#imperialist regime for whatever the fuck they want

[dirbenaffleck]

as a non american watching the most influential country having to whine about picking the lesser evil when some countries have to pick between 5 political parties ranging from fascist upfront, fascist adjacent, literal criminals, to somewhat good and having all of your votes unequally divided amongst all of those is fucking ridiculous

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

I will never understand the constant hesitation and back and forth bullshit from other countries when it comes to helping Ukraine not be completely fucked over by Russia.

Like Russia is out here getting help and weaponry from other dictatorship nations, be it getting missiles from the Iranian regime or drones from China to literally having help from North Korea in terms of actual having North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russia against Ukraine on fucking Ukrainian soil.

But you still got either the U.S and the rest of Western Europe that are still hesitant when comes to giving advanced weaponry to Ukraine and letting them strike back and win this war.

I don’t get it, like do ya'll other countries want Ukraine to win this war or not. Or have Russia/Putin and the rest of these dictatorship nations have a field day fucking up everything in terms of global security in the next couple of decades because they see weakness in Europe and the rest of the West due to the refusal to stand up against tyrannical dictators and stand up for democratic values.

Ukraine is out here seriously trying there all to not have their country be fucked by a authoritarian regime and fighting for their survival and freedom and fighting for Europe security as well.

Yet you got European countries and certain people that are still 'whatever' when it comes to Russia imperialist invasion bullshit and still act like what's Russia is trying to do is still "No Big Deal".

[five-flavor-soup]

Why the endgame couples in A:TLA weren’t necessary: a frustrated ramble

Listen I’m a Zutara shipper through and through (developed after my second rewatch in 2013) but by Tui Agni and La am I glad that it never happened in canon?? Like Kataang and Maiko themselves already felt so rushed and almost out-of-nowhere and their canonisation added like nothing to the plot. Aang’s crush on Katara is a plot device; Zuko’s relationship with Mai at the start of S3 is a plot device. I can barely fathom how Zutara would’ve turned out and I also kinda don’t want to. Imagine Zuko and Katara kissing at the end of the series: it feels completely out of left field, doesn’t it? Knowing that who-ends-up-with-who was an argument in the writer’s room for almost all three seasons means that it could’ve happened.

It shouldn’t have. I don’t think the Kataang kiss or the Maiko romance-reunion should’ve happened either. It’s unnecessary to add—there’s just no need for it, and my nagging here isn’t because I like Zutara and I don’t like how Maiko and Kataang turned out. It’s because the ships and couples and whatever the fuck else are NOT, and should not, be the point of A:TLA—and the ‘couple gets together in the very last scene and all is well :)’ shot suggests that it is.

A:TLA, to me, tried to show the horrifying nature of war and all its victims: the harrowing poverty, the deep-rooted trauma, the bloody violence. I interpreted the most prominent message of A:TLA to be that what was happening during those 100 years is wrong, that war is wrong—it affects the humanity within people, affects what point we offer empathy and kindness, because horrific trauma and needless violence muddies it all up. Why would you hold out a hand for someone who would’ve murdered you if they had the chance? Why would you physically support someone who hurt you and those you care about deeply? Those of the other nations can barely scrounge up empathy for someone from the Fire Nation, because those of the Fire Nation present themselves as inhuman. Those of the Fire Nation can barely scrounge up empathy for someone from any of the other nations, because the Fire Nation presents them as inhuman. And A:TLA shows that all these people are human, good and bad and all of that in between, because that’s just what humanity is. Varied and morally grey.

THAT’S what the GAang learns. That’s what the people around them learn. It’s what Iroh, a war criminal in his own right, tries to teach every child and teen who he interacts with: not in a preachy way, but in a vague way that implies he’d rather have them figure it out themselves lest they interpret his direct teachings wrong. He got indoctrinated into this terrorising, imperialist regime from the day he was born and onwards and it took a personal loss — the death of his son during a siege Iroh himself was leading, a siege in which Iroh and Lu Ten were the aggressors — for him to start thinking that maybe it’s all wrong. Maybe what he was taught is wrong. And he doesn’t want these children to take as long as he did.

The GAang and their (teenage) enemies and small antagonists have all been touched by war, almost to the point of no return. None of the need for violence, the calm in the face of battle and death, the willingness to sacrifice innocents for a sliver of retribution, the extensive knowledge of How To Fight A Battle And Win—none these qualities that these children (!!) may or may not portray are ‘normal’ teenage behaviours. They simply have to have them, or they die or freeze. Their childhoods were stopped in their tracks early because of experiences no child should ever experience. Such is the reality of war. And yet, in spite of the hurt and harm, the GAang is still capable of kindness and empathy. That’s what it’s about.

To end the series with explicit romance — Sokka/Suki doesn’t count, their relationship is not as in-your-face as The Scenes — just feels wrong. Maybe with another season of development it could’ve worked far better (and less unexpected, especially since the previous one-on-one Kataang interaction was Katara getting cross with Aang for kissing her when she was confused; and the previous one-on-one Maiko interaction was Zuko locking Mai in a cell/out of the way and then leaving without looking back). But with the three seasons that we got, it feels odd that the romance is highlighted at the end—especially when Zuko was miserable with Mai (with her being the human representation of ‘close your eyes and pretend everything’s fine’), and there ALSO was a perfectly good ending scene with the GAang bickering right there. Right before the ending kiss.

Why end it like that, when the series isn’t about romance, but about familial and platonic love and love for humanity instead? Why not just hint towards getting (back) together? What’s the point of these confirmations other than ‘the hero gets the girl’ in both instances?

[l3vi4than]

Hello, I see you’ve discovered the post soviet election fraud frustration? I don’t know how it’s been for you earlier, but I know that feeling. Let me share with you some insights we slavs and other eastern people had painfully tested for the last couple decades while fighting against imperialistic regimes in our countries:

Ignoring the elections and keeping your vote to yourself DOES NOT WORK. Your vote is not going to be counted as absent — it will be counted as a vote supporting the richiest candidate (or the one who has the influence over the electoral process)

Votes of your deceased and disabled close ones will be counted against their will in the same manner, so it’s your responsibility to show up at the election site and make sure their names aren’t on the list of the voters. Yes, cross their names out if you have to.

As OP said: vote against works. Make sure your vote is counted. You don’t have to vote for a candidate if all candidates disgust you, you can always spoil the ballot (if thats a thing in your country electoral rules). Like draw a kitten on top of candidates list or use the free space to write DARTH VADER and a checkbox with a mark in it like you just voted for him. Limitless creativity. Just make sure your vote is counted — either as support for one of the candidates or a “fuck yall” statement.

Teaming up works. Uniting around one single “lesser evil” candidate on a simple premise “this is our against all candidate” can be disastrous for the electoral system. Use this.

Don’t think your vote matters. It does not. It will be altered and manipulated statistically to fit the numbers they want to see. Your vote is not you participating in the political process — your vote is an “I AM STILL HERE” statement. Make it loud. Make it harder for them to ignore you. They will anyway, but other people all around your country — they will hear it, and they will join.

Use legal tools available to you. Malicious compliance is a marvellous thing able to drive huge changes. Call your district to gather at the site at the same time — this isn’t illegal for a few dozens people to come to vote simultaneously, but it’s a huge and annoying problem to deal with for the system.

Leaving you with no choice is a deliberate tactic used against you to shut you up and push whatever agenda the current regime wants. It is almost never a coincidence that all candidates are “the same shit”. Spoiler effect is a thing whether you’re aware of it or not. Do not fall into this trap. Don’t let them strip you from your rights if you still have them.

I’m not going to lie to you: you’re not gonna change anything. Your impact is invisible and you’re not important. That’s exactly why people at power think they can do whatever they want. Like make a girl a living incubator to produce soldiers or send you as a meat bomb to war on the other side of the planet that you had no idea about. But you are the girl, you are the soldier. It is always up to you how you’re going to deal with this attitude towards you.

If nothing works and you’re (or your family) in the immediate danger (or will be soon enough) — I am very sorry, but immigration has been the only proven way to avoid becoming “collateral damage”. I’m not saying this with easy heart, but I want you to know that it’s an option. Think about your personal safety first, mentally-wise included.

Trust me, I understand the level of apathy that is hitting you right now and how impossible it seems to actually change anything. I know, I’ve been there (ngl still there). We all watched Putin with his 80% “support” just a month ago. Don’t let your country fall into the hands of another Putin, I beg you. You are still in the civilised part of the world (I know it doesn’t feel like this, but believe me — there ARE places where everything is even worse, and even worse than that too), so use it. Weaponise it if you need to. But don’t let them strip you from your agency.

Apathy kills.

If you won’t make the choice — someone else is going to make it for you. Every single day. Keep that in mind.

Please be safe 💖

So, there's a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.

And I get it! What's the point of voting if there's no one to vote for?

The thing is, I'm Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don't get to sit out our elections, and I'll be real honest with you - we don't exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there's no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there's always someone to vote against.

Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I'll tell you, there's something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don't get that option - you get to mark one person, and that's it.

That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don't even think about who that vote's going towards, that's not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone's election day!

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Scrolling through the fe tag and getting Annoyed bc I just saw a post that was a very thinly-veiled dig at dimitri/blue lions fans for the cardinal sin of *gasp* enjoying characters for their characterization and not, like, purely for their ideologies lol. also had the classic “D is pro-monarchy and therefore conservative and bad 😥🤢🤮” and “E is anti-monarchy and therefore progressive and good 😄🔥👍” spiel that we’ve all seen a billion times, which is obvs an extremely reductive take that ignores context and other crucial aspects of E and D’s characters but whatever

I myself don’t really engage in fe3h discourse, and mostly operate under the notion that your favorite fictional characters aren’t necessarily indicative of your irl morals/politics (no matter what people say, this is, at the end of the day, a fucking video game with no actual stakes. you can like and support whoever you want idgaf). However i just wanna say that i find it genuinely astonishing that, instead of just embracing their fave’s flaws and telling everyone else to fuck off, a certain part of this fanbase has effectively gaslit themselves into believing that the openly imperialistic, warmongering, and borderline authoritarian character (tmw your cartoonishly evil henchman has a secret police force created for the sole purpose of killing people who rebel against your rule/regime 🥴) is like, an uber leftist revolutionary hero. probably so they can pat themselves on the back for being True Activists™️ bc god knows they don’t do shit irl lol

People need to get out more lol. It’s not like you have to love the characters for strictly what they believe in or I’d actually like Edelgard considering my frequent comparing of her and Ashnard and the fact that I actually like Ashnard.

Really, I don’t think Dimitri is pro any kind of governing system as long as the people are happy and living well. Like, if I recall, Gilbert’s solo ending only mentions that he trained the next prince and not that it was actually strictly Dimitri’s blood child. Like, given that there’s no mention of him being married or having a kid in a good chunk of his endings, you could actually argue that he just adopted a kid. Sure, it would mean his child was crowned for being his child, but it also doesn’t specify that the next king was also a Blaiddyd.

Obviously people are going to assume it was simply because “That’s How Faerghus Works”, but when there’s no mention of it, there’s no confirmation for us to go by. How do we know he didn’t just adopt some orphan that took to him considering he’s good with children? How do we know he didn’t decide to not have a Blaiddyd as king because of the emotional range they have on top of their physical strength? What if he decided it was a dangerous combination and he didn’t want his child to live with that, so decided to adopt?

The thing is, we don’t know much about Faerghus post game except that there’s another prince after Dimitri, and Edelgard would have a similar ending. It doesn’t have to be her child or even an adopted child, but eventually another emperor would have to take her place. Considering all Dimitri cares about is that his land has a guide for the people, he wouldn’t really care about who the leader was as long as his people were happy and healthy.

Which, like, if you look at irl situations, that’s not being conservative. Irl people who are in power don’t give a flying fuck about the people they have power over. You get decrepit straight rich white men who make decisions for the populace without consulting them, and they have a small group of such people who decide everyone’s fate based on what they want or think is right.

Considering how Dimitri is king because of his bloodline but actually only sees himself as a guide to help his people, seeing the people themselves as the real rulers of their own land, I’d say that’s... very unique and specific to him. In all FE games you get bloodline based leadership, but it doesn’t mean the leader is bad. Eliwood is next in line for leadership based strictly on a bloodline, but so what? He’s just a nice dude who hates war. Just because he was born into a ruling bloodline doesn’t mean he’s a bad ruler or shouldn’t be any sort of leader. Saying Dimitri is bad or conservative for living what he knows is the same saying that yeah, Eliwood is a trash conservative and horrible leader to his people simply because he’s leading based on inheritance and not uwu merit.

When you look at Dimitri and Rufus, both candidates in line for the throne (i.e. if Lambert died without any kids, the throne would automatically be given to Rufus because he’d be the only royal left), Dimitri is an amazing “ruler” (which I use in quotes because he really doesn’t rule so much as figure out what his people want and base his final decisions on that. He’s basically there to keep the peace and keep organization while letting the people have a say in how they live, which is extremely different than any other lord or royal we’ve ever had in the franchise).

Rufus on the other hand doesn’t even really rule, but instead lets the country fall apart through his lack of ruling. He may not be a crazy tyrant, but he certainly doesn’t care about the country or the state it’s in. They’re both in the same bloodline and both have immediate claim to the throne (i.e. if anything happened to Dimitri, Rufus is immediately next in line), but despite both being born into that possibility, they both have very different ways of handling it; that being, Rufus doesn’t handle it at all, so he doesn’t go by “I’m next in line after Dimitri if he has no children but I don’t care to rule even if it tears the country apart”. Does that make him better than Dimitri simply because he isn’t ruling when he could be when Dimitri hadn’t come of age? By these people’s arguments, yeah, he’s the better ruler because he’s not being “conservative”. Fact is, he’s not ruling at all, so they’re seeing a Blaiddyd who could rule deciding not to. So, by their standards... Rufus is good and progressive.

You could be “progressive” and not go by a monarchy and still be a horrible ruler. You could have people vote in a new leader who sounds great when they tell you their plans, then they get into their new position of power and it’s all downhill from there. I’m not just saying that because of my feelings for Edelgard and Dimitri either - I’m saying that because I’m living in a country where that shit actually happens. Potential leaders will make everything sound good, and then once they’re in power, people might turn around and realize well oh shit, that was a Bad Choice.

And, you guessed it, I’m going back to my old buddy Ashnard. He’s the “last in time Tee Em” as far as anyone knows in-universe. Once he’s dead, there’s nobody to take his place because he killed everyone else in the royal family indirectly through use of the Blood Pact. So, is he now progressive and good because he knows once he’s dead that the next Stronkers person will take over for him? Knows that he Has No Children Tee Em and so the monarchy is finished? By their argument, well, Ashnard is progressive and good, all the actions he took before and after be damned. You hear that, Ashnard? You’re a good man now!

Mind you, the only surviving Daein royal wouldn’t rule anyway, so I guess he’s good and progressive too because he just wouldn't wouldn’t want to or care about that. He’s not as easily pulled into something as Pelleas, where Pelleas was just told “you’re the prince” and he was like “oh okay guess I’ll just rule or something”.

If my favorite characters reflected my morals, that would be a WILD ride. If you tried to learn about me from knowing my favorite FE7 character is Ephidel, then tried to form a solid basis about me knowing my favorite from Houses is Dimitri, I’d like to see what nonsense they cook up with that. Ephidel doesn’t even have morals or ideals but he’s still my favorite.

What you’re describing is people who can’t see flaws in their favorite(s) and are totally blind to it, which is... well, not a good thing. One thing that says a lot about someone’s favorites is how they view them and if they bash other people for not liking their favorites, yet argue all negative things about another character (for me, as an example of someone I don’t like: Ionius. I don’t like him as a person, but I do see him as a good father to Edelgard in the sense that he loves her and cares about her. I think what he’s done is shitty and I would never like him as a person, but I wouldn’t say he’s devoid of any good qualities whatsoever, because hell, at least he loves his child and just wants the best for her. Just because I don’t like what he’s done doesn’t mean I shut myself off from seeing and accepting any good traits in his character). It’s also disturbing when people think it’s good and okay for innocent people to be sacrificed/killed for a rich person in power’s goals. That’s exactly what rich people in power want. They see the people below them as pawns and see us as faceless, nameless numbers that they rule over.

Also, I believe it says a lot about someone’s maturity when they can’t accept flaws in their fictional favorites to the point of having to target another group of people and put down their own favorites in any stretched, possibly way because they can’t handle their favorites having flaws and those flaws being discussed. To me it says a lot about a person based on how they act. I feel differently about a person when I see them behave with a completely closed mind, attacking other people who enjoy a form of media and its writing, while refusing to take criticism for the things they enjoy. Some of my favorites don’t always say or do the best shit, but for some reason Edelgard stans just... can’t accept nor fathom the idea that she’s anything but perfect and firmly believe she has no negative traits and is always completely right. There’s no “that’s bad”. It’s always “sure, that’s bad, BUT”.

a certain part of this fanbase has effectively gaslit themselves into believing that the openly imperialistic, warmongering, and borderline authoritarian character (tmw your cartoonishly evil henchman has a secret police force created for the sole purpose of killing people who rebel against your rule/regime 🥴) is like, an uber leftist revolutionary hero. probably so they can pat themselves on the back for being True Activists™️ bc god knows they don’t do shit irl lol

This is basically the best way of putting it, tbh. I also agree that yeah, these are the exact people who will harass and bully people online until they delete their accounts and leave because these stans can’t tolerate anyone except their hivemind existing on this planet (and yes, you might be aware this actually has recently happened in this fandom, very specifically and noticeably being Edelgard stans who incited it for LITERALLY no reason other than to do it, and to upset someone who liked Faerghus and not their uwu girlboss who was just posting their thoughts and headcanons about Faerghus and its characters. the stans in question ignored everything that was actually happening and dragged stupid ass politics into it over a totally fiction matter and think that’s called “fucking around and finding out”. Yes, that’s how obscenely stupid these “activists” are), and these are the exact people who do nothing irl to help the real world. These are the people who cry activism, but all they do is use bullying and forceful words and don’t do a damn thing irl. The saddest part is, the leaders of the world do more for the world than they do and most of what they do isn’t even good, yet it’s still better than what these children do.

Normally I wouldn’t say their favorites equal their ideals and shit, but they literally argue about politics and what they think is right in a political setting rather than argue reasons for actually enjoying their favorites. In other words, they’re not defending their reasons for liking a character. They’re defending their political views and trying to point at a video game and say “see? hot waifu chick who fawns over you wants these things too, so I’m obviously right!”

It was never about Edelgard as a character. That’s the whole problem. It was always about defending their extreme political views and violently, aggressively hating anyone who doesn’t agree with their political views.

They just happen to like that their views fall in line with a sexy, pretty looking uwu girlboss who paints “them” and gets flustered about it. They just figured they had a hot chick who had the same views as them and liked that.

[whentheynameyoujoy]

I’ll have to disengage from online stuff on Ukraine for a while because although I have no intention of isolating myself from the life-changing events that are occurring in my literal backyard and are going to affect Europe for years to come, the rate at which I’ve been consuming the news cycle is starting to affect my head and that’s just not benefiting anything or anyone.

But before I do fuck off, a few words on what I’ve been noticing today. Namely that after the initial shock of seeing the terrorist gas station just going fucking mental and actually invading a sovereign country with no justification whatsoever, people (overwhelmingly uninformed Americans, as is tradition) have gone back to both-sidesing the war and sharing their dumbass radical centrist takes on how maybe Putin not good, but NATO is at fault. How NATO provoked the little fascist oligarchy into two days of nonstop war crimes. How if the evil West had just told Ukraine to fuck off, we don’t want you around, everything would have been peachy keen.

And there’s only one thing I can say to that—if you don’t support a people’s right to decide on its fate, on who it chooses to associate with; if you think that countries are by default beholden to whoever wields the biggest stick and have no right to rock the boat because might makes right, then I don’t give a fuck about how many thoughts and prayers you post—you don’t support Ukraine. You’re not an anti-imperialist and you sure as fuck aren’t a leftist. You’re a useful lapdog for the propaganda of a dying empire stuck in the 19th century notion of great powers that are somehow entitled to a sphere of influence, regardless of whatever said sphere of influence has to say about it or whether it even wants to be one. You’re showing a willingness to throw a free people expressing a desire to live in democracy to an expansionist dictatorship that’s a humans rights nightmare, simply “because that’s how the world works, nothing to do about it”. By regurgitating the Kremlin line on NATO provocation and “expansion” (i.e. Russia’s former colonies doing everything in their power to get the fuck out of Russia’s homicidal reach), you’re actively promoting colonialism and imperialism and you’re as useful to the victims of these horror shows as a soiled toilet paper.

Your “suck it up, buttercup” helps no one whatsoever. Quite frankly, it’s a part of the reason why we got here.

I implore you, read a fucking book on Eastern European history. Go into therapy with your U.S. centrism and “every conflict is like the Iraq War” because I swear, nobody in this part of the world is impressed with your main character syndrome. Grow out of the idiotic thinking that just because US BAD, an authoritarian regime automatically good.

You’re a part of the problem. Get solved, please.

[kidpunkjunk]

how good is arcade gannon... really...

the best. hes literally the best. thats the answer thats it thats all hes the most good.

i was about to make a big long think piece but you know what no, fuck you, i shouldnt have to. i shouldnt have to explain or debunk or anything, if you have any kind of comprehension at ALL youd understand. he is, morally, one of the best people in the entire wasteland. he tries so hard and succeds as best he can. he wants the best for himself and everyone around him which cant be said abt most fuckers in the fallout world. hes so selfless and caring and just. fuck dude.

imagine coming from one of the most vile terrible factions in the fallout universe, imagine growing up with those ideals and yet realizing no hey fuck that, thats bad actually. he subverted the mindset he grew up with so extremely, joining a group almost the exact opposite of the envlave. and even within them you could argue hes one of the optimistic and idealist people. like. shit dude. "he joined bc of their resources and knowledge" are you kidding ?? his main goal is to help people, thats his main drive in life and you dare imply its anything else? you dare imply hes shallow and selfish and would use them just for their books? fucking really? sure its a PLUS but youre emptyheaded thinking thats the only reason.

i will never shut up abt his parallels to carla. he is out of time, hes a prewar relic, he doesnt belong in the shithole that is post nuclear wasteland america. hes something out of a pristine photograph, as perfect as one can get without trying, while remaining humble. hes honestly too good for the world he is in. "how good is he really" too good, hes too good, and i dont mean that in a "its unrealistic how good he is" way, i mean that his world doesnt deserve a man so good.

when they said he uses his enclave knowledge in the independent vegas ending (best ending btw) they dont mean the fascist ideas they held or the conservative mindset they had, dude they were SMART in the enclave, wildly intelligent!! fucking !! sentient deathclaws the fuck !! they had fountains of knowledge, rivalling the followers and the brotherhood. say what you want, yes theyre horrible people, but their scientists were near genius' !!! which made them all the more terrifying!! like Caesar if he wasnt a goddamn dumbass !! their best president was an ai !!! and you misinterpret that so insanely its not FUNNY. hes using all this forgotten knowledge, knowledge that would be lost forever, for good, and you think they meant he was instating fascist regimes into freeside? really? really? and he doesnt. he doesnt want to be his dad. he doesnt want to not want to be his dad or whatever the fuck. he wants his dad to be proud of him. bc thats his fucking father. enclave or not, whatever the hell, thats his father.

he hates the ncr because the ncr sucks. only good idea that the enclave held: ncr sucks. they do. theyre imperialist, theyre capitalists, they suck. regardless of who installed that opinion in him, its right, its correct. bootlicker.

i believe that during the battle arcade, like the other remnants, kept their face hidden so they could go abt their lives after. its entirely believable that noone knew it was him in the tesla armour and he could return to freeside. enclave knowledge and tech is invaluable, im sure julie was willing to not ask too many questions for such helpful and valuable prewar recources. and after he returned im positive that he did not strive for a place of leadership within the fort, i highly doubt it. give orders? where did it say he started giving orders? where? point me to it ?

this is the story of a man with a troubled past, who comes from.horrible roots, who wants to be better than what he was set up to be. its the story of a man finding his place in a world thats not fit for people like him. its the story of a man who wants his parents to be proud of him, without being what they wanted him to be, a thing so many people go through. its the story of a man who fears he is destined to be horrible but defeats his perceived fate. its the story of a good man. arcade gannon is a good man. and thats why hes my favorite character. fuck you.

[evilelitest2]

@theculturedmarxist Um....Russia also hasn't fought a war with a peer compactor in 30 years. Like the least wars Russia has fought include

A brutal colonialist nationalist war with Chechnya (lost), a renegand province without an army

A second even more brutal nationalist war with Cechnya (won), again a renegade province without an army

A brutal imperialist war against part of Moldovia (won, but ocme on, its Moldavia)

An incompetent corrupted and humiliatingly badly run invasion of....Georgia....a country with a smaller population than the state of Georgia (Won, but very winter war)

A series of small scale Central Asian skirmishes (won mostly)

Assisted Assad's regime in Syria, mostly via air support (still ungoing)

Seizing Crimea from a vastly inferior Ukraine (won)

A full blown invasion of Ukraine which has gone...badly.

Russia hasn't fought a peer rival since...honestly WWII, though if you count the Cold War than 1991. And unlike NATO, Russia's ultra conservative super masculine military structure is deeply dysfunctional. They have lost about 50% of there military capacity in this war already, and in the last few days Ukraine seized about 30 miles of territory. Russia could still win, they (were) the second most powerful military force in the world and 4 times there population, a better economy (until yesterday) and far more resources, but the fact that Ukraine, a much smaller nation who have never fought a war before 2014 has managed to drive them back to the eastern provinces is massively humiliatingly. Like US in Afghanistan level humiliatingly, its a joke. Russia by all rights should have won by March 2022, the fact that its August 2023 and Ukraine is still retaking territory is just a fucking joke. And NATO isn't even in the war directly, if Russia is having this much trouble against fucking Ukraine (who wasn't even rated in the top 20 militaries in the world), you think they can take on the nations who actually have fully trained armies?

Edit: I went back to look at your takes on the Russia-Ukraine conflict back in Jan-Feb of 2022, and wow, its like rewatching those CNN pundits saying that America would be out of Iraq in 13 months tops.

Like this bit here

were you are like "its American propaganda that Russia is going to invade Ukraine"

Or here, in March of 2022, where you predict that Ukraine is going to collapse imminently unless NATO sets up no Fly Zones

"From what I’ve heard Zelensky is getting ready to capitulate and give Russia whatever it wants." wow friend, you really need to check where you get your sources from because....wow, that...did not age well

Or here, where you are like "I don't think Russia's military would do atrocities, they are so professional" which shows you have not been paying attention to Russia's military for at least 30 years friend

Or here, where you predict that Ukraine is going to fail and NATO is in panic mode

I mean Ukraine just had a small breakthrough less than 15 hours ago as of time of writing but like...maybe you should stop making predictions mate, you are really bad at it.

This one isn't wrong its just...bad logic. Because Russia (also an Imperial power, and has been for centuries) is often participating in the same crimes as the US, they teamed up a lot during the War on Terror days. But like, we have numbers for how many people died to drone strikes under Obama, it is not comparable to Russia in Syria friend

This one is fascinating because it says so much about how you think. You really seem to think that the US is just kinda...unique in how stupid and sadistic its leaders are (but saying "I know more than you")while linking to Greyzone, a news organization funded by the Russian goverment is just...chefs kiss man

I shouldn't be surprised though, you regularly reblogg the Greyzone, a deeply reactionary russia funded news network that pretends to be leftists while hating trans people and going down into conspiracy theories (when you aren't coming to defense of Fox News, very leftist of you) Its like dealing with bloody TERFS, supposed leftists who spend all of there time agreeing with the far right and trying to justify human rights violations

here is you really showing your progressive bone fides (might want to apologize for that bit friend)

Or like this, which like....dude read a book, for fuck's sake, there is a reason why the West German Gay scene was so much more powerful

@sapper-in-the-wire America's actions in the middle east was an unrelenting series of brutal war crimes, but it is weird that you aren't upset by Russia doing...even more. Like the US caused, directly or indirectly, around a million civilians deaths (using the highest credible estimates I can find), over the course of an 8 year war+11 more years. of smaller conflict. The lower estimates are around 600,000 losses (to be clear, Bush and his cronies should be tried in the Hague) Russia has been in Ukraine for about a year and a half, we we are already seeing somewhere around 130,000 civilian causalities, including reports of mass rape, torture, and deliberate massacres and in fact this has been a pattern since 1991 the Russian army as well as Wagner have a horrific human rights record.

Edit (again) oh dear god, you are a Joe Rogan Fan, and maybe an antivaxxer. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. I'll say some nice things at the end i guess

Your pro Trans, which makes you regularly siding with Russia really fucking weird. Russian military advertisements actively say that the war is to prevent the "infection" of trans "degeneracy" from coming to Russia, its worse than the US (its even worse than the UK). There is a reason why so much Russian state media praises Desantos and Visa Versa

I do feel sorry about your rent situation, send me a message if you need any help (that isn't a power move, genuinely send me a message).

Also you really need to stop getting your news from right wing sources, like Jesus Christ half of your biden takes come from the Right. Stalin isn't somebody to emulate, stop getting your news from fucking youtube, actually study the history of a region for its own sake not just to use it as a token in an imaginary ideological conflict. YOur like 19, your are still seeing the world in this fucking high school perspective, its more complicated than that, get out of the conspiracy place and the ideological rigidity

PPS> You have almost never posted about the Wagner Group and that is super telling

[awkwardhumann]

I’m interested in polysci for uni could u elaborate on ur field of study

disclaimer: im only in my second yr of university (kind of) so keep in mind this is all from an undergrad view where i don't get to engage with more specific topics in political science. also strap in this is literally the longest thing ive ever typed on this website. im also assuming you're left-leaning since you are on blue hair and pronouns dot com

i have a complicated relationship with political science because i am a communist. i find polisci interesting and i engage with it on my own time, however, what they teach you in university (this depends on your professors and university as well imo) is to evaluate political issues from a neoliberal and western perspective. most of your course material will be written by westerners heavily influenced by neoliberalism. the biggest indicator of this is when you study any geopolitics. you might get good readings on imperialism and colonialism or you will get straight Nixon era warmongering that deems whatever nations the west views as an "enemy" as "autocracy" or "regimes" or "authoritarian" all of which are useless terms .(in the field of polisci prob not but these r all stupid buzzwords they use to conjure up negative associations w whoever is the big geopolitical enemy) for one of my classes on democracy and technology we had a whole unit on china's social credit system which, i, as a Chinese person, knew was complete bullshit and exaggeration coming from western media. when i challenged this notion to my professors and TAs i was met with dismissal.

basically what i despise about my field is that its a machine that churns out puppets for state agenda who use academia as justification for imperialism and ultimately, to ensure the dominance of capitalism.

you learn about the roots of all this structural inequality, on a local and global scale but they evade any discussion that the effective solution to this inequality is to abolish capitalism.

im not saying there are no leftist or even communist political scientists out there. many revolutionary figures and writers have studied or are even professors of political science, but you will almost never learn about them unless you enter a very specific niche area of research.

what i do like about my field of study is that i have enough interest in it to stay engaged with the political issues we discuss despite hating the "solutions" that are brought up with it. you also learn the roots of western political ideology which, while i despise it, it gives you a basic layout of how neoliberals/capitalists think (and also how fucking stupid they are). you also will meet a lot of left-leaning people. even if the people i meet are not communists it is obvious we are trying to fight the same thing. and depending on which classes you take, you will get a lot of good education on political issues even if it is tinged with neoliberalism.

im not saying don't study political science if you are a leftist. im just saying as someone who was already very left-leaning (albeit not yet communist) before entering university, there was a lot of dumb bullshit to wade through to get to the actual stuff i was interested in. also hearing the term "corporate capitalism" makes me want to scream.

im a communist, and like i said earlier, despite most universities being generally progressive, western academia is grossly neoliberal and anticommunist and does not evaluate things from a dialectal materialist view, something that literally all Marxists must understand and base their theory on. thus there is an inherent contradiction on how i analyze and process the world vs how they want me to analyze and process the world. occasionally you will also get a lot of pro-capitalist historical revisionism specifically written to paint (usually the USSR and associated countries) as the "bad guys" and downplaying of American war crimes and western imperialist aggression on other countries.

lastly, i want to say im not studying political science as a career aspiration (clearly LOL). im studying it because im stupidly bad at school and will only be able to complete schoolwork if im interested enough in the topic and even then it is a struggle for me. every person is different. i would say ask yourself why you want to study political science and can you stand reading a lot abt neoliberalism and western liberal democracy and about free and fair elections for your first two years. you also read a lot of classic philosophy if you're interested in that!

this is the general gist of my love-hate relationship with my major. if you have any other questions feel free to dm me! i know i shit on the field a lot but i think if you find the right professors and the right courses there's a broad selection of topics and even other fields you can venture into that help really narrow stuff down to your specific interests. <this applies to university in general. 

[beeblackburn]

The Dagger and the Coin for the blorbo meme?

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): Geder Palliako. How did we get the Best Fantasy Villain from not Hobb or Abercrombie or GRRM? Up there with, if not outright better than, Cersei Lannister (who lacks more redeeming aspects, if still has a vivid tapestry of human experience) and Captain Kennit (whose post-ending development is a bit boofed). A relatable victim of bullying, a product of the banality of evil, a vengeful shit, a man devoted to those he loves, a delusional fool starved for love, an educated man brimming with curiosity, Geder's as multi-faceted as human terrors get, as human as he is terrible, and his ending remains perfect. He makes me wince in sympathy almost as much as I gag at every mistake and action he makes down the road.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped): Vincen Coe. He's such a MILF simp, so utterly devoted to Clara and supportive of her, right down to assisting in treason and tearing down the evils of a current regime as a partner does, way to the point of nearly dying right before her on more than one instance. Their romance is cute! And hilarious, god, Vincen, when will you stop nearly dying before her eyes, I swear. And sad, especially once Vincen gets notably angry at The Tyrant's Law and you really do get a sense of how much he loves her, but their difference in status is such that he's always aware of it and my heart. Aster works too, but he's canonically Geder's scrunkly and I worry what he'd do to me if he thought I was monopolizing Aster.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): It's a threesome between Pyk Usterhall, Abatha Coe, and Dar Cinlama. Pyk Usterhall because she's just there trying to be a low-risk sensible banker and here's Cithrin trying to take high-risk, high-reward gambles like a fantasy protagonist are wont to do, and then shutting Cithrin down when she whines about her not liking her, despite Pyk having absol-fucking-lutely no reason to like her and plenty to resent her. I sure didn't like her my first read, sharing Cithrin and Marcus' thoughts on her, but in my older age? Nah, I totally get Pyk now. Abatha Coe for rightfully pointing out that Clara's not considered the socioeconomic/human costs of using Vincen's resources and staying solely because of family, and telling Clara she's getting out of "this shithole of a city" if Vincen dies. Dar Cinlama for indulging his curiosities and exploring it all out there, just wanting to travel about, talk stories with others by a campfire, and seek all the secrets of the world. No wonder Geder got jealous of him for a hot second.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week): Enen. Let's see, pelted female beast-warrior with braids in her hair who's no-nonsense and respectful? Why didn't we get more of her. Honestly, I wish we got more of the non-Yardem portions of Marcus' fellow mercenary bunch, but I would especially have like to have gotten more of Enen and I like the notion that she'll become Cithrin's Yardem eventually.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): Fallon Broot? Honestly, every non-Basrahip character on Geder's council could be considered. I mean, Broot is an obedient and utterly willing tool of an imperialistic empire with no imagination and that was before Geder. But he's pleasant enough to Geder, his ridiculous mustache is funny, and how Geder reacted to him at the end of The Tyrant's Law when he reported to him actually gave me a shot of sympathy for his position. He's like The Dagger and the Coin's Brint! Nothing goes well for him and life takes a steaming dump on him.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason): Alan Klin, and this is a series with Dawson Kalliam, Feldin Maas, and Basrahip. Look, Geder making Alan Klin go to the military vanguard in the hopes of him dying over a book is definitely a little fucked, as Klin points out, but at the same time, fuck this guy? It's not even that he burned the book, though everyone knows that's the clear-cut signal for a total asshole. It's that he refuses to see it as a microcosm for the vicious bullying he put Geder through. It wasn't just the book that was burnt, Klin was gas-lighting the shit out of him afterwards and he still sees it as him being ruined over a book, rather than the consistent bullying pattern and only feeling bad about it because Geder became top dog and turnabout's fair play. Yeah, I would totally torment this guy!

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell): Cep Bailan. In a series full of petty embezzlers, self-delusional fascists, banal war criminals, bigoted reactionaries, and genocidal zealots, this guy's such a fucking prick. I hate him and his face-garbage. I would gladly throw this shithead into superhell above the rest.

[hws-denmark]

Very off-brand but literally just venting and vitriol under the cut about recent-ish hetalia discourse, if you don't wanna see it then don't read it! Cheers.

Alright idk what the fuck happened to fandom spaces over the past 5 years but this shit is super toxic now. It's like the internet has over-corrected from "it's the wild west baybeeeee, ship wars and death threats and downright awful behavior galore" to "have you consumed anything problematic or made a mistake anytime in the past 30 years??? Literally go fucking die you deserve to kys!!". Both are shit. But in my experience, one is a fuckton easier to avoid. Hetalia is a problematic show. This is a fact. There's an anti-semetic joke in the dub. There's whitewashing in the earlier anime seasons. Hima's characterisation of South Korea is horrific. France's earliest characterisations are done real dirty with the amount of sexual assault present. You could write essays about this shit, but honestly it's all been said in better ways before so I don't particularly care to. But quite frankly the amount of harassment from sad trolls and bullies online is nuts over this shit. Five fucking months and it's unavoidable- "Your a nazi! Facist, japanese imperialist anti-semite!!" NEWS FLASH- YOUR KEYBOARD WARRIOR CRAP ISN'T DOING JACK SHIT! YOU AREN'T PREVENTING A-NY-THING, YOU AREN'T HELPING A-NY-ONE! GET OFF YOUR ASS AND CALL OUT THE HATE I GUARANTEE WILL BE HAPPENING IN REAL DANG LIFE IN YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY IF YOU ACTUALLY WANNA EDUCATE AND MAKE A POSITIVE CHANGE. There's a world of difference between calling out shitty fandom behavior and whatever the fuck this is. It's madness that I have to point out how saying that people talking about cartoon characters from a five minute OVA even holds a single CANDLE to the worldwide rise in nationalist sentiment and anti-semetic conspiracy theory, bourne from a mass refusal to acknowledge history, is so severely minimising. I take it that's okay though because you can wank yourself off on your nice little high horse without actually doing anything to combat hate or improve the world in any way though? The show has so many faults and for multitudes of good reasons you might never want to see it ever again. So block it. Don't interact with it. Blacklist the tag. But it is downright RUDE to be coming INTO the tag and talking shit. That doesn't tell me you're earnestly trying to avoid the series- it tells me you're really really trying to start fights. Bc I have been using the block button pretty liberally recently, and for every normal user venting I see, there's always an equal amount of people who, ironically, seem to dedicate their blog to bigotry against others and cyber-harassment. I've seen anti-hetalia blogs that have been sexist, racist, panphobic and, maybe most hypocritically, one that was bizarrely insensitive to the connotations of a past political regime. And yet minors look to these same people and parrot what they say for clout. In my experience, in a whole lot of anti-hetalia circles, there's a severe case of "mocking because I think it's cringe, but disguising it as concern for others to not look like a straight-up dickhead and have the moral high ground". Is it seeping from twitter? Bc I see that shit there all the time even in non-fandom spaces, the black/white, we're angels/they're devils thinking that real life and sane adults just do not fucking operate on. What I do know is, in the midst of a difficult pandemic, the one announcement in months that was happy and exciting for me left me feeling like dogshit by the end of the day. The weekly episodes that I should be excited for are just making me dread what I'm gonna see online. The nordic five are kinda like comfort characters for me, since I grew up in an emotionally abusive household and so I treated them like the family I never had. And yet, when I wanna go online and look at headcanons and read cool au fanfics, I always seem to stumble upon the implication that doing this is somehow severely hurting someone and that I'm a terrible monster. Logically, I know this is a load of shit. And yet I've noticed I've been putting myself down and looking at more and more self-harm content again recently bc

guilt-tripping with that much weight seeps into your brain like a nasty case of sepsis. Even the more casual "haha hetalia not another pandemic/more brainrot/will punch you on sight" lark starts to fucking drag when it's just SO widespread. Might just queue nice art, drop the occasional fanfic and otherwise stop interacting with the fandom tbqh. This bullshit is not healthy and some of the people on this hellsite are genuine psychos.

[mr-camhed]

This post has attracted a Zionist who claimed the one side that is hunting people on the other side for sport, rounding them up in concentration camp where the people who rounds them up would rape, torture and kill them to their heart's content, relentlessly bombs the civilians of not only the other side but also their own and plants false evidence(or simply use AI Generated nonsense) to justify such behavior, has their politicians and popular culture filled with proclamation of intent to Genocide, and has the financial, propagandist and military backing of the entire Colonial Imperialist empires is actually the one being genocided while the side being bombed, raped, pillaged, and vilified are the ones "trying to genocide the Jewish people"

I wish all Zionists wake up in their personal hell where they have to treat others as people too and not just as whatever vile lowlife they seem to regard them as because the creation of Hamas and Hezbollah and all the "evil that want to exterminate all Jews"(which neither of them were) were literally the result of Israel's terror. If people are still being massacred in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, the ones that has survived will take up arms and become resistance because there is no other choice, any chance of peace has been flushed down the toilet by the Zionist Entity, and the west bank shows that (like all the collaborationist regimes do) that surrender is just slower more painful death.

And if the people in the middle east were allowed to live like people, with dignity, humanity and no fear for starvation, death and rape, who the Fuck would want to be a militant?

Is there a surgence of Zionists perpetuating their "Have you considered that the middle eastern inhabitants aren't people and thus Genocide against them is justified and morally correct and anyone who disagree with me is either an antisemite or a Terrorist and need to be exterminated no matter what like all the other non chosen people of God" or did the algorithm try to give me high blood pressure by showing those to me constantly?

[alexanderpusheen]

what frustrates me the most abt this china narrative is that the US created al qaeda and ISIS, those groups are recruiting and causing terrorism in xinjiang, china has been trying to handle the situation with re-education programs often suggested by westerners, and its still being treated as this major human rights violation. there are actually dozens of countries with several robust anti radicalization programs that are just as strict, like singapore, colombia, yemen, bangladesh, saudi arabia, and indonesia. this paper ive linked to was even funded by the DHS so like...why has detaining someone and basically reverse brainwashing them out of being a terrorist been so acceptable for so long but now its an issue? 

if you take issue with chinas program, you have to prove its somehow exceptional to these other programs. since we really dont have any way of knowing what is truth or reality thanks to the enormous disinformation campaign going on, you fucking cant. we dont even know what the programs entail because even googling it gets you exclusively hyperbolic concentration camp accusations. 

what i will say is that relations between the han majority and the uyghur minority have been strained since at least the 80s. link is the notoriously conservative and pro US intervention human rights watch, so dont say im using pro commie sources or anything. every time i do any bit of research on this i seem to find an attempt from major news outlets in the early to mid 2000s or late 20-teens to prove this all started or became dramatically worse now, but things have always been tense. and its not really a surprise that things really got bad after the collapse of the soviet union, an event that was geographically close to china and the xinjiang region and also just like, a fucking major global event in general.

what i find to be very odd is just how dramatically the narrative has changed. the diplomat, one of my favorite periodicals, went from taking very nuanced and balanced positions on xinjiang that i almost completely agreed with to being just as aggressive as outlets like the BBC and CNN in the span of five years. they have eleven pages worth of articles on xinjiang, mostly covering the terrorism and beijings response (which i agree is too harsh) and xinjiang muslims’ relationships to the greater muslim world. 

an example is how this article talks about the conflict at the time which warns of escalating violence as a result of han chauvinism and beijing being unable to deal with the extremism holistically. it points out how there were uyghurs captured among taliban ranks in afghanistan and how many might have even been working with ISIL.

The threat will not be an existential one to the Chinese state, as most Uighurs would prefer a peaceful accommodation. But even if only 1 percent of Uighurs hold extreme views, there are 10 million in Xinjiang and even for a state security apparatus as formidable as China’s, 100,000 or more angry people present a tough challenge.

i think its totally right that china does not allow people in that area to have cars, woodcutting tools, and amonium nitrate (which is used in bombs) is very strictly regulated. i completely agree that this is not how you combat terrorism. most people do not want war and broadly punishing these people is itself a human rights violation that went unnoticed until now.

however, in that same year, the diplomat also published this article about the infamous turkestan islamic party. members of TIP are like, literal jihadists lmfao.

TIP fighters call on the world’s Muslims to join the jihad against Western countries in internet videos. Perhaps most worringly for China, the TIP believes that Muslims may fight locally using various means instead of coming to Syria and Iraq to conduct a “holy war” against the “infidel” Western regimes.  

yeah i definitely want to hear more about what these guys have to say. the article is really good because i think it highly illustrates just how dangerous these people are. theyve killed hundreds of people across china and want to establish a fascist religious state in xinjiang. while the article speaks for itself, i believe the last paragraph really highlights why china is being singled out whereas countries like france and canada are considered allies to muslims for whatever reason:

However, as experience has shown, China takes a passive position in the struggle against global Islamic jihad in Syria and Iraq. Beijing has not sent its troops to the Middle East to fight ISIS and has instead confined itself to diplomatic support for Russia and the United States. The Chinese government uses the attacks of Islamic jihadists to persuade Western countries to support Beijing’s position on Xinjiang and turn a blind eye when the freedom and rights of Uyghurs are harshly suppressed by Chinese security forces. Therefore, China is not perceived by the West as a reliable partner in the fight against terrorism. [emphasis mine]

im just a little surprised to see that a lot of these violent attacks from extremists throughout the years have targeted not just han chinese but also other uyghurs. in the west people do not typically sympathize with terrorists as freedom fighters, even on the left, because we know that no matter how angry or how seemingly justified the violence might seem, terrorism is unacceptable and it grossly misrepresents islam. it is a fascist act because those terrorists often follow an extremely right wing version of islam. also, we know that those who carry out terrorist attacks even outside of the west are middle class and professionals in some way, not poor and marginalized people. the level of nuance afforded to terrorists outside of xinjiang is pretty staggering. 

yet in china, there seems to be this excitement than they are killing chinese people, even if some of those chinese are other uyghers or otherwise muslims. those who carry out attacks in xinjiang dont get any nuance or analysis because theyre justified.

ive referenced the diplomat earlier but this article from 2013 says it perfectly: Call Tiananmen Attack What It Was: Terrorism. except terrorism is bad. and the west wants you to support the uyghurs. and make no mistake, they do not want you to support the millions of uyghurs who want to live peacefully, free of any repression, american or chinese. they want you to support the jihadists randomly blowing up chinese and tourists alike because you are meant to sympathize with their plight.

terrorism isnt something to be romantacized or cheered on. it is something someone or someones do when they feel they have no other option. people do not want to kill even those they feel they have every right to because thats a line you cant uncross. murder changes you, justified or not. see the last chapter of wretched of the earth for this.

terrorism is great, however, for destabilizing a region or a country, and xinjiang is resource-rich. establishing a US-friendly regime, no matter how good they are on human rights, is the goal. the US does not care about muslims. they do not care about human rights. china, also, does not really seem to care about muslims or human rights either. but we’ve seen this since vietnam, and the US has learned since vietnam. the vietnamese were sympathetic. they were minding their business. 

after vietnam, merely being communist isnt enough to warrant invasion. theyre killing their own people. nevermind that bolsonaro kills his own people and no one wants to invade (yet--biden has mention sanctions wrt us which is scary but again, thats got everything to do with making sure latin america is loyal to the west, not HR offenses). korea, although it was before vietnam, was less publicized and learning from vietnam gave the US a valuable lesson: always blame the victim. and thus, the US blames the victims of its violence. even if its ‘justified’, even if its ‘true,’ as was the case with saddam hussein, invading and occupying was the nightmare no one but the imperialists anticipated. because they dont broadcast what occupying forces do to the occupied. i am old enough to remember abu ghraib. have it seared in my memory forever. you perhaps are also old enough to remember, but also think millions of abu ghraibs and guantanamo bays are always worth it, always justified. 

i know people arent going to read this and remind me really rudely that they didnt read it but i want to really emphasize how one of imperialism and colonialisms features is ethnic and racial separatism. how the rwandan genocide couldnt have happened without previous belgian and french rule. how yugoslavia wouldve remained a single country had it not been for NATO. i think its easy to diminish the role of the colonizer in all of this, but it is actually one of its goals: divide and conquer. exacerbate the existing conflicts to the point of genocide. 

and if the west succeeds in balkanizing china, you will get more racism rather than less. you will see more violence against muslim minorities rather than less. they will feel less empowered rather than more. china has to learn that they are also to blame in a way that will be catastrophic for over a billion people. han chauvinism and outright racism must be addressed beyond window dressing.

wrapping up, china is in the wrong here. what theyre doing is racist and humiliating a population that has to be empowered. and the one child rule, even for the han majority, is imo fucking evil lol like sorry tankie tumblr im tankie too but i cannot for the life of me accept that as a good thing.... but i also dont buy the accusations of genocide, because even tho a lot of these articles are kind of glossing over it, china is trying to handle the terrorism in the region. imo theyre feeding into it by getting more han in the area, but also having more han but forcing them to take worse jobs would be a show of good will. idk, this situation is extremely complex and frankly, most uyghers do not want secession. 

i also take extreme issue with people saying that adrian zenz is somehow reliable. not only is he a nazi crackpot, hes also literally the only source for almost all of what we know about this in the west. that is not how you do journalism. i dont understand how people are saying ‘yeah hes an extremely fascist grifter but also i believe him because hes anti communist and also anti china’. thats also not really the point? the point is that hes also the ONLY SOURCE on almost all of this, which is alarming. 

i also find it very startling that in order to keep interest in the story, every few weeks the US has to remind people that the chinese are also doing what the US is doing to women in its own camps. forget that the US is separating minors from parents (since 2008). forget that the US is sterilizing women en masse (since 2017). forget that the US is raping women at the border (since there was a border). forget the US even has camps because now they arent even called that anymore. this is not that ‘you can be angry at two things at once’ but a clearly cynical attempt to get its citizens to forget that the US is detaining, deporting, sterilizing, and raping, and gassing non US nationals. 

they are not ‘your own people.’ they are me. the other. i am an immigrant to the US, currently in my country of birth, so i am the other to you, the american. the chinese are doing the evil crime of killing their own. but the americans could never kill their own because they dont consider black americans to be their own. latin american nationals are not their own. bombing millions globally is not their own. thats always justifiable. there is clearly an element of racism in how these crimes are perceived as more or less evil.

the way immigrants and black americans are brutalized in the US is almost naturalized. like its the way things are supposed to be. you can live with that. its upsetting that you have to hear about antiblackness and the like but you know thats just how life is. you dont necessarily call for the US to be sanctioned or bombed by other countries because you believe in the inherent goodness of white america. but countries like china and iran and north korea deserve to be starved and killed for their crimes. and you can never say ‘maybe bombing and starving a country isnt the answer’ because it means you agree with it. you can never say ‘this is clearly propaganda to make me hate another race so much’ because it means youre a genocide denier. im sorry, but again, i remember iraq in 2003, i remember libya in 2011. i dont buy it.

finally, theres been a lot of attacks on asian people in the US lately and if you cannot see the violent way the US talks about china the country and how that influences people to harm asians within the US then idk what else to tell you. people will really believe this shit and say the chinese are all blood thirsty islamaphobes and thus need to be harmed. ‘im not like that! i defend my asian friends from racism!’ thats nice and all but idk how spreading some sinophobic propaganda designed by the US to make you support some kind of violence against one billion chinese people isnt inherently racist. also its unhelpful because sanctions dont really solve problems. but ive spoken too much.

[badsithnocookie]

bitter question asks

tagged by the lovely @buffkreia. tagging anyone who wants to i guess. you. yes, you, personally. answer these questions now. (or don’t. it’s up to you.)

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

satele/marr (wat). anyone/marr. anyone/malgus.

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

vette+sw. any variant on teacher+student (sw/jaesa, jc/nadia, etc). (jk/kira is... borderline, since kira is more a peer than a student, whereas jaesa/nadia/ashara are very much students of the player character, with ds!jaesa being not just a student but an abused one at that).

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

hell yes. i once unfollowed someone (who is since long deactivated) for posting “tivva and her old moff cutesy headcanons”. what the fuck, fandom. 

i also make a habit of unfollowing people who do Shit that i complain about on the regular (fascism/wh-te s-premcy rhetoric apologetics, ab-se shippers, etc). (though i am more picky about who i follow than i used to be. for a lot of people though it’s nothing personal, i am just a Weirdo who likes to read their entire dash, so i keep the number of blogs i follow low. but if we interact on anything resembling the regular i probably have a nose at your bagel anyway)

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

as above most/any variant on teacher/student.

jk/scourge. i’ve seen it done ICly exactly once. most of the time scourge is rewritten as a noble romantic knight in edgy armour and not the manipulative borderline-stalker that he is. i hate the pairing for the shitty characterisation that usually accompanies it and i hate the pairing for the abusive relationship it would be were he IC. there is no winning move here except not to play.

corso/smuggler. i get the feeling that most people into this pairing like corso as they want him to be, not corso as he is. or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part, idk.

doc/quinn. this pairing is peak White Fujoshi and i hate it. i hate the examples where it’s doc repeatedly hitting on an increasingly uncomfortable quinn, because haha sexually harassing someone is both hilarious and hot am i right. i hate the examples where it’s quinn seducing doc for intel on the resistance (protip: that’s rape!). i hate it i hate it i hate it if i never see it again it will be too soon

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

f!sw/almost anyone male, as a result of the endless shitty revenge adultery abuse fics that are all over quinn fandom. not all f!/sw/anyone male fics/ships fall into this category, but most of them seem to, especially /theron and /pierce.

(something something why is it that the majority of people who write f!sw/men of colour only do so in order to generate manpain for a white dude, huh)

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

nope.

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?

pugging EV/KP

Have you received anon hate? What about?

until i switched off anon, yes. it was fifty percent “you say mean things about quinn and that makes you an awful person” and fifty percent “you say nice things about quinn and that makes you an awful person”. proof that no matter what i do, i will never make The People happy. conclusion: do whatever the fuck i want

Most disliked character(s)? Why?

scourge. because i have an irrational dislike of people who manipulative borderline stalkers, who threaten to kidnap the children of others so they can be “raised correctly” into an abusive reactionary religious order.

Most disliked arc? Why?

republic makeb is where logic and my will to live go to die.

kotet is equal parts ‘empire apologia’, ‘vaylin torture porn’, and ‘excuses to be violent towards koth’. appo hates.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

koth vortena. both for his intrinsic qualities as a character and because of the endlessly terrible way he is treated by the fanbase and th devs both. if i had a penny for every “but he said valk was good to zakuul” i would never have to worry about my income again.

jaric kaedan. he’s great i love him. grumpy, arguably less than ls, but passoinately dedicated to the jedi and the republic. hates scourge on sight. badassed the Dread Masters into submission. pushes for the jedi to take action in a war targeted at wiping them out instead of hiding behind the republic. he’s just *chef’s kiss*

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

the jc story. imp makeb.

Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

major anri exists only to put a likeable face on the empire. she and brax are incredibly deliberate (not to mention hamfisted) attempts to Humanise(tm) a genocidal imperialistic fascist regime and to attempt to play on the guilt of players/characters who take the saboteur route. sadly what bioware seem to fail to realise is that i traded my ability to feel sorry for the empire for a magic bean. it was completely worth it.

Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

swtor fandom is a dumpster fire. racism, misogyny, fascism apologia, ablism, we got it all, folks. in that respect it is not abnormal for fandoms but this is neither an excuse nor a selling point.

it is also not welcoming in the slightest if you take issue with any of the above.

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show/game?

the old method of unlocking travel waypoints was way more immersive (even if it was a colossal pain in the ass). exploring the depths of belsavis for the first time was awe inspiring - seeking out ancient forgotten tech to dig into secrets locked away for untold millenia.

yes, it was a huge pain in the ass, especially if you were on your nth alt. i’d be fine with some system (maybe legacy based) where waypoints/speeder points for a planet are unlocked once you’ve completed the planetary story for the first time (or something). there is so much content in the game that just gets missed by first time players because bioware want to rush them through to the very end and it sucks.

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

invent a time machine, arrange for the firing of those who okayed kotfe and its shitty story that glorified a repeat abuser and its shitty gameplay and its total lack of repeatable group content in an mmo. make the writers produce something that a. actually stayed true to the themes of star wars and b. didn’t glorify an abusive genocidal shitlord like valkoriate.

then find myself some lottery numbers and set up a fund for giving out money to people who are reduced to begging on social media for medical bills.

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?

shipping drama worst drama

What is the purest ship in the fandom?

vette/spewie

What are your thoughts on crack ships?

crackships which require you to ignore or worse betray a character’s personality (satele/marr, quinn/elara) - kill on sight

everything else - whatever

Popular character you hate?

darth marr. he is so overrated i don’t even know what to say. he has no personality, nothing. he didn’t even have a unique va in vanilla. he’s a shitty empty space that empire fandom hyped up up and away because he memes well and i loathe him.

Unpopular character you love?

i’m pretty sure this i a repeat of that question up there where i enthused about jaric kaedan

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not?

join me in hell

Most shippable character?

eva kaayz. everyone needs a cute bisexual mirialan in their life.

Least shippable character?

darth marr. valkoriate. skadge.

[nightcoremoon]

this is gonna be a highly unpopular opinion- and while I do welcome someone who has a differing opinion to educate and explain to me how I'm incorrect because of facts I may not know, in a calm, civil, and rational manner that doesn't carry vibes of "you're a stupid asshole and should die, go fuck yourself you dumb idiot racist xenophobic evil nazi apologist r*tard f*g bitch" as some who have Opinions™ on this subject may feel is, you know, something to do in a social interaction with another human- I'm just not gonna interact with people who get on my ass for being "mean". if I come to find that I am factually incorrect on the subject in some way, and owe people an apology, then one will be delivered. I'll even write it out in a letter and send it to your PO box with a neat little pink ribbon tied around it. I'm not kidding. I will literally write a [short] letter to every single person who asks for one and has a PO box (please don't anon me about how I'm being a classist for insisting on a PO box to prevent my own doxxing because yikes, or for being an ableist because I won't type out a Braille letter for any blind person my text post offended by reading, or any such ridiculousness) because of the feelings that I will have hurt through my own hypothetical ignorant arrogance, if I am presented with hard evidence that I'm wrong. however, if you're a fascist or a bootlicker or a dumbass republican or a troll, you will say hello to the wonderful modern magic of backtracing an IP address through the tumblr source code. be an intelligent and mature adult or fuck off.

ok, so now without further ado, enter the controversy:

contrary to popular belief the president is not the king of america and blaming every single thing (ie drone strikes) on the president just further adds to that misconception, and it hugely defers responsibility off of those who are actually responsible for making decisions. the president's only one person with a specific set of duties, responsibilities, and abilities as a government official. as we can clearly see from our current administration, having a bumbling idiot as a president has not stopped any of the alphabet agencies, the military, the economy, international trade and diplomatic ties, or the workings and machinations of the "illuminati" or whatever the secret organization of billionaires pulling the strings choose to call themselves. presidential cabinet just hands the president documents to sign, and he (because we've all seen that there's no way in hell our shithole of a society will ever let us have a female president, let alone someone who doesn't ascribe to the gender binary because like could you fucking imagine the shitstorm of cis tears and babyrage the GOP would go batshit over, let alone the general public of religious zealots content with their colonialist brainwashing) signs them and trusts that all the cogs will continue to spin as he juggles a whole bunch of work work work designed from the ground up by the system to distract him from knowing every single thing that the government does, that leaves barely enough time to get out of the office and play golf every once in a while (or every day, in our tangerine menace's case).

and besides. the whole "Obama did drone strikes" just invites "so he's no different from the right" which leads to "just vote apolitical or libertarian or green or some other third party and throw your vote away and contribute to the fascist takeover" which leads to concentration camps, brown babies ripped from their families, cultural genocide, spikes in hate crimes against minorities, literal nazis feeling brave enough to walk the streets behind three walls of swatpigs in riot gear, etc.

so shut the fuck up about drone strikes.

even if the president did directly authorize or, hell, pressed the big red button to launch the uav, whether he wanted to or not, whether he agreed to or not, because that's the job, then it's going to happen regardless if we don't just have civil war 2, get a bunch of guns, storm the government buildings, and have ourselves a coup, killing all dissenters and people who'd have supported the original regime. if we don't do all that then there's literally no point at all in even bringing it up, and the best case scenario is to just put the left back in control and try to repair all the damage being done on our own soil before we can even HOPE to try to stop the drone strikes drone strikes drone strikes shut the fuck up about the god. damn. drone strikes.

yes it's sad yes it's tragic yes it's evil yes the american government are evil imperialists yes this is a hell world but there's not a goddamn thing we can do about that but look out for our own. you're not jesus. you can't save everyone. the only thing that we are capable of doing is to mitigate the suffering as much as possible. you think if I was kara danvers or tony stark or idk fucking robocop that I wouldn't just fly by and tear off the arms n legs of every last murderous corrupt evil asshole contributing to human suffering in the world? well guess what. super hero stories are FANTASY. they're as bound to happen as star wars or lord of the rings or terry pratchett's discworld. pay attention to the real world that's horrible and think realistically. the big picture. there's 8 billion people in the world now and human nature being what it is more than half of those people are gonna be taken advantage of in one way or another. maybe even killed. the innocent, pregnant women, children, babies, brown, queer, jewish. okay? humans are evil murdering bastards.

and I'm not gonna just stand idly by as we idly blabber on about the ~drone strikes~ and just let the bullshit clog our common sense filters and lead to ANOTHER FOUR YEARS OF THE MOTHER FUCKING TRUMP DUMPSTER AND HALF-PENCE, BECAUSE YALL WONT

SHUT

THE

FUCK

UP

ABOUT

THE

GOD

DAMN

MOTHER

FUCKING

DRONE

STRIKES

...

besides, if we're run by liberals and take all the damm refugees we create with those drone strikes, that's slightly better than bombing them, imprisoning them, and letting them die starving, cold, naked, standing in their own diarrhea and vomit and tears, afraid, and alone. like we're doing right now under the GOP's iron fist elephant blanket covering a swastika.

[inthefoxholes]

ALSO (and I’m sorry to be piling on an already long post) I would argue that the mcu has, by definition, a problem with depicting responsibility, culpability, and blame, as seen in the whole CA:CW fiasco. By definition, because it is a us-based multi million dollar franchise that relies heavily on the depiction of imperialist tropes (war as necessary, our heroes reluctantly intervening in so-called third world countries, not because they want to, no, they have to, because something something technologically advanced yadda yadda).

So the premises of CA:CW (do we need oversight over us-based superheroes? Who could provide that and how?) and even that of TFATWS (who even are the bad guys here?) are interesting and worth considering. But they can NEVER even be fully considered inside the mcu because they need to stay inside their lane.

Questions of responsibility would have to be considered in the broader context of us imperialism, of interventionism, of the military-industrial-complex. That can obviously never happen, and so we got the laughable concept of the us secretary of state (or whatever the fuck Ross was, I don’t wanna look it up) spearheading UN oversight over US citizens, when in reality there is such a thing as the Hague invasion act. And in TFATWS, instead of dealing with the mess of endgame, of what the fuck it really means to have half the world population reappear after five years, we get the appearance of nuanced thought and intellectual exercise by looking at the moral value of kids’ taking the serum, when they are obviously only reacting to a fucked up world. The same goes for Bucky, it wants to give the appearance of asking the hard questions, but it never asks them, because it cannot look at the structural level. So instead we learn that the young man who was drafted into WW2 is somehow personally responsible for what regimes and shield-sponsored hydra did to him. Ok cool.

I've been reading through the posts and anons regarding Bucky's characterisation in FATWS and I couldn't agree more with your responses.

I think the deep dives and theories from some of the anons on how the writing for Bucky could be spun if we really wanted to are interesting and well intentioned but when I look at what was actually presented, I finished FATWS feeling like I was supposed to view Bucky as a reformed villain who was looking for redemption and that I was supposed to root for him now that he was on the right path and making choices to atone for his sins and make right for his life of crime ---and, considering Bucky was a victim, that did not sit right with me at all. I find it hard to believe that someone could have watched Bucky's story from the beginning and not rooted for him the whole way through.

I actually found the attempts to villainise him a disgusting narrative choice.

This was not an arc about a victim healing, it was an arc about an assassin looking for redemption.

So I think that even if the attempt was to show the shadiness of the government or to portray it as Bucky's misplaced guilt being the driving force, it ultimately doesn't matter because that's not how the narrative presented it. Bucky makes a lot of statements that signify his own feelings of guilt and low sense of self worth 'the power I gave her' 'I know crazy because I am crazy' the conversation he has with Sam about why he has to be the one to talk to Zemo--and none of these statements are shot down, not even by Sam who is supposed to be our hero and experienced PTSD therapist. In fact, Sam even encourages Bucky's negative self image at points with lines like 'even him, and he's killed everyone he's ever met' (which is why I'll also argue that Sam is mischaracterised in this show too)

That's because the narrative wants us to take Bucky's guilt at face value, they want us to see this as a matter fact and something that Bucky has to redeem himself from in order to reach his goal of feeling worthy and human again. They want Bucky's guilt to be a point both he and the audience agree on.

While the narrative leaves space for us to counter its perception of Bucky and his level (or lack) of responsibility for things that The Winter Soldier did--it does nothing to counter its own assumption that Bucky should be considered complicit in the things he was forced to do by Hydra.

We are told some form of this by everyone from Zemo to Sharon to Karli to Raynor to Isaiah to even Sam.

Even when Bucky finally breaks and openly admits that he's beginning to question Steve's faith in him, there is no response to counter his lack of self belief. Neither Sam nor Raynor argue the matter.

During the one moment that the writing could have explicitly made it clear that the narrative viewed Bucky as a victim of Hydra instead of the villian he believes himself to be, we got blank space instead. They could have expanded on the scene between him and Yori and used the father of one of The Winter Soldier's targets to make the point that Bucky was a victim too but instead, we got the implication that Yori was yet another person seeing him as the same monster that Bucky believes himself to be.

So when we take the writing as it actually is, we are left with Bucky believing he is responsible for the crimes that Hydra committed using The Winter Soldier. We are left with no one countering his belief, we are in fact left with both our protagonists and antagonists equally reinforcing Bucky's guilt and self-portrayal as a reforming villain and we are left with Bucky learning that he has to pay for what 'he' did by living in service of those 'he' hurt.

That is what the narrative tells us about Bucky Barnes in FATWS. That is what the character of Bucky Barnes tells us in FATWS, that is what the other characters tell us about Bucky Barnes in FATWS--and we have nothing within the narrative of FATWS that leads us to believe otherwise.

Hello lovely! I’m not sure how I missed this post although I did have a lot of personal stuff going on a few months ago and maybe I shelved it for a time I could reply properly, so apologies for the delay!

All excellent points up there.

Back during the height of the TFATWS discourse (mostly stemming from the fact that several of us were trying to write fix-its and just couldn’t make the canon make sense), one of the key points of contention was between fans who felt the narrative fell short in addressing Bucky’s lack of agency and therefore lack of liability for the Winter Soldier’s crimes, vs other fans who felt Steve’s one line in CACW “it wasn’t your fault” was enough and hence his lack of agency did not need to be raised again in TFATWS.

But you are absolutely right. The narrative frames Bucky as guilty and volatile, and it does nothing to dispose the viewers otherwise. None of the characters treat him in a way that suggests any empathy for his status as a prisoner of war, only something bordering on derision that he’s been spared punishment.

Which, I think, accurately reflects how most of the MCU writers have spoken of him.