hansen and Stacker Pentecost deliberately detonate the warhead to sacrifice themselves in hopes of killing the remaining Kaiju and giving G.D. a chance of making it through the Breach with Raiju's corpse

Kaiju Scunner and Striker Eureka are wiped out; Slattern survives the explosion, severely wounded

G.D. trades Raiju for Slattern by tackling it into the Breach; Becket uses the nuclear turbine point-blank range to kill the Cat. V

Through the Breach and now within the Anteverse, Becket uses G.D.'s nuclear reactor to prime the Jaeger for self-destruction after ejecting Mori's escape pod first; ejects himself before the resulting explosion destroys both the Breach and Kaiju facility within the Anteverse

Becket and Mori both survive

The War Clock is stopped, and humanity wins the Kaiju War (August 10th, 2013 - January 12th, 2025)

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Jan; mistaken identities and interdimensional refugees. ( chrono || non-chrono )

“. . . Kent,” Bruce says, sounding immediately exasperated and also way less “Batman”, which Kon wishes he could assume were a good sign. “Why the hell did you tell the aid workers you were me?” 

“I did not, I just flirted with a couple of them while overdressed for the situation and holding a traumatized unaccompanied minor and apparently some assumptions were made, can't imagine why,” Kon says dryly, because he is who he is as a person and all, and also has never in his life known when to just shut the fuck up. “But look, I'm not Superman, okay?” 

“This version of Mr. Kent appears to be around twenty years old, Master Bruce,” Alfred says, probably assuming he’s being helpful while definitely being the exact opposite of helpful. “More . . . interestingly, perhaps, our additional guest has identified himself as ‘Jon Kent’ and claims to be the biological child of his own reality's Clark Kent and Lois Lane.” 

“He is,” Kon sighs, squeezing the arm he has around Jon. “He’s also like ten, so you don’t need to go full Bat on it, okay?” 

“There's a successful Kryptonian-human hybrid from an alternate dimension and a proto-Superman from a different alternate dimension in my city, and you think I shouldn't be concerned by that?” Bruce asks neutrally. 

“I mean I know you're gonna be, I'm not stupid enough to think there's a version of you that wouldn’t be, just it's really not necessary,” Kon says, rolling his eyes in exasperation. Like he doesn’t fucking know what Batman is like, c’mon. “Worry about the whole interdimensional traffic jam altogether, not specifically us. And I'm still not Superman, thanks.” 

“You do realize we have no reason whatsoever to trust you, yes?” Bruce says, because apparently he thinks Kon’s new here or something. “Especially because despite claiming to not be Superman, you've verified Jon Kent as being Clark Kent's offspring and you clearly know me. And also, you know Superman exists.” 

“It would be very hard not to, at this point in my life,” Kon replies dubiously. 

“What do–” Bruce starts to say, and then the street blows up. 

Goddammit, Kon thinks as Alfred swerves the towncar onto the sidewalk and neatly splits the difference between a mailbox and a fire hydrant without hitting either. Because, like. Alfred, obviously. Jon yelps in alarm and Kon wraps his TTK around him reflexively–and Alfred and the car, though that’s a little less “reflex” and a little more “deliberate choice”. 

He really doesn’t know why he did that. Just–yeah. That’s what his reflex was. 

Jon doesn’t even need it, probably, but his Jon never needed anything from him either, so–

Kon forces himself to stop thinking about that, because this Jon does in fact need things from him, and leans forward to get a clearer view of the street without getting X-ray vision involved as Alfred lets out a mildly aggrieved sigh and taps his fingers against the wheel. 

It is . . . kind of a mess, to put it mildly. 

[contemplatingoutlander]

Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind.

Robert Paxton thought the label was overused. But now he’s alarmed by what he sees in global politics — including Trumpism.

When the foremost historian on fascism, Robert Paxton, who has been reluctant in the past to apply that label to Trump, finally admits that Trump IS a fascist it's time to pay attention.

This is a gift🎁link so you can read the entire article. Below are some excerpts.

Jan. 6 proved to be a turning point. For an American historian of 20th-century Europe, it was hard not to see in the insurrection echoes of Mussolini’s Blackshirts, who marched on Rome in 1922 and took over the capital, or of the violent riot at the French Parliament in 1934 by veterans and far-right groups who sought to disrupt the swearing in of a new left-wing government. But the analogies were less important than what Paxton regarded as a transformation of Trumpism itself. “The turn to violence was so explicit and so overt and so intentional, that you had to change what you said about it,” Paxton told me. “It just seemed to me that a new language was necessary, because a new thing was happening.” When an editor at Newsweek reached out to Paxton, he decided to publicly declare a change of mind. In a column that appeared online on Jan. 11, 2021, Paxton wrote that the invasion of the Capitol “removes my objection to the fascist label.” Trump’s “open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line,” he went on. “The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary.” [...] This summer I asked Paxton if, nearly four years later, he stood by his pronouncement. Cautious but forthright, he told me that he doesn’t believe using the word is politically helpful in any way, but he confirmed the diagnosis. “It’s bubbling up from below in very worrisome ways, and that’s very much like the original fascisms,” Paxton said. “It’s the real thing. It really is.” [emphasis added]

Remember, fascism typically involves a cult of personality. Hitler was wildly popular with ordinary Germans.

It's no coincidence that Trump is so obsessed with the numbers at his rallies.

[medicalgradezine]

The official tumblr account for the Medical Grade zine! All relevant links/dates will be posted here and this pinned post will be updated as necessary!

This project is a fan-zine dedicated to the Medics of the Transformers franchise!

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[fatehbaz]

Originally I had attached these tags about British imperial forestry to a post about United States treatment of forests, Indigenous peoples, and land administration from 1900-ish to 1935-ish, during a transition period when clear-cutting logging was threatening profit so the US turned to a German- and British-influenced "sustained yield" forestry paradigm:

And in response, someone added:

In the midst of the first Empire Forestry Conference of scientists, academics, and administrators in 1920, the chairman of the Forestry Commission of Britain, Lord Lovat, said that forests were "grown for use and not for mere ornament ... Forests are national assets only so far as they supply the raw material for industrial development."

Rajan (in Modernizing Nature) directly quotes professor of forestry at Oxford, R.S. Troup, who had been influential in the Indian forest service; at the same forestry conference in 1920, Troup promoted sustained yield like this: "Conservation was a 'wise and necessary measure' but it was 'only a stage towards the problem of how best to utilise the forest resources of the empire'. The ultimate ideal was economic management [...], which regarded forests as capital assets, fixed annual yields in such a manner as to exploit 'to the full interest on this capital [...]' and aimed for equal annual yields so as to sustain the market and provide regular supplies of timber to industry."

One of the big - and easily accessible/readable - summaries of the shift to sustained yield and rise of US and British administrators embracing "economic management" of forests:

Modernizing Nature: Forestry and Imperial Economic Development, 1800-1950. S. Ravi Rajan. 2006.

Concise look at the trajectory from East India Company and Royal Navy timber reserves; to British foresters training in Germany and/or in German traditions (including sustained yield) before joining as officers in the powerful British-Indian land administration bureaucracy; to US scientists being trained by those British administrators; to 1920s/1930s Empire Forestry Conferences promoting industry while identifying forests as essential to power.

---

This has also been covered by:

Vinita Damodaran, Richard Grove, Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells, Jonathan Saha, Gregory Barton, Rohan D'Souza.

More summaries of the situation (shorter length, accessible):

"Imperial Environmentalism or Environmental Imperialism? European Forestry, Colonial Forests and the Agenda of Forest Management in the British Empire, 1800-1900". S. Ravi Rajan, In: Nature and Orient: Essays on Environmental History of South and South East Asia, 1998.

"'Dominion over palm and pine': the British Empire forestry conferences, 1920-1947". J.M. Powell, Journal of Historical Geography, Volume 33, Issue 4, October 2007.

Elsewhere, Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George Handley described it like this: 'These forest reserves [...] did not necessarily represent "an atavistic interest in preserving the 'natural' [...]" but rather "a more manipulative and power-conscious interest in constructing new landscapes [...]."' While Sharae Deckard adds: '[T]he subversive potential of the "green" critique [...] was defused by the extent to which growing environmental sensibilities enabled imperialism to function more efficiently by appropriating botanical knowledge and indigenous conservation methods [...].'

---

And the book:

Commonwealth Forestry and Environmental History: Empire, Forests and Colonial Environments in Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia and New Zealand.

Edited by Damodaran and D'Souza, with work from conferences hosted by Grove, in 19 chapters including:

"Worlds Apart? The Scottish Forestry Tradition and the Development of Forestry in India" (K. Jan Ootheok); "Redeeming Wood by Destroying the Forest: Shola, Plantations and Colonial Conservancy on the Nilgiris in the Nineteenth Century" (Deborah Sutton); "Nature's Tea Bounty: Plant Colonialism and 'Garden' Capitalism in the British Empire" (Jayeeta Sharma); "Industrialized Rainforests: The Ecological Transformation of the Sri Lankan Highlands, 1815-1900"; "Forestry and Social Engineering in the Miombo Woodlands of South-Eastern Tanganyika" (Thaddeus Sunseri)

---

Rajan also points out (again in Modernizing Nature):

"[An] extremely important aspect to the repackaging [of forestry science and management] [...] [and] a critical principle that stands out here is that of sustained yield, or sustainability (Nachhaltigekeit). This concept was fundamental [...]. By the turn of the [twentieth] century a large pan-colonial [British-United States] scientific community was in existence, trained in the German and French tradition of forestry [...]. Following the revolt of 1857, the government of [British] India sought to pursue active interventionist policies [...]. Experts were deployed as 'scientific soldiers' [...]. Dietrich Brandis [...], considered the founder of Indian forestry [...] married Rachel Marshman, who was [...] also the sister of the wife of General Havelock, a close friend of Lord Dalhouse, the then governor-general of India. On Havelock's recommendation, Brandis was put in charge of the forests of [...] Burma [...] and was subsequently appointed inspector-general of forests of India. [...] He also trained prospective foresters of the forest department of the USA, including Gifford Pinchot. [...] Chancellor Bismarck gave the visiting British Prime Minister Gladstone an oak sapling [...]. Prussia prided itself on helping devise [...] modern forest management. [...] [T]he Forestry Commision [...], [or] [t]he Imperial Visionaries, as they became known, believed that an increase in primary production in the tropical dependent empire would result in the growth of the British economy. [...] They deemed their own job to be serving the imperial economy."

---

And also:

Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism. GA Barton, 2002.

"Colonialism and Green Science: History of Colonial Scientific Forestry in South India, 1820-1920". VM Ravikumar Vejendala, Indian Journal of History of Science, 47:2, pages 241-259, 2012.

"Imperialism, Intellectual Networks, and Environmental Change: Unearthing the Origins and Evolution of Global Environmental History." Vinitia Damodaran and Richard Grove, in Nature's End: History and the Environment, 2009.

"The Reconfiguration of Scientific Career Networks in the Late Colonial Period: The Case of Food and Agriculture Organization and the British Colonial Forestry Service" by Jennifer Gold, and "A Network Approach to the Origins of Forestry Education in India, 1855-1885" by Brett M. Bennett. Both chapters are form Science and Empire, 2011.

Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism. Joseph Morgan Hidge, in Series in Ecology and History, 2007.

Nature and Nation: Forests and Development in Peninsular Malaysia. Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells, 2005. And also: "Peninsular Malaysia in the context of natural history and colonial science." Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 11, Number 1, 2009.

"Empires of Forestry: Professional Forestry and State Power in Southeast Asia, Part 1". Peter Vandergeest and Nancy Lee Peluso, Environment and History 12, no. 1, pages 31-64, February 2006.