#protect flotilla

[ey3bags]

[ohello0]

Nelson Mandela’s grandson is on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza and israel is still openly planning on raiding it?????

[sayruq]

On Thursday afternoon, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition was contacted by the Guinea Bissau International Ships Registry (GBISR), requesting an inspection of our lead ship – Akdenez. This was a highly unusual request as our ship had already passed all required inspections; nevertheless, we agreed. The inspector arrived on Thursday evening. On Friday afternoon, before the inspection was completed, the GBISR, in a blatantly political move, informed the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that it had withdrawn the Guinea Bissau flag from two of the Freedom Flotilla’s ships, one of which is our cargo ship, already loaded with over 5000 tons of life-saving aid for the Palestinians of Gaza.

In its communication informing us of this cancelation, the GBISR made specific reference to our planned mission to Gaza. It also made several extraordinary requests for information, including confirmation of the ships’ destination, any potential additional port calls, and the discharge port for humanitarian aid and estimated arrival dates and times. It further demanded a formal letter explicitly approving the transportation of humanitarian aid and a complete manifest of the cargo. Again, this is a highly unusual move from a flagging authority. Normally, national flagging authorities concern themselves only with safety and related standards on vessels bearing their flag, and are not concerned with the destination, route, cargo manifests or the nature of a specific voyage. Just like when you register your car, the authorities don’t require you to detail to them every place you are going to go with the car. Sadly, Guinea-Bissau has allowed itself to become complicit in Israel’s deliberate starvation, illegal siege and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Israel is showing the world the extent to which it will go to deny Palestinians the aid they need to stay alive, in direct contravention of International Humanitarian Law, UN Security Council resolutions, and two orders of the International Court of Justice. Israel is only allowed to get away with this because we have an international order where law does not apply equally, where people are not valued the same, and where might equals right. The US has hijacked international law and is violating its own laws to protect Israel at every turn. A recently-leaked USAID memo states that “famine in Gaza is inevitable,” and that “changes could reduce but not stop widespread civilian deaths.” It also states that the government of Israel does not currently demonstrate necessary compliance with U.S. law required to receive U.S. military aid. Nevertheless, last week, the U.S. Congress passed and Biden signed a $26 billion aid package for Israel. It is this kind of naked impunity, over decades, that has brought us to this point where Israel can carry out a genocide, that includes a public declaration by Israel’s leaders that it is going to deliberately starve children, and not only face no consequences, but also involve a majority of world governments in its crimes. While our governments claim to care about Palestinian lives, they are complying, and indeed enforcing a situation where a state that has been found to be plausibly committing a genocide, is allowed to control what, if any life-saving aid gets to the people trying to stay alive.Yesterday, the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food, on the Right to Housing, and on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, issued a statement stating that civil society initiatives like the Freedom Flotilla are important precisely because governments are not complying with their obligations under international law and many of these governments are even complicit in Israel’s siege and genocide. The statement affirmed that ours was a legitimate challenge to Israel’s control over the delivery of aid to Gaza and it demanded safe passage for our flotilla. However, without a flag, we cannot sail. But, this is not the end. Israel cannot and will not crush our resolve to break its illegal siege and reach the people of Gaza. The people of Gaza and all of Palestine remain steadfast under the most horrific, unimaginable conditions. We take strength from their incredible, inexplicable ability to maintain their humanity, dignity and hope when the world has given them no reason to do so.It is our responsibility to keep that hope alive. WE WILL SAIL.

[eretzyisrael]

by Phyllis Chesler

How could so much rabid and vulgar Jew-hatred suddenly erupt everywhere? Did someone flick a switch that unleashed millions of haters programmed to disrupt public meetings, graduation ceremonies, legislative sessions, and singing and athletic contests? To block streets, schools and bridges? To smash windows, deface synagogues and kosher or Israeli restaurants, and publish false narratives about Israel and the Palestinians all over the world?

I’ve been asking myself this question ever since Oct. 7. Today, I may have something of an answer.

This worldwide non-stop attack on the world’s Jews did not happen when the U.N. passed its infamous resolution equating Zionism with racism in the 1970s. It did not occur after Palestinian terrorists bombed synagogues, hijacked planes and murdered Israeli athletes at the Olympics. Nor when Arab countries launched attack after attack on Israel, subjecting it to countless wars.

It did not even happen when Palestinian terrorists blew up Israeli civilians on buses and stabbed, car-rammed and shot Israeli civilians to death on Israeli streets. Nor did it happen after Iranian proxies launched rockets at the Jewish state, sent flotillas of armed assassins in the name of “peace” and declared their intention to exterminate the Jews once and for all.

Despite incredible losses, Israel rose triumphantly each time.

Here’s what’s different now:

First, back then, the well-funded and well-organized media and university assault on Israel had not yet indoctrinated three or four generations of Westerners.

Second, on Oct. 7, perhaps for the first time, Israel looked genuinely vulnerable. This rendered both Israelis and Jews everywhere fair game.

It’s as simple as that.

Once the terrible sight of Israeli blood, of charred and/or raped Israeli corpses, was broadcast the world over, the haters knew it was possible to chase the Jews down, to try to destroy us yet again. Who would protect us? The IDF was under the most profound siege on Israel’s northern and southern borders and in its historical heartland in Judea and Samaria.

Diaspora Jewry was seen as safe because Israel was militarily, economically, culturally, scientifically and technologically strong. Israel led the world in counterterrorism and was the only country in the Middle East that protects all religions, not just Judaism.

Israel’s strength meant that left-wing Diaspora Jews who loudly criticized Israel’s every imperfection and failure, and right-wing Diaspora Jews who kept supporting Israel no matter what, were safe because Israel existed. Israelis who excel at dissenting politics and are geniuses at criticizing their government were also kept relatively safe because Israel was and was seen as strong. Without this, we would all be subject to the historically endless pogroms and persecutions that have characterized Jewish existence in both the Muslim and the Christian world.

Things have changed. Israel looks vulnerable and the Jew-haters have been emboldened as a result.

So, if Diaspora Jews and our Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim friends the world over want to help both the Jews and the West to defeat barbarism, they must strengthen the IDF in every way. These precious young men and women are on the front line fighting for civilization. However imperfect Israeli and American leaders and political systems may be, they are far better than those of Iran, China, Russia, Turkey, Afghanistan and North Korea.

Now is the time to act. I am urging you, imploring you, to do so.

Send money to the IDF and Israel’s ambulance and medical services. Volunteer as physicians and physical therapists, nurses, harvesters, fruit pickers and compassionate caregivers. Stand with pro-Israel demonstrators. Attend your local city council meetings, write articles for and letters to newspapers. Sue schools for harassing and chasing Jewish students away. Work to end the poisoned curriculum that has turned students into Jew-hating zombies.

This work may take decades to complete. Begin it today. And whatever you choose to do, never stop.

The fate of the world is in your hands

[secular-jew]

“One of the most complicated hostage rescue missions in history.”

The rescue operation was named "Summer Seeds" (renamed "Operation Arnon", in honor of the fallen commander of the rescue mission: Arnon Zmora) and one of the most complex ever undertaken in history, even more so than the raid on Entebbe. Movies will be made about this successful humanitarian mission. Courses on military strategy will center around the brilliance of the mission's execution and outcome.

For starters, the hostages were held in a heavily civilian populated area, in 3 & 4 story buildings.

The IDF focused its rescue on the 2 apartments where the hostages were held: Noa, on the 1st floor of building 1; Andrey, Shlomi, & Almogon on the 3rd floor of building 2. The two buildings were roughly 300 meters apart.

Hamas and their Gazan civilian accomplices constantly moved the hostages from apartment to apartment, and the IDF had to be careful that if they went in one apartment at a time, the terrorists would simply move the hostages from one place to the next.

The challenge was to storm the apartments in such a way that the terrorists would NOT shoot the hostages first.

Israel's counter-terrorism unit, called "Yamam", practiced for weeks, in and around similar structures, and even built models from scratch. Adding to the complexity was that the apartments were protected by dozens of terrorists armed with RPGs and machine guns, requiring the IFF to run a dangerous gauntlet of fire in the streets and alleys surrounding the buildings.

Many Gazan civilians were killed during the dense fire exchange, and a large % of the dead hit by Hamas themselves.

According to an IDF spokesperson: "The difference between success and failure in such an operation is a hair's breadth, and we relied on exceptional technology from the Intelligence and Shin Bet. Without ground activity and maneuvering in the Gazan area, it would not have been possible to succeed."

The one on the Israeli casualty was Commander Zamora, who was a true hero. "Shin Bet and Intelligence Directorate fighters entered the lion's den in the refugee camp and dismantled houses in areas where we hadn't maneuvered," they said. "This is bravery on the level of Judah Maccabee. The operation was planned for weeks with drills, rescue plans, and fires executed, alongside scenarios of cases and responses."

The forces equipped with special weapons developed specifically for the rescue operation, targeted two houses, extracted the hostages, and withdrew while fighting dozens of terrorists. One of the IDF vehicles holding the 3 hostages came under extreme fire and was stuck. Immediately, Division 98 forces rescued the vehicle rescue in deep battle, supported by helicopter gunships, deep in the strip during broad daylight.

Three brigades participated in the battle (during which mortally injured Zamora was evacuated to the hospital): Brigade 7, Paratroopers, and Kfir with Flotilla 13, along with various special forces.

"The fire plan that was executed was focused but extremely powerful," the IDF added. "The cooperation with Shin Bet and Yamam rose to several levels into a single operational system, under the direction of the Shin Bet chief and the Chief of Staff. Four keys to the operation: deception, surprise, determination, and power."

The element of surprises was paramount in the success of operating Summer Seeds. Leading up to the launch on June 8th, intense secrecy was maintained. No battle plans were leaked to the New York Times. Thousands of soldiers involved in the operation were unaware of the ultimate goal. Only a handful of were exposed on the day of the battle, yesterday, at various levels. These forces were positioned at the correct launch points without revealing any of the key specifics.

https://youtu.be/WrGS2q9f5xA?si=MUq462aVALpkEqgS

[storyofmychoices]

Whispers in the Fog

[Mal Volari x Daenarya Blades 1 + Beyond] [Mal’s Orphanage]

[Mal Volari x Daenarya Blades 2 AU]

Pairings: Mal Volari x Daenarya (F!OC)

Book: Blades of Light and Shadow, Chapter 5

Word Count: < 700

Rating/Warnings: General (I know, it's shocking!)

Synopsis: Daenarya and Mal both reflect on the journey so far and share a moment too.

The tranquil sea, bathed in a muted blue glow from the first light of dawn, seemed to birth a blanket of ghostly mist around The Wraith. Her fingers danced through the thick fog. Its tendrils tangled with her movement as if it were alive. A smile crept across her lips, mesmerized by the earthly wonder.

Of course, she had experienced fog in Riverbend, but not like this. Nothing like this. Not on a pirate ship on the way to Flotilla. Not on the open sea, with no land in sight. Not on the morning of a grand realm-saving adventure.

No, foggy mornings in Riverbend were calm and simple.

Not that this wasn't calm... at least for now.

Foggy mornings had been a kind of magic growing up.

Her hand drifted through the fog before her now; the ethereal atmosphere could definitely count as magical.

In Riverbend, the fog washed the forest and lands around them in an otherworldly mist. Beautiful and peaceful.

Maybe...this wasn't all that different after all.

Her thoughts drifted to Kade and the adventures they shared, pretending to be legendary adventurers. She could still hear his laugh as he narrated their greatest quests.

"I'm coming, Kade," she whispered, letting the ocean breeze carry her promise through the fog and across the sea. "Just hold on a little longer."

Her smile faltered.

Still, Kade was gone and that was different.

He remained in the shadows, his back pressed against the outer wall of the cabin, his arms folded in front of him. He couldn't get over her. She found beauty in the dark world he knew. A world filled with corruption and people only out for themselves. But not her. She brought light—and not that pretentious religious type—just her light. Her joy. Her hope. Her belief that things can get better. She had suffered but her pain hadn't hardened her.

He shook his head slightly to the sides, watching her mesmerized by something as simple as fog. Only her.

His boots padded quietly across the deck, taking care to make little noise. He moved beside her. A mischievous smile spread on his lips. "Keep whispering affectionately to the sea, and I might get jealous."

Her head pulled quickly toward the sound of his voice. "How long have you been here?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He shrugged mysteriously.

"Mal!" Her gaze narrowed on him.

"Well, here's the thing, Kit. Here is a relative term. Here beside you? Here on the ship? Here on the sea? Here in the realm? ... It's a complicated idea. One can't truly say."

"You're impossible." She rolled her eyes while stifling a chuckle threatening to slip from her lips.

"Impossibly handsome, I hope." He winked and leaned back against the ship's side as it creaked and swayed with the sea.

"Impossibly modest, too," Daenarya quipped, closing the gap between them.

"Modesty is my secret weapon—keeps people guessing." His brow arched playfully. He licked his lips, as his gaze drifted down to hers.

Despite his facade, she saw more to him than his bravado. It was his way of protecting himself. She didn't know what his past held, but she recognized the pain hidden in his eyes when he thought no one was looking.

She couldn’t help but smile. Beneath his charming front, there was someone more he was not ready to admit to just yet, but she was patient and he was worth it.

"Well, if modesty's your weapon," she paused, her fingers capturing a loose lock of his hair the breeze pulled in front of his face. Carefully, she tucked it back behind his ear, letting her fingers linger on his cheek. Her face inched closer to his, savoring the warmth of his breath in the cool morning air. She continued, her words a quiet whisper in the foggy landscape. "—I suppose I'll have to be careful not to fall for your roguish charms."

Before he could reply, she turned away, her hair whipping behind her, brushing across his face. She couldn't suppress the smile filling her face, knowing this whispered promise wasn't one she could keep.

Thank you for reading. This is not edited, I really just want to focus on getting ideas out and not judging myself.

Thank you @rjorpossum for the prompt request of "foggy mornings" from this list.

I was surprised with how quickly I was able to but this together! I am very grateful for the request and the bit of inspiration to write this little moment in their early relationship!

This is also part of my Stolen Moment Drabble Series

[sol-consort]

Saw your Turian Roommate answer and thought of rooming with other races and...

Quarian dormmate whose awkward and shy around you. Their dorm is its own ecosystem, which you certainly can't enter, which is a relief because then you'd find their extensive "research" on humans. You know, just normal things like studies on how supposedly things like human kissing was created as a way to help the immune system of the community and further more, if that can be applied to Quarians, or research on human customs and culture, courting and dating heavily bookmarked. Naturally, there's and entire desktop setup for research on human mating, including human and other species. Yeah, best you leave them to their research.

Or how there seems to be no privacy with a quarian in the shared living quarters when they are out of their bubble-room. They always seem to be barging in on you at the worst time or right up in your personal space, you brush it off, at first. Growing up on the flotilla where only a curtain separates some families would probably mean they would have no concept of knocking, right? Until you notice that they don't seem to be like this with everyone else in the barracks.

Or something, I thought I was going somewhere with this but ahhh...💦

I adore this concept, you've written it amazingly omfg thanks for sharing with the class

He keeps messaging you in the middle of the night about everything there is under the sun, just to keep talking to you.

Dialling you up just as you retire to your room, dragging out the conversation while you get ready for bed. It's like the sound of your voice alone is invigorating to him, bare and clear without a helmet...it sounds rather intimate. His own voice sounds much clearer, too. He must have taken off his protective suit while in his room.

Allows him the illusion to imagine you laying there next him on the bed as you fall asleep on the voice call, the sound of your soft breathing slowing down. He can't help but wrap his arms tighter around the pillow he's been hugging, attempting to delude his brain into thinking it's a human body instead, that it's your body pressed against his own naked form in the middle of the bed.

Then there are the amount of times he keeps catching by surprise, casually barging into your room, not understanding why you got squirmy about it, why is the blanket covering your lower half? Aren't you hot under there? The building should be temperature controlled...and why is your face reddish, oh no do you have a fever!

Somehow, you always manage to bump into him when you're fresh out of the shower, having to tiptoe the hallway as waterdroplets follow in your steps. Colliding with a metalic suit as you turn a corner—god, how are quarians so quiet and sneaky?—towel threatening to fall, how he doesn't hesitate to reaxh out and hold it in place, before it could unravel. You feel the leather grip of his glove padding against your skin, hear the tremble in his voice through the helmet distortion as he tells you to be careful so you won't catch a cold.

You keep noticing a reoccurring theme in his favourite media. Whenever it's his turn in movie nights, he picks a human/qaurian romance film. He's listening to more human music, asking for your recommendations. The amount of extranet traffic coming from his room is massive thanks to all the guide books and human educational research papers he keeps browsing.

One day, he blurts out the idea of maybe...syncing his environmental suit to your biology? Exposure to your bacteria in small quantities.

Plus...he heard you already helped the turian with desensitisation against human bacteria with make-out sessions, so maybe you do it for him too? A small kiss every now and then should do.

Until his body can handle more, of course.

[mamawasatesttube]

ooo prompt time!! maybe “if we’re going down, i’m going with you.” or “if you insult them, you insult me.” with timkon?

"This doesn't look great," Kon observes.

Tim lowers his binoculars. The flotilla of invading spacecraft in the valley below are primed to attack the alien village on the other side of the hills within the hour, and help from offworld won't get here until dawn. Which is significantly more than an hour away. The village hardly has anything to call "defenses", and no troops to speak of other than farmers and their kids, untrained and armed with pitchforks.

"Yeah, not great," Tim agrees. It's a pretty apt summary of the situation. Fucking Slag conquerors. "I get the feeling they aren't gonna be interested in baseball this time, either."

Kon snorts. But the levity in his face is belied by the tension running through his body; his shoulders are tight, his jaw squared as he stares down the gentle slope from their hidden observation deck down to the ships. He looks remarkably like Clark when he's serious, when his eyes turn stormy and protective.

Then he turns his gaze to Tim, and an invisible touch ghosts over Tim's lower lip. Tim belatedly realizes he's been biting it so hard he's very close to drawing blood.

"Don't do that," Kon murmurs. The stormy look hasn't diminished, but it's warmer, when he looks at Tim.

"Right." Tim is hard-pressed, just for the most fleeting of moments, not to reach for him; he yearns, for an instant, but he doesn't, because there's work to be done. Like the alien death trap at the bottom of the hill. "Well. I might be able to disrupt their local lcommunications array, if I can just get my hands on one of their computers. That might buy us some time."

Kon nods. "And I can definitely wreck some shit to distract them while you do that."

A brief pause, as they survey the Slag ships. They've got heavy enough artillery that even with Kon's formidable powers, the odds are looking very... not great. A little flutter of anxiety thrums through Tim's stomach, not at the idea of dying here himself (though he doesn't love that either), but at the idea of losing Kon. If he takes it on himself to go out in a blaze of glory and hellfire, just to save one little farming village on a planet far from their own...

As if reading his mind, Kon clears his throat. "Look, Rob... I can just go in and break a lot of shit solo. That'll still probably buy enough time. You don't have to go in on such a risky one with me. I can drop you back at—"

Tim whaps him on the head. "Stop that. You know I'm not hiding and letting you go in alone."

Kon shrugs, a slight, rueful smile playing about his lips. "Hey, worth a shot. Since we're about to get shot at. A lot."

Rolling his eyes, Tim folds his binoculars and clips them back to his belt, then reaches over and takes Kon's hand. "Yeah, well, if you're going down, I'm going with you."

This time, Kon snorts. "And sugar, we're goin' down swingin'," he sings, squeezing Tim's hand.

Tim surprises himself by laughing. Honestly, it shouldn't be a surprise; Kon always makes him laugh, even when he least expects it. "I'll be your number one with a bullet," he sings back. "A loaded god complex, cock it and pull it."

As one, they turn to look back down at the flotilla below. The Slag ships sit ominously on the dark valley floor, a blot of light where none should be.

They better survive this, Tim thinks. It'd be really stupid to die now to a squadron of the same alien conquerors who they beat at baseball years ago.

"You know, I always thought that line was 'a load of god complex'," Kon admits, stroking his chin with his free hand. "Like, the whole thing was a dick joke and a gun thing, and also saying, like, hey, get a load of this guy and his god complex!"

Tim snorts again, unable to stop himself from grinning despite the gravity of it all. "Only you, Kon."

"Fall Out Boy is unintelligible!" Kon defends. His thumb strokes along the base of Tim's, rubbing a circle through his gauntlet, and Tim glances up at him briefly to see him smiling again, though the set of his jaw is no less resolute.

Tim loves him.

"You ready for this, clone boy?" he asks.

"With you at my back?" Kon returns. "Always."

[deepspaceboytoy]

The Suit

They don’t really tell you just how hot it gets under the armor. That’s what you notice first, the buildup, the whine of the fans, whir of the cooling systems. You tell yourself, before your first drop, that it’ll be the gunfire that gets to you, the booming of naval artillery and the guns of Imperial armor. But it’s the sound of your suit trying to stop you from dying from the heat that stays with you. Reminds you just how human you are. Surrounded by three thousand years of technological advancements, you can still get fucking heatstroke.  

-First Decanus Aksinya Ramirez, 1st Cohort 127 Legio “Ironmongers”, 12th Fleet, on deployment to Operation Sector Ramesses, Eastern Fringes, Provinci Nomitius, January 7th, 2732 

First drop worst drop, that’s what people tell you. Combat nerves and first-time jitters, all that stuff, that’s what’s supposed to get most rookies. Your 47th drop, though? Your hands still shake, teeth still clench, nerves still fray. No conditioning exists that can mentally prepare a human being to drop from low orbit into an ocean of enemy fire at 1400 meters a second, surrounded by less than an inch of armor in any direction. You just point your feet at the ground and hope that when you land you can reach your gun faster than the guy trying to kill you can recover from the shock. Even once you’re on the ground, you’re not much better off. A Legionary is pretty goddamned well equipped all things considered, but combined arms still rules the day. Now, instead of rolling hot with tanks and APCs, you’re on your own in hostile territory, and the other guys don’t play by your rules.  

They call it Ionia. Pretty world, if you ignore the global firestorm we touched off when we dropped the orbital artillery. Global weather patterns have turned these wildfires into a wall of heat and flame a mile high roaring along at well over 50 kph. Perfect environment for a drop assault. Our carrier, the IHNV Long Time Coming, sits in low orbit, drop bays open. Her shields are down, allowing us to take the plunge without being incinerated down to our constituent atoms, and she’s taking a hell of a beating for it. But that’s fine; it takes less than 10 seconds for all 10 cohorts to drop through the bay, and then she’s hightailing it for the protection of 12th Fleet’s Strike Flotilla 34, a shoal of escort frigates and heavy cruisers that envelop her in their shield profiles. They’ll be sitting overwatch for us and the two other legions dropping today, the 546th and 1232nd, waiting until we need them to drop some more kinetic kill vehicles on some poor unsuspecting Aberinian fuckers. Before the end of this, there’ll be a lot of poor unsuspecting Aberinian fuckers who’ve learned to dread the low moaning those cannons make as they breach atmosphere. They’ll dread the sounds we make even more.  

At 1242 hours Terran time, we jump, 15,000 fully armored Legionaries dropping in total synchronicity. 32 seconds later, 14,500 of us land in newly formed craters. The air is on fire. The ground is on fire. If it weren’t for the environmental seals on our armor, we’d be dead in minutes. With the seals, we barely notice it.  

First objective is a local Aberinian firebase coordinating aerial defenses over Ionia’s primary continent. Take it out, and Fleet can drop another couple hundred thousand Legionaries with impunity, shipping down troops and materiel at will. Fail to take it, and any transport ships closing within 2000 kilometers of the continent get turned into aerial fireballs. Simple, you might think. The Aberinian defenders have different ideas. Immediately after I land, I’m under fire, maser beams and plasma rounds turning the alpine undergrowth around me into smoldering, runny mud and patches of fused glass. Abs love their energy weapons, and in those first few seconds after we land, they reap a punishing toll. But it only lasts a few seconds. On solid ground, we thunder into action. The nearest weapons position to me, a dugout full of automatic weapons, is my first target. 1st Squad, with me leading, takes to the charge, armored boots pounding the dirt and fallen trees around us as we rocket up to almost 80 kph, arrowing down on this enemy position like lightning. Two hits, three, four, I stop counting, my shoulder armor not even glowing yet from the dispersed energy, and then we’re on the Aberinians, shouldering into the charge.  

There’s a big burly bastard standing in my way, so I choose to go through him. Impact, and he’s down on the ground, where all that famed Ab muscle mass does him no good. I look him in the eyes as I put six rounds into his brain, hearts, and redundant nerve cluster. Dead in less than half a second. Next one is smaller, smarter. This one has fought Legionaries who were on the bounce before, and they know they can’t absorb the charge. They don’t even try, immediately beating a retreat from the edge of the firing position, trying to steady themselves for a good shot on me or one of my people. A hasty shot cleaves their right arm off at the elbow, and then I steady, putting three more rounds into their chest. They punch out of ragged holes in the Ab’s back, ending up lodged in the rear of the dugout. 

1st Squad is equally clinical. Engagement time in the dugout is sitting at 6 seconds, and there’s probably ten or twelve dead Abs littering the ground. Weapons position silenced, onto the next one. We leap the back wall, throwing ourselves back into the hurricane of defensive fire. My commswoman, Gauria, takes a hit to the head, but she’s back up before we’ve even set off; her combat helm is bubbling but otherwise no worse for wear. The first Legionary mortars land near where the shot that hit her came from, and the Ab who took the shot is definitely worse for wear. We’re through the cloud of dirt and arterial spray before the Ab troops have had a chance to recover, and they’re all dead by the time we reach the back wall of their trench. 15 more dead defenders, no casualties. Engagement time, 17 seconds. We’re slowing down, I realize. The key moments of any drop landing come now, in the first minutes. Either our forces secure enough room to consolidate gains, establish a beachhead, or the entire drop force dies. Imperial Legion timing allows no errors, brooks no mistakes. We take this firebase here and now, in the next 10 minutes, or I watch the troops under my command and three whole elite legions worth of soldiers die. No pressure.  

Resistance is struggling to keep up with the speed of the assault. Elements of my 1st Cohort, along with 2nd, 5th, and 9th, have secured most of the approaches to the base. Now it’s just the bastards inside. Time to crack this thing open. First up is my squad, along with the rest of 1st Cohort. 487 of us left. Far more than enough with three more cohorts backing us up. Marilene places a demolition charge against a central span of the perimeter wall, and I nod to blow it. We’re already thudding inside as the wall is falling, reinforced layers of synthrock and steel showering us as we simply drive over top of the first defenders we encounter.  

The inside of the firebase is divided into quadrants, with barracks closest to us on the eastern side. Reserves are still suiting up outside it as we gun them down, single shots blowing craters in unarmored Aberinian torsos. Some, we don’t even have time to draw down on. Instead, single unarmed strikes pulp limbs and crater skulls. We’re pounding the interior asphalt, well on our way to the command post on the western edge of the base, when defensive fire finally reaches us. Pelted with energy bolts like rain, we gun down anyone who pokes a head up. The sleeting defensive fire slackens as 9th Cohort breaches, taking the hastily repositioned defenders in the rear. Engagement time, 1 minute 20 seconds. Casualties, 22. Dead Aberinians? Hard to count the splotches on the ground where bodies used to stand. We’ve liquified anything in our way.  

We take stock outside the command center. It’s a synthrock blockhouse, windowless, fortified and reinforced entrances. There were guards, but they aren’t combat effective with rounds drilled through their torsos. More Legionaries are streaming inside the compound, following up on breaches set by the other assault teams. Colonel Melody Moriconi, Legion commander, is pounding her way down the central asphalt thoroughfare towards us, armor shedding beam rounds and plasma like rain drops. At the compound's weapons depot, a few Abs have managed to put up a fight with the heavier artillery, but now the Legion breaching teams are inside the firebase, and they use their heavier armor to simply roll over the depot. Fighting inside the base is brief and brutal, Legion speed overwhelming the Abs’ famous resilience and feral aggression.  

Colonel Moriconi comms us halfway to the command center, giving us the go ahead to breach. Marilene places two more det charges, and we’re inside, plowing through guard and command staff alike. Quarles takes three plasma bolts to the chest, stumbling forward a few more steps before the superheated ammunition burns through his chest plate and eats his torso away. He gets two rounds off before his brain reminds him he’s dead, and he crumples. We’re stuck in it now, charging down cramped hallways and bursting into hastily reinforced rooms. Doesn’t matter what they put in front of us, we run over it, daring the Aberinians to try and slow us down. Outside the doors to the central comms room, they give it their best.  

An Ab Headhunter pack is waiting for us, heavy armor laced with trophies and tally marks. These things are Legion-killers through and through, and for the first time since drop, the Abs meet our advance. A fist bigger than my head bats my rifle away, so I lower my shoulder and shove hard, getting some room for myself. Deploying the combat blade from its port in my forearm gauntlet, I thrust with the blade, a glancing hit to the big bastard’s ribs. I can feel the crunching, but he’s barely fazed, swinging another huge paw for my head. Ducking under it, I lever a fist into his knee, hoping to shatter it, but he pivots away at the last damnable second and the best I can manage is some solid contact with his armored thigh.  

The squad is in the thick of it now, combat blades out or sidearms drawn, locked in melee with the Aberinian pack. Marilene takes a huge Ab claw to the thigh, arterial blood spraying from rent armor even as she spears the Ab through the skull, blade punching out of the crown of its head.  

The big bastard in front of me is back on me before I can survey the rest of the squad, his fangs bared and nostrils flaring. Two quick swipes pass by my head and then I’m reeling from a brutal kick to the stomach, his hoof connecting with my amor in a vicious thud. The Ab presses his advantage, trying to skewer my face on his clawed paw, but he can’t leverage the force he needs to get through my armor, and in this tiny moment I seize my chance, pushing upward and bearing him to the ground. My combat blade is buried in his chest.  

Kang, our demo expert, is first out of combat after me, putting a full sidearm mag into the brain of one of the Headhunters. The rest of the squad finishes off their opponents, minus Bannon, who is missing an arm and three quarters of his head, and we line up to breach the comms and control room. Gauria and Vento are first through, soaking up fire as a distraction while Kang chucks an armed fusion device into the room. Device armed and landed among the Abs, we fire off what’s left of our magazines and beat our retreat out of the firebase. Not 30 seconds later, we watch the fusion device make a crater of the firebase sixty feet deep. Time from drop, 6 minutes 48 seconds. It’s an overwhelming Legion victory. It will be repeated across the continent at 16 other points, although none of those strikes will be as singularly fast and brutal as ours. 127 Legio will lose 311 troopers. The Abs, though? 7200 dead and counting.  

[neathbound-fiends]

Feeling some type of way about the Citizen's Armada again (as I do every time), but especially now after Horticulture Hell

FL goes out of its way to tell us, time and time again, that the people that are protecting the City are the people that live there. Not the rulers, not the agencies, not the people whose job it's supposed to be. The people doing this are people who said "I can do something" and then did

The Ragtag Flotilla card especially highlights that this is anyone who had a ship to put in the water and was willing to answer the call. No structure. No organization. Just hundreds of random vessels that said "I will do my part" and set out on a mission that could kill them

Idk how to end this, just my thoughts

[proto-actual]

Hey tronblr. It's sysop. Let's talk about the Midjourney thing.

(There's also a web-based version of this over on reindeer flotilla dot net).

Hey tronblr. It's sysop. Let's talk about the AI thing for a minute.

Automattic, who owns Tumblr and WordPress dot com, is selling user data to Midjourney. This is, obviously, Bad. I've seen a decent amount of misinformation and fearmongering going around the last two days around this, and a lot of people I know are concerned about where to go from here. I don't have solutions, or even advice -- just thoughts about what's happening and the possibilities.

In particular... let's talk about this post, Go read it if you haven't. To summarize, it takes aim at Glaze (the anti-AI tool that a lot of artists have started using). The post makes three assertions, which I'm going to paraphrase:

It's built on stolen code.

It doesn't matter whether you use it anyway.

So just accept that it's gonna happen.

I'd like to offer every single bit of this a heartfelt "fuck off, all the way to the sun".

Let's start with the "stolen code" assertion. I won't get into the weeds on this, but in essence, the Glaze/Nightshade team pulled some open-source code from DiffusionBee in their release last March, didn't attribute it correctly, and didn't release the full source code (which that particular license requires). The team definitely should have done their due diligence -- but (according to the team, anyway) they fixed the issue within a few days. We'll have to take their word on that for now, of course -- the code isn't open source. That's not great, but that doesn't mean they're grifters. It means they're trying to keep people who work on LLMs from picking apart their tactics out in the open. It sucks ass, actually, but... yeah. Sometimes that's how software development works, from experience.

Actually, given the other two assertions... y'know what? No. Fuck off into the sun, twice. Because I have no patience for this shit, and you shouldn't either.

Yes, you should watermark your art. Yes, it's true that you never know whether your art is being scraped. And yes, a whole lot of social media sites are jumping on the "generative AI" hype train.

That doesn't mean that you should just accept that your art is gonna be scraped, and that there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't mean that Glaze and Nightshade don't work, or aren't worth the effort (although right now, their CPU requirements are a bit prohibitive). Every little bit counts.

Fuck nihilism! We do hope and pushing forward here, remember?

As far as what we do now, though? I don't know. Between the Midjourney shit, KOSA, and people just generally starting to leave... I get that it feels like the end of something. But it's not -- or it doesn't have to be. Instead of jumping over to other platforms (which are just as likely to have similar issues in several years), we should be building other spaces that aren't on centralized platforms, where big companies don't get to make decisions about our community for us. It's hard. It's really hard. But it is possible.

All I know is that if we want a space that's ours, where we retain control over our work and protect our people, we've gotta make it ourselves. Nobody's gonna do it for us, y'know?

[magz]

Palestine Summary April 27 to April 30, 2024. From LetsTalkPalestine (LinkTree Here)

April 27. Day 204

• 32 Palestinians killed, 69 injured in Gaza in last 24 hours

• Overnight Israeli strikes on Rafah & Nuseirat camp (central Gaza) death toll rises to 15, incl. 8 children

🚢 US & Israel continue construction of floating aid pier on Gaza’s coast w/ UK Navy assistance, despite Israel blocking flotilla ship carrying 5,000+ tons of aid

• Escalating IOF raids in West Bank — 2 Palestinians killed & left to bleed out as IOF blocked ambulances in Jenin

🇶🇦 Qatar considering ending mediatory role in ceasefire negotiations citing frustrations w/ Israel & Hamas for stalling efforts

• Armed Israeli settlers raid homes & tents of Palestinian farmers in West Bank

• IOF abducts 20+ in overnight raids in West Bank

🇨🇳 China to host Palestinian unity talks between Hamas & Fatah (controlling party of Palestinian Authority), aiming to reconcile their complicated political rivalry. For more on Palestinian political parties: https://tinyurl.com/2s3ub7yu + the PA: https://tinyurl.com/3fmhaav3

April 28. Day 205

• 66 Palestinians killed, 38 injured in Gaza in the last 24 hours

⚖️ Israel consults US to prevent ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and others on the basis of the deliberate starvation of Palestinians in Gaza

• 270+ settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the 2nd time recently w/ IOF protection

🚢 US predicts Gaza pier to be operational in 3 weeks, citing challenges posed by Israel’s naval blockade of aid

• IOF abducts 15 in overnight West Bank raids

🇬🇧 UK says it may deploy troops in Gaza to allegedly help deliver aid. PFLP (socialist resistance group) says UK troops not welcome, and that it may target them

🇺🇸 Biden to discuss concerns ahead of Rafah invasion, threatening to slow arms deliveries to Israel if no appropriate & credible humanitarian plan for Rafah

🇺🇳 UNRWA: 2 children in Gaza killed due to Israeli restrictions on clean water amid rising temperatures

• Israeli police arrest 5 settlers amid West Bank settler rampage, to avoid US & EU sanctions

April 29. Day 206

• 34 Palestinians killed, 68 injured in Gaza in the last 24 hours

• Several Israeli attacks on homes in Rafah kill at least 20, including 5 children and 9 family members

🇺🇸 US finds 5 Israeli military units liable for serious human rights violations but says 4 have “remedied” & don’t need sanctions. US is hesitant to sanction the 5th unit

• Mounting garbage and rising temperatures infest besieged Rafah with flies & mosquitos, worsening conditions for displaced Palestinians

🇱🇧 Lebanon accepts ICC jurisdiction to prosecute Israelis for crimes committed on Lebanese territory; considered a landmark step

🎓 1,000+ have been arrested at Gaza protests on US campuses since encampments started. Student protests have spread to France, Italy, Egypt & Jordan

🇮🇩🇲🇾 Boycotts in Indonesia & Malaysia force equity firms (General Atlantic + CVC) to halt multimillion-dollar US fast food company stake sales like in McDonalds

April 30. Day 207

• 47 Palestinians killed, 61 injured in Gaza in the last 24 hours. But Gaza’s health officials express likelihood of underreporting, unsurprising after 7 months of constant bombardment while thousands remain buried under rubble

• Israel reportedly creating gender-discriminatory checkpoints around Rafah to block Palestinian men of “military age” from fleeing, while allowing women & children, in preparation for Rafah invasion

• Netanyahu asserts Rafah invasion will happen regardless of ceasefire deal, undermining ongoing negotiations & US pressures for a deal

⚖️ ICJ rejects Nicaragua’s request for emergency measures for Germany to suspend arms exports to Israel for complicity in genocide

• Today in Hebron (West Bank), Israeli forces tear-gassed a school, injuring many children & teachers + Israeli forces shot & killed a Palestinian man

• Palestinian Authority security forces crack down on protestors in front of Canadian representative office in Ramallah (West Bank)

[bedtimegiraffe]

Blades LI Alignments

It struck me today that the TTRPG pages don't list alignments. Why? Because a lot of players and DMs/GMs see them as outdated and unnecessarily limiting?

...I'm gonna do it anyway.

Here's are the alignments, via the newest addition of Dungeons and Dragons (5e). Basically, how much you follow rules? And how much do you help people/how selfish are you?

Tyril- Lawful Good

Tyril is, to me, extremely Lawful Good most of the time. He's on a (according to him and society) righteous quest to stop evil with no room for nuance. Remember that time he decapitated a corrupted mayor in the middle of the street? He nudges a bit less lawful right at the end, but that's a big moment for him.

Nia- Neutral Good

Nia was raised in the strict rules of the Temple of Light, but she abandons those pretty quickly. She's not seeking out heists, but she kind of likes them. And Nia is undoubtably motivated to protect literally everyone. Textbook Neutral Good!

Mal- Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good

Mal has never once cared what the law told him to do and he's not about to start! Our boy is Chaotic, as rouges tend to be. Mal starts pretty focused on his own survival and nothing else (Neutral), but pretty openly acknowledges that MC made him focus on helping others (Good). Stealing from the rich to finance an orphanage you run where you refer to all of the kids as 'yours' is the most Chaotic Good thing to ever happen.

Imtura- Chaotic Neutral

Imtura is a pirate. And she doesn't seem to have any regard for even Flotilla law. Classic Chaotic. And she does lots of good things, but she seems more motivated by protecting the people shares cares about, rather than any more abstract sense of Right. I call that Chaotic Neutral.

Valax- Lawful Neutral

Valax doesn't even have a TTRPG page, but she should! She does things that are both traditionally Evil (kidnapping, blood draining) and Good (owl bear protecting, not killing her friend). But Valax does almost all of them due to a code of conduct- initially set by the Ash Empress, but eventually set by Valax herself. To Valax, it's not about right or wrong. To me, that's Lawful Neutral.

Aerin- Book 1 Neutral Evil, Book 2 True Neutral?

Aerin is a case where the cracks in alignment kind of show. To me, he's best embodied by this gif:

I went by process of elimination for him. And didn't give much weight to what Aerin says when he's fully corrupted, because that's a whole different thing.

Lawful/Chaotic: Aerin knows how to play along with what's expected of him, but clearly doesn't have much loyalty to the letter of the law. And at no point is he spontaneous. So he's in the middle Neutral column in both books.

Good/Evil: Aerin thought he was doing the right thing in Book 1. And he seemed to genuinely like the party and want to look out for them. But I think we can agree that bringing everyone together with the intention of summoning the Dreadlord and kidnapping Nia are both Evil.

Book 2, Aerin helps save the world, but only if you're not a dick to him. To me, that puts him more in the Neutral category. I feel like a fully Good character would still by out there trying to save the world no matter what.

Any agreements or disagreements? I'd love to hear about them!

[reallyquitestrange]

Pillow thoughts (wip)

Please Enjoy a small blurb of a piece I'm working on cause I love the Idea of these two and can't stop drawing them. cross posted on my Pillowfort

She snores, and drools when she sleeps. He will never tell her. He enjoyed these moments of knowing her, moments that she wouldn’t let anyone else see. Few people knew the real Jack, and even fewer still really knew her. But James did, and he knew she slept in a bed stacked to the roof with pillows, she snored and she drooled, and she had to have a fan running for noise. And she hated the reconstituted eggs they served at Grissom but she loved the eggs he made for her. He knew where all her students were posted after the reapers were defeated. He knew about the bird with the cherry blossom branch tattoo on her right thigh and all the names of her ‘sisters’ on her left arm. He knew about the space she held on her right ass cheek for ‘Something Important’ and hoped one day it might be something that reminded her of him. He knew she secretly loved fleet and flotilla even though she’d never admit it to Tali. She loved her damned Varren, Eezo, who destroyed his shoes and pans. He knew she wasn’t as hard and mean as she liked to portray herself; she was soft and kind deep down. 

“I love you.” He whispers to her, petting her head. He could never tell her when she was conscious, She’d probably squish him with her biotics like a bug if he ever did. Her face twitched a smile making him freeze, before her muscles went soft again, the smile fading and his heart began beating again. He lets the breath he held out through his mouth slowly. Closing his eyes and leaning his head back on the headboard, a soft *thunk* of it hitting the back wall. The sound making the Varren at the end of the bed startle and throw his head up, seeming to glare at James for disturbing his sleep. He wasn’t sure how Jack had convinced Sanders to let her bring the menace of a ‘pet’ onto the station but he assumed it had something to do with the protective qualities Eezo offered. Either that or she didn’t ask and instead just brought the Varren on without asking or answering any questions.

Eezo huffs a breath out through his nose laying his head back down on Jack's ankle. James checks the clock across the room on her bar, the red digits showing 03:34. He’d positioned himself poorly and didn’t want to disturb her sleep or risk the wrath of an already displeased Varren. He was a Marine and could sleep basically anywhere in any position but that didn’t mean he wanted to. And 6 hours sitting like this seemed like torture, but he’d torture himself if it made her happy. He glances around her bed grabbing a spare somewhat flat pillow and positioning it behind his head, deciding to grit his teeth for the night, If it meant she stayed half laying on him. He leans his head to the right on the plush of the pillow, closing his eyes to hopefully sleep.

[rjzimmerman]

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse tells it like it is: 'one crew, one plan, one cancer in the body politic'. (Daily Kos)

I'm cutting and pasting this text from one of today's Daily Kos newsletters that land in my inbox. I think that Senator Whitehouse is possibly the smartest senator among the 100. He's a Democrat from Rhode Island and always has the smartest and bravest observations when matters are particularly ugly.

"Below is an unrolled string of tweets from Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse about our political predicament. More of our Senators should be talking like this and joining Whitehouse’s relentless attacks on the corruption and authoritarianism eating away at democracy. 

Our current situation should give Dems a rejuvenating chance to focus better on fixing what’s gone wrong in America.

We face three huge threats: persistent internal attacks on our democracy, unbridled climate upheaval, and a captured Court with some deeply corrupt justices

Behind each threat is dark money; massive anonymous political spending by special interests who hide their identities from the public.

The political class has reoriented itself to this new reality, pivoting to the big secret spenders. Voters notice they’re not so important anymore. An entire dark-money ecosystem has been spawned, with front groups, ‘Donors Trusts,’ coordinating 501c3s and c4s, and superPACs.

This whole filthy bestiary of influence is new (or refocused and expanded) since Citizens United. It didn’t used to be this way; it doesn’t have to be this way.

Democrats keep voting to get rid of dark money, and Republicans keep voting to protect dark money, but voters have no idea. We basically haven’t told them.

Which is pathetic because voters hate dark money with a passion, Republicans, independents and Democrats alike. Polling is off the charts.

(When done, that is; too often pollsters blow the dust each year off their polling questions from the ‘90s and this question doesn’t get asked!)

Climate change is out of control because of a massive dark-money politics and propaganda operation run by the fossil fuel industry.

Before Citizens United, climate was a bipartisan concern (see McCain 2008 platform); fossil-fuel dark money killed bipartisanship.

The Court was captured by a dark-money operation funded by creepy polluter billionaires and managed by their creepy minion Leonard Leo.

The ‘amenable’ justices are instructed via coordinated flotillas of dark-money amici curiae, with correlation near perfect between instruction and result.

Republicans are complicit in all this because the dark money behind these schemes is also the dark money billions behind their political operations.

It’s a trifecta; dark money is behind climate denial, Court capture and corruption of Congress — one crew, one plan, one cancer in the body politic.

Democrats should be blowing the whistle on the whole dark-money rot.It explains so much, it has obvious villains, and it has the added benefit of being true.

We are in a war for our future and we should behave that way.

[zargontari]

leans awkwardly against wall . why hello there

i don’t think (?) you’ve ever said anything about this, and i am very sorry if you HAVE said something about this, but what is this new TTTT species’ appearance like and/or what are they based on? stupid question but i’m stupidly obsessed with character design in general and would love to hear how you imagine the little blorbos! love your au as always c:

SO.

Let's talk about hothken.

A long, long, long time ago, two elder AI had a huge battle over a planet that was the home of a sentient species that "somehow" had slipped the radar. One genocidal AI, one protective AI, and the two sentinels that they brought to bear against one another.

As they fought their proxy war against killing machines they could only just control, too focused on each other to pay attention to the planet, one of the sentinels took a massive blow— sending a gigantic chunk of itself spinning at great speeds to impact the single, massive continent of the planet below. As it died, it made a final, desperate attack, and blew itself to hell, becoming briefly a new sun in the sky and killing not only the second sentinel, but the ship of one of the AI, and greatly damaging the other. One ship was blown into space; the other crashing into the ocean below.

The original species did not survive the attack that, in the end, was no longer about them, but the two AI that they had no knowledge of. Hundreds of years of infrastructure and millions of years of evolution became dust and ash; the continent forcibly separated and scattered in each directions by the blow that split it. The ocean, the largest known in any habitable world, rushed to fill in the gaps, becoming steam as the smoking wreckage burned. The sky blazed with the new sun. Anything on the surface levels of the oceans fried in an instant.

The battle lasted minutes, and killed quadrillions.

Now, we just give it a couple million years. Megaflora begins to spring up, stretching from beneath the waves. From the ruins of the great continent, new ecosystems have formed. Deep, deep beneath the waves, gigantic beasts roam the seas, unhindered by the last devastating attack, and allowed to grow.

But we're going to look a little higher up, within the root systems of massive trees not dissimilar to mangrove trees on earth.

Look at it;; (art by @batstabb)

This is a creature called an Ora; a pack-hunting, intelligent species that takes up the same space on the ecosystem's board as dolphins do in our world! With their head lights, they easily follow each other in the dark, as most animals in their ocean do not use sight to navigate.

This is what the Hothken evolve from! Primarily living in flotillas created mainly of lightweight rocks, wood and metals found in different parts of the world, they're still built for the sea, but they've become much more adapted to life on the land.

(our very own Joskia, as done by Rúe Moon on Twitter)

there's so much more I could ramble all day but alas, I have tired for now. Expect updates (a lot of lore has gone into these guys. Did you know that the second dead sentinel is in the planet's orbit, and passes behind their moons? And when it eclipses their sun, a kaleidescope of light hits the planet as the light shines through all the dead pieces? And that the thing's name is Carcass, because in their old religions they thought it was a dead god? That's pretty cool I think...)

Size wise, they're about five foot long (general rule) and eight feet long. They have slings to hold their tails up. If they leave the planet, they have to have environment suits because they can't stand the low humidity of other planets/ships. Their language mostly consists of clicks, whistles, and other tones like that.