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moxie-girl · 2 months ago

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DRDT EP 13/14 ANALYSIS/THEORIES

I said I'd do this once I collected my thoughts! haha Warning! This is super long…

To start, I'm going to pick apart all the stuff I predicted for ep. 13 (I'll try not to make it too long…)

Levi's Secret

Well. Levi sure did admit to. All that! I think this eliminates any last doubts I personally had about him being the killer… (your honor just because I'm a serial killer doesn't mean I killed that specific person /ref) I really like that he isn't shown as a bad person just because he lacks empathy, and he's actually actively trying to be a good person… the fact that he just admitted his secret because he thought it was the right thing to do is so funny though, there go all my theories lol! (I'm still a little worried about rule 14 though…)

Ace's (Almost) Murder

Yeah!! This is probably what we're gonna spend episode 14 talking about, with murder method and alibis, etc. I still don't think it was Nico though! (I want to say I called that it'd be relevant, but it felt a little obvious…)

The Murder Method

I think we can say this has been all figured out, with the method being exactly what several people much smarter than me all figured out.

The Possible Culprits

Rose was still acting a little odd, but I think Whit on the other hand, despite whatever all that was, is off the hook for now, so my number 1 suspect is still Hu! I'm like 90% sure she was the one who tried to kill Ace, at least, and that's become very important now!

Secrets

Well, we got all the secrets figured out! (Hu :( ) The fandom interpretation was pretty much correct, except for Teruko's (we'll get to that later…) I do hope that after this trial, some of the secrets that are not relevant/haven't really been discussed do get adressed, because I could even see them becoming motives for murder again. But also, I just want the characters to talk about them! (gimme that juicy juicy angst…)

Ace

He didn't re-open his injury or really freak out like I expected, but we got some vulnerability (and a new sprite!) from Ace, and considering next episode is probably gonna focus a ton on him, I'm still expecting at least one of the two to happen…

Teruko

Luckily for Teruko, we didn't have anything unlucky happen to her this episode! But she sure did get her time in the protag spotlight anyway, I'm glad she didn't let the mistake from last episode get her down!

☆ ☆ ☆

Also, my bingo card! I got a bingo!! (ft. my messy tiny notes if you want to read them)

A few of my other bingo predictions I'm still going to hold on to for the next (few) episodes, but now, onto some new stuff!

Final Arei Flashback

Whoooah boy was that scene a doozy. I'm starting to think David's murderous rage towards the blackened at the start of the trial was genuine, because me too, man. I'm really glad Arei got at least a little bit of closure before she died, though! She also had an interesting take on the "good person" role, something that has been very important to this trial thus far and will likely continue to be. (I'm thinking that the killer may have had a "good person"-related motivation for killing, which is why it's the chapter's overarching theme?)

Also, to adress the elephant in the room… EDEN??? Well, no wonder Xander "didn't expect her to attack [him] like that" - and from her expression I wonder if she expected it either - I'm really looking forward to learning more about what, exactly, happened before the killing game that involved them! I didn't really believe in Mastermind!Eden before this, but it's starting to look pretty plausible... (Also Xander is the king of haunting the narrative oh my god lol)

Teruko's Secret

Many of us, myself included, were hoping/guessing/assuming that when all the secrets were figured out, David would reveal that he actually had Teruko's, not Xander's. While that didn't happen, the way he reacted after she claimed "her" secret essentially confirms it, as does a lot of other evidence:

That secret being hers would complete a secret circle of Teruko -> Rose -> Whit -> David -> Teruko and a secret pair of Xander <--> Min, which makes sense considering all other secret swaps are either circles of four or in pairs.

Xander and Min would have each other's secrets logically since neither of them can receive secrets, so theirs would probably be separated from the rest.

MonoTV's line about not knowing whether they're all correct feels like a reminder/a hint that some of the secrets are incorrect, and those two feel like the most likely options.

Teruko apparently has no idea which secret is actually hers, so may have just guessed the one that sounded more like her, except we know she never knew her parents and only had one sibling (as does Charles… I wonder if he'll notice)

EDIT: I cant believe I almost forgot, but I feel like David’s attitude towards Xander (and Teruko) makes more sense with these secrets, because why would he idolize Xander if the killing game was his fault, but he would idolize him if he thought Xander was trying to end the killing game by killing Teruko, the person David now thinks/knows is at fault.

However, since David didn't claim out loud that Teruko was lying, it's likely that this piece of information will become relevant much later in the series, and he'll be keeping it to himself for now.

Veronika and Hu

When did Veronika and Hu make their pact? And how did Hu, presumably the one who wanted to make the pact, know that Veronika had her secret? Also, what on earth do you mean, Veronika, that your secret isn't the worst thing you've done???? This little section with the two of them could just be entirely innocent and a way for the dev to get the rest of the secrets on the board, and let Veronika be a little unhinged as she tends to be, but I get the feeling at least some of this is relevant. (I'm betting on either Accomplice!Veronika or Veronika's actual "worst thing" being important to a later trial…)

David

Ohhhhh, David. I feel like Veronika with how much I want to psychoalanize this guy. He is on the verge of a breakdown, and I can feel it! The question being, of course, whether Arei's death was enough to make it happen this chapter, or whether this is something that's gonna last another chapter or two before coming to a head. My money's on the second option, because I think this trial is about to be about Ace and his impending breakdown :)

I do hope after this trial we do get to see a little more of what David's actually like beyond his facades/the roles he's been playing! Also, as much as I'd like to see David survive and have to deal with the consequences of revealing his "true" personality on live television, I think it's more likely he'll go the way of DR antags trying to end the killing game via self-sacrifice.

(We also better keep a close eye on anyone who tries to befriend or help David in Ch3, because they're gonna die next! /j)

J's Morality

This is a short one, but I just wanted to comment on another analysis I saw point out that J has been one of the most vocal people anytime murder has been brought up. I think that behind her rougher personality, J is a more empathetic person, and/or has very strong morals, making her a narrative foil to Levi now, so I do hope the two of them interact in Ch3!

Whit??

Whit. Whit why do you know so much about hanging??? Being serious though, I saw someone else bring up that his mother might have died by hanging and he researched it afterwards as a coping mechanism or something? That's the saddest possible explanation, but it does make the most sense by far… I honestly don't think that Whit is the killer, because then why would he be being so helpful in figuring out the murder method, but he's still so weird and suspicious sometimes.

Nico!

Even though I still don't think it was Nico (crime scene makes more sense if seen as Nico trying to help Ace, they may have just admitted to it because it was the less confrontational option, next ep is def not the last one and I think it'll be about proving who it was other than Nico, and if you look at Nico's secret quote…) I still do hope they get the chance to get mad! Get mad at Ace! Get mad at David! Get mad at whoever the (attempted) killer was for putting the blame on them! Idk I just want them to have their moment.

☆ ☆ ☆

And finally, here are my new bingo cards for the next episode:

(I can't believe ep14 is gonna be 40 mins + there's a "non-spoiler" thumbnail rn oooooh I'm so nervous)

#godd i missed being in a fandom w weekly episodes + theorizing its soooo fun #drdt #drdt spoilers #danganronpa despair time #hu jing #nico hakobyan #ace markey #arei nageishi #teruko tawaki #david chiem #drdt theory

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canmom · 1 year ago

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a few critical comments on "The Busy Worker's Handbook to the Apocalypse"

so i read this one very doomer medium article The Busy Worker's Handbook to the Apocalypse the other day, which attempts to argue that with the amount of GHGs already in the atmosphere, collapse of human society is inevitable and imminent, in a way that the scientific establishment such as the IPCC is instutionally unable to admit. I will warn, if you're prone to anxiety, don't read it, because the article is bleak as hell and quite effective rhetoric. it opens with a largely correct overview of climate science which lends it credibility, before jumping to the worst imaginable conclusions about various feedbacks and tipping points.

and like... it got me a bit. immediately after I read it, I was left with a horrifying feeling that this is as good as it will ever get, that the end of it all was only years away, that all my hopes for what I'd do for the next few decades and what is prefigured by this or that social development were utter delusions, and all there was left to do was just try and make the best of the last few years before we all die in the big cascading-failure famine.

but... ok Bryn, hold your fucking horses, let's do some research eh?

to begin with, I found one critique video that points out a number of places where the author makes scientific errors, misunderstands his sources, or doesn't justify his conclusions. for example, the author argues that a 'blue sea event' where the polar ice melts would lead to immediate, catastrophic warming as the latent heat of fusion no longer absorbs any incoming radiation, and also that the success of measures to reduce air pollution will accelerate warming; these seem to both be straight up wrong. but that doesn't cover everything I had questions about.

for example, one scenario discussed in the 'handbook' is 'multi breadbasket failure'. the idea is that, given that most of the world's food is produced in a few specific regions, this is a scenario where two or more of the major food-producing regions suffer very low yields in the same year due to climate shit. and this isn't farfetched, there is mainstream scientific discussion of this concept. for an accessible analysis, I found this article by some major capitalist consulting company (assess bias accordingly) which gives some actual numbers, including estimates of which crops are more likely to fail as the climate changes (rice, corn and soy are in trouble, but wheat, oddly enough, could actually do better in a warmer world).

however, while the author of the guide to the apocalypse suggests that, thanks to 'just in time' supply chains, there are almost no reserves of food and everything is on ships... the mckinsey article quotes a figure of 30% 'stock-to-use ratio', meaning there is a fair chunk of food in the granaries. they seem to predict that if two 'breadbaskets' fail in the same year, causing a 15% drop in yield, that ratio would drop to about 20%. the immediate result would be food price spikes (which means a lot of people would starve) but it's not a complete 'global megafamine' collapse.

'course, the question then is what happens if it happens again a few years later? but at least theoretically the 'multi breadbasket failure' scenario could be drastically mitigated by 1. producing food in more different places so the eggs are in fewer baskets 2. storing more food when times are good (something discussed in the mckinsey article) and 3. the world broadly eating less meat (since most crops are grown to feed animals, which adds a trophic level of inefficiency), so less grain is needed to feed everyone. i don't know if that's actually gonna happen, but it's not prima facie impossible.

on the other hand, the author of the Handbook argues that a world renewable energy transition is not just infeasible but physically impossible, because it demands reserves of metal that do not exist to roll out all the wires, turbines, etc etc. I was already fairly pessimistic about whether the renewable energy transition could happen in time (since there is little evidence that the current renewable deployment is making any sort of dent in GHG emissions, which remain resolutely coupled to economic activity); I was also conscious that the amount of mining to produce all the batteries and so on would have its own devastating impacts. but the argument that it is impossible even in principle is new to me.

so is that actually true? the Handbook bases this point entirely on the work of Dr Simon Michaux of the Finnish Geological Survey, who presents the calculation in this hour-long presentation based on this report (summary). this is honestly an excellent presentation, explaining the methodology really clearly - it reminds me of SEWTHA back in the day, a book I found very formative. And actually McKay also raised the question of materials:

To create 48 kWh per day of offshore wind per person in the UK would require 60 million tons of concrete and steel – one ton per person. Annual world steel production is about 1200 million tons, which is 0.2 tons per person in the world. During the second world war, American shipyards built 2751 Liberty ships, each containing 7000 tons of steel – that’s a total of 19 million tons of steel, or 0.1 tons per American. So the building of 60 million tons of wind turbines is not off the scale of achievability; but don’t kid yourself into thinking that it’s easy. Making this many windmills is as big a feat as building the Liberty ships.

McKay's analysis was based only on the UK; the figure of 48kWh/d comes from McKay's estimate of plausible maximum wind capacity for the UK only. He also takes into account some modest reductions in energy use. So my sense was that a completely renewable energy system would be an unprecedented megaproject, but not utterly implausible.

By comparison, Michaux's analysis (which I took a bunch of notes on, I'll post in a minute) has a worldwide scope, and rather than using back of the envelope physical calculations, relies on data on existing systems which largely did not exist when McKay was alive. It is nevertheless a rough estimate, and crucially, focuses on the question of completely replacing current fossil fuel use. Where good data did not exist, like the amount of steel and concrete used in a wind turbine, it was not included in the analysis, since the purpose was to get a lower bound.

The report covers a number of different minerals, many of which existing reserves fall short and it would take thousands of years to produce enough at current production levels. Copper is the big one: he estimates some 4.5 billion tones would be needed, where only 0.88 billion tonnes of reserved are publicly known to exist, and the rate of new discoveries has tailed off to near zero. I see no error in his calculation (though I haven't checked the numbers in detail, the method is sound).

However, there is a major caveat. The vast, vast majority of this copper would go to millions of battery banks used to provide just four weeks of storage to make it through the wind production lulls in the winter. This covers about 4.2 billion tonnes; by comparison the amount of copper used for one generation everything else (wind turbines, EV batteries etc.) is a still-hefty 0.3 billion tonnes. So that raises the question of whether there's an alternative to all those batteries, mature enough to be deployed at a scale to provide 0.55PWh of energy storage (or likely, more) in a decade or two. My understanding is most other tech (flywheels etc.) is still on the 'tiny pilot plant' sort of scale.

Anyway, as far as like the future of humanity goes, I already agree with Michaux's main point that maintaining current rates of energy consumption is just not viable; the future is necessarily going to be much lower energy. (I also don't really think 'decoupling' economic activity from energy use to somehow preserve capitalism's exponential curve is really plausible.)

However, the way the author of the Handbook uses Michaux's estimates is not supported. Michaux proved that a 1:1 replacement of fossil fuel energy consumption with renewables is not possible; that necessarily implies that (since fossil fuels are just starting to run dry and becoming less viable) we have to get by on less energy. And yeah, that obviously implies substantial changes to how people live in rich countries, crushing the super-rich etc.; it's fair to say the whole system must become less complex, in ecological terms.

I do still agree it's more than understandable to be pessimistic about whether that will happen without everything collapsing first - to put it mildly, there is a lot of inertia in a system this complex! - but it's not physically impossible that humans could accomplish a renewable energy transition, contract and rationalise how we use what energy we can get, and still have everyone live relatively comfortably. (After all, life on Earth has managed to live sustainably on solar power for billions of years, indefinitely recycling carbon, nitrogen etc. between high and low energy forms and dumping all the unusable high-entropy energy into space; I stand by the belief that there is no intrinsic reason that human society, even with complex technologies like computers, could not eventually assume a similar equilibrium if we survive. Though could does not mean is likely to....)

So I'm not convinced that we're a few years away from the first domino falling in the apocalypse. The situation is very very bad, don't get me wrong, I do basically agree the current socioeconomic world system is not capable of adapting fast enough as it stands, and I do find it increasingly hard to imagine the prospect of it being overturned, so I don't think the gigadeaths future is out of the question or even unlikely. But it's at least not the imminent near-certainty this essay makes out. If it comes, it will be more drawn-out than that. We don't need to live as if we will certainly die in a year or five.

So... now back to not thinking about it and fiddling while the world burns, I guess? :/

#climate change #capitalism

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yeniayofnymeria · 2 years ago

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Theory: The End of A Stark "Will Sansa Die?"

Hi, Selam!

This week I would like to revisit a theory that I read years ago, but I have to say that I have rewritten it with my own additions and ideas. I want to say at the beginning what I'll say at the end, to be honest, for years I've had a 50% chance that Sansa will live or die at the end of the story, but I'm a little bit more on the possibility of her dying, but I have to say that it's still not a definite idea, I'm still not very sure.

Here I will not only discuss Sansa's possible signs of death, but also include some ideas between the lines on how her story might progress.

(It's going to be a bit of a long post and I hope my bad grammar doesn't kill your enjoyment of reading.)

As you know very well, none of the characters are safe, except for one person at least. For this reason, we approach almost every character, be it the main character or the lead, with the possibility that they might die.

While characters have their own missions in the story, the writers also impose other missions on them, and the two missions can be completely opposite as well as compatible. For example, even if character x sees himself as the savior of the story, the author can turn him into the villain of the story. People like Martin place hints about missions and story development in the text from the very beginning, and if we pay close attention we can see them, but sometimes we don't fully understand the purpose of the characters' existence. For example, I still can't figure out why Val exists. I think it's easier to predict the protagonists, after all, they are the main focus of the author, they are the characters that drive/shape the story.

Sansa is one of the main characters, like Cersei and Jaime, and there is no doubt that, like every character, the author has a mission for her. We're not going to discuss that here because that's not our topic, but the meaning that is attributed to her can affect the ending of the story.

In my opinion, the author has not yet used Sansa for her purpose. Yes, she served as Arya's foil at the beginning of the story, but I don't think her part in what happened between Ned and the Lannists is her raison d'etre, at least not her sole raison d'etre. Most fans think that she is the one who will turn into a player for the throne and make up for the Starks' lack of intrigue; some readers don't attach any special meaning to her; or some - like me - think that she will be partly involved in a game for the throne, but against Jon, to his detriment. It's impossible to know which of these three ideas will turn out to be exactly right without reading it, but some uncertainty about the character's purpose in the story creates a similar uncertainty about her possible ending, at least for me.

I'm thinking of two possible scenarios.

The first one is that, like when we start the book, she takes some actions against her family, which in this case it's Jon and Arya, but in the end she realizes what she did wrong, corrects herself and helps destroy the family enemy, which would be Littlefinger. That's a bit of a classic character development, so I'm actually leaning a bit towards that idea, especially with the prophecy of killing the giant that we think is Littlefinger.

In these scenarios, there are usually two possibilities; (1) the character survives and finds her own happiness by turning into a figure who supports her family until the end, or (2) she sacrifices herself for the sake of protecting her family / righting the wrong she has done(There are readers who think that because the Lady died instead of Nymeria, Sansa will sacrifice herself for Arya).

In the second scenario, she becomes the villain within the family and continues to reinforce her betrayal and is eventually executed within the family. Of course, the adjective "villain" here does not mean turning into a devilish temptress. For example, the desire to protect the inheritance rights of her brothers (against Jon) with good intentions and to elevate / secure her own position in return for all that she has suffered is quite possible and I think it would be a reasonable desire. Although I already think that she will act in this or a similar way, as I just said, she is more inclined to the possibility of correcting herself, but if she does not, "death" would be inevitable for such a figure. The person I got the theory from already thinks that Sansa will die by Arya's hand.

For this reason, we can approach the theory with two separate questions: Will Sansa die and if so, how/by whom?

First, let's look for an answer to the question "Will Sansa die, or rather, are there signs that she might die?". The short answer to this question is "yes". As we have already said, no character seems to be safe, so it will be possible to find at least one sign that could point to death for almost every lead and main character.

So, what are these signs for Sansa? Let's take them one by one.

Death Signs / Arguments

1- Our first sign is RED ROSE and SWEET SMELL.

When the characters smell sweet from someone or something, it is considered to be danger bells. Of course, we do not claim that they will die 100%, they may be there as a sign that they will face death and return from death, but if they have received more than one sign, it may be difficult to say that they will simply fall into a coma.

The red rose that Loras Tyrell gave Sansa at the tournament in the first book is remarkable. While he gave white roses to everyone else, he gave her a red rose, which Loras didn't even remember. It was probably a political gesture to honor his father for being the daughter of the Hand, which he did at Renly's direction in the show.

While white roses are usually associated with purity, innocence and cherishing, red roses are the most remarkable and most acceptable of all types of roses because they express love and passion. It is for this reason that it is the most valuable, at least spiritually, which is why Loras gives a red rose, but if we look at the author's intention, the fact that a sweet scent emanates from this rose can be interpreted as a sign that Sansa may die for the sake of love/love, considering the importance she attaches to love. Now let's elaborate on this scenario.

When we think of love, we usually think of romantic feelings between a man and a woman; if you remember the SanSan theory, Sansa's emotional bond with Sandor may be a path that leads to their deaths in the future. Almost everyone thinks Sandor will die in his fight with his brother, probably very few think he will survive. The part that interests me is the idea of how this will happen.

I have actually opened two threads for this in the past. Bran's coma dream, which refers to Sandor's fight with Jaime against his brother, and Sandor's motivation. If you haven't read it or forgotten the details, I recommend you to read it again.

Roughly summarized... So in the fight of the three shadows that we saw in Bran's coma dream, Sandor's motivation to fight his brother the Mountain could be to protect Sansa. Sandor will probably die protecting Sansa at the end of this fight.

Alternative Interpretation of the Rose Sign

Apart from the love for Sansa and Sandor, the red rose reference can also be interpreted as "love for family". After all, what we call love is not a uniform thing. Usually, when we buy roses for our mothers, we prefer red roses. This could fit the scenario that Sansa comes to her senses and dies trying to protect her family. Of course, I am closer to the love interpretation, but I think this is a possible scenario.

The Red Rose is the strongest death argument for Sansa. The ones after that can be considered equivalent or relatively less strong.

2- Let's continue with Lady The Direwolf.

Everyone knows that wolves symbolize their owners and are a sign of their fate. The Lady, like her owner, is a graceful and calm animal, but she is killed because of Cersei's hatred of wolves. Some interpret Sansa's naming of the wolf and its untimely death as a sign of two things. The first is that a character who was expected to be queen in the first book (because of her betrothal to Joffrey) will remain a lady forever , and the second is that Sansa will die with the early death of her wolf.

While I agree with forever lady interpretation, but I can't claim that I see the wolf's death as a sign that Sansa should also die, at least not directly. Yes, I'm not ruling it out as a possibility, maybe it is indeed a sign, but there is a more weighty view(for some people), which I'm a little closer to.

Wolves symbolize Stark children and their Stark identity. They are also the key to triggering the warg abilities. We know that Sansa is a warg, but it's a dormant ability that never triggers because her wolf died. Whereas all her other siblings have their wolves and their warg abilities have awakened.

So what does this detail mean for Sansa? Why is Sansa the only one of all the children who is deprived of this?

Well, like Nymeria, the Lady could have been kept alive somehow, but the author did not choose to do so. For some view is that Sansa is no longer a Stark as an "identity", that this aspect is dead. Don't get me wrong, of course she is still her father's daughter and a member of the family. We are talking about her spiritual Stark identity. If you remember, after letter she sent to her family, when Robb reacted angrily and asked what was wrong with this girl, Bran's answer was "her wolf is dead". It's a rather meaningless thought when you look at what's going on, but I think the writer is sending a signal here that Sansa's spiritual bond with the north and with the Starks has been severed.

In 2001, we see an interesting dialogue between the fans and Martin (actually, I remember there was something similar, but I couldn't find the source).

Well, 20-odd years later this information is still there, so I'm proceeding from the conclusion that it hasn't been refuted. And this is parallel to what I'm about to explain.

So, what exactly does Martin mean by that?

Now Sansa is disguised as Aleyna in the Vale and keep her role of father and daughter, as if performing a theatre with Littlefinger. No doubt she still remembers Sansa in her mind(even she is Sansa), but at LF's request, they continue to play father-daughter roles even when they are alone(it's important detail).

However, if you pay attention, there are changes in the names of the characters starting from the 4th book, this is a detail that Martin later thought of and added. The POV name is written in this way if the character feels himself as what or who he is at that moment.

In an interview in 2006, Martin explained that pov names are a sign of how the characters, but especially Sansa, think of themselves, and even in 2008, when asked if the Hound and Sansa will get together, He says: “Why? The Hound is dead and Sansa may be dead too, there is only Aleyne Stone.”

What is meant by death here, of course, is not bodily, but as a "spiritual-identity". There is a nice theory that the Hound is not essentially dead, but that the Hound within is dead. We've probably seen him in Brienne povs anyway... The author (seems) has made a statement that the same identity-spiritual death is also for Sansa. In later years, he explained the changes in these pov names of the characters as "identities are under attack." As a matter of fact, although we talking about Sansa, the identities of many characters such as Arya and Theon are also under attack. It looks like Theon has finally found himself, as we look at Mercy POV, we know Arya's holding onto her identity thanks to Needle and Nymeria, but Sansa?

She has neither a wolf nor an anchor like Needle to connect her to her identity.

Martin said the imaginary kiss was intentional and hinted at something; He explains by pointing to Sansa's psychology. When we first met Sansa, we saw that she told a little lie and we didn't dwell on it, we said we all tell little lies like that, but then the lies started to get bigger and more serious. Worse still, Sansa lies to herself the most, which is made most obvious by the imaginary kiss. Lying is one of the most striking situations in Sansa's story. She lies so often now that she begins to remember events that way (something we actually saw in the first book with the Mycah issue).

Considering Martin's emphasis on Sansa's psychology and Aleyna identity, in addition to the reason for the changes in pov names, Sansa will probably begin to consider herself as Aleyna in the future. It looks like Sansa will lose her identity while the readers wait for Arya. Of course, to me, this loss of identity will not be like the Faceless Men. Sansa will be well aware of herself, but she will see herself as Petry Baelish's bastard daughter Aleyna Stone; As we are used to seeing in spy movies, we can expect to see in Sansa the character starts to integrate with the identity she is acting after playing long enough.

In fact, this situation can be seen from time to time in actors who show method acting, they cannot get out of the role and their behaviors change because the point of this technique is not to portray the character, but to live. Like a method actress, Sansa does not portray the character of Aleyna, she is officially live it. You can easily observe this between the lines. Remember the scenes where Theon goes back and forth between The Reek and Theon. This shows that she will not be able to get rid of the LF effect for a long time, which is one of the reasons why I think she will act against Jon, because she is under the LF effect.

To summarize this matter, the death of Sansa's wolf is a sign for her breaking of her ties with Stark and the north, her distance from being a Stark spiritually and her slowly starting to assume the identity of Aleyna Stone. This, in the LF effect, makes her a pawn to be used against the Starks. If Sansa cannot find her identity again at the end of the story, I don't see it possible for such a person to live, she will definitely die at the end of the story.

3- Another argument, Blood Oranges

Actually, this is a bit sweet and death theory thing . Blood Oranges are death symbols that symbolize murder in the series. It caught our attention mainly in the Doran Martell scenes; Hotah was talking about the sweet smell of overripe and falling blood oranges, which, as you can see, also has a sweet side. Another notable example is the phrase "whatever you do, keep your hands clean" in the scene where LF squeezes and drinks a blood orange while LF's with Sansa, where they're talking about Joffrey's murder. Of course, these two are not the only examples, but the example that interests us is in the first book, between Arya and Sansa...

...the two sisters were talking about the Mycah murder at a time they were arguing at dinner and Sansa was lying again, Arya said "liar", squeezing the blood orange in anger, then she throws it to Sansa. The orange falls first on her head and then on her lap, staining her dress. Sansa's fear of Illyn Payne from the first moment she saw it; When we think about things such as having terrible dreams/fears that her head will be cut off, does the blood orange that hit her head indicate that she will be the victim of such a murder? Moreover, the orange falls into her lap, which is actually where her private area is; When she took off the dress, she was having a fit of crying, seeing that it was also covered in her underwear. Here Martin may have signaled that Sansa will be killed, there seems to be strong symbolism, especially when we combine it with the red rose scene.

The fact that her white silk dress was dyed a dark color (I think it was black) because it was stained shows that her innocence has been lost. Even if that's not his intention, the fact that she's poisoning Sweet Robin is a sign, or that she blames the singer for Lysa's murder. No doubt we have reason to justify this latest incident, but there may come times when we can no longer justify it, when Sansa can do things we can't justify.

4- For now, let's briefly touch on Sansa's dreams as the last argument.

Contrary to what we are used to, Sansa's dreams appear as psychological dreams triggered by her trauma. This shows that they have a lot of violence, of course, there are some that are not, some of them include longing for home and family. Sansa often dreams of Payne and is afraid of dying. She had seen the rebellion in a dream and had been struck with a sword in the stomach. Although it is a weak approach, the fact that dreams are so violent and bad, but especially the Payne detail, may be a reference that Sansa's fear of death can become reality.

I have theory about "Tully Women Mental Health."

Even though they have a strong psychology image at the first stage, after a point, the last generation Tully women are like iron like Stannis, but they have a mind structure that is so sensitive that they break before they bend over. I thought that Sansa had her share of it because she looked like her mother in everything. When you combine it with what I have told you so far, it may be possible to predict that Sansa has a very sensitive psychology and will experience a breaking moment in the future.

Further of the death marks and the Possible Sandor Scenario, could Arya have an interior in Sansa's death or murder?

While I don't think Martin would get Arya to kill her sister or anyone in the family, I can't dismiss the possibility because the conflict between the two sisters is not to be overlooked. From the very beginning, Sansa was created to be Arya's foil. Foil characters are those in which the meaning of existence is opposite. Martin wrote Sansa because he didn't think everyone got along well in a family. So the "conflict" between siblings is Sansa's main purpose of existence.

As a matter of fact, the Sansa'a arc, which I expect to come to the fore in the story, will be exactly in this direction; The escalation of her conflict with Arya...

The development of tension between the sisters...

We already know Sansa in the first Arya POV, and as the contrasts between these two are revealed right before us, a small and simple sibling conflict is staged. After that, the two sisters have more conflicts with each other during their time together and they are getting bigger every day, but then the Ned case happens and the sisters separate. It has gone beyond being a simple sibling quarrel between them, but we cannot claim that it is an irreversible situation that still crosses the threshold; at least until Arya finds out that Sansa has said her father's plan to Cersei. Even then, the threshold may not have been fully crossed, but if Sansa, as Aleyna, starts making moves against Jon by advancing under the influence of Littlefinger, as I believe she will, then the threshold will be crossed for Arya.

After all, Jon's appearance as a surprise egg is definitely an obstacle to LF's goals, and he must eliminate Jon to realize his thoughts about the north. The most useful tool for this is Sansa herself. We can read a triple attack as I believe LSH will come and join this duo, but LF will stay behind to keep his hands clean as per his life philosophy.

It becomes much more meaningful at this stage that Arya is equipped with abilities that she can use in Game of Thrones, such as understanding lies and learning to gather information... etc. In any case, the point of "understand a lie" becomes more meaningful when you think of Sansa and LF, who are constantly lying and are used to telling, and it becomes a more important skill. Of course, we should not forget the likes of Varys and Illyrio. So it looks like the author chose Arya, not Sansa, to make up for the Starks' lack of intrigue. I mentioned and explained these abilities in a old thread of mine and I even mentioned that the Kind Man teaches Arya of mother languages of Dany, Illyrio, and Varys besides Braavos.

But yes, Sansa will also get involved in intrigue/game of thrones as LF's student, but she will use it against Jon. This will bring the conflict between Arya and Sansa to the peak.

We read that Sandor said that when he looked at Arya in one scene, he said he thinks Arya want to kill Sansa; It's also worth remembering that Arya said "I don't hate her" while Ned admonished her not to stab Needle into her sister, saying "that was just half a lie". Of course, these may be red herrings, but the possibility of not being must be considered. This might be a reference, as it was Arya who threw the blood orange at Sansa.

These are my opinions in general, what do you think about it? Will Sansa die, and if she does, how?

TLDR: There are several signs that could indicate Sansa's death. These are the sweet fragrance of the red rose; blood orange scenes, killing/injuring in her nightmares are a few of them. In addition, the death of Lady may indicate that she dies at the end of the story as a result of her breaking away from her Stark identity, and it may also be a sign that Sansa begins to see herself as Aleyna Stone over time and enters into a game of throne against Jon and Arya under the control of LF. As the tension between Arya and Sansa grows, in addition to the possibility of Arya having a share in Sansa's death, there may also be a possibility that Sansa will die here by taking part in the Sandor and Mountain fight.Of course, you have to read the articles in detail for them to make sense.

Thank you.

#asoiaf #jonrya #jonarya #game of thrones #grrmartin #writers #television #books #sansa #sansa stark #death of sansa #arya #arya stark #sandor #sandor the hound clegane #a song of ice and fire #theory #asoiaf theory

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thecurrentevents · 8 months ago

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the ten stages of genocide, and the palestinian genocide.

alright, here we go. i know, i know, don’t engage and all, but this is a great learning experience!

(this is going to be my magnum opus post.)

before we start, i'd like to say that this is in no way an official, professional paper. it's not even a proper academia paper, nevermind an official journalist piece, but i promise i tried to accurately quote my sources. these sources are all attached at the end of the post.

long — and i mean long — post ahead. proceed at your own risk.

what are the stages of genocide?

in order to call this a genocide, we must first understand the definition of the term "genocide." both it's dictionary definition, and under what conditions define a genocide. according to merriam-webster, and i think that is a credible sources, genocide is the "deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group" (genocide definition).

if you're reading this post, i am hoping you have heard of south africa's case of genocide against israel presented to the international court of justice. the united nations and international law have its own definition and criteria of what a genocide is, and i will not be following that criteria. why? because then i would just be repeating what the international court of justice has ruled.

instead, i will be following mr. gregory stanton's ten stages of genocide formula. previously called the eight stages of genocide, stanton has used this formula after studying several genocides, including the holocaust and the armenian genocide.

the ten stages of genocide are as follows: classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, persecution, and finally, denial. these stages can happen in any order or even happen at the same time, and they are often predictable, but preventable if we take the correct measures.

how does this relate to the palestinian genocide?

i have yet to see a post relating the ten stages of genocide to what is happening in gaza right now. so, i aim to prove this is a genocide through these stages.

the target audience of this are not zionists because their opinions cannot be swayed. in a way, they remind me of the trump (maga) supporters in the united states. this is mostly to inform others with the visual, physical proof that is this an evidence-backed genocide. well, with how much evidence? you'd be surprised. there is a lot of evidence; the actions of both sides are numerous and very well documented.

i will be referring to the genocide as the palestinian genocide. in previous posts, i have called this the gazan genocide, which i have then promptly returned to and edited. this is an ongoing effort ever since israel was established, and this affects palestinians in both the gaza strip and the west bank.

as of march 1, 2024 (a reference date, not the date when i wrote this), there are 30,228 officially recorded palestinian deaths according to the health ministry in gaza (palestinian death toll [mehr news]). over 71,337 palestinians have been wounded in total since the 147 days israel has started its military campaign to eradicate hamas in gaza (palestinian death toll [xinhua news]).

that is a lot of people. the russo-ukrainian war has seen at least 11,000 civilian deaths and at least 20,000 injuries — the actual numbers are most likely higher — since the war's start on february 24, 2022 (two-year update). that is around a total of 31,000+ civilian casualties for the two years of the russo-ukrainian war compared to the 101,000+ casualties for the five months that israel started attacking gaza.

i am not saying the russo-ukrainian war isn't devastating. it is. it's still an active war, and people are still dying. but so many people in gaza are dying and getting injured at such a fast rate, it has created accusations of israel committing genocide in the gaza strip.

these accusations have been backed and made by entire nations and many international lawyers. international lawyers who have spent years studying, you know, international law having something to say about this means it's a significant issue. there will be videos with interview with international lawyers regarding this attached at the bottom of this.

genocide is a long, gradual process. it does not happen immediately, and this is not the first israeli-palestinian conflict; this has been brewing for decades. the recent israeli-hamas conflict is bringing more international attention to this conflict during a more progressive generation.

please keep in mind this is not to excuse any of hamas' actions. hamas is far from a glorious, savior organization. but that is not the point of this post, and i do believe the governance of gaza shouldn't be left in its hands as soon as the conflict ends. hopefully soon, but one can only hope.

that should be enough background — let's get to the actual objective of this post.

stage i: classification

this is the first stage of genocide: classification. classification is the separation of people into different groups and establishing an "us vs them" mentality nationwide, often making one of the groups "lesser" in humanity and existence. classification can be based on several factors, like race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality.

for the palestinian genocide, this is simple. israelis vs palestinians. israel vs hamas. i have also seen a jews vs hamas mentality, though nevermind that not all jewish people stand for israel; or the opposite, for that matter.

stage ii: symbolization

symbolization is giving visual representations to the classifications. it's the (typically derogative) names, ways of dress, and/or colors given to groups of people to distinguish between them.

in israel, identity cards for israeli citizens/permanent residents are colored in blue. non-israeli residents of gaza and the west bank have red or orange cards, respectively. these two identification cards (israeli citizens/permanent residents and non-israeli residents of palestinian territories) each hold different rights, with the gaza and west bank residents having significantly less rights. these identification cards immediately tells officials "what" you are (the colour-coded israeli).

stage iii: discrimination

discrimination is when the group that holds the majority in political and social power denies social/political rights to the "lesser" group.

there is a lot of evidence where rights given to israelis are withheld from the palestinians. so, where do i even start? let's consult the bible — the genocide watch website, that is.

"one of the most important classifications in the current nation-state system is citizenship in a nationality" (the ten stages [genocide watch]). the removal/denial of a group's citizenship is often one of the first steps to deny the group's human rights.

this quote is take from the classification section of the ten stages of genocide on the genocide watch website, but the denial of one's citizenship is a huge act of discrimination, no?

perhaps the most notable example of this denial of citizenship is when israel was first established. the 1950 law of return granted all jewish people around the world to return to israel and immediately obtain israeli citizenship. however, non-jewish palestinians and other residents had to meet strict requirements to obtain citizenship. under the 1952 citizenship law, it was very difficult for palestinians returning to the land to gain israeli citizenship.

the goal of the two laws was to maintain a jewish majority in the country.

there is another law regarding citizenship status dealing with israeli-palestinian marriage. palestinians who marry israelis are barred from receiving israeli residency. this, as far as my knowledge goes, does not affect non-arab/palestinians who marry israelis.

during the holocaust, nazi germany revoked and denied jews and romas of their german citizenship. this, with the palestinians, is quite similar, don't you think?

along with citizenship denial, there is so much more evidence of discrimination.

for one, palestinians need permission to travel to certain areas in the west bank, having to pass through security checkpoints while israelis can freely pass through. there are authorities demolishing buildings without permits in the west bank to illegally make space for and build israeli settlements while making permits incredibly difficult to obtain (does israel's treatment).

the palestinian community in hebron, a town near the west bank-israel border, literally have to live under nets that shield their streets because israelis routinely throw trash and harmful things at them.

oh, and, if you're wondering if the restriction of movement of the palestinians to certain parts of their own land is apartheid, yes. this system is also apartheid — it's nearly identical to what the black south africans faced during apartheid south africa under racial segregation. many human rights organizations have called israel's treatment of palestinians apartheid (human rights watch, amnesty international, etc).

nevertheless, the list of discrimination against the palestinians goes on.

stage iv: dehumanization

i think dehumanization goes hand-in-hand with discrimination. discrimination leads to dehumanization. dehumanization is discrimination. these two stages often happen concurrently.

the dehumanization of the palestinians is concerningly commonplace among israeli authorities. when the genocide started, israel's defense minister, yoav gallant, called the campaign in gaza an effort to fight "human animals."

there are videos and pictures posted onto social media sites recorded by israeli soldiers mocking palestinians and the destruction of gaza. they're not even hiding any of the process.

dehumanization doesn't have to be verbal degradation. it is spoken with actions too. i'd like to reintroduce a more subtle manner of dehumanizing the palestinians: the illegal israeli settlements previously mentioned in the last stage.

i've made a post before about the united states' secretary of state condemning israel's announcement to build more israeli settlements on the west bank, but i'll recap it again here.

in simple terms, the west bank is an area specifically set aside for palestinians, and israeli occupation there is considered illegal by palestinians, a lot of human right organizations, and international lawyers.

international lawyers have argued that the illegal israeli settlements are a violation of the fourth geneva convention. the fourth geneva convention prohibits the occupying power from sending its settlers onto territories set aside for the occupied group. regardless of the violation, israel (and their allies who have not taken any action to prohibit or punish the israeli settlers or the government) still continues to allow israeli settlers into the west bank while displacing palestinians from their own homes.

this, in a subtle way, is dehumanization. israel is telling the west bank palestinians that israel is above international law (part of this is because of western nations that are staying silent and allowing israel to do this without repercussions), and they can and will continue to do this to the palestinians without consequences. they can keep on taking over land set aside for the palestinians, forcing them out of their homes — homes that might have been lived in for decades and passed down generation to generation — without any backlash.

for the usamericans reading, this is exactly what happened to the native americans. the us government claimed the land for the united states under the guise of manifest destiny (it draws parallels to israel justifying colonization because it's their holy land), chasing the native americans out then setting aside reservations in undesirable land. then, the government allowed settlers to settle on those lands while continuing to chase out the native americans. this is done all with the goal of wiping off native settlements on the maps. it's discrimination. it's dehumanizing.

if you are a zionist that condemns what the united states did to the native americans while letting this happen, you are a hypocrite.

stage v: organization

genocide is an organized process. this stage of a genocide is "when hate groups, armies, and militias organize" (the ten stages [genocide watch]). normally, militias are deployed to commit hate crimes because they "provide deniability of responsibility" (the ten stages [genocide watch]) for the government.

in the palestinian genocide's case, israel's army — the israel defense forces — is directly attacking the gaza strip. they have committed several war crimes, including, but not limited to, collective punishment, direct targeting of medical and journalist personnel, etc. there actually exists a wikipedia page detailing all of israel's war crimes linked at the end.

after the october 7 attacks, israel began deploying private personnel and preparing for fighting against hamas. they mobilized about 360,000 soldiers, or roughly 4% of their total population (israel's massive mobilization). although it is to prepare for fighting, it is preparing for fighting that will turn into genocide.

stage vi: polarization

polarization is the actions taken by extremist groups (ex, right or left wing extremists) to drive people apart from the group being genocided. this includes propaganda or actions like forbidding intermarriage, limiting social interaction between the two groups, etc.

for the past few months, all we've seen is propaganda.

propaganda is everywhere, and it's for both sides too. especially in a conflict as controversial as this one, propaganda, misinformation, and false news are everywhere — enough to fill out an olympic-sized swimming pool. you can swim in all that media tactics. (all things said aside, please exert caution when you read things on social media, not just about this! media literacy is important regardless of the information you're absorbing.)

let's talk about a few common israeli propaganda techniques. one of the most common is pinkwashing, a tactic of appealing to the lgbtq+ communities to cover up the negatives. you may have seen photos circulating the internet of israeli soldiers holding up pride flags with the ruins of gaza or war machines in the background. while israel is one of the most gay-friendly countries in the middle east and the world, this is used to get the lgbtq+ community to support them while tossing dirt on the rest of the middle eastern countries known for their homophobia.

but all of this, as you all must realize, is silencing the voice of queer palestinians. in fact, there are screenshots of statements from queer palestinians from the website queering the map expressing their grief for lost loved ones because of the genocide. besides, being homophobic is no excuse to kill thousands of people. you can fix homophobic laws and attitudes, but you can't bring back thousands of the dead. it is possible.

another propaganda tactic israel and its supporters use is the argument that israel is the "only democracy in the middle east," which is blatantly untrue. this saying has been around for decades. israel is only a democracy in the sense that apartheid south africa is also a democracy, or jim crow usamerica is also a democracy. it's not. certain ethnic groups are not given the chance to be equal with the majority group.

like we've talked about before, the law of return allows any jewish people to return to israel and immediately gain citizenship. the palestinians whose ancestors either left or were forced to leave through the ethnic cleansings that occurred aren't permitted back. even palestinians in israel face several discriminatory laws and systemic racism.

and, also, being a democracy does not always mean a country is good. read my aforementioned examples. was jim crow usa, despite being a democracy, good? no. and neither is israel.

the propaganda and circulating misinformation is leading to rises of islamophobia and antisemitic statements. please be careful of what you consume and say with this in mind.

stage vii: preparation

this stage is the planning stage of the genocide. the perpetrator group often uses euphemisms to cover up their actual intentions, often feeding fear or negative emotions toward the victim group into their people. there is an "if we don't kill them, they will kill us" (the ten stages [genocide watch]) mentality, which disguises the genocide as an act of self-defense.

an act of self-defense. does this sound eerily familiar to anyone? well, it should.

this section is purely going to focus on israel's claims of self-defense in retaliation to the hamas' attacks on october 7, and why they're full of holes and aren't strong arguments at all.

in both international and criminal law, self-defense refers to "the justified use of force to repel an attack or imminent threat against oneself, others, or a legally protected interest" (israel's right to). the west bank and the gaza strip have both been recognized as occupied territories since 1967. israel retains its rights to protect its civilians from the palestinians, but israel also has a responsibility to maintain order and the well-being of the occupies territories and its people, the palestinians.

under the regulations concerning the law and customs of war on land, the occupying power may not use its military or such forces in response to an armed attack; instead, it must only use the police force to restore order (israel's right to) even though israel has turned the governance of the two territories, the gaza strip and the west bank, over to the people.

to play devil's advocate, however, one can argue that israel has a right to defend itself against hamas' attacks. if that is the case, then israel will have to abide by the international humanitarian laws and exert a proportionate response while placing a priority on civilian safety.

this means israel has to minimize harm to the civilians and infrastructure in the gaza strip, cannot use starvation as a technique, and must allow the return of refugees post-conflict.

israel has not been abiding by these principles. israel has closed all of gaza's borders, only seldomly opening them to allow aid trucks and supplies to pass through (though this has proven to be dangerous for the palestinians; as a notable example, the flour massacre), cut off essential services like electricity and water, and bombed very densely populated areas in gaza. like rafah. like khan yunis. like the hospitals.

so the argument that israel has a right to defense itself against hamas' attacks is out of the picture since they have not respected the international humanitarian laws at all. even international communities have said so.

furthermore, going back to the argument that gaza and the west bank are occupied by israel, many international lawyers have argued that israel cannot claim self-defense in these territories. they state self-defense can only "be invoked when a state is threatened by another state," as said by the united nations' special rapporteur on the occupied palestinian territories and an international lawyer from italy, francesca albanese. "which is not the case," referring to ... it's been threatened by an armed group."

because of this, and the fact that gaza is not an independent entity, israel's cannot claim self-defense against the "threat that [emanates] from the territory it occupies," albanese concludes (quote from video taken from "un special rapporteur").

there are many other examples of preparation, but i've mostly focused on the self-defense claim because of how common it's used to defend israel, and how blatantly faulty the claim is.

stage viii: persecution

in this stage, victims are separated from the rest of the population because of ethnicity, race, and/or religion. if the nation backs the genocide, victims may be forced to wear identifying symbols with their property often getting taken away. these people are then sent to "ghettos, deported to concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved" (the ten stages [genocide watch]).

"confined to a famine-struck region and starved" (the ten stages [genocide watch]). the entirety of gaza is facing food insecurity, and a famine is happening right now.

there is a five-phase scale used to classify food crises, and 80% of all the people worldwide facing phase five — catastrophe/famine — are located in gaza (over one hundred). it is calculated that over half a million people, nearly a quarter of the entire population, is facing starvation (gaza now the). these statistics are from january. it is now well into march. both statistics, the percentage of people worldwide in phase five and the actual number count, most likely went up. as of march 21, 2024, there has been 27 children dead from malnutrition and dehydration (gaza: halt the).

the famine happening in gaza is the worst man-made famine in the 21st century, and the palestinians are not allowed to freely leave.

stage ix: extermination

we arrive now at stage nine of the ten stages of genocide. extermination is the stage where most people start to call the actions "genocide" because this is the stage where most of the killings happen. the persecutors murder their victims with the goal of wiping out the entire group. it is often called "extermination" since the persecutors do not view their victims as human.

in the genocide watch website, under the tab "ix: extermination," the website mentions "total war" (the ten stages [genocide watch] between groups and calls it inherently genocidal due to how warring parties do not make an effort to differentiate between civilians and combatants. carpet-bombing, the bombing of hospitals, and the usage of chemical and/or biological weapons are not only war crimes, but they are also classified as acts of genocide.

for this stage, i plan to break down the three war crimes/genocidal acts previously mentioned.

"warring parties do not make an effort to differentiate between civilians and combatants." after october 7, 2023, there have been no more israeli civilian deaths. most of the israeli casualties are from the israeli army forces. on the contrary, as of march 1, 2024, at least 30,000 palestinians are dead with an estimated 8,000+ people still stuck under the rubble (childfund alliance response). there is an estimated 1,100 israeli civilians dead, down from the original count of 1,400 israeli officials stated the toll to be.

not including the missing or injured counts, that is a ratio of just about 27 palestinians for every one israeli killed. i personally do not believe this ratio to be justified as "self-defense" or a proportionate response, and with the rising death toll after march 1, this ratio will only go up.

"carpet-bombing, the bombing of hospitals, and the usage of chemical and/or biological weapons are not only war crimes, but they are also classified as acts of genocide." i am going to focus on this sentence primarily because they play a role in the war crimes israel is committing in the gaza strip, and how they are also extermination/genocidal acts.

"carpet-bombing" refers to a large and heavy bombardment of an area to cause maximum destruction to that area.

israel has dropped over 65,000 tonnes of bombs on gaza (israel dropped 65,000). it has also used hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs on gaza, bombs that are capable of injuring and killing people who are over 1,000 feet away from the impact crater (legal questions answered). these 2,000-pound bombs were sparingly used by western militaries because of their sheer destructive power. now, imagine these bombs used in cities that pack well over 10,000 per square mile.

over half of these bombs are "dumb bombs," or unguided and imprecise bombs. this is just one of many actions that directly contradicts israel's claims that they are doing everything they can to minimize civilian casualties and goes against the international court of justice's ruling that israel must take "all reasonable measures within [its] power to prevent genocide" (summary of the). and thousands of these weapons are supplied to israel by the united states.

we still have two more actions to dissect.

"the bombing of hospitals."

this part is not going to mention the al-ahli hospital blast (the blast resulted from a misfired rocket) because the party responsible for the blast is still being debated, and i can't find any recent sources on it.

israel defends its bombings of hospitals by accusing the facilities of housing hamas militants despite not having enough evidence. hamas claims there are no militant fighters in these hospitals israel attacks. palestinians go to hospitals and other buildings protected by international law as refugee centers believing they are safe there.

israel is also cutting off supplies to these hospitals, putting all of them at a barely or not at all functioning level. nearly half of the hospitals in gaza are not functioning (gaza: unlawful israeli) when medical staff are seeing supply and space shortages as people have to undergo surgery without anesthesia and have to cram together on the already tight spaces.

these hospitals and such medical locations would lose their protection during war if they were found being used for war purposes. let's assume one such hospital being used for war purposes exists, and there are hamas militants in it.

israel is still required to give the people inside a reasonable time to evacuate. but evacuation is tricky. how will the people evacuate the ones on life support? the old, the children, the injured? international communities should definitely condemn hamas if they are using hospitals as bases since that will strip hospitals of their protection status and endanger many lives, but that doesn't give israel the right to fire into those hospitals without prior warnings and proper time for evacuation.

plus, the areas available for palestinians to evacuate to are diminishing. they have been turning to every place possible for shelter, yet time and time again, they are turned away once israel announces it will attack that very place deemed safe for refugees.

"the usage of chemical and/or biological weapons."

there is evidence that israel has been using white phosphorus in gaza and lebanon. the main issue at hand here is whether it is considered a war crime or not in the situations when it is used.

i am not a scientist by any means. political science is more my gig (no, really?), but i will try my best to accurately explain what white phosphorus does in simple terms from what i've read in my sources.

basically, white phosphorus is an incendiary weapon — that is, a weapon specifically designed to cause fires — intended to cover ground operations or to mark targets. white phosphorus ignites when exposed to air and oxygen and can reach up to 815° celsius (questions and answers). when humans are exposed to white phosphorus, they can suffer burns, respiratory damage, organ failure, and other injuries that may affect the entire rest of their lives (questions and answers).

under international law, it is required by nations using them to take precautions to avoid excessive harm to civilians. the weapons are "governed by protocol iii of the [convention on certain conventional weapons]" (questions and answers), but protocol iii has two major loopholes that several law and human rights organizations have been trying to close for a long time to no avail.

along with the two loopholes, israel has not ratified the protocol yet, while palestine and lebanon (the two places israel has recently used white phosphorus in) both have. the two loopholes are one, it doesn't restrict all uses of ground-launched incendiary weapons; two, it can be argued that multipurpose weapons are technically excluded from the protocol's definition of what incendiary weapons are.

the definition in the protocol only governs the use of weapons that are designed to cause fires and/or intentionally deployed to harm civilians. it does not violate the protocol if white phosphorus is used as a smokescreen.

that is the reason israel gave to the international community when it fired 200 projectiles filled with white phosphorus during the december of 2008 to the january of 2009. however, on the contrary, human rights watch had found "dozens of civilian casualties in the six incidents it documented" (questions and answers).

in 2013 though, israel pledged to no longer use white phosphorus in populated places except in two special instances that were only revealed to the justices in response to a petition regarding the 2008–2009 attacks in gaza (israel: white phosphorus). but they still reserve the right to stockpile white phosphorus weapons.

and, yeah, israel is still using white phosphorus in gaza. in a place as densely populated as gaza, using incendiary weapons that will cause nearly fatal burns is very concerning. on november 15, 2023, israel launched 300 white phosphorus strikes in a dense residential area (israel carries out). can you imagine how many people must've suffered burns and worse injuries from the white phosphorus?

but israel denies using white phosphorus; instead, it claims the smokescreen shells it used do not contain any white phosphorus. amnesty international conducted an investigation into this claim, which turned out to be false. the rockets that were fired into both gaza and lebanon were identified as rockets marked with the united states' codes for white phosphorus (lebanon: evidence of). though, amnesty international was not able to verify whether it was the united states that supplied these rockets.

the bottom line: there is proof that israel has been using white phosphorus, and people are getting severe injures because of it. doctors in gaza are lacking in medical supplies, so these wounds cannot be properly treated.

well, that was two and a half pages under the extermination stage. the evidence is my ocean, and i am collecting less than a cup of it to bake my research. nevermind that you shouldn't use saltwater.

the actions taken by israel all fit under the described war crimes/acts of genocide in the genocide watch website.

30,000+ people are dead.

what is it if it isn't a genocide?

stage x: denial

denial is when the perpetrators of the genocide, or their future generations, denies the existence of their crimes. they burn the bodies, forbid investigations of the crimes, blames the victims, and continues to rule the nation unless forced out.

even though this stage isn't in its "full bloom," there are seeds being sowed. though, the government is actively denying this is a genocide and blaming the victims, but which government actually outright states they're committing genocide?

back to the seeds: the killing of journalists.

there are a lot of journalists in gaza, whether by choice or not, documenting this genocide. they wear easily identifiable blue vests that say "press" on them that are internationally recognizable. by killing these journalists, israel is diminishing the war report inside gaza, making evidence collection more difficult.

in 2023, over 75% of the 99 journalists killed that year died in the genocide (journalist casualities in). since october 7, reports from the united nations have stated over 122 journalists and media workers have been killed with many more injured (gaza: un experts). along with killing, injuring, and arresting these journalists, their family members are also in danger and some have been specifically targeted and killed by israeli forces (journalist casualties in).

in the future, if we do not stop this genocide, the cycle will repeat itself as with the holocaust's. evidence will be destroyed, accusations will be denied, and the word "genocide" will be replaced with victim-blaming and calling it "ethnic cleansing" (though both are terrible tragedies).

conclusion

and so concludes the evidence analysis. thank you for reading if you've read up to this point (either that, or you skipped all the way down here. don't worry, i would do the same if i were you).

this project took me some time to not only write, but also research the evidence for. my main reason for pursuing this project was out of spite, but deep down, i knew the audience i originally intended this to be fore wouldn't change their opinion no matter how much evidence is brought to and displayed on the table. so, early on, the purpose of this project changed from proving a point to trying to help people further understand that, yes, this is a genocide.

this project is in no way to be compared to an actual academic paper or actual article, like i've stated at the very beginning of this post. though, I tried my best to accurately quote and cite the articles i've used. if you look through the (not formatted) bibliography, you can see that i tried to find at least two or more sources for the same topic for accuracy and to prevent bias.

i would also like to state that this is not a hamas apologist post.

below the cut will be the bibliography and a collection of extra resources. i heavily recommend checking any sources that intrigue you because some of these articles are truly informative.

again, thank you for reading. tumblr user thecurrentevents out.

sources not underneath the cut:

applying international humanitarian law to events in israel-palestine - wellesley college on youtube

attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: the high risks of reporting the israel-gaza war - committee to protect journalists

"bloodbath": israel continues to target gaza hospitals and civilians - al jazeera

chapter 3: israeli settlements and international law - amnesty international

childfund alliance response plan - update #1 for gaza - reliefweb

children starve to death in gaza, who says, as ceasefire deal sticking points remain - cnn

does israel have the right to self-defence in gaza? - al jazeera

does israel's treatment of palestinians rise to the level of apartheid? - human rights watch

don't buy israel's "pink-washing" social media propaganda - daily beast

everything you need to know about israel-palestine - vox

gaza: halt the war now to save children from dying of imminent famine, un committee warns - office of the high commissioner

gaza now the world's worst hunger crisis and on the verge of famine - reliefweb

gaza: un experts condemn killing and silencing of journalists - office of the high commissioner

gaza: unlawful israeli hospital strikes worsen health crisis - human rights watch

genocide - merriam-webster

hospitals have special protection under the rules of war. why are they in the crosshairs of gaza? - ap news

in gaza, "queering the map" reveals heartbreaking notes of lgbt love and loss - time

international law and war in palestine/israel - arab center washington dc on youtube

ipc acute food insecurity classification - integrated food security phase classification

israel carries out more than a thousand white phosphorus strikes in gaza - euro-med human rights monitor

israel dropped 65,000 tonnes of bombs in gaza in 89 days - middle east monitor

israeli citizenship law - wikipedia

israeli defense minister announces siege on gaza to fight "human animals" - huffpost

israeli identity card - wikipedia

israeli police targeted palestinians with discriminatory arrests, torture and unlawful force - amnesty international

israel-gaza war in maps and charts: live tracker - al jazeera

israel's apartheid against palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity - amnesty international

israel's massive mobilization of 360,000 reservists upends lives - washington post

israel's "people's army" at war - rand blog

israel's right to self-defense under international law - jurist

israeli war crimes - wikipedia

israel: white phosphorus used in gaza, lebanon - human rights watch

it's not just israeli bombs that have killed children in gaza. now some are dying of hunger too - ap news

it's not just the killing. why must israel dehumanize palestinians? - news republic

journalist casualties in the israel-gaza war - committee to protect journalists

knesset extends law banning palestinian family unification for another year - times of israel

law of return - wikipedia

lebanon: evidence of israel's unlawful use of white phosphorus in southern lebanon as cross-border hostilities escalate - amnesty international

legal questions answered and unanswered in israel's air war in gaza - lawfare

more than 13,000 children reported dead in gaza as famine nears - unicef usa

myth: israel is a democracy - decolonize palestine

no, israel does not have the right to self-defense in international law against occupied palestinian territory - jadaliyya

no, israel is not a democracy - jacobin

"not seen since vietnam": israel dropped hundreds of 2,000 pound-bombs on gaza, analysis shows - cnn

over one hundred days into the war, israel destroying gaza's food system and weaponizing food, say un human rights experts - office of the high commissioner

over 75% of all journalists killed in 2023 died in gaza war, per cpj - international consortium of investigative journalists

palestinian citizenship in israel - interactive encyclopedia of the palestinian question

palestinian death toll in gaza rises to 30,228: ministry - mehr news

palestinian death toll in gaza rises to 30,228: ministry - xinhua news

queering the map

questions and answers on israel's use of white phosphorus in gaza and lebanon - human rights watch

statement of scholars in holocaust and genocide studies on mass violence in israel and palestine since 7 october - contending modernities

summary of the order of 26 january 2024 - international court of justice

the colour-coded israeli id system for palestinian - al jazeera

the israeli–hamas war reveals how social media sells you the illusion of reality - cnn

"the mideast's only democracy" goes to war on press freedom - new york times

the "only democracy in the middle east"? hardly - huffpost

the problem with israel's so called "crisis of democracy" - al jazeera

the ten stages of genocide - genocide watch

the ten stages of genocide poster - holocaust memorial day trust

the truth is painful, but the language is vital. don't let this be silenced - jordxn.simone on tiktok

two-year update - protection of civilians: impact of hostilities on civilians since 24 February 2022 - office of the high commissioner

ukraine: türk deplores horrific human cost as russia's full-scale invasion enters third year - office of the high commissioner

un probe: israel violated international law in killing reuters reporter - truthout

un special rapporteur: israel can't claim "right of self-defence" - al jazeera

us raises concerns over israel's possible use of us-supplied white phosphorus - new york times

what are settlements, and why are they such a big deal? - vox

what is the west bank? - vox

what to know about the arab citizens of israel - council on foreign relations

where was the israeli military? - new york times

white phosphorus - world health organization

why we should be wary of these six israeli propaganda tactics - shado

#politics #genocide #palestinian genocide #palestine #gaza #free gaza #free palestine #israel hamas conflict #long post

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accirax · 4 months ago

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Disventure Camp All Stars Power Ranking (Round 16)

Ah, the sweet sixteenth. At this crucial final 5 vote-out, will I be able to rein my theories in, or will I just be horsing around? With this few players left in the game, it's harder to distinguish between yay and nay.

In case you haven't seen my previous power rankings, the Power Ranking Format is essentially a way of ranking how well each player is doing in the game. So, in essence, this is a long form way of predicting who I think will be eliminated from the competition in the next episode. There will be spoilers for last week's episode (obviously) and its power ranking, so make sure to read that first if you don't want to be spoiled on how I ranked our last boot. If you want more clarification on the rules, that first post will help you out as well. Furthermore, I'm going to be spoiling the preview for next episode, so if you want to go in TOTALLY blind, save this for later. Let's go!

Recap - Alec's Elimination

Current Score: 70 acquired/103 total

(Points versus @venus-is-thinking: 21 acquired/29 total)

"But, I really feel like it has to be Riya's time to go. If it isn't, well... I hope the rest of my list holds up well enough."

Given that Riya didn't get eliminated last week, I'm happy to report that I did put the correct boot in my second best spot. Makes me feel a little better, after my Gabby and Aiden blunders. What I'm not happy to report is that one of my favorite characters this season (and in Season 1) is now out of the game. That's quite saddening. But, I'm not too upset about it.

In the entire pre-merge portion of the game, I knew as I was watching Alec absolutely slay that he was going to have a downfall eventually. Now, I didn't know that said downfall would involve a romantic entanglement with Riya and getting idoled out, but I also didn't know that he'd be able to repair and reflect more on his relationship with Connor, so, pros and cons! Or, rather, cons and pros. And he gets to be in the Loser's Motel episode with Fiore now, hehehe >:)c

While I wish he could have had a nicer exit for his sake, I understand that villains need to be "punished" in shows like these-- and, y'know, at least he wasn't blown up and exploded at age 6 with no support! (/j) Plus, he did get some closure in the form of coming to terms with why his relationships were failing, and having hope for moving on in the future. It was kinda bs that he lost that puzzle challenge because he needed to not be immune for plot reasons in this episode, though. The Alec I know could have smashed a twelve piece jigsaw in seconds. (/j)

Trailer Analysis

Trevor and Emily are back at it again. Are the interns also not allowed to use their phones, or is that just the campers? Just looking out for Trevor's future employment potential, especially in light of Kristal potentially quitting as host.

I guess Riya is worried about appearing in front of a camera now? Perhaps Connor proving how pathetic she had become might have had a more profound impact on her than I might have assessed.

Ooooooh, are we doing letters from home? That would be so interesting. It could also factor into Riya looking nervous in front of the camera-- if the message from her family isn't so supportive of her actions. ...It's a good thing Alec went home before this episode, if true.

The women's alliance is real after all! It wasn't just a myth created and spread by me!!!!

horse

While I absolutely feel for the riggers in this situation... good lord these horse rigs are rough. Their legs just do not move as much/in the right way as they should. I wish the animators retroactive luck in animating this challenge. Also, Riya is the only one who seems to really be struggling with the horses in the preview.

Grett's entering her challenge beast era.

Who the fuck is throwing sticks at Jake? Is it Ally, or is it part of the challenge?

"Final three, let's go~!"

See, told you the women's alliance is real. This is definitely from the same scene we saw earlier of Grett, Riya, and Ally standing around. The real question is just whether or not this will remain as the plan for even this episode anymore.

Power Ranking

#1: Ally

Look, I know I keep putting Ally way above where Venus has her, but... well, it's worked out for me so far, hasn't it? At this point, my vibe check honestly says that Ally is more likely to be a finalist than not (and not just because everyone theoretically has a 60% chance of finalist at this point), even if I can't pinpoint exactly how she's going to get there. I'm sure part of the reason why is because Seasons 1 and 2 treated the Final 4 very differently-- Season 2 had a vote-out with idols fully permitted, while Season 1 had half of their competitors have immunity and choose between the two losers. But, I digress. This is about the Final 5.

The main reason why I think Ally will survive is because she has Grett's favor. I think that Grett will be looking to protect Ally this episode, even if the favor doesn't work the other way. Jake may very obviously want to gun for Ally, but Grett knows that she (and Ally) are the swing votes. Grett will want to take out Riya instead, and if Jake and Connor refuse to comply, she can always eliminate whichever one of them may not have immunity alongside Riya. And, if Grett chooses to work with Riya/the women's alliance in the first place, then Ally is totally fine, too!

The only way I see Ally going home is if Grett decides to abandon her, which I don't think is going to happen. As I see it, Grett currently views Ally as a pawn, and while that may cause Ally to rebel in the future, Grett doesn't seem too concerned by that at the moment.

To be clear, I really hate putting anyone anywhere near the top, because I do think that everyone has a genuinely good reason to be eliminated at this point. It's easy for that to be the case when there are so few competitors left. However, I think Ally has the least reason to go home at this point, so I feel most comfortable with her in the #1 position.

#2: Jake

Not going to lie, pretty much every reason why I don't think Jake is going home this episode is a meta one. If Grett and Ally decided to ride the women's alliance to the end, and if Jake doesn't have immunity, there is a high likelihood he could just die. They voted for him last time. Why not do it again?

That being said, there are a lot of meta reasons why Jake would stay in the game.

Under the assumption that the writers would plan for a mix of Season 1 and Season 2 characters in the finale, and for at least one man to make the finale (as they've already had an all-women Final 3), if Jake goes home, Grett has to be in the finale as the only other Season 1 remaining, and Connor has to be in the finale as the only other man remaining. It's a lot simpler if Jake just makes the finale.

On top of that, Jake's character arc just seems like it's been leaning winner as well. I won't explain all the reasons why, because that would take a long time, and I've been mentioning it in my Power Rankings and initial thoughts for a while now.

While their relationship does have nuance, overall, I think we're supposed to root for Jake and against Ally in their rivalry. Thus, I don't think that they'd want to let Ally actually eliminate Jake. He's a fan favorite, while Ally seems to draw in new haters with each episode.

Jake was already eliminated at Final 5 after being saved by an idol at Final 6 once before. I doubt they'd want him to get eliminated in the exact same way again.

There might be even more, but I'm not thinking of them right now. At any rate, all of those meta elements combined gives Jake enough power to survive being put at a lower placement for this round, at least. Whatever happens in this challenge, I think they'll find some way to save him, whether it's giving Jake immunity, Grett deciding to work with Connor and Jake, the girls deciding to target Connor this time, or whatever else. Still, though. It's scary having him this high.

#3: Connor

Once again, a character conveniently lands in the middle of the ranking because I think they have good reasons to stay or go. Or, at least, I think that's happened before? Possibly even with Connor. Kinda scary that that point is third place, though.

So, why would it make sense for Connor to stay in the competition? Well, like I said with Jake, I think that there'll be at least one man in the finale, so if Connor goes home, it would make it "pretty obvious" that Jake is locked in for the finals. He also still hasn't yet outplaced Riya in this season (or at all), which is something I've been predicting will happen for a while. I also think that Connor would make a very sensible last place finalist, as someone who we can root for but understandably get rid of (because he's already rich) in going from Final 3 to Final 2, opening the stage for a more dramatic showdown between Final 2 rivals. Uh, to be clear, at this point, I'm expecting a Jake/Ally/Connor Final 3 with placements in that order. I didn't really set out to put the three of them in the top 3 positions of this week, but, I guess my internal biases got the best of me?

Screw all that, though-- why would it then make sense for Connor to be the one going home? Well, even though he hasn't been there to see Riya voted out, the end of last episode and this trailer have made it pretty clear that he's already had a moral victory against Riya. Honestly, that might sting for Riya even more-- even though Connor didn't even outplace her, he still seems more content than she is. Why?! Eliminating Connor here could also create a very dramatic do-or-die scenario for Jake at the Final 4. If Jake then wins immunity to secure his spot in the Final 4, it could also lead to some intriguing drama at the Final 4 tribal. I'd love to see Riya going out in that fashion: voting out Connor actually leads to her downfall, as it exposes that her social game wasn't strong enough to save her at the eleventh hour.

Also, if Connor and Alec still need a final conversation at the Loser's Motel, Connor would need to be... well, in the Loser's Motel. To be honest, though, I could actually see the fact that Alec and Connor hugged it out already as being a good sign for the fact that Connor doesn't need to be in the Loser's Motel episode. For that reason and the ones listed above, I think Connor is decently safe... but even decently safe will land you in spot #3.

#4: Grett

After Ally started to sneakily pick up what Grett was discreetly attempting to put down last episode, Grett's life in this game definitely started to flash before my eyes. At this point, it seems to me like Grett is being set up for a pre-finale downfall. However, I think we might still need a little bit more time for Grett's threat level to rise enough for her to truly feel like a final boss archetype.

To quickly explain what I mean by that, modern Survivor (at least) has very frequently edited the show in a way that makes the Final 4 or 5 boot into a final boss that the true winner of the season has to defeat before rightfully claiming their crown in the finale. This is because, a lot of the time, the best strategic players of the season make it really deep into the game, but are such obvious threats to win that the rest of the players scramble to take them out before it's too late. If you've seen Survivor 42, 43, or 44, some names might jump to mind. I don't know if the ONC writers might have been trying to specifically emulate that phenomenon with Grett or if it's just something that could occur naturally, but either way, I think she may receive that treatment.

Part of it is just that I think she's decently likely to win immunity this episode. We've heard that Grett enjoys working out and being athletic in these past few episodes, and she seemed to be kicking ass on that horse. She also has a rich(?) background, so she might have more inherent knowledge of horses than some of the other competitors.

There's more I could specifically say about what I think might happen in these last few episodes involving Grett, but I'll save that for #5. But, if I'm so convinced that Grett will be safe this episode, why put her at #4?

Well, truthfully, I'm not. First of all, I said the final boss can be eliminated at 4th or 5th place, and this is 5th place. Granted, I think 5th place final boss is more warranted for Survivor, with their Final 4 firemaking twist, but it could still be the case here. I could also see Ally convincing everyone else that Grett is too threatening, and everyone working together to vote her out of the game. Even if Jake would hate to work with Ally, I don't know if anyone would be able to pass up such an obvious "as long as it isn't me" opportunity this close to the finale.

While I do still think Grett would be a deserving winner, she's entered into wide enough of a danger zone that I fear she won't make it to the finale. The debate in my eyes is whether it'll be this episode or the next that takes her out. I'm leaning next episode, but I'm unconfident enough in my prediction that Grett goes at #4.

#5: Riya

Alright, back to my direct predictions about what will happen. As long as Riya doesn't win immunity this episode, I think that what will happen is that Grett will decide to turn the tables this time, and plan to vote with Jake and Connor to take out Riya. That way, she can fulfill her personal vendetta against Riya, as well as prevent someone who almost won last season from getting a chance at a re-do.

Given that Grett is locked in with Connor and Jake as Riya votes, there isn't really much of a point to voting for someone else if Ally is in on the plan. But, that doesn't mean that Ally won't be mad about it. The line where Ally seems so happy about going to the Final 3 with Riya and Grett would factor into this. I think Ally might genuinely believe that that's the plan moving forward, before Grett goes "lol no of course we're taking Riya out this time." At that point, Ally will put two and two together, and be confident that Grett tipped Connor and Jake off about the idol play without telling her. Some super close ally she is!

Going into the Final 4, Ally will be sick and tired of Grett bossing her around, not taking her opinions into account when it comes to who to vote out (Jake still isn't out of the game!) and treating her as essentially a second vote. That rage will cause Ally to somehow get Grett out at the Final 4-- possibly in combination with a Jake immunity win or some other situation where Jake is immune from being voted out. Or, maybe Ally would put her hatred of Jake aside in seeing Grett as a bigger threat. Doubtful, though-- she really fucking hates Jake.

Anyways, I feel bad that I haven't actually talked about Riya much in this Riya section. Of course, I don't know if anything that I'm going to say about Riya will make me feel any nicer. I really don't think that Riya is going to be a finalist again. I think that Grett or Ally make more sense as a "villain" finalist for the series, between Grett being a former member of the villains' alliance and Ally being one of the most detestable characters at this point. (Not saying I personally detest her.) If Riya isn't a finalist, it's now or next episode.

And... really, the thing that makes me want to put Riya on the bottom this week the most is wondering what the hell she would be doing still in the Final 4. If she gets there, it's probably either a Connor or Jake boot that gets us there, possibly Grett in the "Ally convinces everyone to vote Grett" scenario. What does that get us?

If Connor is eliminated, Riya is just an awkward third wheel on the Ally/Jake and Ally/Grett scenarios.

If Jake is eliminated, I guess she continues beefing with Connor, but about what? Whatever they have to talk about will probably be talked about in this episode.

If Grett is eliminated, then... I mean, I guess we'll focus in on her and Ally? And she can keep beefing with Connor about whatever. I don't know about you guys, but to me, that feels... kind of fruitless?

The main issue is that, at least in my eyes, Riya has already lost. She's not going to win this season, and everyone in the audience knows it. With Alec's elimination, she lost any sort of power she could have had. She doesn't have Alec to order around, she's officially made a fool of herself in front of Connor, and she doesn't even seem to enjoy the presence of the cameras she's always loved in the trailer. I think Riya may kinda quietly go off into the night this episode, which is the saddest (/pos) method for eliminating her there is. TV's greatest villain, taken out by Grett as an obvious move with very little fanfare. Is this where her relentless ambition and manipulation has gotten her...?

Oh, and she still needs to talk with Alec in the Loser's Motel, probably. Kinda fitting if they're eliminated back-to-back, as well.

As we close out this Power Ranking, let me reiterate that I genuinely could see any of these competitors being eliminated this episode. I wound up having stronger opinions about Ally and Riya than I thought, but I really struggled with where to place everyone at the start. I don't want to get 1 point this week, but I wouldn't be all too surprised if I do. I just have to hope that the power of the horse is on my side.

... wait, Venus was born in the year of the horse! Dammit, I'm totally gonna lose! Unless we have the same person at #5...? As I write this, I haven't read hers yet, so I guess I'll have to wait and see. To the episode!

#disventure camp #disventure camp spoilers #dcas #dcas power rankings #i don't know why i think saying horse over and over again is so funny but i do #maybe it's because the rigs are kinda jank #or maybe it's just because horse is a funny word. horse #horse divorce. that would have been Alec if he was in this episode #okay i'll shut up now #ally disventure camp #jake disventure camp #connor disventure camp #grett disventure camp #riya disventure camp

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idk-my-aesthetic · 1 year ago

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Spy x fam 76 spoilers!

There was so much incredible about this arc, and I want to talk about more of it, but I want to start with Nightfall

I’ll say it again I wasn’t a huge nightfall fan before this arc. I lowkey thought it’d be cute for her to develop a bit of a crush on Yor in a comedic way but besides that didn’t think too much of her

This freaking arc tho??? Oh my g-d???

1) this is just a general statement about the series as a whole but sxf truely is like. Both a love story and a spy thriller. You can’t take away the themes about love (both romantic and platonic) and family without completely compromising the story. It’s just one of the best stories I’ve ever seen with the way the creator weaves in drama and action and the SYMBOLISM. The PARALLELS. Im losing my fucking mind so-

1.1) listen. Listen. I know it sounds like I’m saying nonsense but I cannot express how IMPRESSIVE the story telling here is. Doing this so well is HARD. There’s a reason so many action movies have garbage tacked on romance plots. It takes a lot of different skills to make a good action drama vs a romantic or emotional drama. And this series just does such a good job at having an engaging world, stakes that feel genuinely scary and grounded, and characters that manage to both work as narrative tools while still feeling like real actual multidimensional people.

And that ability to have such incredibly multidimensional characters that still push the narrative is what brings me to Nightfall

2) this was the first time (at least in my opinion) nightfall became more of her own person and not just a token romantic rival to progress Loid and Yors romance. She’s starting to feel more like a real person.

One of the things about her that absolutely jumps out to me is her similarities to Yor. Her willingness to self sacrifice for the people she loves, her sheer power, and most importantly the way she views love

Yor and Fiona both view love as a strength. At the moment Twilight views it as a weakness. He also assumes that’s how the others around him view his attachments, as a form of weakness. Including Nightfall, he assumes she’s going to think him weak and she’s too flustered to correct him

I think there’s two possibilities with what will happen with Nightfall and Twilight.

A) Nightfall is going to help Twilight realize it’s okay to be in love with Yor and to love Anya (because I do think he will begin to view her as a weakness as well). It’s probably going to break her heart but we can already see how much she’s willing to sacrifice for him

(In an ideal world she’d go through a lot of character development, fall in love with Yor as well and then they’d be a throuple, but I am realistic enough to understand that’ll probably never happen and go write my own fic or smthn lol)

B) nightfall becomes a representation of the parts of himself that Loid will eventually sacrifice/turn away from in favor of his family. This is honestly what I was expecting to happen before this arc, especially cus it would be easy to do a mirroring thing with Yor and Yuri. (For the record I don’t think it would be a thing of like fully rejecting their old lives for either Loid or Yor but I also can only predict so much lol).

3) I really really hope nightfall continues to evolve. Yuri as well. As much as it is important to have rival or threat characters like them in this type of stories I feel like their characters have so much potential. But at the same time that’s one of the huge struggles with writing! It’s incredibly difficult to balance the narrative role of a character while still making them feel real. I think they’ve done and incredible job so far and I am curious where they’re going to go with it

#spy x family 86 #spy x family manga #dinner has arrived and I’ve been rambling for an hour I gotta GO

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imbonewary · 1 year ago

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Shifting Sans Chapter 2 "In Which, Sans is Very Confused"

Chapter 1 - Chapter 3

I flinched hard at a knock on the door. I must've blacked out for a minute.

"We heard something fall," a hesitant voice called through the door. "Is everything alright in there?"

Ah, that must've been me that fell, seeing as I'm on the floor, curled up in a rattling ball.

"'m fine,” hopped out of my mouth before I'd decided to respond. I’m not sure I’ve ever been "fine" but whatever. If that really is my brother than I don't want him to worry, and if it's not... show no weakness or it'll be used against you. I decided to stay on the floor as I went over what I knew; no sense wasting precious energy sitting up.

So.

I really did absorb a piece of the human's soul.

A piece of that thing is inside me now.

I don't think there's any way to un-absorb a soul.

I'll never be free of it.

...

Welp.

I'll just have to get used to that.

What else do I know.

I guess I still have full control because I only absorbed a piece of the human’s soul, not the whole thing, so there’s that. Small blessings. Not sure what I’d do if I could hear that little demon in my head all the time.

I moved one of the wings into my view to examine it more closely.

While I'm not 100% certain, I'm pretty sure the wings are coming from that soul piece; they are the same color, after all, and seem to be more like conjured flesh than feathers. Human souls are powerful so it would make sense that a monster who absorbs one would have to accommodate for the influx of magic somehow. Did anything else change besides the wings? I didn't notice anything different while getting dressed, so maybe not. In that case, I guess I'm glad the only change was the addition of wings. Coulda been worse.

And apparently I can fly now, but I’ll think about that later.

Grabbing the soul piece must've interrupted the reset; that could be why everything is so weird, but resets only affect time, and they only go back to when the human first fell. At least, ever since they took the power from Flowey anyways, and even then, he technically only had it for a few months. There wouldn't have been enough time, let alone need, to convert the closet into a bathroom. Besides, it was clean but obviously used and definitely not a new feature.

That skeleton out there... He hadn't corrected me when I called him "Papyrus" but he’s so different than my brother. He could speak softly, not only knew about Gaster Blasters but could summon his own, he was wearing jeans and a white shirt instead of his Battle Body, and he'd called me "buddy" instead of "brother" earlier... I hadn't caught it at the time but now that I think about it, that's even more weird than the rest of it!

I don't... I don't think that skeleton is my brother. Not unless a lot more has changed than just time can account for.

I need more information. I could spin my wheels for hours getting nowhere unless I ask my "hosts" some potentially awkward questions. I just hope they're willing to humor me.

I sat up, taking a deep breath before standing, once again using the sink for support. As I reached for the door a sudden fear of the unknown washed over me. After such a long time dealing with predictability how well am I gonna handle not knowing what comes next? I wonder how rusty my people-reading skills have gotten...

I shook my head, no more stalling. Swallowing my trepidation, I opened the door a crack, as quietly as I could. "Alphys" was sitting on the far side of the sofa with her tail curled around her; the white jacket she'd been wearing earlier was gone, leaving just the black dress, as she held the bundled up blanket I'd probably been using earlier. She had darker stripes on her forearms and markings around her eyes but no glasses. That didn't quite account for how much younger she looked. No sign of "Papyrus", though I could hear cooking sounds from the kitchen, solving that mystery. The door creaked and I instinctively pulled back as "Alphys" glanced at me, smiled, and turned her attention back to the low volume TV. I squared my shoulders; now or never time.

I was filled with DETERMI-

OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THIS FEELING?!

I retched, falling forward against the door, onto my knees, as waves of strength, power, and resolve coursed through my entire being. It wasn't painful, per se, but the phantom burning memory of molten magic lancing through my bones was plenty real to me. I hadn't felt anything like that since...

The Labs.

My mind was flooded with old memories I thought I'd buried long before the resets ever started. I saw the sadistic glee in his smile as he held a syringe filled with a sickly green substance; he said it was green healing magic mixed with the barest hint of red DT but the whole thing looked tainted as he injected it into the mana lines in my chest. As close to my soul as he dared get without actually piercing it. It wasn't the first time and sure as hell wasn't the last.

I whimpered into my hands as I let the memories wash over me.

It was a well practiced mental exercise I'd developed over the subjective years spent repeating the same goddamn days over and over. Let the mangled memories run their course, acknowledge their presence, send them on their way; and pray that I make it to the other side without losing the rest of my tattered sanity.

If you're goin' through Hell, don't stop.

Several torturous minutes later, the pain filled visions of needles, restraints, rough hands, and strange substances, faded.

I stayed kneeling on the floor, breathing ragged as I let my fluttering soul calm back into a steady rhythm.

I struggled to my feet, leaning heavily against the wall, and didn't give myself time to think before opening the door, trudging over and plopping onto the couch opposite Alphys. I didn't look at her but I could practically feel her smile... Wait a sec, I could feel it, like a warmth radiating from her but not one I could feel on my bones; one I could feel on my actual soul. Flowing into me from behind, right where the wings were attached to my back.

Put that on my growing list of weird things to think about later.

Something else I could feel with the wings was every fiber of the couch cushion I was leaning back against. That was an uncomfortable amount of sensory input, especially from new limbs I wasn't used to yet. Or maybe they were just hyper sensitive to touch. Or both, I didn’t conjure flesh often. Either way, that's really annoying. I tried to subtly find a more comfortable position but my fidgeting became less and less subtle the more frustrated I got with the over stimulation before giving up, flopping over the side of the arm rest with a groan of resignation.

A throat cleared and I flinched hard.

I turned with an easy smile, pretending I hadn't just jumped out of my nonexistent skin, to find "Papyrus" with an amused grin and two bowls of food. Schooling his expression to carefully neutral, he handed one bowl to "Alphys" before offering the other to me. I could still feel his amusement, just like I could feel Alphys' smile earlier. I took the bowl with a quiet thanks, leaning forward to avoid letting the wings touch the couch again. It would be easier to avoid making a mess like this anyways.

A sob caught in my throat as I looked down at the bowl of spaghetti.

Maybe he was my brother after all.

Swallowing the tears that pricked at the corners of my sockets, I shoved a forkful of noodles in my mouth and, as much as I love my brother, I could admit his spaghetti never tasted as good as this did. I ignored the confusing mix of emotions as I continued to shovel food in my face. It tasted good, sure, but I didn't realize how hungry I was until I... was out of food. I blinked at my suddenly empty bowl.

"Nyeh heh," Papyrus chuckled, holding out another bowl. "Would you like some more? I made plenty."

I grabbed it greedily, trading him for the empty one as he got up from his chair. I hadn't noticed him sit down next to Alphys; where did the chair even come from?

"Oh my g-god, that was adorable," Alphys snickered behind her hand.

I blushed, looking away. My eyelights had definitely blown wide at the taste; I really hope they didn't turn into stars or, god forbid, hearts. I wiped off my sauce covered face with the back of my hand; guess I made a mess of myself anyways. I debated for a moment before licking it off; shouldn't let it go to waste. I started eating at a more reasonable pace and Papyrus soon sat down with another bowl. Alphys had barely started her own bowl. So where had the bowl he just gave me come from?

Papyrus gave me his own god damn bowl of food, didn't he? I am such a terrible house guest.

We ate in silence a bit longer.

"Thanks for making dinner," Alphys said. "I-it tastes great."

"As great as the skeleton who made it!" Papyrus preened at the praise, hand on his puffed out chest.

Another lump caught in my throat. This is getting ridiculous, are you my brother or not? You're so like him in some ways but in others you're the complete opposite. It's giving me emotional whiplash!

"I suppose we should introduce ourselves, now that everything has calmed down a bit," he continued. Now that I've calmed down, you mean. "My name is Papyrus, though you seemed to already know that."

He hid it well but I could feel the undercurrent of suspicion coming from him.

The fact he felt the need to introduce himself means he doesn't know who I am. Which means he can't be my brother. I tried not to wilt visibly.

"And this is my sister, Alphys."

I choked on my spaghetti.

SISTER?! The FUCK?!

"That seems to surprise you." His suspicion was leaking out from behind his carefully neutral mask.

"Yeah, it does surprise me," I finally spoke. "You're supposed to be my brother."

#undertale #jumbletale #alternate universe #oc #serif #shifting sans #lucky papyrus #amber alphys

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discotreque · 2 years ago

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Red Yarn & Thumbtacks Into Darkness

We all know I can’t predict plot points to save my life, and my track record w/r/t this season of Picard is quite bad so far… but neither can I stop myself from formulating wild theories about where this whole hot mess is going. And maybe it’s just the meandering narrative, but the show keeps getting opportunities to disprove these, and it just hasn’t, which means now I have to inflict them on y’all so my head doesn’t explode. Buckle up!

Theory #1: Remmick’s Revenge

(Speaking of exploding heads…)

The thing in Picard 1.0’s brain that isn’t Irumodic Syndrome after all? The thing that’s also in his DNA, and has therefore has been passed on to Jack? The thing that isn’t part of Picard 2.0’s positronic body? The thing that seems to be beckoning Jack, with creepy red organic imagery, to join/connect with some kind of hive mind?

It’s one of the parasites from “Conspiracy” in TNG S1. It got into Picard during that episode, but after the other parasites were exposed and killed, it went dormant and waited for a better opportunity to strike, rewriting his DNA to make sure he’d be an ideal host when the time came.

But that time never came, and the DNA modifications and/or the presence of the parasite slowly damaged Picard’s brain (in a way similar to Irumodic Syndrome, I guess), which eventually killed his original body. And when Section 31 retrieved that body to take to Daystrom Station, the parasite was still inside: maybe dead too, maybe still dormant, but nothing that a nice fresh sample of modified, ideal-host DNA from Jack couldn’t fix.

Whoever’s giving Vadic her orders when she talks to the hand isn’t (just) trying to reignite the Dominion War—they’re trying to resurrect the parasite conspiracy.

Theory #2: Lateral Advancement

I loved that Lower Decks S3 presented not being in Starfleet as an equally valid and (at least potentially) equally rewarding path for Mariner. Obviously she chose Starfleet, but they made the alternative appealing enough that the obvious choice still had some weight to it. And every week I’m getting more and more sure that PIC S3 is mounting a similar challenge to the idea that every Starfleet officer, if they survive long enough, will—and wants to—become captain of their own ship.

Because listen, I love Shaw as much as the next damaged bitch who confuses “asshole” for “charm,” but babygirl does not seem like he’s thriving in the big chair. The only times we ever see him remotely comfortable—and neither lashing out nor squirming with the effort not to—is when he’s forced back into his old grease-monkey role.

If Captain Shaw survives the season—and at this point, it feels like he probably will—I think (and also hope) that he’s going to transfer out of Command entirely and become the first four-pip Chief Engineer since Scotty in the TOS movies. He and everyone around him would be so much happier.

Theory #3: Feint Praise

They had to know this season would be released weekly while they were writing it—like the seven preceding seasons of live-action New Trek were—so the fact that it’s obviously been written and edited for a binge-watch can only be deliberate sadism. Those fuckers.

However. Earlier this season, when I first watched 3.03, I thought it sucked pretty bad as a standalone episode: weird pacing, incomplete arcs, multiple anti-climactic lacks of payoff, etc. Then I rewatched it back-to-back with Episode 3.04 a week later, and realized 3.03 is actually a pretty decent first half of a two-part episode, and the absolutely outstanding second half corrected or cancelled out nearly every complaint I’d had anyway.

Well, here we are again, and I have a lot of complaints about 3.07. The pacing is weird, the character arcs feel incomplete at best, the amount of setup vs. payoff is way out of whack, and it seems to break some pretty fundamental rules of modern cinematic storytelling for no better reason than to suddenly start rushing this slow-ass plot along.

And all of those complaints are well within the ability of next week’s episode to retroactively address, if it’s indeed the second half to this week’s first. And especially so soon after my last volte-face, I’m more than comfortable giving them an extra week to dig themselves out of this one—they might actually pull it off.

#star trek #star trek picard #star trek picard spoilers #picard spoilers #picard season 3 #amy.txt

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purgetrooper77 · 2 years ago

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The Bad Batch (Post Season 2) theories, predictions, and an announcement

Warning: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE BAD BATCH SEASON 2!!!!

I finished watching the Season 2 finale of TBB and I have to say, it was an emotional rollercoaster. That Season doesn’t need a rating from me, it needs a reward of amount of hearts broken it caused. I loved every single second of it and the plot twist of Emerie Karr being a female clone caught me off guard. Bravo writers bravo. Now onto the rest of the post.

Theories: Remember my Mark Omega Cloning Theory? I believe that is going to happen in Season 3 but there will be a twist. Omega is not going to be the only one being experimented on, other clones would take part of the Mark Omega project as well. My theory is that Dr. Hemlock will take so much DNA out of Omega, he would have enough to make a second clone army along with the rest of the clones.

My new theories: So far I have two new theories of the ending of the current season.

New Theory #1: Emerie Karr is a 2nd Gen Clone. Basically she was created at the same time the other Gen 2 Clones were created and Karr was hidden from Lama Su by Nala Se. It is confirmed that Nala Se kept secret cloning information from Omega and Emerie’s existence was one of those secrets. Her being a Gen 3 Clone makes no sense to me because that would mean she is younger than most of Clone Force 99 (if I am mistaken please correct me) Or she could be a failed Clone Commando that was supposed to be on special ops mission. Instead she began to become an Imperial Scientist. It is also confirmed that Nala Se is hiding some secrets to Lama Su since we all know that Se has a soft spot for different clones. But then again this is just a theory.

New Theory #2: A civil war will erupt in Coruscant. Allow me to explain: in the finale of Season 2 of The Bad Batch it is revealed that many people are now Clone Rights activists and obviously there are some who believe clones are Imperial property. There will be a short civil war in Coruscant between those two kinds of people which will instantly get the Empire involved. That civil war would cause all sorts of conflicts which will have a huge effect on the entire galaxy. This could be one of the reasons why Tarkin dissolved the senate like he did in Star Wars: A New Hope.

Here are my predictions: Crosshair will lose his mind when he hears about Tech’s death, Hunter will become Star Wars’ version of John Rambo (or John Wick), Dr. Hemlock will die in Season 3 (assuming that season will happen), and last but not least, Phee Genoa will start an underground crime organization all because Tech has died. Or did he? Let me know what y’all think in the replies.

I would smother Season 2 of the Bad Batch will all of my love, consider that my rating for the show. Please let there be a Season 3, I am praying hard for it to happen.

One more thing...

I said I have an announcement and here it is... I have been writing some fanfiction on my own. The fanfiction I am currently writing is coming to an end at the time of this post. This fanfiction won’t be about Clone Troopers nor anyone involved in Dave Filoni’s current projects. Once I finished writing the finale of this fanfiction, I will announce it what it is so stay tuned for that. Anyways this is Purgetrooper77, signing out.

#my theories #tbb #tbb headcanons #star wars theory #an announcement #please let there be a season 3 #tech #wrecker #hunter #omega #spoilers #fanfic

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burnwater13 · 3 months ago

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Miggs Mayfeld holding Grogu while the Twi'lek Xi'an looks on, aboard the Razor Crest. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 6, The Prisoner. Calendar by DateWorks.

Note: This story originally ran on April 20, 2024. But it's Labor Day in the US and to minimize my labor, I am running it again with minor edits. Cheers!

Grogu looked up at the guy holding him and marveled at the fact that the balding man was able to be quiet for that long. So far on this trip Grogu had tried to get some rest, but that guy was never quiet. He was always talking. Always laughing at something no one else laughed at. Always trying to provoke the others into saying things that just seemed kind of mean. And everything he said was kind of mean as well.

Who were these ‘friends’ of the Mandalorian? They seemed pretty suspect to Grogu. Not nice, open, easy to get to know people like Kuiil or Cara Dune. They weren’t even cute like Peli Motto or kind, like Winta’s mom. Nope. They were all criminals or something very close to being criminals. How did someone like the Mandalorian even meet them?

Grogu had thought that the ‘job’ was going to be something quick and easy. Fly a few folks to their destination, wait for them to do their business and then take them back home. Sort of like being a public transport, only you didn’t have to wait for the right speeder to show up. You just told the pilot where to go and they got you there.

Having seen their weapons and listened to them ‘chat’ with the Mandalorian, it was Grogu’s considered opinion that they were going to do something that usually caused a bounty to be taken out against a person. Was the Mandalorian hoping to bring them in warm? Or cold, Grogu’s personal preference, or something else? Grogu didn’t know, but he sure hoped it wasn’t something else. That didn’t bode well for either of them.

It had been his experience that when people showed you who they are, well that’s who they were. Abrupt, mouthy, bit of a bully, well, that’s what they were, a mouthy bully who did unpredictable things because that’s how they felt most comfortable. And that was just the Mayfeld guy. He seemed like the nicest one of the three people he actually met.

And just to be clear, in case anyone felt like correcting him, Grogu knew that a droid went with them on that trip. The droid was the scariest and least predictable member of the group and Grogu did not consider it to be a person. He also would have preferred not to have met it. He has spoken!

If he had thought that the Mandalorian would have listened to him, he would have gladly advised the bounty hunter to leave immediately and go some place with fewer criminals. Maybe Takodana. Or Corellia. Any place but that repair station and definitely not wherever they were headed. But the Mandalorian didn’t listen to people smaller than him, more or less. He had listened to Peli, but Grogu was pretty sure that she was the exception that proved the rule.

Grogu bit his lip and pretty much stayed to himself until he wanted some food. If he didn’t eat in a timely manner he just got cranky. That wasn’t a good thing. He lost his patience more quickly. He snapped at people. Literally. And he was more tempted to use the Force to get what he wanted and doubted that the Mandalorian would thank him for that.

Apparently his timing wasn’t all that good and it turned out that the droid was flying the Razor Crest and the other people were standing around trying to get on each other’s last nerve. Grogu should have expected that. It was part and parcel of all the bad vibes he got from them.

He expected the Mandalorian to warn them that they were traveling with a Jedi, now that they all knew that Grogu was on board, but strangely he didn’t. Instead, and Grogu couldn’t believe his ears, the bounty hunter told the motley crew that he was a pet. A pet! Uff. He had absolutely nothing in common with a Loth cat and everyone could see that.

Okay, okay, to be fair, that blabber mouth Mayfeld suggested that he was either a pet or a child that the Mandalorian and the Twi’lek person had when they knew each other. On that basis Grogu didn’t really blame the Mandalorian for choosing ‘pet’ over ‘child’. He had certainly been someone’s child but despite the similarity in the outward appearance of their teeth, he had nothing else in common with the Twi’lek.

He was glad of that. She liked playing with that knife too much for Grogu’s comfort. That was a good way to get cut. He’d heard that warning from Master Drallig everyday for a year, until the Jedi Battle Master accidentally dropped his lightsaber on his own foot. It hadn’t been activated but it still hurt based on the hopping, cursing, and complaining that took place right after the incident.

Grogu was about to warn her about that when the ship suddenly dropped out of hyperspace and then did a whole series of swoops, flips, turns and drops before it landed on something. Unfortunately the artificial gravity on the Razor Crest was of no use during a maneuver like that. You were supposed to be strapped into your seat when you have to evade an enemy, not stand around playing with knives and being obnoxious.

For some reason the Mandalorian was worried more about Grogu than his ship and picked him up and checked him out as quickly as he could before putting him back in the tiny single person cabin they shared. It was just as well. Grogu had just remembered where he had stashed some snacks and he wanted to eat them before anything else happened. With people like this as part of his team, Grogu was certain that the Mandalorian would end up having to save them all from their own selfishness and Grogu didn’t want to have to witness that. They were who they were and he believed them.

#calendar prompt a day #grogu #the mandalorian #din djarin

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dkptx · 3 months ago

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On Pollarding

Forthrighter on twitter nerdsniped me with a picture of an unhealthy-looking pollarded beech tree in Cambridge Mass, and my half-assed explanation in reply made me realize that I didn’t really understand pollarding.

My basic understanding was 1. It’s bad. 2. But people do it, and have been doing it for centuries, on some very long-lived trees, so maybe it’s not that bad. 3. And so there are “correct” ways to do it and incorrect ones.

My pre-conceived idea about my own blind-spot, however, took the form of the question: “But how can they predict which trees will survive pollarding, and which ones won’t?”

Upon a bit of further investigation, this question falls under “not even wrong,” because that sort of prediction is not really part of the equation, at least today.

I suppose historical peoples who were depending on the products of those pollarded trees, even though they had far less understanding of scientific tree physiology than we do now, might have had better heuristics about that sort of question, because they faced more dire consequences if the tree died. But that’s a question for historians.

Anyway, the basic reason people pollard today is that a tree is large and dangerous: it is likely to fail.

So modern pollarding, which almost never cares about producing wood as building, coppice, or heating material, is done as a hail mary that might let the tree survive, when the only other option is complete removal.

However, if you’re gonna do it, you should do it in winter, when the tree is dormant, because: 1. The tree has stored most of its energy in its roots at that point, so it will have more energy to shoot out in spring. 2. Harsh, full sun beating down directly on bare limbs can do a lot of bad things. One of these is called “sun scald,“ but you can also see the way the bark is has peeled away from the tops of the cuts? Might indicate the cutting was done in summer.

Basically, if you cut in winter, the tree has time to grow itself a little shade before the full-on summer sun starts hitting it.

You would want and expect the suckering to happen at the tips of the branches. Instead, with that beech, there’s more surviving suckering lower down on the main trunk. That’s a bad sign.

The other thing is, you can’t pollard just once, then let it spend twenty years getting big again. When you’ve made big cuts like that, they’re always going to be likely to decay. The solution to that is to let the tree build up a sort of “shoot ball” at the end, where you make the same little snips of small suckers every … year or maybe three years max.

If you let new shoots grow for five or ten or fifteen years, they’re always going to be badly attached, and a hazard.

I suppose the one tree I’ve had a hand in pollarding proves the instance of the pattern which is: “Tree that probably should have been removed entirely, but landowner just couldn’t let go. So cut it way back and then hope for the best.”

Anyway, I sort of wrote this to correct the tone of my reply to Forth, which implied that pollarding was an acceptable thing to do, but they had gone about it wrong. That … just isn’t really the right logic for that situation. Maybe they did the cutting at the wrong time of year, and (to me) it looks like the cuts aren’t quite ideal (see the way the third shows that weird flare, that’s bad) but anyway, the … general tactic of cutting a tree that size down to … that size is … well, it could potentially have been a sound decision.

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when-did-this-become-difficult · 2 years ago

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Here i go, again. I have some things to get off of my chest and frankly im curious what do you think!

We are almost halfway season 2 - 1 episode away -, and things still haven't happened, we still not see Milo enough to know what he is up to, we still have not seen Mike actually doing something but at least we got some Kyle and Miriam. Im curious what Mike thought when Bunny told him they are moving them to another prison. That he is bluffing? He seemed so surprised at the end when he found the empty tents. Like i get it, he is a fixer of Kingstown. But im sure there is a major and a senator and such, so the correctional facilities tasks and businesses are far higher than Mike can reach. If could have intervened, he should have by now because now it is out of his hands reach. And also where is my Robert Sawyer dose of the week? I would have bad feelings about this if i would think that the plot is actually gonna move forward - i was afraid that Robert and Ian, and a bunch of guys who are on the side of the law are gonna get killed or seriously injured because they have been mentioning if they loose the prison, they loose Kingstown and then it is really war, but i still don't understand how that could happen and what it means to certain characters. Im a little disappointed so far.

Yeah, I feel like Milo's doing very very little this season still in a way that I find kind of annoying. I was overjoyed that they dealt with the box in the ground! Finally! That seems like an interesting piece of money/power that will maybe end up giving Mike something to work with, because the whole episode he just felt like he was running round saying the exact same thing to every little stakeholder, but not making any moves or decisions at all himself.

I am cautiously in favor of them at least making an effort with Mariam, and I think the new environment of the juvenile detention center might work out a little better than her former stuff. The Kyle stuff I'm also cautiously open to. I found him talking to Mitch being a real </3

I'm a little bit dubious about Taylor Sheridan dealing with release of nonviolent offenders in this way. Am I really supposed to believe that some guy who got arrested for weed or something is really a huge threat? As opposed to—oh well, you know the whole spiel by now. There's a lot more that's caused chaos on the streets.

Not a fan of Sawyer, but I have a happy prediction for you, which is that he'll probably turn up in the following sequence of events: the removal of everyone from tent city makes the leadership lose faith in Mike -> the leadership is unable to keep hold of their people and violence arises again -> Sawyer & co have to go arrest people about it. So he'll almost certainly be in the next two episodes at some point, in my mind.

Ian is one of those characters where I know he won't die because he's played by Dillon, but I'm not even mad about it, he's an easy hang especially compared to the vast majority of other characters.

I again appreciate Tasha Williams's direction, and hope she returns for season 3 (if there is one)

#correspondence #minamartin #mayor of kingstown

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doctor-disc0 · 3 years ago

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um... not to be rude but isn't not having Loki in the next Thor movie what you wanted? I can't help but remember a bunch of anti-Ragnarok posts about how Taika Waititi turned the franchise into a big joke and calling CH "Chris Odinson" who insulted TM? Wasn't it keep Loki away from that at all costs? I don't understand why you changed your mind...

Hi sorry this got buried in my notes and I didn't see it

I haven't really changed my mind? Sorta? I still think that Taika Waititi did a terrible job with Ragnarok. One of the things I liked about the Thor franchise was its darker themes, at least compared to the rest of the mcu (and I also liked Loki. Obviously) and TW just kinda smashed that up and replaced it with awful characterization and like, butt jokes (idk it's been forever since I've seen Ragnarok).

But ever since the Loki series, I've kinda been like...actually, can we go back to Ragnarok? Cuz despite the shittiness of that mess of a movie, at least it didn't give us false hope at representation. At least its creator never pretended to like Loki. And at least it gave us a few good moments (I did love that Loki used their horns as a weapon, and I did like Thor's power upgrade).

Obviously, I still prefer Thor 1 and 2. But I've lost all hope that the mcu will ever be as good as it once was.

Also, as Tom Hiddleston once said (I think, idk): there is no Loki without Thor, and no Thor without Loki.

Actually, I think that's another reason the Loki show sucked. Thor did not show up at all, and was rarely talked about. We all know how much Thor means to Loki ("I may be envious, but never doubt that I love you") so the fact that their love for Thor wasn't really addressed (or even mentioned) really bothered me.

So, having a Thor movie without Loki is like having a Loki series without Thor, in that it's inevitably going to suck (even more than I predict it still would with Loki in it).

Also, maybe it's the optimist in me, but I really, really want to believe that Taika can make a good Thor movie if he really tried (as in, correct characterization and all that). I am glad that he sees Jane Foster's Thor as the Mighty Thor instead of just "Lady" Thor (though I do have my anxieties about how he'll go about portraying Jane). I think that if he gave Loki a chance, he could see our favorite god of mischief as more than just a pampered jerk (like they were portrayed in more recent mcu projects) and instead as a broken but loveable trickster who has gone through so much and received so little.

So, to summarize my feelings: yes, I think that Taika did a bad job with both Thor and Loki in Ragnarok, but I do think that Love and Thunder will be even worse than Ragnarok if Thor's love of Loki is not acknowledged and if he doesn't bring Loki to life in the form of kid Loki or if Loki doesn't at least make a cameo. Because let's face it, Thor's story and Loki's story are tied together so tight that you can't possibly make anything good about one without the other

I mean, Loki was way, waaaayyyy worse in the comics (literally called themself the god of evil for a while) and Thor still missed them and brought them back. Also the fact that Thor thought of Loki more as his brother than Balder is pretty hilarious considering Balder has never tried to kill Thor and is also actually related to him

So, yeah. I at least want a Loki cameo because Thor and Loki are important to each other, dammit

#I am not good at talking or like. expressing my thoughts #so like I hope this isn't too confusing #it probably is though 😅#ask #anonymous #Loki series criticism #anti Ragnarok #I believe the tag most of us decided on for anti Ragnarok posts was:#Thor gagnarok #idk though it's been a while and I have a terrible memory #if you need me to like. clarify something or whatever feel free to ask #because I doubt this is very easy to follow #and maybe I will be more coherent in the morning #idk it's late and I'm kinda sick (waiting for results for a Covid test)

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lilover131 · 3 years ago

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Heading towards the end for Clear Card...What does this mean?

So...as some of you already know, Ohkawa (the writer of CLAMP) announced in a Twitter Space on 1/2 confirming that Clear Card is starting to head towards the end. It appears that the prediction I and others have made in regards to the current events seeming to gear up for the climax of the story are indeed correct.

So, now that we know this...what does this mean? Many of you probably have a lot of questions about what this entails, so I’ll go point by point on my predictions, opinions, and thoughts as a long term follower of CLAMP manga and my familiarity with following them particularly while a manga is still being serialized. My thoughts under the cut!

When will Clear Card end?

Personally, I think that even though Ohkawa has announced that it is gearing up towards the end, I do not think this will happen quickly. I believe what she means by this is that it is entering the final arc of the story. In terms of pacing, I doubt that we’ll even see the end of the story this year as the entire story would have to be resolved in basically 8-9 chapters with the occasional breaks CLAMP takes. 8-9 chapters I don’t think is suitable to end the series, especially considering how short these chapters usually are. We also have SO many questions that need answering, and at least one flashback that is in my mind guaranteed for Kaito, so I’m thinking it’s more likely going to end in 2023.

Are we ever going to get a Season Two for the Anime?

Unfortunately, there has still been absolutely no news on this. However, based on how well the Clear Card anime was received (I gauge this based on the sheer amount of merchandise and games they are still pumping out as a result), I can’t imagine why Clear Card would not get a season 2. I feel like financially, it was a success, so it seems foolish to not make another season when the odds of making money seem so much like a sure thing. The way season 1 ended was a bit abrupt and without any answers, and even as vague as CLAMP can be with some endings, it seems too odd to end it there. Personally, I think there are and have been intentions of making a season 2, but that they had to wait until more manga material came out before they could even have the possibility of starting it. I think this is a smart move as I have seen countless anime die due to the pacing moving faster than the manga and having to rely solely on fillers to keep going (or god forbid air on a channel that can’t support the themes of the plot and the animation studio decides to just change the most important plot points to make it work *cough* Tsubasa *cough*) . The reason the fillers worked so well in the original anime of Cardcaptor Sakura was because Ohkawa was right there to help them write the scripts, so everything was still canon. However, I doubt she has all the time to spend doing that right now with a manga still ongoing and other projects too probably in the works (not to mention the ladies of CLAMP are getting older and can’t be expected to do as much as they did 20 years ago).

My hope is that with the confirmation that we’re nearing the end of the story that they’ll finally give us some news about a second season. I feel like there really isn’t any better time than this year, and they should strike while the iron is still hot. I know some friends of mine and myself tend to look for big news around April 1st of every year as this is CLAMP’s anniversary (and Sakura’s birthday!), and it’s not uncommon for them to give us big news on this day. I certainly haven’t lost hope as I have now seen proof of other series getting another season several years later (like ‘The Devil is a Part Timer’), and Cardcaptor Sakura itself is an example of a series getting more content twenty years later. That speaks volumes as to how precious this series is to so many people, including CLAMP, so I just know it’ll get what it deserves.

What will CLAMP do after Clear Card is over?

Back when Tsubasa Nirai Kanai was being serialized and reached its final chapter of the arc several years ago, it became apparent, at least to me, that CLAMP was gearing up for something big on their end. The way Nirai Kanai ended seemed to lack in actual answers and really implied that there was more to come (hey, sounds familiar to our situation with the Clear Card anime, now doesn’t it?). Back then, I had felt deep in my heart that CLAMP was putting Tsubasa and XXXHolic on pause for something big. It was very shortly after Nirai Kanai had it’s last chapter that they announced a new Cardcaptor Sakura project. CLAMP I believe even confirmed themselves that they would continue Tsubasa at some point and this was not the end. So I firmly believe that once Clear Card is done, they will continue with Tsubasa and may even tie it together somehow with Clear Card (no need to panic for those of you who are freaked out by possible Tsubasa connections. I think Clear Card will remain untainted by this and keep true to its main themes). It’s also entirely possible Tsubasa and XXXHolic were placed on pause simply due to time being a factor, but considering how far in advance I’ve seen them plan some things out, I’m a bit more inclined to think that this was decided ahead of time (with Clear Card in particular, I had theorized that it was being planned since at least 2009).

We also can’t forget that CLAMP is likely still working on finding a new animation studio for the Tokyo Babylon project after the plagiarism scandal with the first studio. I know this is a project they told fans they intend on still going forward with, so this is probably going to be another focus of theirs in the future, and I’m personally very much looking forward to it! I’m happy that it’s so important to them for it to be done right, though I’m bummed that we didn’t get it last year as expected due to absolutely atrocious choices by GoHands (good on CLAMP and King Records for backing out of that one! It was the right choice 100%, and I believe there was even mention of CLAMP themselves being involved in that conversation).

What will WE do after Clear Card is over?

Well, I know there are plenty of people who have really struggled to keep following the story and will be grateful when it is over. As for me, it will be very sad. Of course every story has to come to an end at some point, but I love the characters and story so much that I often find myself never wanting it to end. So whether it is a relief for you, a sad parting, or a bittersweet moment filled with feelings from both sides, everything will surely be all right. Be grateful that we were so fortunate to have this extra time with Sakura, Syaoran, and all the other amazing characters, including brand new ones! Be grateful for getting to share this moment with other people who grew up with CCS just like you (I personally have made so many new friends that I might have not met otherwise). Be grateful that so many are being exposed to Cardcaptor Sakura for the first time, some old fans getting to enjoy this alongside their children. Be grateful to love a series so beloved we got more content two decades after the creators said it was done and they didn’t plan on making more. Be grateful that when they made a Clear Card anime, they managed to get nearly every single original voice actor, director, music composer, singer, and more to come back 20 years later to reprise their roles. Everyone’s love for Cardcaptor Sakura is what made Clear Card a reality. So really, when it comes down to it, the magic was in us all along. What we have here is so incredibly special, and I’m going to enjoy every moment of it.

#cardcaptor sakura #clear card #manga #anime #tsubasa #xxxholic #nirai kanai #chrissy talks a lot #theories #the end #ohkawa #twitter space #it is not the end #but rather the beginning #the beginning of the end...#CLAMP

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