#just dump on a whole nations history like that

[kriegertops]

This is a very long one:

I was going down a tumblr rabbit hole and came across and old Binoe page that had A LOT of Krashlyn content from 2019-late 2022. And I came away with a few observations:

1) Ali and Ash were deeply in love. The pics, videos, events, comments to each other, just their sheer history together is overwhelming, and they looked happy, affectionate and just in sync thruout. This idea that Ash was in an unhappy marriage is ridiculous. Bc nothing she ever posted indicated anything close to that.

2) The early Sloane months were adorable, and their captured family moments were so cute and loving. They absolutely doted on that child. She was the center of their world, and they documented so much of her cuteness, and it reminded me of how fun Ash was during this time, and I *briefly* remembered why I liked her back then.

3) I hadn’t realized that makeup artist Alex had been with them for so long- I thought she was new once they got to NY. But no- she was there on their wedding day and before. Also, forgot how close both A’s were to all the Gotham girls when they first got to the team, and how tight Midge was with the whole family.

4) I was reminded of how much soccer connected them, and how it dominated their lives.

I eventually had to stop scrolling bc I got sad seeing how they used to be.

So what in the heck happened?

1) I think Ash was not at all prepared for retirement. She didn’t really line anything up that would be sustainable employment, and not having that identity as an athlete was overwhelming. I’m guessing she had some mild/severe bouts of depression, and despite having an adorable family, she realized it wasn’t fulfilling her. That probably led her to be mean and resentful of Ali, which progressed into outright anger, and bc she’s at her core a narcissist, she blamed Ali for her own sorry situation.

2) there’s been so much talk of, how did Ali not know things were so bad? Well, after all those YEARS together, Ali probably assumed they would work it out. Even after ash moved out, she might have still had visions of repairing her family. Trust me, no mom willing concedes 50% of their time with their kids without a hard core fight. I think Ali was willing to do the work- she just couldn’t give it everything bc she was trying to f’ing retire.

3) those women had a TIGHT group of friends. For years, very formative years. Megan loved Ash. They were effusive abt their friendship. Reliving all their posts back and forth again signified how telling it is that almost NONE of their friend group publicly supported ash. National teammates, club teammates, outside soccer friends (makeup Alex), preschool families- they all gave her the heisman. They didn’t engage in SM, didn’t post pics, really just dumped her like a bad habit. Divorces happen in friend groups- it can be kinda awkward, but they’re grown adults who can make their own choices. And they all very clearly chose a side. And you wouldn’t do that as a friend unless what you saw was behavior so egregious and abhorrent that you couldn’t in good faith support it. And that’s exactly what happened. Ash recently posted something abt friends who chose her over optics, clearly indicating anger at those old friends. Her and Pinoe were at the same event this week, yet no public pics or any indication they interacted. I’m assuming they did, but in the past we’d see evidence of it. She goes on and on abt her new friend group, but it has to hurt a lot that she lost her old tribe. And people that know both her and Sophia- like a Glennon or Foudy, have given the couple no play at all.

4) While I have absolutely ZERO empathy for Ash, I do think she’s gotten herself into a situation that has lots of complications and might not end the way she expects. How do two self involved love bombers stay together once the newness wears off and they are in the mundane realities of everyday life? Ash has 17+ years left of raising kids. And once the kids are doing events and activities, she won’t be able to bail for a week at a time. And eventually she’s going to need to find work. Courts don’t like parents who don’t pull their weight. I think they got caught up in their infatuation, are bonded over their us vs them mentality right now, and once their feelings come back down to earth, it will be a different reality for them. I don’t really care- I don’t wish them any luck. I just think they have an uphill battle.

And my last musing after all this was about how much deep respect and awe I have for Ali. She was served a complete shit burger in the middle of her retirement season. When she should have been riding high, enjoying her last professional soccer games as a player, she was thrown into the worst chaos a person can be in. I will detest Ashlyn forever for putting her in this situation, and not having the maturity to wait it out with Sophia, and let her former wife have her moment. I think back to that Pinoe game where she and Sophia paraded around and my blood completely boils for Ali. I don’t know what happened between them, but the intentional cruelty and vindictiveness Ash showed is so disgusting, it defies logic. I am so thrilled that Ali has moved on, is thriving and has shed this dead weight from her being. I can’t imagine what she’s gone thru, but to see her unbothered and smiling now is just wonderful. I wish nothing but happy things for her!

Okay, I think that’s it! Thanks for reading my dissertation 🤣

Thank you for this anon!!! I appreciate the time you took to write this cause damn this is long😂🔥 I agree though with your thoughts on the situation and honestly the more we find out the more obvious it becomes that Ashlyn is nothing but a narcissistic cheater and Ali’s a warrior and queen who deserves happiness!

[naxalbari1967]

White Colonial Violence

How is it that white people especially in the West have done some of the most brutal violent soul crushing things to damn near every group on Earth and still walk around like they are the world’s moral compass. Like they invented goodness and everyone else is the problem. That takes a special kind of delusion backed by centuries of war propaganda schooling and media brainwashing. But it ain’t hard to trace.

Start with the Native Americans. From the second white Europeans stepped foot on these lands they brought death. Genocide not as a byproduct but as policy. They signed over 500 treaties with tribes and broke every single one. Massacres left and right. Sand Creek Washita River Marias Wounded Knee. Children and elders gunned down. Bodies mutilated. Whole nations starved with the buffalo slaughtered to extinction just to break them. From Trail of Tears to boarding schools where Native kids were beaten for speaking their own language the goal was erase them completely and call it progress. That was not ancient history. That was the blueprint.

Then came the Black holocaust. Over 12 million Africans kidnapped chained whipped branded sold like furniture. Worked to death on plantations. Families ripped apart. And that is just the slavery part. After that came Jim Crow lynchings redlining prison labor cops turning firehoses and dogs on kids. 1985 they literally bombed a Black neighborhood in Philly. Just dropped a bomb like it was a war zone. Black Wall Street in Tulsa burned to the ground in 1921 by angry mobs and the government did nothing. America was built on Black labor and Black blood but still acts like Black people owe it something.

And what about Asia. The Opium Wars Britain got China hooked on drugs at gunpoint just to balance trade. They looted the Summer Palace and acted like it was civilizing. The US firebombed Japan before dropping not one but two atomic bombs on civilians then pretended it was mercy. They slaughtered people in Korea in the millions. Whole villages wiped out. In Vietnam they sprayed Agent Orange poisoned the land bombed kids. My Lai Massacre American soldiers raped and killed over 500 unarmed civilians and then tried to cover it up. They never stopped. Bombed Cambodia bombed Laos bombed anyone who looked communist. Always in the name of peace.

And then the Middle East. The West carved it up with a pen after World War One. Drew fake borders and backed dictators. Britain promised Palestine to two groups at the same time then washed its hands of the blood. The US overthrew Iran’s democracy in 1953 for oil. Backed Saddam when it suited them bombed him when it didn’t. Two invasions of Iraq left millions dead or displaced. Drone strikes in Yemen Afghanistan Pakistan killing weddings funerals kids playing soccer. 90 percent of drone victims are civilians. They killed Gaddafi turned Libya into a slave market then acted like they saved the country.

Look at what they did in Africa. Belgium murdered over 10 million Congolese under King Leopold. Cut off hands of children for not meeting rubber quotas. France tortured Algerians dumped bodies in the sea. Britain starved 4 million in India during World War Two and told Churchill it was their own fault. US backed apartheid in South Africa backed genocidal regimes when it helped business. It never ends. They show up with Bibles and guns steal land kill people then call it civilizing the savages. It is not a coincidence it is a pattern.

They fund 70 percent of dictatorships today. Put sanctions on countries to starve them into obedience. They call it democracy promotion while cozying up to warlords and oil kings. They talk about women’s rights while bombing schools. They act shocked at resistance like they have not been provoking it for centuries.

What makes it worse is the moral superiority. The constant finger pointing. The lectures. They blow up hospitals and then cry about human rights. They start wars then blame the refugees. They pretend their media is objective their courts are just their soldiers are heroes. It is one giant gaslight. They commit atrocity after atrocity and still somehow walk away with the white hat.

This is how empire works. It is not just killing. It is lying about the killing. It is rewriting the story until the victims become the threat. Until the oppressed get called terrorists. Until resistance becomes aggression. And the worst part is how many people believe it. How many get taught from birth that Western civilization is the peak of humanity when it is built on mass graves.

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

This originally was for PoR and Radiant Dawn. That Aquatic Laguz anon had my mind running a mile a minute for a solid few days. So one of the Dragon Laguz, specifically the Blue Tribe's leader, didn't appreciate Ashunera flooding the world she created. He dumped into the rising sea in a desperate attempt to save the Laguz and Beorc drowning. I came up with a description, that huh, might be counted as body horror?

"As the great dragon flew through the waters, he embraced each life that still drew breath. Wrapping his body around the survivors, he paid not to the screaming currents that cut his scales. He stood fast as falling debris shredded his wings, instead grateful the fragile mortals were kept safe under his shadow. Roiling waves turned crimson as the Goddess's Wrath fractured the world, drowning great nations and bearing down on the waters."

He lost his wings, and most of his scales, essentially turning into an eastern style dragon. The blood loss caused him to hibernate for a century, and ended up giving anything that was exposed to it the ability to survive in the ocean. When he woke up, he found a budded civilization and quickly realized he accidentally created a few new races. The Laguz had turned into more sea faring races: Whales, sharks, squids, basically all the larger aquatic species. They mostly lived in the deeper parts of the ocean, while the Beorc gained webbed hands and feet, gills, and some scales on their back. They lived in the shallower waters, where they could tell night from day. Neither really knew the other existed because of this. And were somewhat struggling because of their limited habitat.

So what does this extremely sympathetic and protective dragon do? Raise them of course! He establishes himself as ruler, and starts trying to integrate the two races. That proves difficult... Tensions are high, trade deals are taking forever, and he really wishes Ashunera was here to help. Very conveniently, the "Branded" starts being born around this time. Blue Dragon Dad realizes they can safely exist in both the dark trenches and the lighter corals. If his faith was wavering, it sure isn't now. Dragon Dad thinks this is Ashunera's apology, basically "Sorry I flooded the world, here's someone who can thrive in it." The Branded of the sea aren't called Branded, they're called something else, but I haven't come up with a name yet. Help.

So while the Beorc and Laguz of the surface are tearing each other apart, the ones in the sea are just chilling. Now, the whole "Laguz losing their powers" does cause some issues and tensions. Leading to some abandoning their kids despite Dragon Dad saying to welcome them. Thankfully, Whales are very intelligent and empathetic beings who will gladly adopt the tiny baby left in the open sea. The Hierarchy of the sea looks like this: Dragons, Whales, Beorc, Sharks, "Branded", and then everything else.

Dragon Dad moved his power to a pearl(aka Dragon Stone), so he can mingle with his followers kids better, and hand that power to his descendants if necessary. He can control the currents, which are important in connecting the various kingdoms. Grow coral reefs, restore old ruins, control most types of magic, and teach everyone about the (outdated) history of the world.

Whales are similar to Herons, only because they have power similar to Galdr. Whale Songs control the waves, restore coral, ward off harm, can communicate across nations, and can function similarly to Galdr, just deeper. Because of their duties, using their songs to help balance the ocean, escorting people between the lighter and darker waters, taking care of orphaned kids, regardless of race, and healing any damage that still lingers from Ashunera, they rank second. Despite the fact they strictly adhere to pacifist ways.(Unless you threaten their kids.)

"Branded" are basically mermaids. Their tails are completely random, regardless of which Laguz variant they descend from. Oh, and they can go on land if you combine Whale Songs with Dragon Dad's magic. But that doesn't happen very often. They connect the upper and lower parts of the seas, delivering different resources when needed, carrying messages, and just making sure everything runs smoothly. They're decently strong, but are relatively rare, and often need guidance on how to use any abilities inherited by their parents.

Aquatic Laguz anon, have fun with this.

These guys are also in the seas of our world because the DM really liked the idea. So thank you!

- 🔮

👀

[yukinojou]

1989: thought dump

I've heard about 1989 the musical, but it's playing in theatres far from Warsaw and I've been frankly busy this past year with funerals and health crises. Now I've finally seen a live proshot (whee, guess who recorded it too) and this is nowhere near a review, these are absolutely random thoughts:

first impression: this is so very Hamilton

second impression: damn, this is in dialogue with Hamilton at the same time it's in dialogue with Mickiewicz, five gallons of national mythos and three layers of recent history and hello LMM you could have done so much more with women

(third part of this thought was seeing Aleksander Kwaśniewski's entrance and losing my shit laughing because of COURSE he nicks his entrance from a shiny American musical because that's exactly his style)

more musical should have spooky a capella folk songs

This is stuff from my childhood and just before; I was watching with my mother and she says all the period details were spot on, especially the song about how everyone has the same stuff in their home because it's all there is in the shops.

(my family had some different stuff, but I had the advantage of three grandparents allowed to travel including one actually allowed to go west and the fourth one was a doctor who got art from her patients)

so so much dialogue with our recent history too and the Women's Strike and the sheer tangible anger of women who won't be putting up with this shit anymore

I'm sure I'm missing like half the hiphop references but this is so much a crew musical, no clear leads but each person getting their due, and the lyrics are fantastic and rich and I need to watch three more times and someone needs to put them up on whatever the Polish equivalent of Genius is just so I can read all the annotations

honestly the hiphop thing works because it's Polish hiphop with its poetry and wild swings and melancholy and anger, and because the events of 1980 to 1989 created the deprivation and shock that gave birth to Polish hiphop

it especially works in the Nobel prize scene where it's so very meta on the way men put words in women's mouths

the actors are just *chef's kiss* and the proshot really picked up on all the emoting, the Teatr TV crew really know their stuff

gods, the whole thing with the black market meat that thaws and leaves bloodstains on the hands of the woman who is dying and the shirt of the man left behind, and I remember that from childhood, the way black market butchered meat would just bleed everywhere

In conclusion, I suspect I feel the way Black theatre kids felt watching Hamilton for the first time, and I need this one on DVD.

[doctorstrangereview]

0107.1: Avengers #117

Cover Date: November 1973 On-Sale Date: August 14, 1973

Doc is actually absent from this chapter of the Avengers/Defenders war but we're in the middle of the arc so I figured I'll go ahead and write it up anyway. (Doc does appear on the splash page and in a flashback panel, but isn't in the story proper.) The funky review number is to keep the number of Doc related reviews accurate.

We start off with Dormie fretting over the fact that the Avengers have become involved in his clever plan. Loki pleads ignorance as to the cause, but is sweating bullets inside.

Dormie can't directly do anything to tip the scales in the Defenders' favor or Doc might catch on. He hopes that because the Defenders are weird they may stand a chance against Earth's Mightiest Heroes. So far the Defenders are actually do well.

We turn to Bolivia where Valkyrie was heading after dumping Hawkeye in Mexico last issue. The Swordsman has just arrived and sees the a German castle has popped up in South America. Darn Nazis! While the Swordsman contemplates his life choices, Val makes her presence known.

Swordsman manages to land the plane safely and heads to the castle. He's greeted by one of the owners who explains the castle's history and the dude happens to be from the United States. The Swordsman hears a sound, runs upstairs and finds Val rooting through what looks like a treasure chest. Of course a battle ensues and the Swordsman's sword fighting ability is a match for Val. Val decides not to find out if she's mortal so she grabs some tapestries that look suspiciously like Doc's cloak of levitation. It's a cool little Easter egg.

During the battle, the castle owner dude locks a big door and Val has the bright idea that the eye fragment may be behind it. The battling duo get through the door and lo and behold, the little eye is lying in a treasure chest. Swordsman grabs it, but the owner dude isn't happy about it and shoots him. He wanted to make sure no one knows about all the treasure he's absconded with and stored here. Swordsman doesn't like this and stabs owner dude. Val takes the mini-eye and checks out the Swordsman to make sure the wound isn't fatal.

The place is raided by the local police who will take the wounded to get medical help while Val makes off with her prize. I believe it's Defenders 4, Avengers 0.

Now we travel to Japan where Captain America has just arrived and he immediately discovers that Namor has already recovered this part of the eye.

Namor and Cap bandy some words about who's stronger and then Namor invites Cap to through the first punch, to amusing results.

Namor traps Cap under a fallen sign and runs to the water to escape. Cap throws his shield spoiling Namor's dive.

The two are now fighting in the water like Krystal and Alexis in the lily pond. (Got to use that one twice!) They are laughed at by someone in the sky and as this is Japan, their national hero Sunfire makes his appearance.

Sunfire flies off with the eye. Subby flies after him. Cap grabs on to Subby and the two start punching each other mid-air. Cap reveals what he thinks is the Defenders plan to conquer the universe. Namor decides to set the record straight that they did not turn the Black Knight to stone and they only want the eye to fix him. Namor flies off again leaving Cap in the drink who's having some doubts about the whole affair. Namor and Sunfire are now engaged in battle.

Sunfire drops the eye which Cap manages to catch. Namor, in not the friendliest way, asks Cap for the eye. Cap realizes that he and his fellow Avengers might be engaged in these shenanigans under false pretense. He surrenders the eye to Namor. See what communicating does, kids?

Whew! Some progress at last. Namor and Cap, old war buddies or rivals depending on which way the wind was blowing on that day actually talked to each other and things may be moving along now.

We're Defenders 5, Avengers 0 but the score may be irrelevant if the teams manage to talk to each other. We'll see what happens next installment which isn't Doc-less.

[loominggaia]

Had any military leader in Gaia made bold, seemingly crazy ventures against their enemy that worked surprisingly well? Like for example Hannibal’s crossing of the alps, managing to drag a massive army and war elephants through massive icy mountains just to kick romes ass?

What a fun question!

Once when Zareen Empire and Mogdir Kingdom were at war, Zareen sent a giant bronze statue to Mogdir Capital as a peace offering. And when I say "giant", I really mean colossal! It would be the tallest, most impressive structure in Mogdir Kingdom.

Mogdir accepted it, but little did they know, this was a trick. Once it was brought to the capital city, the statue emitted a huge plume of toxic smog that covered the Arcadian Forest for weeks, enraging the local nymphs and prompting them to attack Mogdiri settlements.

In Mogdir's moment of weakness, Zareen was able to move in and do some real damage. The smog itself caused a lot of damage to soil, crops, and people for years to come. The mountain range separating the two kingdoms blocked the smog from drifting back into Zareenite territory, so they were largely shielded from the consequences.

But don't worry, Mogdir Kingdom got revenge centuries later when they agreed to release a thousand Zareenite prisoners of war. Zareen took the prisoners back into their homeland...only to find out that they had all been infected with lycanthropy. This began a wave of plague and chaos that took decades for Zareen to get under control.

There was also the time Etios Nation got so mad at Matuzu, they started a campaign to dump all the nation's sewage into the river that flows into Matuzu's Central Lake. This was incredibly expensive and inconvenient for Etios, and quite frankly...insane. But the nation's people were totally on board to #shitonmatuzu, and it didn't take long before Central Lake became a biohazard and Matuzu was forced to work out some kind of deal with Etios, granting them a big chunk of land that they still own to this day. Since then, local nymphs have prevented Etios from pulling this maneuver again, citing ecological damage. But for that brief moment in history, the Etiosi could tell Matuzu to "eat shit" and mean it!

Last but not least: the Seelie Court once had a territory dispute with the Unseelie Court (what else is new?) They were fighting over an island that sat right on the border. This island was abundant with resources, so it was valuable to them both. Queen Titania of the Seelie suggested that they break the island in half and divide the resources evenly, but Overlord Morgause was like, "FUCK U HO, EITHER I GET IT OR NO ONE DOES!" and just blew up the whole island. As in, fully wiped it off the map. Morgause didn't get any of its resources...but the important thing is, neither did Titania. B) Also thousands of innocent islanders died, but we don't talk about that...

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Read the Series

[emblemxeno]

I distinctly remember that guy saying he hangs around blogs like yours and teavee’s (even when directly asked to stop because he was harassing people) because he “even agrees with your takes about Fates!”

I mean, it’s no secret that he’ll say anything to cover himself, and the fact that he’s now trying to pick at liking Fates now is a bold-faced lie. Classic overcompensating. Nobody cares about his desperation for the Scarlet Soulsucker to be right, nor his obsession with Engage being bad, so he’s just going for the next thing. And I’m not really sure who he’s kidding, because at most it just proves that he’s a bit of a bully to kick an already disrespected group of people, and considering he already has an extensive harassment history… we already knew that he’s a bit of a bully.

I know that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating for you, though. I respect the patience you’ve held so far. He must be very unfulfilled in his regular life to try to get attention this way, and that makes me feel a little sorry for him — but not more sorry than I feel for you for having to deal with his insecurities when you didn’t ask or want to. I sincerely hope he finds a better outlet for his emotions someday. As for you, I hope that you continue to take him with a grain of salt. Your ability to consider multiple angles and different opinions when observing a story makes you a strong critical thinker. Any attempt from him to say otherwise is just him trying to deflect his own issues onto you.

People love to flip the script when it's beneficial, because they have no solid stance on anything beyond feeling personally attacked for daring to dislike what he links his online identity with. It's sad as you say, and thanks for the kind words on my patience.

But man. Maaaaaan. Even when I'm playing other games that aren't Fates, I still get a fucking "Fates liker, he must smell and think stupidly" stigma attached to me. All cuz 3H is treated as a sacred cow among certain sects of its fandom and daring to criticize the game's extensive faults for its sloppy execution in its video game narrative-which lots of FE fans and casual gaming fans agree with-means apparently my own interests must be scrutinized as compensation.

3H is utterly surface level and filled with fluff and bloat with its storytelling, and fails to significantly connect its worldbuilding with the gameplay, beyond a few hidden skills. That's a common opinion, people just don't realize because it usually taks the form of "why doesn't Faerghus have snow in its maps," "why are so many maps repeated" "why does Garreg Mach not change with seasons" "why don't each nation have different outfits or classes to differ them," "why isn't there more unique music for each faction," etc. 3H thrives off dumping information relentlessly on the player, hence why Tomas tells you explicitly to go to the fucking library to read more lore. That's what I make fun of, cuz it's the devs being proud of sending the player to stand around and read history books for 10 goddamn minutes. And things like supports, where most of the signifcant character growth take place, take 4x as much work as they did in past games to obtain for roughly the same quality reward.

That's just how I feel, and getting attacked and laughed at by weirdos on a whole other site for an opinion I share on my own fucking blog? That proves that person has no damn life beyond posting "gotchas" against people who can't respond cuz they don't know he's posting about them, and having his internet buddies stroke his ego afterwards. He's the Ben Shapiro of Fire Emblem/3H discourse.

[ask-ozai]

Iroh once claimed that before Zuko, his father, grandfather and great-grandfather all searched for the Avatar.

I know about Sozin's search, but could you please tell us more about your own and Azulon's searches?

They're state secrets and no one has ever known too many details about the expeditions, but that's Zuko's problem now. And since he just caused an hyperinflation, probably he is too busy to even notice if people start talking about it.

Firelord Azulon was the same age as Zuko when he left to find the Avatar, fourteen, but he was very different from Zuko. At fourteen, my father had already fought and won four Agni Kais, and he never knelt and begged for mercy like a coward. He was the pride and future of the Fire Nation, trained and educated from his earliest age to be the perfect Firelord.

His quest to capture the Avatar led him to the most logical place to start, the Northern Water Tribe, where he was greeted with fear and apprehension given Sozin's recent history with the airbenders. But my father had the gift of persuasion and charisma, much needed in his role as Firelord and world conqueror. They reached a non-aggression agreement with the Chief, which lasted until the last day of my father's life and is the reason why the war barely affected the Northern Water Tribe in a hundred years. My father knew that they couldn't conquer his natural enemies until they conquered the Earth Kingdom first, so he gave them a false sense of security. Better to keep them out of the war for the moment.

He met my mother on that trip, Ilah.

Now, unfortunately, I never knew exactly the circumstances of how they met, nor much about my mother at all. The mere reminder of her existence (and absence) was enough to ignite my father's ire for whole days. No one was allowed to talk about my mother when I was a child. Neither the court, nor the servants, and much less me. The little I know is from Iroh, but he didn't talk much about her either. She was a complete taboo.

But yes, my father fell in love with my mother on that trip and returned home quickly to tell his father that he had found the perfect bride for himself. Sozin refused, for some unknown reason (other than that he simply didn't like women very much, I guess), so my father had no choice but to challenge him to an Agni Kai to fulfill his will to marry. Iroh says that Sozin was dead for two minutes when my father threw him a lightning and won the Agni Kai. Sozin must have been proud. When the healers managed to restart his heart, of course.

I don't have much more to say, because my father's trips were rather brief and sporadic. He and my mother married two years later, when he was sixteen, and remained married for fifty years until my mother's death when I was born.

Once my father organized another search, with Lo and Li in charge this time, who went to look for the Avatar in Omashu, hearing that King Bumi had once been friends with him. It is said that Lo had an affair with him and there is even talk of a secret bastard that they had to hide, but nothing was ever confirmed.

My search for the Avatar was a different matter. I was sixteen years old, and the time had come to show my father my value. Evil tongues will tell you that it was just an excuse to get rid of me, but they were Iroh supporters so their opinion don't count.

I took a ship, a small crew, and Zhao and Michi (the only companions I had even a modicum of confidence in) and we went to search for the Avatar. We traveled throughout the Earth Kingdom for two very long years. We had some adventures, naturally, but nothing worth mentioning until we infiltrated Ba Sing Se pretending to be circus performers. I can't give many details about what happened there, because Michi, Zhao and I swore an oath of silence. And as useless as Zuko is, he can still put Michi in a dungeon. Especially now that her daughter dumped him. And that wouldn't be convenient for anyone.

Let's just say the previous Earth King died under suspicious circumstances.

[likorys-shimenawa]

[This ain't discord, format your text properly.]

Are you done trying to trauma-dump on people to emotionaly manipulate them into siding with you?

Cause I can go on about how perfectly Israel is mirroring Nazi Germany and then I will tell you what will happen in real life when Israel looses (spoiler: 'Polish concentration camps' actually existed, though only after the war - you get 1 guess about who was put in them). Because Israel will loose, not matter how confident they are now, just like Nazis lost no matter how pretty their propaganda looked.

You know, the reality and not philosophical hemming and hawwing on tumblr dot com where you can make up whatever imaginary solutions you want and just tell people they should figure them out themselves?

Cause for someone telling me to 'answer' you sure don't seem to offer any actual solutions beside empty platitudes of 'let's all just get along uWu'.

So first let's set the context, which is that we should discuss actual people who fled to Israel and those born there- so not, let's say, American who went there to colonize themselves a vacation home - what was it, 200k of them now? I'm gonna go off on a limb and say they should fuck off right back to where they came from, because if you can afford to cross half the world you ain't [I'm generalizing, bcause I'm told to adress 8 million people and I ain't writing a master's thesis on why occupier does not have the same rights as victims of their occupation.]

I'm gonna quote something that's pretty much nor PC from my mom.

Never in my life did I hear about 'Jewish country' until WWI where UK and US threw Jewish people into middle east like you would kick out your child when they start questioning your confederate flad on the mantle.

It's gonna sound very shitty, but there is a reason new countries kinda stopped happening. Cause they involve war, coloniztion, mass-murder and opression.

You know my country, Poland? The one that was cut apart during WWI and WWII while the world watched

Go far back enough in history and we should own Ukraine. Whole ass country should be our land. Try to suggest it to UN and you would be called insane, yet here is Israel, advertising just how they're gonna colonize other countries and nobody gives a flying fuck because 'oooh oil so shiny gotta steal it all'.

[We owned Russian capital for hot second too, I would pay to see you try and tell Putin he should give it to us.]

In other words my solution is to STOP TRYING TO CREATE A NEW COUNTRY TROUGH VIOLENCE.

Especially if all your 'right' comes from the same book that says child-murder is correct consequene of calling some dude bald.

In perfect world, after WWII Jews would've came and simply moved into the land and LIVED WITH PEOPLE ALREADY THERE. You know, how actual people escaping war do? Assimilation, etc?

That's not what they were send there to do though. US and UK very intentionally send them to overtake their EXISTING COLONY so they can wash their hands of any slaughter that will happen there.

While also funding them so the shiny new military comples is on their beck and call and middle east is too busy with Israel to look at weakened Europe and have any weaird~ ideas~.

That's the reality. That Jewish people traumatized by WWII got the boot and were send to take over a british colony.

Add in some good old Nazism nationalism sorry, zionism and right now we have an extremist religious state which is carrying out a religious holy war genocide.

So now that we know reality of the situation, I can answer:

Israel should suffer massive sanctions and be demilitirized so they can no longer carry out a genocide.

People in power responsible for orders to bomb schools and hospitals, to leave infants to slow, agonizing deaths, who ordered tanks to fire at homes full of people, who ordered to target journalist, who spread propaganda, who threw children into ovens and who robbed graves and stole organs from corpses, who 'arrested' children for throwing stones and held them without trials for a decade - all should be put to Norynberg Trials 2 Why the fuck is there a second one. I also mean Paletinian people who killed innocents, even if they did do during resistance to occupation.

What little of Palestinian people survived should be given back their homes, their land and be paid restitutions for the genocide they are suffering. Not in last 100 days, but last 75 years. I also mean all Palestinians - Jewish, Muslim, Christian (or did Israel kill all of them by now?), atheist, every single one.

Memorials should be created to comemorate crimes of Israel the same way Auschwitz was turned into a museum.

THEN peopole already living in Israel can find places to live in the massive amount of land that no longer belongs to anyone because they died in the genocide. If they live in places that have rightful owner they can be funded a new home - take US blood money and I think you can build a few thousand houses for that.

ENTIRE region should become ONE country to minimalize conflicts and recieve support and oversight from competent organizations to help it gouvern itself. I have no clue what that country should be - what I do know is that trying to force a Nazi-land to exist next to Nazis-victims-land is gonna end horribly.

Institutions will be put in place to keep oversight and prevent discrimination and revenge.

Antisemitsm that's been festering alive and well since WWII should be adressed worldwide so Jews don't feel the need to have a massive military bunker to flee to.

Incompetent and horrified and emotionally drained and still lightyears away from the suffering actual victims of genocide are going trough and and haunted by history I see repear before my eyes, this is my answer.

Because I'm a civilian who has no clue about running a country. So this is my amatour basic as all fuck answer, since you're begging for it.

I also openly admit this is a shitty answer that asks a ton of people to show immense amount of good will and requires more justice to be served than will ever realistically happen. It gives some people way more than they deserve and some way less they are owed.

It's because it's a nightmre of a situation and there is no 'good' solution left on the table once a genocide starts. So all I have is this shitty answer that's probably also a pipe-dream, because there is no way to find a solution to 25 thousand people dead.

Now that you got me to write this all out, I'm gonna adress the actual thing you said:

I'm not gonna adress the way you imply there is no Palestinian Jews or the way you're claiming that every single Jew alive somehow has claim to random spot on Earth, no matter whe they spend their life. I'm not nearly knowledgable enough to make , though I will say solid fuck you for the former.

I am gonna say, again, that you don't get to pick and choose what point in history you want to go back to (and especially not 2k years). You don't get to wave a historic myth and say 'this means I can take your home'.

People actively living in occupied land will always have more claim to it that colonizer.

[If anyone sees something I should be corrected on, pls do it. I'm exhausted and there is only so much information you can take in when it's said between photos of mutilated children, robbed graves and bombed hospitals.]

When South Africa dismantled apartheid, it did not end with the expulsion of all white South Africans. They became part of the new South Africa, just without the criminal discriminatory oligarchic powers the apartheid goverment had. When Bolivia recognized its indigenous heritage and became a plurinational state, it did not mean that people of European descent were expelled in masse. It meant the recognition of the previously discriminated indigenous and mestizo people of Bolivia and the beginning of a path of integration and revalidation.

What I mean is that it's ridiculous to think that decolonization inherently means mass suffering and relocation, that's what colonization does. Decolonization is recognizing the crimes of colonization, but more importantly, material, political and social steps to give power and self-determination to the exploited native people who were victims of colonialism and imperialism.

In multicultural societies, you don't go like in that Peter Griffin meme with a skin tone chart and saying 'well, you go back to Europe, you go back to Africa, you stay here'. You build a new society on the paradigm of dignity for exploited people and equality under the law. People are acting like this is some sort of fantastic utopia instead of real initiatives that were done in living memory, with successes and failures, as all such initiatives have. One must ask why are some so insistent that multicultural societies can't thrive, especially when for most of history, societies were indeed like that. Consider why you think like that.

[pot-black]

So I'm sitting with my coworkers, and we are shooting the shit while we wait for our supervisor to start the meeting. We are conservationists with the National Park Service, so the topic was mostly about prior projects. Then out of the blue I hear one of my senior coworkers complain something along the line of, "I cant believe this shit! It's just like that time they wanted me to replace George Washington's ass!" But then he was cut short because my supervisor walked in the door and the meeting began.

But the seed had been planted. I couldn't stop thinking about it. We were just discussing bronze statues, so obviously this was one too. And for some reason, the Park Service wanted to replace his ass. "Why?" I thought. We really only do bronze replacements when parts become missing or damaged. Did someone steal George Washington's ass? Did some vandal take potshots at our first president's rump? It wouldn't be the first time we have done repairs from bullet damage.

Or maybe the park which managed the monument just disliked the guy's butt? Like it was too distracting or inappropriate. And then this mental image appeared of a statue of George with an absolute dump truck of a behind. like caked to the nines. And that was the straw that broke the camels back.

The entire meeting do far, like seven minutes, i was smiling and giggling under my breath. But when this image popped in, I couldn't stop myself from laughing out loud. Then my one coworker who started this whole thing with his comment, who happened to be speaking at the time and was annoyed with my laughter, asked me point blank what I thought so funny? This led to my immortal line: "I apologize for laughing, but I really must know, why did they want you to replace George Washington's Ass?"

It's Immortal because they haven't let me forget it since. Sent everyone into hysterics, both at my tone, and the left field nature of my Question. Probably will go down in history like the guy who caused $3000 worth of damage to a hotel room after he tore the smoke detector out of the wall so he could smoke or the one who got arrested at a DUI stop, after he picked a fight and tried to assault the officer, for no reason, as a passenger.

AXE. It was George Washington's Axe. And it wasn't even a real axe, but hypothetical scenario from a training intended to teach the metaphor of preservation along the lines of the Ship Of Theses. The lesson was that it didn't matter if none of the subject actually dated to the period of the original, because we were preserving the historic memory of the object or some such like that, and that made it the same. My coworker disagreed.

[atombonniebaby]

The procrastinationary info dump you didn't ask for 🤣

I'm big into dark history, folklore and a good ghost story. So naturally one of my OCs occasionally rattles off a spooky story and loves to mess with Mac 😂

Try to weave my favorite topics in where I can and draw connections between Scotland (where my OCs are from) and the world of Fallout 4! (or just general Scotland/America parallels)

I used to do tours wearing my samulet (Supernatural fans will know 😉) and my Fallout 4 pocket watch 🤫

Plague was one of my favorite topics of choice to delve into (made someone faint once talking about that 🤭) I did my research. (I'm talking autistic hyperfocus level research 😂)

That is why I am 100% sure Duncan MacCready has a mutated strain of the Bubonic Plague (the blue flu and Dunc's disease are simply the bubonic and pneumonic/septicemic variants of the black death...)

The nightingales, brought in by Sim Settelments 2, has given me a whole story arc for MacBeth down the line ❤️

The other time I got too descriptive was talking about thumb-screws and Witchcraft trials... I had a bracelet that clacked and if I demonstrated the technique just right it added a good sound effect describing what happens when those things got tightened around yer digits (🤢)

I still find it hilarious that being a redhead was a signifier that someone might be a witch in Scotland and Ireland.

(being left handed, talking to yourself, having moles or birth marks are a few more...basically of you were different to the 'norm' you wanted to keep a low profile...superstition, rivalry and misunderstanding could often lead to someone being accused)

One thing I loved finding out, is the real Old State House has the Unicorn and Lion sitting on its exterior, proclamations being read from the balcony. It's a lot like the Mercat Cross I used to start my tours from. (Unicorn is Scotland's national animal FYI 🤫)

We've also got a statue of Abraham Lincoln in one of our graveyards to commemorate the Scots who fought in the American Civil War

And of course MacCready is very likely a Scottish name (Mac being 'son of')

[kontextmaschine]

Like in general this year in Karafuto has been finally realizing things I had intended for a while and determining they were in fact correct ideal ideas all the while.

This has honestly been a lot of the last part of my life in general for me. Like the 2010s was – well first, coming to Portlandia-era Portland, which was a perfect realization of if the '90s had just kept getting better and look the whole culture sees it's great and they'll follow our lead and change yay!

But then the national culture turning worse, and okay Portland was a refuge though but then increasingly it wasn't and and and…

And it getting so bad but what rescued me was – not a fluke, this is actually a defining element of my self-identity – my knowledge of American cultural history, I was like "NO successful cultural turn ever looked like this, but some failed ones kinda did before they backfired proportionally—"

But I was like "but I don't see the escape mechanism, if Hillary fucking Clinton gets the levers of federal administrative control this stuff'll get institutionally locked in but how would you pivot to preempt it, you'd basically have to dump the post-Reagan legacy and do Sailer Strategy and kinda recover some of that '80s vim but realize the path forward was the Wall Street crude bros not the Christians, but it's hopeless the Republicans don't have anyone lined up to pivot in time…

…and then like a month later the incarnated spirit of the 1980s came down an escalator and I was like "oh". Come the moment, come the man.

And yeah, that went basically exactly how I expected, and I was like "WOW, I do know this stuff! But… what do I even get for it. Hmm, much to ponder…"

But then I was struck by a falling star and reborn perfected, so there's my answer and… okay?

Aw man planting that lavender under the window next to my sittin' chair was such a good idea.

[thinkingimages]

Yasuzo Nojima, photography (1931)

“Faustus: ‘Stay, Mephistopheles, and tell me, what good will my soul do thy lord?” Mephistopheles: ‘Enlarge his kingdom.'”

– Christopher Marlowe, Dr.Faustus

“In his book on poor cities of the South, Jeremy Seabrook chronicles the relentless calendar of disaster in Klong Toey, Bangkok’s port slum sandwiched between docks, chemical factories and expressways. In 1989 a chemical explosion poisoned hundreds of residents; two years later a chemical warehouse exploded and left 5,500 residents homeless – many of whom would later die from mysterious illnesses. Fire destroyed 63 homes in 1992, 460 homes in 1993 (also the year of another chemical explosion), and several hundred more in 1994. Thousands of other slums, including some in rich countries, have similar histories to Klong Toey. They suffer from the ‘garbage dump syndrome’: the concentration of toxic industrial activities like metal plating, dyeing, rendering, tanning, battery recycling, casting, vehicle repair, chemical manufacture, and so on, which middle classes would never tolerate in their own districts.

The world usually pays attention to such fatal admixtures of poverty and toxic industry only when they explode with mass casualties; 1984 was the annus horribilus. In February a gasoline pipeline exploded in Cubatao, Sao Paulo’s ‘Pollution Valley’, and burned more than 500 people to death in an adjacent favela. Eight months later a Pemex liquefied natural gas plant exploded like an atomic bomb in Mexico City’s San Juanico district, killing as many 2,000 poor residents (no accurate count of mortality was ever established).

Less than three weeks after the Mexico City holocaust, the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, released its infamous cloud of deadly methyl isocynate; according to a 2004 study by Amnesty International, 7,000 to 10,000 people perished immediately and another 15,000 died in subsequent years from related illnesses and cancers.”  

– Mike Davis, 2005, Socialist Review

“Yes. As I often tell my students, the way in which you describe a problem, the language and aesthetics that you use to describe the politics of a particular problem, will absolutely effect the type of solution that resolves. { } Ontologically, they’re already guilty of being criminal whether or not they’ve actually engaged in any criminal behavior at all. I think the figure of innocence (our emphasis on and circulation of it) then obscures the fact that the counterpart to the innocent figure is the person who is guilty of a “status crime” for just being alive in Gaza, for instance.” 

– Mimi Thi Nguyen, in conversation with Leopold Lambert

“However, and this is an immense paradox, the great founding books of communities, the Old Testament, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Chansons de Geste, the Islandic Sagas, the Aeneid,or the African epics, were all books about exile and often about errantry.”

– Edouard Glissant

Exile in antiquity was an exile without deprivation, says Glissant. And this is because it was a voyage from a culture, rather than from a *nation*. The stigma of national identity is the child of Western imperialism, really.

“The conquered or visited peoples are thus forced into a long and painful quest after an identity whose first task will be opposition to the denaturing process introduced by the conqueror. A tragic variation of a search for identity. For more than two centuries whole populations have had to assert their identity in opposition to the processes of identification or annihilation triggered by these invaders.”

– Edouard Glissant

....

[bowditch]

i keep seeing rancid arkham takes and i'm Tired.

listen, i understand that part of this is mishandling of the concept in comics and media? this isn't exclusively a fan issue.

but the whole point of arkham is that it's a last resort. bruce as batman isn't deciding to put anyone in arkham (except ra's once, and you know what? fair.). he's stopping criminals-- criminals who may have been written with mental illnesses but who are committing actual crimes on large scales-- and handing them over to the court system. the court system is putting them in arkham because the entire point of arkham is that NOBODY ELSE WILL TAKE THEM. whether it's written as it's own horror show or an actually compassionate institution (and it DOES vary), what exactly do you think anyone should do with serial killers nobody else wants to be responsible for? i think as fans, most of us are opposed to the death penalty except for maybe Joker, and part of the narrative nature of comics requires we do keep these characters alive and cycling through stories regardless of any moral objections.

you can't make Batman the villain for "putting people in Arkham," however broken the institution, without demanding that he actually act as judge and jury instead of just a stopgap. what's he supposed to do? make his own prison? show up in court to demand another prison take them? comics have a history of handling mental illness in really gross ways, but these aren't just mentally ill people in the context of their stories. they are horrifically violent people who have proven by action that they will not stop being horrifically violent.

"bruce could pour money into arkham," someone says. okay? do you understand free will? do you understand how hard it would be to get people educated enough to work with the most dangerous and unstable people in the nation? you can renovate the building all you want, try to hire the most compassionate doctors and guards, and the nature of what this KIND of prison is will keep grinding it down. doctors will burn out. doctors will do their best and still not be able to "fix" some of these issues. the building will be gradually destroyed. it's a money sink. that isn't to say Bruce as a wealthy man shouldn't try-- just that the state of Arkham in most comics or media isn't proof that he hasn't. you can't change a lot of these specific violent tendencies with money.

i understand comics have done their part to shape bruce as a violent man without compassion. video games have done a lot of that, too, because in video games people want to hit shit. but as a batman fan, i'm tired of fandom taking a massive, systemic problem of both mental healthcare AND prison work AND narrative necessity (people going in and coming back out) and making it Batman's fault. the whole point is that Gotham is a terribly corrupt place and still has an institution for prisoners literally nobody else wants to house because of the risk. these aren't just people who need therapy, however much fandom likes to woobify gotham villains-- these are people who even with therapy (some of it canonically good!) will go on mass murder sprees for FUN.

they aren't in prison because they're mentally ill, they're in arkham because they hurt people. repeatedly. with intent to do it again. even in the most violent iterations, you think that's Batman's fault for beating them up? like, bruh, i don't know about you, but if someone beat me up i still don't think there's a world where i'm justified in getting away with mass murder because of it, lol. in the less violent iterations, i still don't think it's batman's fault for what a judge decides in a system that is-- whether we want to admit it or not-- much bigger than one man's wealth, and full of people with their own motives and feelings and complicated thoughts. is he supposed to just keep rogues he suspects might be put back in? bribe some other prison somewhere else to take them, when that prison and those people might not have ANY idea how to prepare for them or stop them? at least in gotham he has a fairly high chance of catching them again pretty quickly, instead of dumping the problem on someone else.

anyway.

[maybe-its-just-cringetown-love]

Tone deaf, 'a state of death and destruction' bruh we know the administration is the one making these decisions, but now you want to villainise a whole state. You are not helping the situation

A reminder. It's a state of death and destruction.

[juniperhillpatient]

Winter Solstice: Part 2: Avatar Roku re-watch takeaways :)

This is far & away my favorite of the episodes I've watched so far, & I remember it was around this point in my initial watch with my family over quarantine that I went from "sure, I guess I'll watch this with you guys" to "this show is actually really good & I'm invested." This is where the bigger storyline takes off & Aang is given his mission from Roku & it does not disappoint.

Well - this couldn't possibly go wrong :) The gaang is heading for Fire Nation waters & it's appropriately anxiety-inducing. I like that Aang does attempt to get Sokka & Katara to stay behind just about as much as I love that they don't even consider it, even if they try to talk him out of this plan altogether. If there's one thing that is pretty much a must in "chosen one" type stories, it's the Chosen Saviour character trying to talk their friends out of helping & the friends insisting anyway. It makes everyone more sympathetic & it's just fun.

After a nice little adventure in being likable, Zuko is back on his bullshit. I gave Iroh a lot of shit for confusing & inconsistent motives in the last episode & this is a continued critique I have, but I'll give him this - his one consistent motivator is also his most likable trait: he wants to protect Zuko. Zuko is obviously being a major asshole to Iroh & his crew just pressing forward with a doomed mission & it also goes to show how much he still believes he can be accepted again by his father. Iroh meanwhile gives us some important information: Not only did Ozai banish his own son, but he's also unlikely to be very understanding about his son's valid reasons for re-entering the Fire Nation. Not a terrifying & merciless picture they're painting at all :)

Katara & Sokka's banter continues to be fun, & it's a lot more fun now that they're just annoying each other instead of sexism playing into the mix. I also enjoy Appa & Momo adding some levity. Also - if I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times - Appa is honestly the real hero of the show. Poor guy legit got shot at with fire, was forced to fly faster than usual to get to the Fire Nation in time, AND rescued the gaang from a collapsing temple in the end! Where is Appa's Nobel Peace Prize, just asking?

Shyu also deserves major props. I like how we're gradually learning more & more about the history of the war. The world-building in Avatar is just so consistently well done. And the history never feels like info dumping, because it comes up naturally in the story, like the fire sages having once been loyal to the Avatar but now being forced to work for the Firelord.

I think this is the first time we get to see Sokka's intelligence when it comes to engineering smart non-bending solutions, with his (admittedly failed) plan to get the doors to the secret Avatar room open. Also, Katara is a genius for thinking of the plan to trick the other sages into thinking Aang's already in the room.

And we finally get to meet this guy!

Aang's meeting with Roku did not disappoint. I'm a huge fan of the line "I know you can do it, Aang, because you've done it before." I feel like the first time I watched this episode really helped me understand how this whole "Avatar" thing worked & drilled in the importance of Aang connecting with his destiny & his past selves. Also - Aang now has a mission & the new big goal has been laid out, so that's very exciting. Our boy has to learn all 4 elements by the end of the summer....no pressure :)

Oh, & another thing that was fun about Aang's little Avatar spirit adventure to talk to Roku - we got our first tiny glimpse of Ozai & he's a scary DILF, so that's fun. One thing that I would change about the gaang visiting the Fire Nation & Zuko & Iroh talking about complicated family dynamics, is that I wish there had been a way to sneak in an Azula appearance. No? Maybe? Okay, look, I just wish there was more Azula content & that we'd seen her more earlier on.

Anyway, far & away this was the strongest & most exciting episode thus far in my opinion. For me, this is where things start getting exciting & I'm looking forward to pressing onward in this re-watch :)