#like the greek genocide happened differently

[lessthanthreelalli]

so vis a vis that last post: ive been thinking about it, and looking through the notes really provides a neat microcosm about how you see people talking about helleno-tourkoi relations, and how it is conceived of as just a silly rivalry based on nothing when like, the greek genocide is still in living memory (though very barely) and the whole kypros situation has yet to be resolved. look, one comment here in the replies:

(to be clear, this nice lady is 100% correct) and a reply to her reply:

this is definitely not what's being referred to here. if you know that the armenian genocide exists, then it really isn't an extreme expectation for you to be at least willing to google if tourkia did that to anyone else, and quickly find an affirmative answer. Like, I'm not gonna waste my time saying why this is offensive, but it's offensive in the same way that saying enosis or even still saying ionia is greek is basically the same as saying that constantinople (istanbul) is still greek and rightfully belongs to the modern state of greece (obviously unreasonable). i try not to get mad on the internet but it is kind of maddening to see. when we talk about tourkia colonizing greece and armenia, we are not talking about the ottoman empire, needless (hopefully) to say.

just another mark on the scoreboard for me wishing that westerners would just all stop talking about greece entirely since they seem entirely incapable of understanding it because their brains are so rotted on the 'western civilization' mythologizing that posits that somehow everywhere west of the bosphorous has some interminable connection to us and therefore already understands us (perhaps better than we understand ourselves) so when talking about greece they just abdicate any responsibility they might otherwise feel they had to be culturally and historically sensitive. like seriously, "tourkia fucked over the armenians but didn't do anything to the greeks" is spectacularly stupid, spectacularly offensive

if any followers (especially mutuals) feel it's stupid that im saying greece was colonized by tourkia, please express yourself, id love to talk about it with you. I know it's something a lot of people react with skepticism to. That being said, if you can believe that tourkia colonized armenia, you can believe the same for greece*

[spacelazarwolf]

something i think gentiles do not get abt judaism is that it’s not a religion in the modern sense. rabbinic judaism as we know it today exists because of the roman destruction of judea and subsequent genocide and expulsion of a huge number of the judeans living there. prior to that, there were judeans who lived outside judea and still participated in many judean practices and followed many judean laws. there was a conversation happening particularly in the rabbinic movement (which was an incredibly small and fringy movement btw) about how to maintain a cohesive identity and community with members of an ethnic group that had stayed in babylon after being released from slavery or had moved to the italian peninsula or to egypt, and that identity was beginning to form. jewish identity was becoming something we might recognize today.

but prior to the roman expulsion and destruction of the temple, that identity had been centered around the land and the temple for very obvious reasons. ancient israel, judea, it was a place and the people who lived there lived under the same governance with the same culture and the same language. it makes sense they’d be a unique ethnic group. another huge part of the identity they’d formed was opposition to occupying forces, greeks, babylonians, assyrians, and finally the romans. eretz yisrael was constantly under occupation. and rebellion was a unifying force for these people. so when suddenly they have no land to defend, no central temple to look toward, suddenly the rabbis’ outlook on “portable judaism” was pretty much the only option if they wanted to remain a coherent group. they started communicating with each other over thousands of miles and multiple continents, discussing how to maintain their identity while in exile. and that is how judaism formed. it wasn’t a belief system that was spread throughout the world like christianity. it was a group of people whose population and homeland was devastated by a brutal occupying force who were trying to hold on to the only thing they had in strange lands where people weren’t always very welcoming: community. particularly in places like eastern and central europe where jews physically looked so different than the rest of the population, their culture was so different, and europeans reacted very violently to that, holding onto their traditions and immersing themselves in the study of how to stay connected is the reason those communities still exist today. they could have just moved to a new place and assimilated into the populations there and we would not have jews today. the reason we have jews today is because of that communal decision, across continents, to stay connected.

[genericpuff]

Is there a real difference between something being a reimagining of Greek myths and something being inspired by it?

I mean, it's a difference that's kind of subjective IMO but the way I personally see it, it comes down to what the story itself is trying to be. Is it trying to be a retelling, or is it trying to be its own story that just happens to take elements from the myths for the fun of it?

A myth retelling will typically be doing just that, retelling a mythical story with its characters with maybe some aesthetic changes, artistic liberties, or tweaks to fit a new generation. Example: Stray Gods, Hades, Hadestown, Lore Olympus, etc. All these stories are retelling myths and tales while putting more modern or subversive twists on them. Hadestown may feature a version of the Underworld that's built on coal mines, but it's still the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Hades may feature a version of Hades and Persephone who genuinely fell in love (Persephone was born to Demeter and a mortal man instead of Zeus which also removes the incest, and Persephone genuinely wanted to leave Olympus and saw marrying Hades as her way out), but they still gave Demeter her affiliations with winter and grieving the loss of her daughter.

Something that's simply myth inspired isn't necessarily trying to be accurate to the myths or retell them, they're just yoinking elements out of myths either directly or indirectly for the sake of fun and creativity. A recent example is Attack on Titan which is clearly referencing a lot of Norse mythology by the end with Ymir. Though an even bigger example of this is JRPG's, a lot of them tend to reference Greek and Norse myth in obvious or subtle ways, but aren't necessarily retelling those stories. Persona 3 uses a lot of Greek myth as the foundation for its story. The Ascians in Final Fantasy XIV go by Greek myth aliases such as Hermes and Hades, while there are raids in the game with Greek naming conventions (there's literally a raid boss in the newest set of Asphodelos raids named "Athena"). Tales of Symphonia is WWII meets Norse mythology, featuring subplots that tackle deep topics like discrimination, segregation and genocide (the "human ranches" are literally concentration camps) while also taking artistic inspiration from the Norse myths featuring the Great Kharlan Tree (the tree of life, Yggdrasil) and even the final boss' name is Yggdrasil, in the game's final cutscene Lloyd is given the opportunity to name the new reborn tree and while the audio fades out before you can hear what he names it, when you learn of Norse myth and how it inspired the game you just know he named it Yggdrasil (unfortunately they played it safer with the name "World Tree" in the game's sequel Dawn of the New World, but we don't talk about DotNW lmao). There are also a lot of religious allegories in JRPG's, particularly with Christianity, but that's another topic.

Point is, something that's simply taking inspiration from Greek myth or other mythologies isn't necessarily trying to retell those stories directly or even at all. Sometimes a piece of work is simply referencing them or enjoys the naming conventions or messaging of those original stories that it makes for a good parallel.

Not every story inspired by mythologies are attempting to retell them, but every retelling is inspired by the mythologies upon which they're based.

[beardedmrbean]

I'd be slightly more charitable towards the "the Israeli invasion of Gaza is a genocide" crowd if they didn't immediately flip-flop between that and "but forcibly driving the Jews out of Israel wouldn't be".

"Anti-colonizers" are fucking morons, man.

Can't colonize your homeland, Jews never left, they've been there 3,200 years on the official record depending on how you interpret the Merneptah Stele, which even if it is only mentioning a "people" that would be Isaac son of Abraham which honestly the Islamic crowd probably hates that even more since they claim that Arabs are the "true" children of Abraham through ishmael the kid Sari's handmaiden had with him, never get any mention though and honestly Arabs are indigenous to Arabia anyhow which is to the east of the Levant where "shocker" Saudi Arabia is.

The Mizrahi never left, or at least they've been there since before the Greeks showed up, still a small number of Samaritans as well, they're from the northern kingdom after Israel split following Solomon's death. Genetically at least the 2 European branches of the Jewish family are undeniably more closely related to the folks that never left than they are to any European genetic group.

But ya, the whole genocide thing is ridiculous. I'd be more inclined to believe people actually cared about genocide if they actually looked around the world where that kind of thing is happening in a major way.

inb4: muh fox news.

It's not like the information isn't out there, NYT thing is the only one that's more than a week or so old, so why after this has been going on for years is it still mostly crickets from the peanut gallery.

It shouldn't be a competition though I know, but you'd think this kind of thing would at least rate a mention from the noisy people on the internet.

Gaza situation it's gonna be hamass doing the genocide both ways anyhow, you install a military installation under, in, or in extremely close proximity to civilian structures any deaths that result from taking those structures out are on the people that turned them into military targets in the hopes that the PR would sway people and they wouldn't get called out for using civilians as human shields.

Not to say that Israel is by any means innocent, they screw up and the IDF screws up and innocent people die, some of whom were undoubtedly murdered and I hope the people that have done these things are held to account for them.

But again it's telling that I've seen a half dozen or more posts about palestenian children and it being international children's day and well did you know that November 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women as decreed by the un, got to see pieces about all kinds of stuff for that day and almost nobody mentioning all the women who were raped and murdered on 10/7

There's people on here that I respect that have a differing view on the situation than I do, different ways to resolve the situation and end the bloodshed none of which involve genocide, so them I can take seriously on some of this stuff.

The screaming lunatics that have decided that of all the ethnic and religious minorities in the world that Jewish people are the ones that aren't allowed to decide what is and isn't derogatory and that anything short of something like 'gas the jews' has layers and nuance instead of listening to what the Jewish people have been saying for years and years and years that both 'infatda' and 'from the river to the sea' are calls to genocide, they don't get much respect.

As for the apartheid claim, why would any country let non citizens vote in their elections or any of the other nonsense people are trying to claim like 'segregated' communities because apparently the concept of 'little' Italy, Havana, Saigon or any of the various districts like the Chinatowns where different groups have congregated to be their own community within a community aren't things that form organically or anything like that I guess.

[punklorde-hunter]

So 2.1, just like the previous patch SO much happened, and To no one's surprise, It blew everything we saw in 2.0 out of the water! And since i did something similar during 2.1, I'd thought it make sense to do the same for the next part. So without further ado!

Spoilers under the Cut!!!!

Of course the start of 2.1's story has to end right where we left off, in the room where we found Robin's dead body O_O. But i like the direction they go, where after we split off form Aventurine and meet with the Express, we get to see multiple POV's, kinda like how they did with Dan Heng on the Luofu but more complex. And man did it work wonders!

While I know there were people meming and a bit disappointed Duke Inferno never got to appear in game, I did like that Acheron at least remembers his last stand. Man stood by his principles and went out fighting (even if he' prob won't be playable)

I also like how they handled Acheron & Welt together. Like I said before never got to play Honkai Impact 3rd, but I did get to read a lot of the supplementary material like Second Impact, so it was nice to see that side of Welt from there. And that's while Acheron isn't his Mei it's nice they shared a kinship

What a fun Greek Myth ref to match the HI3 Ref

I got nothing to add to this the sand pit was hilarious as hell! The NPC walking into walls and clipping into floors made me lose it. The devs had way too much fun in that area lmao.

Siobhan give em one more chance 🥺

the straight Up Pikachu ref sdjaldsadkklds

The little detail of Aventurine's & Dr. Ratio's shoes was pretty cute, the lil' spades on Aventurine's sole and Ratio's sandals, it's nice!

Nice Unlimited Blade Works ref there Star Rail

This next parts more on the serious side, so I'll give a little heads up that rest of the post is prob about to touch on really dark topics like Enslavement, genocide, su1c1de, and not so nice things like that so be warned.

So,

Aventurine / Kakavasha's backstory....

there's so much I could say but they really did a excellent job fleshing out his character. From how he was "lucky" from birth but everyone he ever loved wasn't so lucky, how his reckless gambling with his life was there even as a kid, him feeling he's never been truly free only going from one master to another, mans got trauma and it's no wonder he thinks everything comes at a cost.

I haven't seen a lot of post about the part where Kakasvasha says his last goodbyes to his sister, right before the Narration explains that the small rebellion ended in the Avgin clan's extinction (it's vague if the Katacins survived, but considering how the story paints them, not many people are gonna miss them). over 6,000 deaths and over ,000 casualties, all on a planet that was barely survivable. And while his sister sends him off after one final prayer to Gaithra Triclops, it left him alone with no one, and we know how he ended up afterwards.

Not to mention the fact even when Aventurine killed his old master by STRANGLING HIM WITH CHAINS, he would've been arrested by the IPC had Jade not taken an interest in his bet. Man has been through it. No wonder he recklessly bets his life in gambles, it was either that or he dies.

Speaking of reckless gambling, the entire sequence after Sunday does his Harmony suggestion we get that oh so nice interactions with the young Aventurine and his shadow the true self other Aventurine that rags on him the rest of the way. The shadow Aventurine lays it in him that underneath that bravado is a man whose so scared to lose more and yet doesn't care if his own life gets taken in the process since all he has is that. Not even with all the money in the universe. Dr Ratio's "betrayal" was supposedly an act, but he still thinks on some level the doctor hates him and it was real, he has no one to confined in or anything.

But with the younger self it's different. The way his young self still has light in his eyes, how in the hallucination he's at the theme park with his family, who are dead. First he denies that there are any Avgins since they were all dead right? But then he shows a kinder side he would never show to anyone, much less himself. And it accumulates in the scene where he decides to live on a bit longer and says a final prayer to his past, to Kakavasha. I was choking up all through that final part.

I know the patch mostly focused on Aventurine, but even what we learned of Acheron is also sad. She's not really a Galaxy Ranger, because her status as an Emanator of Nihillty, a "Self-Annihilator," is tragic enough, means she'll forget precious memories, senses, untill there's nothing. So it's sticks out to me that Acheron is the one to give Aventurine the nudge to live on, she she also has lost so much but chooses to walk on in life. Plus Dr. Ratio's note to Aventurine was very Ratio, no-nonsense but also wants him to live on despite their differences. The Aventio fans are eating it up but it's still a nice gesture from Ratio.

Speaking of Sunday, I said I wanted him to get his revenge as a treat but I wasn't counting on him almost killing Aventurine with whatever Harmony power he put on him. Sure the man lost his sister to an unknown murderer, and the light cone memory of them of a simpler time is sad. There's still a few unanswered question about him and Robin's relationship, like if Robin's fondest memories of are the pretend concert between her and Sunday, why is ti as adults she only just got back to Penacony, and why the Harmony isn't in sync anymore that caused her voice to lose it's tune. Also Sundays controlling attitude and his raven bird watching in every scene he's in makes me think the once closed siblings may not be as close anymore

Also with the reveal of what "Gallagher's" role in the story is, the drink he made for my Trailblazer fits a bit TOO well. I don't completely believe he's working alone, but his association with the Something Unto Death meme has me excited for his role next patch. Let my chill bartender man be a bit shady as a treat. Truly the "most normal human in the game of werewolf" (Thanks Shaoji)

Also to no one's surprise, Sam & Firefly are one in the same. While I am interested on how the last Stellaron Hunter is gonna be like and what their deal is, it's a shame most people like em were spoiled by the twist since it makes Firefly and Sam SO much more interesting.

But overall 2.1 has been AMAZING in terms of characterization and with 2.2 being set to be the "climax" of Penacony's Story I can't wait to see what they do with the plot threads they have been cooking up.

[gemsofgreece]

Hello! When looking at the history of greek turkish relations I have recently come across turkish people pointing out violence that the greek army has committed againt turks. Specifically during the war of independence. Although I feel uneasy cause that information seems to always be coupled with a underestimation of the greek genocide and the ottoman occupation. From what I have seen from brief research, there were massacres against turks of the Peloponnese at least during the war of independence. So I guess my question is, do you think that it is wrong to celebrate march 25th, or to be so upset with the history of what the ottomans and/or turks have done to greek people if there were also massacres against turks (although maybe not as many)?

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I get uncomfortable and confused when i hear these things.

I hope that makes sense and if you answer this thank you so much in advance!

Hello! The Greek war of independence was a violent movement against an established conqueror reigning over the indigenous people. All wars are violent but the motives of the wars are in fact not created equal. There are wars, such as the defensive and independence wars, that are generally more justified than the conquests, the civil wars and most other types.

I remember the Greek history post series I made a few years ago - I started the Revolution post with a note saying something like “it is viewed as a time of glory for the Greek history but be warned that it was not a walk in the park”. It definitely wasn’t. You should take into consideration that it had little chance to be anything other than a violent revolt - it was the uprising of a small bunch of people, with no military training except for their few commanders who had been either missionaries or bandits, no resources, not much hope, against a vast empire. This was a war that mathematically could not happen with diplomacy or any sort of political or financial leverage as there was nothing Greeks could offer in return for their freedom that could ever tempt the Ottomans to agree. The Greek revolution which started from the Peloponnese, was in fact part of the trio of planned revolts, the other two in the Danubian Principalities and Constantinople. These two were suppressed by the Ottomans in time. Furthermore, a little known fact is that for all the 350 years - give or take - of Ottoman hegemony over the Greeks, a revolt sprang on average every three years in some place of Greece. Make the math for how many efforts these people did over the centuries. And these were all suppressed. So when the Peloponnesian revolt worked, almost against all odds, this was a development that took even the victors by storm and in the early months of the war, those masses of vengeful irregular rebels at times lost sense of right and wrong.

I am talking of course about the Sack of Tripolitsá, as I bet you mostly mean as well and as I know this to be the Turks’ favourite mantra. However, an important difference between Greek and Turkish wrongdoing I have observed is that Greeks do not gloss over or revise or deny the atrocities of Tripolitsá. Not only that, but what happened there was fast condemned by the Greek warriors themselves and was in fact sobering, as for the remaining years of the war Greeks were definitely more restrained in their dalliances with the enemy. What happened in Tripolitsá is known to have happened by the masses in the absence of the general commander (Dimitrios Ypsilantis), who rushed back when he heard of it, and the at least distancing from it even by some of the most fearsome warriors, such as Theodoros Kolokotronis. Kolokotronis, in his memoirs, seemed to be aware that the Greeks will storm into the city and kill non-Christian civilians, and made pacts to protect some Albanians, which he honoured. But he entered the city late and what he saw far exceeded what he expected to happen. He expressed reproach for the atrocities, which however he explained was actually somewhat mollified when they led him in front of a tree in the city square which was used specifically to hang Greeks.

When I entered Tripolitsa, they showed me a plane tree in the market-place where the Greeks had always been hanged. I sighed. "Alas!" I said, "how many of my own clan – of my own race – have been hanged there!" And I ordered it to be cut down. I felt some consolation then from the slaughter of the Turks. ... [Before the fall] we had formed a plan of proposing to the Turks that they should deliver Tripolitsa into our hands, and that we should, in that case, send persons into it to gather the spoils together, which were then to be apportioned and divided among the different districts for the benefit of the nation; but who would listen?

- from Kolokotronis’ memoirs

The death toll varies for Tripolitsá, somewhere between 8,000 - 15,000 gruesomely slain according to contemporary historians. Kolokotronis himself is open and real enough to number them at 30,000, but according to historians this was a miscalculation on his part. The point is that this gruesome bleak time in Greek history is not denied by me, you, Kolokotronis himself who was a symbol of this war, the Greeks, nobody. Nobody takes pride in it. And this is not the reason we celebrate the independence war.

Reasons to celebrate the independence war were clear, unspoiled and hard victories such as those of Dervenakia, Alamana, Gravia and numerous others and some reasons to commemorate the Greek revolution are, say, the Sortie of Missolonghi:

Or the essentially permanent destruction of Psará:

Or the massacre of Chios:

Or the treatment of Greek Cypriots:

Ever heard a Turk analyse these (and many more) and view them through an introspective critical light? Nope. Maybe there are but I haven’t seen any yet. The best most understanding thing I have heard is “the past is in the past”. And well this is 200 years stuff. What about 100 years stuff??? Like you said, Turkey officially denies the Greek, the Armenian and the Assyrian genocides, plus all the progroms against the Greeks which were happening till the freaking 50s.

*The Armenian genocide counts 1.5-2 million victims.

Should they justify themselves for how the Greeks - indigenous of Asia Minor and having majorities in the coasts even a hundred years ago - have ended up being 3,000 in all this massive country? They do. They give a range of answers from “no, Greeks weren’t indigenous here” to the fantastic “they deserved it”, I don’t know which one is better. For Constantinople alone:

My dear Anon, Greeks HAD to revolt against the Ottoman Empire. We do not know how history would unfold if the Greek revolution didn’t happen, the Ottoman Empire would most likely fall again, but since the Greek independence weakened it earlier than it otherwise would, and if the revolution hadn’t happened, a lot more Greeks would have ended up assimilated before the fall. And I believe we would be so very different. We all know that we all still face issues due to the feudal and corrupted system of the empire that has infiltrated Greek politics still. Imagine if all that stuff was a few decades fresh. No European Union. And of course no Northern Greece. Things would be sooo different at our expense, if things didn’t happen in the way they did back then. I am frankly weirded out by a few Greeks - usually young and of certain political views which have turned into their entire identity - (not talking about you and not at all against the political views, I am only criticising the lack of moderation) who are really trying to deconstruct and renounce the Greek revolution, with arguments such as that;

a) Greeks fought because they thought they would live better and be richer if they were independent, so they also did it for themselves and for the spoils and not just for the nation (yes and? You just described all humans on the planet who think that they can prosper better in their own sovereign state, so what exactly is your problem with that?????)

b) Greeks had a great time in the Ottoman Empire because the Rum Millet was governed by the Greek Patriarch and they were allowed to be Christian (yes which is why they attempted 100+ revolts to which Turks always retaliated with thousands of killings. Fun times indeed. It was also so great to have no education and sense of your heritage unless you were a rich merchant in Constantinople or became a tax collector taking taxes from Christians and giving them to Turks or converted to Islam and spoke Turkish and got a a Turkish name so ESSENTIALLY DEGREEKED YOURSELF, the very definition of freedom, quite right.)

Those types of Greeks, they frankly baffle me. History itself shows that Greeks overall wanted out of the empire. In fact, most if not all subject nations in the Balkans and the Arabic ones in Middle East and North Africa at several points revolted against the Ottoman Empire. Subjects wanted OUT of it. Even Muslims wanted out of it. Could they all be unfair to the nice empire? Just because a few ones had managed to prosper through diplomatic relations with the Ottoman officers or just because some didn’t want to partake in the wars because they obviously dreaded their failure and what it would cause to them (all very human, normal concerns) it doesn’t mean they had a great time in the empire. I am so weirded out by such arguments when they don’t come from Turks. And of course, if you have to change name, religion and language in order to prosper, then immediately the argument of freedom and equality falls apart on its own!!! “Greeks were privileged in the empire because they could prosper if they converted to Islam and spoke the Turkish language” So, Greeks were privileged if they stopped being Greeks. Nice. Are those people proof-reading the things they write? I wonder. Next thing, they will start apologizing for gaining independence.

In the end, the Greeks of the 19th century were products of the Ottoman society they lived in. They rebelled violently against an - ultimately - violent state. It would be hard to be accustomed to drinking tea in pretty china and killing enemies only with the sharpness of your words as a subject in the Ottoman Empire. That revolt was harsh indeed - and it was frankly what was needed to succeed. Unfortunate but true. Nobody - certainly not the Greeks - ever takes up arms cheerfully. We grieve for our wrongdoings in Tripolitsá, well at least I do, but heck no I don’t feel bad for the War of Independence, I feel proud of it and I feel like I ought to acknowledge the sacrifice of people, who were hardened humans far from perfect, few of whom could also have their own motives, but did have a hope for their descendants to be who they are now with their opinions on the Internet in their sovereign state in their geographically and historically indigenous lands. I found this insistence of certain young Greeks to strip those Greeks as a whole - from the biggest warriors to the unknown soldiers - from all sorts of noble ideals offensive and disgraceful. The Society of Friends were indeed inspired by their ideals. Even foreign Philhellenes were inspired by ideals enough to come here and fight! So why are these Greeks now dying to argue that all Greeks were ready to die along with their families for the chance of some spoils?! It doesn’t even make much sense! Some would be corrupt or desperate enough for that, and some would not. People are people and there are all sorts of them. It comes down to the fact though that the Greek revolution succeeded because people believed it was the right time, and the right mentality had been formed, and it spread from the three initial members of the Society of Friends (Xanthos, Tsakalof and Skoufas) to a great part of Europe. It was never a little thing and it was not an era fallen from grace. It was an important era with its undoubtedly bleak moments. As it happens with all important eras that change history, including the other two revolutions of the romantic period; the American and the French.

Meanwhile, the Turks happily celebrate annually the Sack of Constantinople inside Hagia Sophia. They have the sack as an annual anniversary. The SACKING. The Fall of Constantinople. Like, the CONQUEST. You understand? The invasion. Seizing the foreign city and celebrating this 600 years later inside the biggest landmark of the defeated inhabitants. Have you ever seen another nation celebrating such a thing in 2023?! Not a liberation, not an independence, A CONQUEST. 600 YEARS LATER. Beating up the corpse! STILL!

So, I personally am not confused at all. My heart aches for all those non-Christian women and children and peaceful civilians who were lost, maybe gruesomely, certainly unfairly. But it also aches for so many Christians who had the exact same fate without ever being the attacker first. Confused overall about the Greek revolution? Heck no! For all the evil Greeks have ever done, Turks have managed to outdo them in retaliation or in advance every time somehow. This is a feat in its own right, I guess. I can not be guilt trapped by anyone who speaks only of Greek war crimes in relation to their affairs with the Turks. I am laughing. Think about it, and perhaps you will start laughing too.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Submission:

https://x.com/D_abdulkader/status/1801999041510727784 The rest are Armenian & Kurdish

I was thinking about this, theitsa. One day, people will finally realize that to find out the truth about ethnic (also religious) conflicts of any magnitude, to find out who's the victim & who's the perpetrator, they'll need to stop assigning victimhood based on who's the minority and who's the majority, and definitely not assign it based on the groups' skin colour/looks or on idelogies, or based on the history of their own country/region. We need to ask "who's the native/s,  and who's the invader/colonialist/s." And to find that out, if we're clueless about the conflict, we need scientific method. Archeology, biology, serious *and not agenda driven* academia like history etc, we need to personally RESEARCH.

We need the context, we need the maps. What at first glance may look to you, well meaning westerner, to be a tiny "oppressed minority" in a nation with an "oppressive majority" (aka ethnic nation), might in fact be the leftover colonialists in a genocided native nation, and that minority's invader ancestors butchered/drove away/genocided/violently converted the natives to the point of almost extinction in the eastern half of their ancestral lands, while the natives managed to keep free & protect in two ethnic nations only the western part and a tiny part of the eastern, with huge sacrifices and efforts and blood spilled. (My edit: Here the genocided Westerners are the Greeks and the Eastern oppressors are the Turks)

And maybe, dear well meaning person, if you enlarge the map of that country to a regional map, you will see that that ethnic native nation is right next to the colony-state of its oppressors who genocided half its people, and is very small by comparison (who's the minority now huh), and the leftover colonialists are actually the foot the colonialist nation -which never denounced its imperialism- STIILL keeps inside the ethnic nation, which it uses so it can swallow the native nation, once again, in its empire & obliterate it for good this time.

You cant brush off these facts, just for ideology, or because in your part of the world, things happened differently. Also important: colonialists change names: usa/australia is still british colony, turkey/ajerbaijan is still ottoman turkish colony, and also they can adopt (read: genocide) the name of the natives, aka what arab imperialists did outside the Arabic peninsula aka their Only native lands. They call themselves Egyptians, Libyans, Lebanese etc. but Arabs arent the natives there, they're the colonialists, its insidious, and it fools many well meaning people.

ΥΓ. Ελπίζω να 'σαι καλύτερα θείτσα, αν κ δεν ξέρω με τέτοιες ζέστες, είπα να μην στείλω μήνυμα και 'χεις κι άλλο (μεγάλο!) να απαντήσεις αλλά με έπιασε οίστρος και εκφράστηκα πιο καθαρά απ οτι συνήθως οπότε είπα να το στείλω τλκ ^^

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I saw the anon who sent the link to the post by the burst person that said aang used katara and argued with the anon- but that person is a big example of the weird amount of racism towards tibetan culture in the zk fandom. And I sat this generally, I just mentioned them bc that anon reminded me, but the constant mocking of Aangs culture, from his bald head, to his food, to his beliefs and carefree attitude, is so weird. Because its based on a real culture. The tibetan are a REAL group of people who have been victim to real genocide and it is so weird that zk think it is okay to be blatantly racist towards them just bc they don't like one character.

That's what happens to people that treat shipping like activism. They think "I like this pairing" is the same as "This is being progressive, so not liking it is the same hating minorities" - and by consequences, the rival ship is "bigoted"... so it's totally okay to say actual bigoted stuff to make it look bad.

Plus, I'd say it also connects with the fact that most of the fandom is western - and american - and thus tend to ignore any message that doesn't fit the typical american tropes of dealing with the bad guys: Bombing the shit out of them or shooting everyone in a battle field.

Aang is the protagonist, so naturally he embodies the show's message of "Don't take ANY life. Not an animal, not of a good person, not even of a bad person. To truly end this conflict, the cicle of violence and death needs to be broken." But they are so used to seeing that kind of protagonist eventually "get" that the hollywood, epic battle with nearly everyone dying, is the only way to fix everything... that when it DOESN'T happen they think it's a mistake/wasted opportunity, instead of just a case of "This story has a different philosophy as it's core theme."

And let's not forget the constant "Tibetan Monks = Free Love Hippies." Hence them constantly having bullshit headcanons of "Oh, Aang could never settle down with anyone so he'd inevitably cheat on Katara/never marry her/force her to be in an open relationship." It just never registers to them that they can't just take a real, foreign culture and replace it with some american "equivalent." It's the same reason why so many people think Zeus and Hades are the Greek versions of the christian God and Satan.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of these people don't know ANYTHING about any eastern culture/religion besides just the most stereotypical stuff ever. If they were ever told that these religions have gods whose whole deal is "destruction and death" and they are NOT the bad guys, they'd think you're lying since they think these religions boil down to "Make love not war." If you asked them where Tibet, specifically, is , they likely wouldn't be able to point it out on a map.

Seriously, even ignoring the Zutara aspect, so much of the "criticism" towards Aang comes from people that just not understanding Avatar's message at all, and it pisses me off.

[misfitwashere]

Oligarchs' Island

A Sitcom Pitch in a Tragic Moment

Timothy Snyder

Nov 12, 2024

Oligarchy is an island.  Aristotle knew that oligarchs from various countries will have more in common with one another than they will with their own people.  This is all too true of Trump and the oligarchs he brings to power in America. 

The White House will become an island of international oligarchs.  It will be an island in the sense of distance and obscurity: we will have a hard time seeing what the billionaires are doing there.  But it is also an island in the sense of isolation: the oligarchs will be stuck there with one another.

So how to think about the island?  Well, these are serious matters, and the ancient Greeks have had their say.  So let us add some contours to the island from a gentler source, American pop culture.  Let us consider Oligarchs' Island on the basis of Gilligan's Island. 

A proviso first.  What is about to happen in our world is horrible.  It is no exaggeration to say that the plans of oligarchs put millions of lives at risk right away.  Yet no matter how dark the evil, there is always a corner for ridicule's little lantern.  

It is evil that Putin believes that he should destroy Ukraine because it never existed, but it is also idiotic.  It is evil that Musk wants to escape Earth and leave the rest of us behind, but it is also silly.  It is evil that Trump and Musk repeat genocidal Russian propaganda, but it also humiliating. 

The premise of Gilligan's Island, an American sitcom of the 1960s, was that seven people, out on a pleasure cruise, were shipwrecked and stranded by a storm on an unknown island.  Although they had different backgrounds and personalities, they had to cooperate to survive.  Their dream was to return home. 

Naturally, on Oligarchs' Island the premise of Gilligan's Island would have to be adjusted.  The castaways on Gilligan's Island were all American, whereas the powerful oligarchs are South African or Russian.  Rather than try to find ways to return home, the oligarchs seek a Muscovian promised land of endless wealth, impunity, and immortality.  Our oligarchs are stuck with one another, as were the good people of Gilligan's Island, but they cannot be expected to cooperate.  Oligarchies are unstable; members disappear.

Seven people were stranded on Gilligan's Island: to cite the lyrics of the theme song, these were "Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire, and his wife, the movie star, the professor and Mary Ann." 

It is not hard to find their Doppelgänger on Oligarchs' Island.

Gilligan is obviously Elon Musk, the South African Putinist oligarch.  On one episode of Gilligan's Island, Russians encounter Gilligan.  Their reaction: "he acts too stupid to be stupid" fits Musk perfectly.  Gilligan is the central protagonist, the one who did the most to get the others to the Island, and the one with the most frantic dreams about the future.  Like Gilligan, Musk bumbles with language and relationships and everything else, but has an undeniable centrality to the plot and to life on the island.  He will antagonize everyone, but the cannot go on without him.  Gilligan, of course, was a sympathetic figure; allowances must be made in Oligarch's Island for the fact that Musk is the single person doing the most to bring our species to extinction.

Gilligan

The Skipper is David Sachs, the South African Putinist venture capitalist.  On Gilligan's Island, the Skipper stands for order.  If anything gets out of line, the Skipper is there to help.  Sachs is, of all of our characters the most devoted proponent of the Russian dream.  He repeats Russian propaganda with a relentless exactitude.  Indeed, he seems to take great care never to communicate any view about Russia or Ukraine which has not previously been published by Russian state media.  If anyone on Oligarchs’ Island diverges from the Putinist line, they can expect humorless discipline from Sachs. 

The millionaire, Thurston Howell, is Peter Thiel, the American investor with New Zealand citizenship, born in Germany and raised in South Africa.  On the show, Howell has taken millions of dollars in cash with him on what was supposed to be an afternoon cruise.  Thiel has a similar notion of 'taking it with him' -- he will be wealthy forever because he will be immortal.  Just as Thurston Howell was disturbed by Gilligan's frantic activity, Thiel can be displeased with Musk.  Whereas Howell was at worst selfish, Thiel has philosophical ideas about the necessity of conflict.  Howell refuses to work; Thiel activates others to do destructive one another. 

The millionaire's wife, Lovey Howell, is JD Vance.  Lovey is a subordinate character to Thurston on Gilligan's Island, just as Vance is Thiel's client.  Thiel brought Vance to capitalist wealth and financed his run for the Senate.  Both Lovey and JD had fancy east-coast educations, and both dissimulate about their pasts.  Although both are wealthy and powerful, each sees prospects for becoming more so.  Both Lovey and JD are vain about appearance and correspondingly bold in their cosmetic choices.

The redheaded movie star, Ginger Grant, is Donald Trump.  Aside from the similarity in hue, these two characters share character and career.  Both are vain entertainers.  And to keep the shows going, both have to be trotted up in front of the camera.  Both are sensitive to the appearance that they might not matter that much to the overall plot.  Like Ginger, Trump knows some rich people, and name drops, but is not rich himself. On Oligarchs’ Island, this is a major vulnerability.

Ginger

The Professor is Vladimir Putin, Russian dictator and in all likelihood the world's wealthiest man.  Whenever the people stranded on Gilligan's Island have a problem, they turn to the Professor for some invention that will rescue them.  Ginger in particular seeks his guidance.  The Professor has a dark secret: he is not as competent as the others think.  Were he so, he would have repaired the boat that brought the castaways to the island.  Putin also has secrets.  He knows that, even as he imposes his will on the others, he is subordinate to China.  He knows that the war he started in Ukraine is not only an atrocity but a disaster.  He knows that the Russia of its own propaganda does not exist, that the oligarchs' dream is a nightmare.  He also knows that today's oligarchs are tomorrow's victims.

Mary Ann, the humble farm girl from Kansas, is Usha Vance.  Mary Ann is the forgotten character on Gilligan's Island, the one who is perhaps more than she seems.  She knows how to remain in the background, but in fact has skills that the men around her lack.  While maintaining an unassuming and unthreatening appearance, she develops plans and cultivates allies. 

This genre, the 1960s sitcom plot modified to fit a 2020s war-criminal-billionaire-fascist oligarchy might just have some analytical and predictive value.  Consider for example what happened last week as the pilot episode of Oligarch's Island.  If you were thinking about the war in Ukraine in terms of US interests or any other rational consideration, you would have a hard time processing Trump's farcical engagement.  But if you imagine it as the pilot episode of Oligarchs' Island, everything makes sense:

Ginger (Trump) has just won an election, thanks to her own charisma and the efforts of Gilligan (Musk) and the Professor (Putin).  Ginger had promised to profile herself by making peace between Russia and Ukraine right after the election, "within twenty-four hours."  Behind her back, the oligarchs laugh at this.  They allow her to push forward as the nominal heroine the story.  Ginger (Trump) wants to talk to the Professor (Putin) to get instructions personally, but he ignores her.  Instead, his state television back in Russia airs a series of naked photographs of Ginger.  While Ginger (Trump) makes a phone call to the Ukrainian president, zany Gilligan (Musk) grabs the phone and steals the show.  Looking on, the Skipper (Sachs) writes stern tweets about staying on Russian message.

All of that just happened, just about.  I only had to alter one detail.  Since in the Oligarchs' Island story Trump/Ginger is female, I had to conflate him with his real-world wife Melania, nude pictures of whom were in fact aired prominently on Russian state television in an obvious bid to humiliate Trump. 

I suspect that in the weeks, months, and years to come, thinking of an Oligarchs' Island sitcom episode will accurately predict what these people will do.  Consider what is happening right now as episode 1 of season 1:

Ginger (Trump) has the idea that she should make her own decisions about the members of her cabinet (cue recorded laughter).  Some Americans not involved in Russian networks such as Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley share the belief (cue recorded laughter) that they might join Ginger's cabinet (more cued laughter here, obvious misunderstanding of the Putinist logic of Oligarchs' Island).  Those two Americans maintain that Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, and so are predictably rejected by the Russian-South African oligarchy.  The Skipper (Sachs) is on the case with a stern tweet: Ginger's appointments must be pro-Russian.  Ginger follows with her own submissive tweet, discarding Pompeo and Haley.  Ginger hopes to at least get her instructions directly from the Professor (Putin).  Ginger claims that she was able to call the Professor (cue laughter).  The Professor denies the call took place (cue more laughter).  Ginger says she asked the Professor not to escalate in Ukraine.  The next day Ukraine suffered one of the biggest drone attacks of the war.  Then the Russians blew up another dam in Ukraine.

Those things happened.  The ridiculous and the criminal.

And events will will continue to develop along these lines.  Here are some suggested plot lines for seasons 1-3 (that's as long as Gilligan's Island lasted, and this group is unlikely to last longer).  These are not things that have not happened yet, but things that are likely to happen, within the plot logic of Oligarchs' Island.

The oligarchs conspire to get Ginger behind a "peace deal" for Ukraine that the Professor immediately breaks, to Ginger's humiliation.  Ginger wants the Professor's approval, the more so as the humiliations accumulate.  Ginger needs money, which everyone but her has, and has to perform for others to get it.  Ginger is jealous that Gilligan is at the center of attention.  The interests of Ginger and the billionaires diverge: she wants to be in the forefront forever, whereas they think that Lovey is a more durable client.  Ginger, in her vanity, does not fully understand the threat.  The mechanics of the coup are however too complicated for the oligarchs.  A rivalry emerges among the Millionaire, Gilligan and the Skipper as to who actually owns Lovey.  Mary Ann saves the day by coming through with an elegant plan for elevating Lovey, thus closing season three as a central figure.  Ginger vanishes.  Ironic closure, in possible spinoff episode: Ginger is actually sent to Rostov in the actual Russia.  Though miserable, Ginger does get her own show.

Matters can be absurd and terrifying at the same time. It is very possible that imagining Trump as Ginger among other Oligarchs' Island characters will have more predictive value than the familiar vocabulary.  We will be tempted to write about a Trump "administration" and will tend to normalize what is happening by treating it within familiar categories of elections and law and public opinion and so forth.  That can be helpful in thinking of the kind of system we want, but not so much in understanding the clique we have brought on ourselves and that will now try to rule, to both comic and tragic effect.  The familiar concepts cannot accommodate the central realities of where we are: of Musk talking to Trump about appointments on the patio, or Putin showing Trump's wife naked on tv.  On Oligarch's Island, this is just everyday life.

On Oligarchs' Island much of politics will be factional, like in the old Soviet politburo, with momentary alliances forming and breaking, and individuals purged.  If US foreign policy is to be anything other than a result of oligarchical preferences, this will have to be a result of the emergence of an "American faction" on Oligarchs' Island (not visible yet: one can imagine, hopefully, that Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz would represent American interests on Oligarchs’ Island, should they be allowed to visit). Trump would have to realize and want to change his current subordinate position, and bring someone else along with him.  Trump could easily overpower Putin on Ukraine, but to do so he would have to break the current logic and pecking order of the oligarchy, and think for himself rather than repeating the Russian-South African line. 

In other words, Ginger would have to break the spell of the Professor and assert herself against Gilligan and the Skipper.  Too much of a stretch for Ginger's character?  Quite likely.

Oligarchies are unstable.  They have flaws and weaknesses and can crumble quickly.  They have given way to democracies.  But we have to see them for what they are.  We need to see the oligarchs not only as selfish and unpatriotic but as ridiculous.  But the same things that make them ridiculous -- the utter self-absorption, the nattering cliques, the pointless struggle for unreal things -- make them lethal to the rest of us.  They have entertained their way to power, and it is a new kind of power: an international oligarchy inside the American capital.  If they can entertain their way to power, perhaps we can at least entertain ourselves toward clarity.  Comedy might help us to see the tragedy.  And we should think in other genres, too -- next time I will try a little mathematics.

if we want to anticipate what will happen in 2025, if will be more useful to think of oligarchs on an island, starting in apparent unity, dreaming an impossible Russian dream, wreaking bloody havoc, and then coming apart.

[redladypaige]

@shonpota asks what I learned in Israeli school

What I learned in Israeli school is..

WHAT I LEARNED IN ISRAELI SCHOOL IS

honestly you're going to be disappointed

tl;dr it's not explicitly hateful, it's much more about emphasizing certain facts and ignoring others to create a narrative and lie by omission.

I don't think it's very different than other western education, but you'll be the judge of that.

I'll try to explain if it makes sense.

First of all, I studied in public school almost a decade ago (jesus), so things might have changed.

So this is the least religious education you can get. More religious schools have been caught with more explicitly hateful material, but that I can't tell you first hand.

Arabic class

From seventh to ninth grade you have mandatory Arabic in school.

Since it's such a short time you really only learn the basics.

The class doesn't really count towards your diploma grade, so you just have to pass it, so most people don't really take it seriously.

There are optional advanced classes to take later on, which in my case were took by Arab Israelis, people with interest in languages and people who wanted to be translators in the IDF.

Civics class

Mostly dry stuff about the system of government, how democracy works, elections, rigjts, stuff like that.

There is big talk about equal rights, mostly mentioning that women had equal rights by law since the founding and that Arab Israelis are regular citizens with equal rights.

Gaza and the west bank weren't mentioned at all, at least when I learned. This is stuff you learn from the news or from your parents.

And of course nothing about systemic racism or anything like that.

You can say that the class shows the ideal clean version of the vision of democracy without actually diving down to what's happening.

Putting "politics in school" is a very controversial subject over here, which I found similar to what's going on with the critical race theory thing in the USA.

Right wingers are in power for a while (and it's getting worse), and for them anything that puts Israel in not a great like is political and should be removed, though it is sometimes used against them too.

It constantly changes and stuff gets added and removed.

Tanach class

It might surprise you that even in secular schools you learn the Tanach (the old testament for you Christians) from first to twelfth grade.

It might surprise you more that we learn it not as a religious text, but much more of an historical one.

It was one of my favorite classes because it actually felt like it encourages skepticism and analysis.

There is talk about how the Torah was probably written by different authors because of contradictions which is literally sacreligous

We talked about which stories are or aren't corroborated by history, how to know about the author by the perspective of the text, events written on from different points of view, etc.

History class

You learn history from first to twelfth grade.

It's very very western.

Starting from Greek to Rome to the middle ages, enlightenment, the French and american revolutions and world wars.

Colonialism is displayed as neutral I guess - just an event that happened. Remember that they don't want opinionated teachers.

We gloss over stuff like slavery and native American genocide when learning about the us, its mostly the revolution and stuff.

Sometimes history from a specific place rotates in, but the rest of the world is mostly reserved for the optional advanced classes.

Of course, there is a big emphasis to ties to Judaism throughout.

Within those periods you learn about what the Jews were up to, usually under the lens of how the current ruler abused them.

World war 2 and the Holocaust obviously is a huge chunk of the material.

You don't get to modern history until like the 10th grade.

And then it's mostly the narrative of the creation of Israel, again viewed neutrally.

It starts from the Dreyfus trial, which had a Jewish officer been accused for a crime he didn't commit.

That caused a reporter named Herzel to think Jews will always be persecuted and to start the Zionist movement with the idea to find a homeland for the Jewish people.

We learn about different proposals for where it could be, raising money, the first Alyot (people who came to Israel to live there).

The Alyot are presented as good things generally, saying that the lands were legally bought and that the people wanted to live side by side with the Palestinians.

Of course the reality is more complicated than that.

We get the Balfour statement, explaining how it's the first time Jews got international recognition for a country but also how it's really non committal.

We learn the efforts to get a country against the British, both the diplomatic and the terrorist actions the early Israeli organizations did.

We learn about the UN division plan, with saying that the Jewish people were happy to share but Palestinians won't come to the negotiations table.

We talk about the declaration of independence when the British left, and how we were immediately attacked by the casus belli of killing all jews by all surrounding countries and still won at the end.

The atrocities of the war aren't mentioned at all.

The Nacba is mentioned, with the word it self constantly getting in and out from the books every year, but it's mentioned subjectively.

As in, "the Palestinians see the events of this war, when Israel took territory in a defensive war and people had to leave their houses as a day of tragedy with the intention to one day return" or something like this.

We learn about immigration after the Holocaust and Mizrahis from Arab countries (like me),surprisingly not shying away from the racism.

The narrative is "there might have been racism then, but now we are all a melting pot of a single culture" or something.

It gets as far as the Six Day War and Yom Kippur war at 1973, anything beyond that is not covered in school.

The main narrative we see about Palestinians is that most of them do want peace and are happy to live side by side with the Israelis, but every time their radical leadership hated their own people, and won't take any compromise.

They want to kill all Israelis and take everything, and Israel is only defending itself.

You can say that's the most radical narrative we learn.

There is little exploration of why, the assumption is anti semetism.

Every war is presented as justified and as part for Israels quest for peace, while being the constant victim.

Inner Palestinian politics aren't discussed, we don't learn their history, their views etc.

That's it I guess?

Feel free to ask anything and I'll try to remember

[besidesitstoowarm]

Davies era recap?

sorry i've been procrastinating on this one so bad. i spent three weeks in costa rica thinking about jurassic park. tbh i don't know what to say about the specials or the era overall that i haven't said already

nine feels so beautiful post-time war, traumatized and snappish but also light and warm and kind. he was once a father and grandfather and now he is neither but he is still a doctor!! s1 feels so much richer after having seen "day of the doctor" tbh i know how we got here! it was hard, agonizing, impossible choices. yet he's still here, and he chooses love every time. a coward. he would rather doom the entire universe as long as it kills him too; he cannot survive another genocide. he can't see it happen again. if he can't prevent it, he just wants to not see it. i love nine so much

and then ten. ten is more built from nine than ANY other regeneration i can think of. ten is rose, he's bad wolf, he's nine. he's the echo of donna, of tentoo. ten is someone struggling to find his place between "where he's already been, as remembered by rose" and "where he is destined to go, via donna" like he is so dragged along by fate. mf is a full on greek tragedy, he does NOT know what is going on

that's what makes the specials such a wreck (good/bad). when he was with rose, they were a painful but understandable match. with martha, kinda middle ground. with donna, it was fate. after them? after tentoo, after the most important woman in all creation? he's adrift. he clings to randos, he tries to be the hero so hard. and he fails. he trips and cries and sobs like a huge loser, over and over again. i do love him (and tennant is fully failed by 2/4 specials) but he's unraveling! little baby duck imprinted on their mommy who is gone. what's left, after that? martyr/savior complex and dubiously gay shit, i guess

tennant is a marvel, i have to say this. eccleston too, in different ways. davies has such a wonderfully human touch with these characters, iirc moffat draws a lot from fairy tales while davies pulled a lot from modern social commentary. jack is... something, but it was a different time. ten/master is sooooooo much. this era ended more than a decade ago

all in all, davies era is beautiful, it's decadent. it's complete nonsense bullshit a good chunk of time, but i don't think that's a negative; doctor who is like star wars to me, where i truly genuinely believe it's at its best when it's kind of bad. i mean, late 60s is MY era of who. base under siege nonsense galore. farting aliens. doctor who should be bad, in order to be good. i mean this, genuinely. attack of the clones is great. you get it

i feel more comfortable leaning into this ending knowing what comes later; knowing that davies comes back, knowing that ten becomes fourteen eventually and cleans up his shit, knowing that donna gets a better, more complete ending. it's honestly hard to say what i would think about this era without knowing about the 60th; i do think "journey's end" is a nonsense bullshit episode that is nonetheless very fun to watch, however cruel an ending it is for donna. very grateful we got a redux. moffat is writing for this new davies era too i'm so excited i want to throw up

anyway! excited to re-enter the moffat era but davies had so much sway over the new tone of the show, so much feels so dated but there's no denying the impact his episodes had at the time. there were cat people. it was thematically consistent. god i love it all so much. quel domage!

[an-unraveling-unknown]

Heyy, friend!!

Do you have any character of yours you could/wanna talk about? :))

YOO FRIEND!! :D

Okay - not necessarily a character, but moreso a concept that I am tacking on to a few characters between two different projects for the time being. The term "Time is a flat circle" generally refers to the idea that, since time is infinite, everything will eventually repeat itself- a bit like the infinite monkey theorem, stating that if you stick a bunch of monkeys in a room and have them bang on a bunch of type writers for an infinite amount of time, its pretty much a given that they'll eventually write out the complete works of William Shakespeare.

To put it into perspective, "Time is a flat circle" can best be applied to literary or video-format media; something that is the same in all appearances, even when you read or watch it over and over, remaining the same even if your own perspective changes. Your life will repeat an infinite number of times, and everything that has happened will happen again, and has happened before. Think Ouroboros. (Not to be confused with linear infinity!! or, a timeline without a beginning or an end, no closed loop)

How it applies to characters is below the cut, cos' this may get lengthy again (sorry)

(For a better look at the concept by someone who did a much better job at executing it than I ever will, check out No Through Road! Its a fascinating few videos really, and Maverick Files also covered it in a way that clears some things up if you find yourself confused.)

First off, the thus far Untitled Project, otherwise known as "Local Ancient Android Confused That People Give a Shit [About Them.]" There are three embodiments of fear known to date:

Locke: Only technically an embodiment, artificially created by means of the fear they cary and how they present themselves. Locke, to put it simply, causes the fear - they are the catalyst.

Deimos: A "true embodiment," per se. I've said it a bunch of times, but Deimos is the fear - his title is quite literally "Embodiment of Human Fear," he has it down to a science at this point.

Phobos: Another "true embodiment," Phobos is best summed up as the reaction to the fear - much like his (current) namesake, the greek god Phobos. Fight, Flight, Freeze, Flop, Friend and etc. So lightly connecting all of this together, you have this trifecta of Messed Up Little Guys™, which, as I talked about above the cut, can fall into two categories that I know of in terms of the fear cycle:

now, I haven't *really* figured out which way I'm going with this, and the Ouroboros-shaped one admittedly doesn't make all that much sense, but Deimos and Locke talk about things like this all the time when they meet up, (It's a little hard not to when you're both millions of years old and concepts such as those are essentially timeless) and it will likely come up often enough once I get an actual narrative rolling. Not to mention Locke's whole schtick of being mainly based on the metamorphism of stories and folklore at they move through different times and societies with different ideals, but that's besides the point. Undertale AU - guess who has a undertale au <<< this dipshit /aff This one also goes into "Time is a flat circle", but moreso into the idea of this concept breaking down - in short, time travel happened. What if Ouroboros choked? Well, then the giant cosmic serpent would bite itself, and thats just bad news all around. Also, it's entirely W.D Gaster's fault.

Now, theres already a loop going on in Undertale for obvious reasons (both in the fact that the game mechanics are made a very real part of the world in reseting and in the fact that Toby Fox just couldn't get the game to delete itself after completion and henceforth there is really no truly happy ending to what we see- killed by Flowey? super incredibummer, reset. Genocide? that sucks, there are in fact consequences for your actions, reset. reach the surface? well, the only way to continue on past this is to reset, so you and the monsters stuck in the underground perpetually. death of the author in some funky way I guess) so what's the harm in adding one more? Also, nice parallels. Also, because throwing philosophical concepts at my work is fun.

[basingstokemercury]

Clash Of The Doctors: Doctor Who versus Deep Space Nine on determination, hope, and failure

DS9 is a very dark series. Most of the plot is about a massive war that devastates planets and cultures, the historical background is a civilisation dealing with the aftermath of occupation and genocide, and the characters endure all kinds of heartbreak, tragedy, and impossible decisions.

And yet, with all that, it's fundamentally an optimistic series.

Why do I say that?

Well.

Let's have a look at Julian Bashir, and at... the Tenth Doctor.

Two very different characters, but they do have a fair amount in common, and that's what I'm zooming in on here - how those common traits are treated in their respective universes.

Doctor Who - Condemned By Fate

10's story arc is very much a Greek tragedy.

Seeing countless forms of death and loss over and over again, he decides that something has to change. He can no longer be a passive bystander with the excuse that "this is how the universe works".

In The Waters Of Mars, he decides that he will save everyone, regardless of how things are "meant" to happen.

And it's a mistake. It's shown as the height of arrogance to abandon the rules because you consider them inhumane.

The Time Lord Victorious is wrong. Written, acted, and explicitly called out as an affront to the order of the world. He fails because there was never an option for him to succeed.

The world of modern DW seems to run on lines of fate/destiny, where the timeline will happen how it must and railing against fate only pulls you in deeper.

Now, let's contrast that with:

Deep Space Nine - It's Up To Us

Bashir shares a few notable personality traits with 10.

He's highly intelligent, and knows it. This confidence sometimes crosses into arrogance, and he does have a penchant for showing off.

And he always fights to save as much as he can, regardless of feasilibility.

He can't always save everyone, though. it's just not possible.

But his failures are treated much differently than 10's are.

Life Support and Hippocratic Oath are both made tragic by human(oid) actions. Winn and Bareil put political success before a man's life. O'Brien is unable to see the Jem'Hadar as anything but enemies, or to accept that Bashir has a right to make his own choices.

The Quickening is simply a case of coming up against a formidable adversary. He can't find a full cure for the disease because medical research just doesn't always work like that.

Never once, in any of these episodes, is it implied that he was wrong to try or doomed from the start.

The first two are about people using their freedom of choice in a way that ends up being harmful. As Bashir himself says in Hippocratic Oath:

O'Brien: I'm sorry I had to destroy your work. Bashir: You didn't have to, Chief. You had a choice. And you chose to disobey orders, override my judgment, and condemn those men to death.

The Reckoning and Tears Of The Prophets both have this theme as well: Prophecy/"fate" is only a guideline. It's up to people to make the right choice with the information they have, and often that means making the wrong one - but also that a better path is always possible, if those responsible choose to take it.

Even Past Tense, a very "Whovian" episode in which Sisko and Bashir have to let terrible events unfold so the timeline proceeds as normal, never condemns Bashir for caring or treats his compassion as misguided. There's no simple "it has to be this way" handwave, the episode revolves around how it should not have had to be that way and never should.

Deep Space Nine is fundamentally built on hope, and on the idea that everyone has the potential to do the right thing.

[pearwaldorf]

I don't disagree with any of this excellent Star Wars meta about the Jedi, but I have some things to add from a historical perspective, based on what I have played/watched.

The information asymmetry of the original and prequel trilogies has always been interesting to me. We don't really dig into how it must look to randos in the galaxy until the sequels.

The Jedi and to some extent the Resistance are just not things relevant to Rey and Finn's day to day lives, until they are. It's like finding out the Greek gods or King Arthur are in fact real and still wandering around the galaxy. Or the difference between Jesus Christ and Yeshua ben Yosef: one is a semi-mythological figure who we "know" through centuries of being told things about him, and another is a supposed prophet who happened to have some influential followers.

I want to step back a little and give some in-universe historical context about the Jedi. They're an extremely ancient organization, going back beyond the Old Republic. So are the Sith*.

The Knights of the Old Republic games are probably the most nuanced explorations of what it means to be a Force user, and how that is influenced by being a Jedi or Sith, or perhaps neither**. The thing that struck me is how similar the issues the Jedi face in KOTOR or the prequels: old farts who don't understand the need to adapt and thus risk the destruction of their organization, or arrogantly assume their religious authority successfully translates to the military and political.

(It's a little more understandable during KOTOR, where they are legit at war with the Sith, and Revan defects from the Jedi. But anyways.)

There was absolutely no reason for the Jedi to get involved in a military capacity in the prequels, even if it was a Jedi Master who had a vision about an upcoming war that would need a truly staggering amount of soldiers (which is why the clones exist***).

I do not think it is possible to discuss the Jedi without also acknowledging the things they did as part of the political apparatus of the Old Republic, on a macro and micro level. (A More Civilized Age talks about this a lot.)

To be clear, they were also victims of religious (and because of the Empire's xenophobic views, racial) genocide, and that is awful. Nobody deserves that. But I think it is deeply simplistic to just be like "The Jedi did nothing wrong/they were trying their best."

--

* I have always found it curious that everything we know about the Force is filtered through the extremely divergent perspectives of these two organizations.

** God I wish we'd gotten some actual gray Jedi content in the sequel trilogy.

*** No I still have not watched all of Clone Wars. I really need to. (Droid rights and clone rights are things I haven't really seen anybody tackle in-universe. Please tell me if I'm mistaken.)

[idcanyhtjng]

Ooooh I think I get the statement there is “no such thing as white culture now”

Because the concept of white and black are social construct used to maintain systems of power.

(Although it was established under different terms by slave traders in the Arab world to distinguish between white slaves which were treated better and could be held at ransom from black slaves who couldn’t and were made to do hard labour. This went on to inform certain views that white people were superior.)

However it is enslavement of other races by white people which still affects our modern systemic issues and social views.

However ethnicity is real and their are many different white ethnic groups. The concept of white is what unifies them.

England is a great mix of ethnic identity’s historically so it doesn’t have one distinct culture. However it has strong regional identity in places.

A part of “white culture” is overshadowing other cultures. It’s a unifying factor for Colonisation. A little closer to home thats what happened to ethnic groups in Scotland, Wales and Ireland where other languages and traditions were present before english intervention. (With collaboration from the aristocracies of those other nations too. Also in relation to worldwide colonisation too however aristocracy might not be the right term. Social classes that benefitted from it would be better.)

You could still pull on all these ethnicities cultures historically and establish something not racist. For example Anglo Saxon folklore as recorded in the Canterbury tales. Halloween comes from Samhain which is a Celtic tradition.

Furthermore you can’t even refer to our laws and government as evidence of white culture. Because they are relevant to Christianity because it never began as a white religion and still isn’t, being present in Africa and the Middle East long before most places in Europe. And forms of democracy by the ancient Greeks. (Is universal suffrage “white culture?”) I’m not sure but it’s something that could be raised and emerged out of historical particularities in Europe. Universal sufferage however is not the definition of democracy

So “white culture” is colonisation, ego-centric and violent. But it is also a social construct

I was thinking about this because I was watching some lady debate people about the existence of white culture on TikTok live, although most of what I mentioned above isn’t new to me but the whole thing about white people not having culture makes more sense. My god that’s so sad I was watching a debate on TikTok live. It was interesting for some time but some lass came on and starting talking about Irish history and the host was so rude and disrespectful and was like “I’m a black woman in Canada what could you tell me that I don’t already live.” Like come off it lass she’s talking about a historical example of genocide here it’s not about you or white people. Then again both of those things were clearly the centre of the debate. Your platform your space. Sucks to not want to learn something but tbh it makes sense to feel that way based on that point of white culture being a culture that overshadows other cultures.

Whatever, basically sociology is important.

Marx’s philosophy was able to explain how historical developments were important to sociology.

History in of itself is not culture.

Cultures develop out of unique historical particularities.

[lightdancer1]

I think it a point worth restating:

The first Muslim claim to Jerusalem is the same claim that the Greek civilization in a Christian form it deposed had. The Yarmuk and Gaugamela have equal legitimacy, if Muslims are the indigenous culture of the region then they supplanted an indigenous culture. If the Greeks they displaced are imperialist colonizers then a religion imposed by soldiers is innately colonialist because it replaced a Christian and Zoroastrian Aramaic and Farsi speaking world with an Arabic Islamic one. Nobody 'voluntarily' adopts a new language, it is always forced by means more or less overtly imperialist, whether or not people have the historical awareness enough to realize this is what happened.

The claim deposed by General Allenby in 1918 at Megiddo was won by the same means by the armies of the Ottoman Sultan, who went against the heirs of Sultan Baibars, eraser of the Crusader states. At the time the three sub-provinces of what would later be termed Palestine were eastern Mamluk zones. As a result of this battle, where the heroic legions of Baibar's successors were butchered by cannons much like they would be again by Napoleon, showing the signal inability of Mamluks to accept the implications of why they were semi-loyal servants of the Ottomans in the first place, the region later merged into Mandatory Palestine became Ottoman territory for 402 years.

And so the question. If winning a battle made Abdulhamid II and the genocidal murder-gang called the Committee of Union and Progress the rightful masters of Jerusalem, why does this only apply to the empire whose conquest unraveled in another conquest and when is the statue of limitations on conquest met?

This is one of the reasons why trying to apply a logic suited to understanding the history of the Americas breaks down very hard in the region where empire begins at the dawn of humankind's experiments in civilization in the hubristic and grandiloquent boasts of the lords of Sumer and Agade of being 'lords of the four corners and all the world.'

Either empires and the identities they spawn as their bastard offspring or legitimate or there's never been any coherent ethnocultural identities in the region, only a sequence of fallen empires and rising and falling religions loosely superimposed into a historical narrative. To grapple with this is to grapple in turn with one of the simplest realities of history. Not every culture comes close to sharing the same narratives or experiences, and projecting the ideal self-image of one culture onto the vastly different experiences when Selim the Grim is a founding father of a 400-year world which was much younger than Ottoman rule of the Balkans, as compared to a world started by James Polk's blundering horde ripping apart the semi-functional and badly wounded Mexico of the Age of Santa Anna.

Some principles, if held to be universal, render entire elements of histories and cultures incoherent and impossible to describe unless one is willing to admit that the history of the Middle East is not that of Europe, or China, or India, or Central Asia, or the Americas, or the Australian continent and that different regions should be treated respectfully, and differently, with awareness the underlying faultlines are also distinct.