#same crazy colonial rhetoric

[warderfromtheborder]

Playing Avowed, having lots of fun with it along multiple barometers, but right now I just want to highlight that it's nice to have the theme of 'Empire: Good or Bad, Question Mark' writ large. More specifics and spoilers below the cut. (I'm only partway into Emerald Stair, just finished the Steel Resolve sidequest)

I think a lot about the '61 film Judgment at Nuremberg. I saw it as a teen/young adult around 2010, and yeah it made a pretty decisive impression. Especially the one contrite judge's testimony; he, and his countrymen, were scared of poverty and instability, and willfully led by a tyrant into war, scapegoating, genocide, cultural 'purification'. Nothing about the former, being scared, justifies any of the latter. And like, yeah, no fucking duh, but obviously it's worth pointing out that the same rhetoric works just as well in America as it did in Germany. And the movie doesn't shy away from pointing out that America's hands and history are just as bloody.

Watching my country embrace full-throated fascism, especially those who should fucking know better, has been shit. And it's been additionally frustrating because before I realized how important it was to care about politics, the only cogent political thought I had was, 'if party politics are only based on beating the other party, a dictator is inevitable'.

If a young white man, raised in a conservative household, with a catholic private-school education, can figure that basic shit out, what the actual fuck is wrong with the rest of my country's men? I was set up perfectly to be a completely compliant cog of the dominant social order and I'm not, because it is self-evident to me that bootstrap capitalism is horseshit??? That the government is supposed to help people more than it should fight wars for money??? That cultural christian hegemony is mega-horseshit and actively kills people actual christians are supposed to actually care about????? I'm not a """successful man""" by patriarchal standards yet I am not resentful about that? It doesn't make me want to double down on the false promises of performative toxic masculinity??? How am I able to see this, when so many of my country's white men cannot?

Avowed's premise is excellent for playing in that story space of 'what does it mean to you to be the representative of imperial will?'. The colonial frontier, island of misfits, the party being comprised of the outcasts' outcasts, and what better antagonistic lightning rods than the steel garrote led by savathun Lödwyn. (Yes devs please keep hiring Debra Wilson Im so glad I paid full price for this.)

The PC's assassination is such a funny setup for act 1 intrigue. Like, it feels like they genuinely expect you to be REALLY mad about it, but game brain aside yeah even if that was me I wouldnt be mad about it long enough to want to kill the rebels over it. I'm the imperial freaking envoy. Of Course the locals want me dead. Doubly so once it's clear Ygwulf is having visions. People are doing ridiculous shit all the time in this world on the justification of visions/prophecies/other idealogical craziness. Reading the notes makes it very clear lodwyn is the real problem that needs to be addressed. She is either directly responsible for the dreamscourge or is a part in whatever constellation has brought it forth. (95% confidence)

I paid the ondra priestess for info but then convinced herself to turn herself in (I was kinda pissed at her describing Ygwulf as such a big deal). I killed through the rebels until I got to Ygwulf and he seemed to fold pretty easily, and again having read the notes, it's obvious he is highly motivated but neither pragmatic nor forthinking, he just Really Cares, y'know? Someone has to Do Something, y'know? When I went back to finally meet lodwyn I hoped to provoke more out of her but alas. Afterward, the ondra priestess was the only one hanged, and I didnt snitch on the rebels, but multiple npcs referred to ygwulf being hanged? But I also still got the rebel endorsement signed by ygwulf?? I think my choices led to slightly bugged outcomes.

In summary: my choices were very muddled politically, because I played it by vibes not a firm conviction, and my focus is on the Dreamscourge and stopping lodwyn. So it's not surprising my outcomes in act 1 were muddled too.

Steel Resolve was a much more satisfying arc. Listening to Dorsa's explanation, depriving her of the 'security' she so foolishly killed for(I told her to run because the Rangers would be hunting her), then kicking the shit out of the thugs knowingly trying to destabilize shit. Great fucking time. Eat fucking rocks Aelfyr. Think I might actually commission someone to make fanart of the fight.

It brought Judgment at Nuremberg back to the forefront of my mind again. I am sympathetic toward the desire for social and economic stability. I am not sympathetic toward the blind acceptance of injustice, of imperial violence, as the means of achieving those goals. You can't uphold a society built on the backs of slavery, ethnic cleansing, and perpetual violence. It has to be torn down.

I'm very excited to see how Avowed further unfolds, and I look forward to replaying this later to see how the fully convicted pro/anti imperial sentiments get expressed. The writing here is on point for Obsidian. Can't fucking believe SkillUp described it 'feels like it's just content'. (I can actually believe it; SkillUp is a snob, and opinionated, and that's why I like him. but fuck is he wrong sometimes.)

[tianshiisdead]

People who are accused of sinophobia for accusing random Chinese diaspora with 0 connection to China of being a gov shill (in this case despite 23049685908 evidence to the contrary), and told this rhetoric is not only racist but has caused direct violence to the Chinese person recently: stop making this about you! this is about your GOV (goes on a tangent about what the gov which has nothing to do with OP is doing) WHICH MEANS YOUR POINT IS INVALID!

like you are just proving the diaspo's point... they've provided you the proof your accusations are unjustified... and now you're doubling down and starting to talk about the gov... which proves you conflate them with the gov they have 0 connection to and do not benefit from, as are actively facing racist violence tied to this. If you didn't think all Chinese = gov, then why would you continue bringing up gov actions after this Chinese diaspo proved they were not connected to it? What do they have to do with it? Why is this relevant at all, if you don't in fact support the conflation?

Finally, you can't get out of racism charges by saying they live in America, or that their people (not them) are also racist against yours, or that their parents' country holds economic power over yours. All POC can internalize racist rhetoric, racism is not a thing more inherent to some groups, it's a structural issue based on not only international power dynamics but local power dynamics as well, and those on different rungs of that ladder under the top level can and do internalize racist rhetoric against each other, and that is not justified through being on a lower rung *in general*. Spreading racist rhetoric online, in an anglophone space, means your rhetoric is simply going to be taken the way all faceless online anglophone rhetoric is and feed into irl racism in the west. Online, you are not limited by region but by language.

This isn't getting into how diaspora face more racism in their day-to-day lives, and how for some of the people targeted, we also face islamophobia and persecution/racism both abroad as diaspora and at home as minorities, as Muslims.

In this case *we are not more privileged than you in a way that is meaningful or manifests irl where this matters*, full stop. Privilege isn't an abstract that always manifests the same way, and intersectionality must be taken into account. Class, location, and relationship to the state you are living in, all of that matters, which is why different groups/ethnicities can have WILDLY differing levels of privilege in different regions. This applies to Asians in the West VS Asians who are the majority race at home, migrant workers and rich gentrifiers who are the same race and from the same country entering the same country, etc. Both historical colonialism and economic imperialism notwithstanding.

Also, weaponizing Japanese imperialism against a Korean through framing it as Easian colonialism vs SEA colonized, therefore conflating Easians (in this case Koreans) as the perpetrators, victimizing yourself vis a vis Korea, is fucking *vile*. Korea was arguably one of the most and longest brutalized, some of the main victims, the country pieced together their freedom after decades of colonial violence and suppression.

Downplaying and even mocking/denying colonialism and racism faced by other POC is racist no matter what. It feeds into violent rhetoric that affects us as diaspora IRL.

Finally, how hard is it to accept you've said something racist and move on, or changing your angle of attack at least? Doubling down is crazy. I've absolutely said unacceptable things before because I as a part of society have also internalized many racist ideas, we ALL do, that's how racism WORKS. And sometimes those things are against people who are more privileged than me! Who's gov or people have/are perpetuating this or that against mine! And I fix my thinking, retract my comment, and move tf on, because NONE of that justifies feeding into racism that oppresses them under the white supremacist world and societal order. Do you think I'm new to this, as an ethnic minority of a racialized group?

[jewish-sideblog]

I feel so sad. I see on social media today so many people I thought of as friends and coworkers celebrating the “Palestinian resistance”. Most of them LGBT. Which is crazy to me, considering Hamas would kill them.

They’ll try to justify it any way they can. But I’ve felt anti-semitic micro-aggressions from many of them in the past, I’ve brushed it off as ignorance. But now I feel like I’m just their token “good” Jewish friend, and they really just hate Jews.

I’m sorry to come onto your blog and write all this. I just don’t really have anyone to talk to about it. I don’t know many other Jews, but the ones I do know tend to be pro-Israeli government and their rhetoric isn’t helpful to hear either.

I feel the exact same way, and I imagine the two of us aren’t alone.

I think it’s incredibly difficult for Jews, especially liberal and queer Jews, to take a public stand against antisemitism when Israel is involved. As a lifelong leftist, I see leftists blinded to their hypocrisy by their beliefs as the alt-right and conservatives are. People see the word “colonialism” and the word “freedom” and go apeshit. They don’t see that this weekend holds the record for largest number of Jews killed in a day since the Shoah.

And what are we supposed to do? Come to the defense of a political entity we disagree with? Get permanently labelled as “Zionist” for speaking up for Israeli civilian lives?? Get labeled as “Islamophobic” for stating facts about Hamas’s human rights records? Lose friends when we point out the hypocrisy of being pro-Hamas but anti-Iran?

Or should we remain silent as Jews are killed on Jewish holy days at Jewish holy sites?

It’s an impossible situation. I don’t see a way around it. All I can do right now is pray for the safety of my friends and family in Israel, mourn for those who have died, and hope that I don’t get death threats for doing so.

[that-coffee-in-huesca]

231021

When Joris Lechêne posted, around the 9th of October, about the context of the Hamas attacks, concluding that these acts can never be justified, but surely, at least in part, explained by the brutal occupation that has lasted over 70 years and made Gaza practically unlivable*, a lot of people were outraged. They commented that NO kind of violent history could possibly give reason for something so horrific and inhumane. Even if someone kills your family or tortures your friends, killing innocent civilians is an absurd response. This is in no way a weird position to take. In fact, it is the only sane position on this issue; of course it is an absurd response that should disgust anyone with a heart and brain. However, what is strange, is that the same logic seems to have completely disappeared in the conversation on the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Why are random Palestinian activists, in each and every interview, asked to condemn the death of 1000 Israelis, before they are allowed to make further points, while Israeli officials (people actually representing the IDF, the very institution wielding the violence on Gaza) are not asked to condemn the death of 4000 Palestinians? For the 4000 Palestinians, context all of a sudden seems very important, and plenty of excuses apparently do exist for the unlawful murder of civilians. The most plain explanation is of course racism. The western world has come so far in dehumanizing Muslims (which is of course how we understand Palestinians, even though many of them are Christian or belong to other religions) that their lives are literally worth less in the mathematical equation of counting casualties. Add to this a very odd relationship with the state of Israel, where many Western states carry some sort of twisted reverence for its military operations while at the same time refusing to challenge their own issues of antisemitism. The West has normalized this idea of Israel as a Western-built island of peace and democracy in an ocean of death, hate and misery. Murder in Israel is wrong and horrendous. Murder in Palestine is just… business as usual (I honestly believe that a lot of Westerners truly believe that people from war-torn, “orientalised”, non-Western countries experience loss differently, as if they are more “used to it” and hence it is not as bad. We saw a lot of this kind of commentary when Russia invaded Ukraine). Israelis indoctrinated and trained to kill Palestinians are explained with militarized rhetoric of democracy and defense, while Palestinians doing the same thing is disregarded as hate-fueled terrorists. Another reason, which also has deeply colonial roots, is the outlook on the violence itself. A lot of us seem to see low-tech violence (like an attack with a machete or a gun to your face) as far more brutal and scary than high-tech violence (sophisticated weaponry maneuvered by someone in a uniform), as if a civilian shot to death would somehow be more dead than one crushed (or slowly suffocated) under a building. This of course all connects to the logic explained above. Seemingly random attacks, targeting people at a music festival, are far more ‘real’ to Westerners. This could happen to any of us. Terrorist attacks from above, however, targeting civilians from the sky in Western-made airplanes dropping Western-made bombs? No, that kind of death is reserved for people living in dusty, beige countries with brutalist buildings. Of course a Westerner relates to the man in the uniform speaking fluent English, talking about self-defense over a dusty stranger crying out to God in front of the house that just collapsed over his family. The latter of these men has come to represent the destruction of European civilisation (this is not a crazy statement these days, just ask the average alt-righter that exists in almost every European parliament and they’ll tell you). The other man represents the West** and all the West stands for, and this is not strange at all, because make no mistake, it is the West that is currently bombing Gaza.

*When we say Gaza is unlivable, we are not only referring to the unlawful killing of civilians, and the outbursts of extreme violence that occurs every now and then, but the lack of resources, the overpopulation and the closed border. Having to sit and watch family members die as they are denied traveling permits to visit hospitals in the West Bank, the constant sound of drones over your house, the electricity only working for a couple of hours a day, the lack of clean water. It has surprised me to know how little many Israeli citizens know about this situation. I distinctly remember a conversation I had some years ago, when an Israeli student described the security reason and why the border to Gaza must remain closed. When I asked him why Israel is patrolling the sea as well, and not letting anyone leave in the opposite direction, he just looked at me and asked: “What? They can’t leave?”.

**Yes, he does. You can talk all you want about how Jewish people are not Western, and I hear you. We should be outraged about how the West seemingly accepts Jewish people when they are constructed as the Western wielders of violence on other exposed and oppressed groups, while carrying on their antisemitic every-day life whenever it is about ANY OTHER issue. The West doesn’t care about Jewish people, they care about having an outpost in the Middle East and arming it to the teeth. Palestinians and Israelis have, and have always had, the same enemy: The colonial white supremasists that are playing them both.

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

Roll up your sleeves and start building Communism. (Opt in.)

RHETORIC - Oh yeah! Get the firing squads and the animal wagons ready!

Wait, what? Firing squads? You didn't say anything about those.

Roll your sleeves up further and breathe in the pristine air. [Finish thought.]

RHETORIC - Too late to back out now. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few million eggs!

Roll your sleeves up further and breathe in the pristine air. [Finish thought.]

THOUGHT GAINED: MAZOVIAN SOCIO-ECONOMICS

Temporary research bonus: -2 Visual Calculus: Looks like reaction... Research time: 3h 10m

PROBLEM:

People think Communism was some crazy idea that had its comeuppance 40 years ago. A fever that shook the world, never to return again. They were right. Until *he* woke up today – a spiritual corpse responsive only to the call of Commodore Red, prostitutes, and Kras Mazov. For him, Communism is still a *thing*. He will single-handedly raise the Commune of '02 from the oceanic trench where it has been resting, covered in ghosts and seaweed! He is the Big Communism Builder. Come, witness his attempt to rebuild Communism in the year '51!

Ugh, -2 Visual Calculus is not great for us, but I can't *not* equip the Thought.

Anyway, I guess we can look around the bookstore, but remember: we don't have any money, and we need the money that we don't have to have a room tonight.

Gift books and molten candy.

MAN FROM HJELMDALL SERIES - The display rack is brimming with worn paperbacks featuring an extremely muscular, sword-wielding barbarian on the cover. Nearly all the titles contain the word *Hjelmdall* somewhere.

"Storekeep, tell me about the muscleman books."

Look through the display of books.

PLAISANCE - "Oh, *Man from Hjelmdall*. A very popular series of adventure novels." She looks at the book with some disdain. "They're awfully immoral and violent books."

"Why are they so popular?"

PLAISANCE - "Blood and violence, scantily clad women, epic narratives, all those mystical things he encounters. They're bound to grab those with little imagination and nothing to do."

"Sounds good. Which one should I start with?"

"That doesn't sound like something I'd be interested in."

PLAISANCE - "What does it matter? They're all the same." She rolls her eyes, then fiddles with her pendant. "However, the customer is always right, they say."

"If you're a novice of the series, I'd recommend 'Hjelmdallermann: the Man from Hjelmdall.' It's supposed to be a good introduction to the series."

As you can see, the option to buy the book is locked because we don't have 9 real.

2. Look through the display of books.

MAN FROM HJELMDALL SERIES - Rows and rows of Hjelmdallermenn blur your vision. You make out some titles: "Man from Hjelmdall and the Mammoth-Riders", "Man from Hjelmdall: Return to Hjelmdall", and the solipsistic "Man From Hjelmdall and the Hjelmdall Man."

Good god, how many are there?

Enough.

MAN FROM HJELMDALL SERIES - Maybe a hundred? "Man from Hjelmdall and the Sages at the End of the World", "Man from Hjelmdall and the False-God", "Man from Hjelmdall and the Scorched Earth", "Man from Hjelmdall: The Hjelmdall Colonies", "Man from Hjelmdall and the Swamp Beast", "Man from Hjelmdall and the Snow Crabs."

Is that all?

Enough.

MAN FROM HJELMDALL SERIES - Not even close! "Man from Hjelmdall in Hell", "Man from Hjelmdall and the Forest of Slaves", "Man from Hjelmdall Under the Lake", "Man from Hjelmdall: Hjelmdall Burning". There's even "The Trial of Death", a Pasternal combat game book set in the world of Hjelmdallermann, and so much more.

3. [Pain Threshold - Medium 10] Do any of the books call out to me?

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Failure] - Nothing of interest. Only silence and the cosmic background pain-radiation.

5. [Leave.]

Old sports magazines, tucked away in a dark corner.

MOUNTAIN OF BOARD GAMES - A small mountain of colourful board game boxes. There are numerous types of games for all ages. A lot of shelf space seems to be taken up by Wirrâl-related merchandise.

"Storekeep, what board games do you have here?"

Look through the pile of Wirrâl-related items.

PLAISANCE - "Wonderful board games, sir. 'The Viticulturist' is a classic for sure, or perhaps you'd like 'Archipelagos of Insulinde', a very educational game for those interested in geography."

"Raubritter' is a fun game of economic competition, but can get quite intense after a while. We have games for the whole family. You can play with your children!"

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Who are you going to play board games with? Do you have friends or family?

Wow, I have children? A family?

Do I have friends? (Look at the lieutenant.)

I don't want to think about this.

INLAND EMPIRE - Are you actually friends? Or just colleagues thrown together by circumstance?

[justtryingtovibe69]

american social justice ppl are so fast and loose with supporting the terrorist attack in israel and “resist colonialism at all costs” and i actually think it’s sociopathic to shrug at a mass death like that. like ok what if indigenous ppl shot u while u were at coachella do u deserve that too? no!!! (but i actualy think a lot of online social justice white ppl r so lost they genuinely think they in theory deserve to die for being white settlers so who knows) it just feels crazy to see ppl justify an innocent persons death for doing the exact same thing they’re doing (existing in a colonial country) like maybe this is just crazy of me but i don’t think me or anyone around me deserves to die for living in the US and not organizing to overthrow the government but a scary amount of leftists are like “u get what u get” and shrugging at these deaths in israel which are brutal and should be disgusting to people just on a human level. there was the same rhetoric about russians just for living in russia and now in israel just for living in israel and i always am like ok u r throwing this stone from the most glass house ever maybe think about what ur saying. that being said free palestine, as a ukrainian i empathize with the struggle for statehood, self determination, and international recognition, plus their death count will likely be tenfold what just happened and they don’t have electric power right now and i’m genuinely scared for what will happen to the civilians there. this whole situation is such a mess it’s heart breaking every time it escalates and you just know that the vast vast majority want to just coexist and go to the grocery store and hang out with their family. i just want to cry and lay on the floor all day. the callousness of EVERYONE on social media either supporting israel killing civilians or hamas killing civilians is making me lose the will to live

[starlight-time-machine]

Week in Review

12/01/2024 – 12/07/2024

Sunday

Week 43 of missing Cipher Academy

Uhhh I checked out the new Jump Plus serialization Drama Queen because it had a cool cover, not realizing that I was about to stumble into the star of mangatwt’s discourse du jour. But yeah, the thematic implications are particularly rancid in this one… At best, the author just wanted to write a quirky story about cathartically beating up some bad guys (which is already annoying because it’s just showing their utter lack of reading comprehension in how this kind of story comes across when the bad guys are an easily identifiable “other”), and at worst it’s the author openly expressing their fascist rhetoric and it somehow made it to the pages of Jump on a global scale lmaooo. People are trying to argue that it’s an anti-colonial manga, but the fact that the only grievances we see about the aliens is that one of them is a shitty boss and some of them are kind of rude and they supposedly “look down on humans,” it’s utterly ridiculous when the mangaka then tries to spin this as reason enough to beat someone to death on the street and eat their corpse. Again, my feeling is just that the author is a little stupid and has the sensibilities of a five year old who wants to draw a manga about the cool edgy protagonists beating up some generic one-dimensional bad guys, so I kind of doubt that there’s going to be some insane twist later on that debunks the protags’ beliefs in an intelligent way. But I guess we’ll see, if the backlash doesn’t get this swiftly canned lmao (but honestly, even aside from the racism, it was a pretty basic story progression with not much intrigue to expand upon other than oo maybe the aliens faked it all etc etc boring shit).

God what a good Undead Unluck chapter. I’m glad that the pacing has slowed down enough to get this amazing chapter where Fuuko slowly figures things out and realizes what she needs to do at that final page cliffhanger. It’s insane and compelling and tragic all in one, and I love the tone shift this facilitates after the Union’s recent winning streak. Personally, I don’t doubt that they’ll find some way to keep Fuuko alive – Andy or Ruin using external targeting is one idea, but I kind of hope that Akira will come back somehow with his newly gained Remember memories and craft a new heart for Fuuko using G-Liner (and willingly taking on Unknown in the process)...I think it would be another full circle moment for him to witness their final battle against God but with them winning this time. Or maybe Lucy could do something crazy LOL

I told myself I wasn’t going to buy any new video games until I finished my backlog, but the 50% off on Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons was too much to resist so I caved… I love picross and I love Story of Seasons, so I played this for like five hours straight while watching YouTube videos and it was a lot of fun. I like the controls and I love the auto-counter, and I like that we get some rectangular canvases (the picross apps I frequent usually only use square ones, so these are a fun challenge). At this rate I’ll probably finish the whole thing in a week, but we’ll see.

Monday

If I had a nickel for every time I read a book where they set up a mysterious and intriguing central mystery, only to either give an unsatisfying answer or no answer at all, I’d have countless nickels. It’s just sad that I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman turned out to be one of those cases. I don’t know, I guess the whole point was that life is futile and pointless and we may never understand why things happen to us but like…the only reason I kept going with this book was in hopes of some sort of answer, because everything else going on was only mildly interesting at best. In that sense, I suppose it’s effective in putting me in the same headspace as the protagonist, but on a non-meta level it just made me less engaged with the book, and ultimately pretty disappointed.

Tuesday

Nothing

Wednesday

Nothing

Thursday

Nothing

Friday

Finally got around to reading some of Nisioisin and Iwasaki’s other oneshots – Kuzukago Mountain was pretty straightforward and wholesome, and Matohazure Q-doubu was a fun mystery and I loved how they incorporated all the various archery imagery and the Q puns. I’d honestly love to see Q-doubu extended into a full series, because the dynamics between the characters were really fun even with the limited time. But I suppose we got a healthy dose of interesting character designs and dynamics in Cipher Academy, and for that I am grateful. For each oneshot, I’d say a 5/10 and 7/10 respectively.

Gastronauts I love you… BDG’s vending machine challenge was really fun, and once again all the food looks so good I want to explode.

[imhoser]

if only yamzkun wasnt a lazy, useless piece of shit and actually raped and killed u then i wouldnt have to watch u evolve into a racist, zionist fuck.

Ooo scary scary. Idgaf. My “racism” is knowing some modern middle eastern history. It’s crazy how people can be so confident in calling me a racist for not denying a people’s middle eastern heritage and their oppression … the world’s most ancient and continuous form of bigotry still impacts the modern age. I’m so terrible for recognizing that. I’m terrible for recognizing that a state needed to be founded based on protecting a population that has been oppressed for over two thousand years.

Somehow people think that Zionists like that Israel has to exist. No, nobody is happy that there had to be a state founded on the ideals of protecting the Jewish people. The same way nobody is really happy the 13th amendment had to be passed. Nobody is happy that these things happened in reaction to bad things. If humanity never had slavery we would have never had the 13th amendment, that is infinitely preferable. But the 13th amendment had to be passed.

I’ve read books and listened to lectures from both Israel historians and Palestine historians and came to my own conclusions. I was greatly misinformed about the topic and recognized my own antisemitism and how naive I was to believe that somehow antisemitism disappeared or became irrelevant in the western world after the Second World War.

If you knew anything about how Israel came to be, how Palestinians were offered an Arab state multiple times (originally where over 80% of the land would be offered to the Palestinians), how the UN has kept Palestinians as permanent refugees and has benefited from stirring up continuous chaos, what happened to Egypt and Jordan after they accepted Palestinian refugees, the numerous wars waged against Israel that Israel won, the rhetoric of Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, so on so forth, in general anything about the 70+ years of history…you’d also be pro-Israel.

Hell, what originally made me switch sides was simply asking this question: “If Hamas won, and all the land were given back to Palestinians, and Hamas was the government of Palestine, would it be worth it?”

Because unlike a lot of my peers, I recognized that Hamas was a theocratic dictatorship that was oppressing the Palestinian people. I realized that if they won, they could continue to oppress their own population. That if Israel won, Hamas could lose, and there could be a chance for Palestinians to put in a new leader that could actually lead them down the road of safety and security. But doing so meant sacrifices and death. But a continued Hamas rule has shown what it means as well. Prior to October 7th they would drag Palestinian civilians in the streets, their legs tied to their trucks, they would torture Palestinians under the slightest suspicion that they were collaborators with Israel, they would rob humanitarian aid (yes, this isn’t the first time the world has talked about Hamas stealing aid), used civilians as human shields, I could go on. It’s the same way WW2 was needed for the Germans to become deradicalized and so the German people could progress from nazism. It was almost the case for the southern United States. We always say the south would’ve been better if reconstruction was more harsh. But if it happened today, people would call the war and reconstruction genocide and imperialism.

Well, not really today—Angela Davis was already calling it colonialism.

The point is…anti-imperialists are imperialists, they’re just against the ghosts of imperialists, acting as if the past is still today because they want the modern imperialists to win. There is nothing more imperialist than supporting terrorism or apologizing for terrorism.

[thebusylilbee]

Putting the french far-right's old school antisemitism (literally neonazi shit) on the same level as the french left's antizionism is uh...... not intellectually honest to remain polite.

The "constant confounding of Israel, Zionism and Jews" is literally what the centrists and the right as whole have been doing NON-STOP in France since last October, while the left desperately tries to make the distinction clear to the public. Although one of the big figure (Mélenchon cited above) of the far-left has made antisemitic comments in the past he does NOT represent the entire left. He's literally the only one on the left that's on thin ice on this topic meanwhile on the right you could easily cite 30 WELL KNOWN antisemites and many more who hide it better. It it NOT a choice between the plague and cholera, it's a choice between the plague and like... an unpleasant cold. Every single french antizionist jewish group (like Tsedek) has made that very very clear.

It's also a choice that non-jewish maghrebis have had to make since forever if I might add. French maghrebis as a whole have always had to vote strategically for parties that barely tolerate them in order to avoid parties that want them straight-up dead, so the comments of that Sonia Lelloum are absolutely fucking laughable. "'“I’d like France to stay French,” said Lelloum" YOU ARE NOT SEEN AS FRENCH BY FAR-RIGHTERS YOU ABSOLUTE MORON. The fact that she thinks she's somehow not one of the maghrebis the far-right wants gone from this country just because she's not muslim is absolutely delusional, I'm not muslim either and you bet your ass I still get hate from far-righters because they do NOT care about this distinction. A literal case of voting for the Leopard Eating Face party expecting to keep your own face... I'm ashamed to share my origins with her.

Finally I would like to point out this insane sentence, not even contextualized or discussed further in anyway in this article : "While it makes sense for Jews to fear radical Islam, he said, “that doesn’t mean one should rush into the arms of another wolf.”" Implying that a vote for the left is a vote for radical islam is literally insane far-right rhetoric, it doesn't matter if the far-right is compared to "another wolf" too the premise of this comparison is crazy and racist as fuck.

In conclusion : fuck the far-right, fuck racists and fuck people who support the ongoing colonial genocide in Palestine and are ready to sacrifice all non-white french people to defend it.

Covering an entire classroom wall in a Tunisian synagogue in Belleville, an immigrant haven on the slopes of northeastern Paris, are the names of 1,100 Jewish children who were arrested by French police, deported to Auschwitz and killed by the Nazis during World War II.[...]

Despite this dark history, some Jews in Belleville are doing the once unthinkable and voting in France’s National Assembly election for the far-right National Rally party, which is leading in polls for Sunday’s runoff.

One of the party’s founders, Pierre Bousquet, was a French fighter in Hitler’s Waffen-SS. Another, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who led the party from its birth in 1972 until 2011, dismissed Nazi gas chambers as a “detail” of history.[...]

It’s also a measure of how much the French left has enraged Jewish voters with its ferocious attacks on Israel and Zionism as it tries to build support among French Muslims, a substantially larger group of voters.[...]

Judith Benchetrit said she’d voted for the National Rally in the first round — and asked whether anyone else had watched a harrowing TV documentary the night before about the Oct. 7 attack.

It was her deep loathing of the far-left France Unbowed movement and its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, that led her to back the far right.

Mélenchon “campaigns on Palestine, so now he’s got all the Palestinians and every Arab in France behind him,” said Benchetrit, who is 32 and unemployed.

The National Rally has recast itself as an ally of Jews and Israel. If the party wins a majority in the assembly, its leader, Jordan Bardella, could become prime minister, putting France under the far right’s control for the first time since the fall of the Vichy regime that collaborated with the German occupation from 1940 to 1944.[...]

Sonia Lelloum, a daughter of Tunisian Jewish immigrants, said she’d resisted the temptation to vote for the National Rally in previous elections because of its Nazi ties. This time, she said, she went ahead and did it because she likes the party’s crusade against immigration.[...]

Most worrisome to [some] is the constant confounding of Israel, Zionism and Jews.[...]

One of the most stunning illustrations of the new opening to the far right came last month when the renowned Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, 88, an icon to many Jews in France, told French television that if forced to choose between the National Rally and the country’s largest left-wing party, France Unbowed, he would pick the National Rally.

6 Jul 24

[thedreadvampy]

there is a growing undercurrent of people who seem to genuinely believe that 'gender essentialism' means 'ever acknowledging gendered biases or power structures'

and as someone who grew up in an atmosphere where the prevailing attitude was like 'I'm a feminist but not like those crazy feminazis who think women can do no wrong and that women are better than men, so you know obviously women lie about rape and abortion should be heavily cut back and the wage gap's just a big fuss about nothing' ... same shit different name tbh you've just swapped out 'feminazi' for 'radfem'

which is. worse. because feminazis aren't a thing but radfems are and they're a genocidal reactionary fringe group who actively harm the cause of gender equality and whose power is greatly increased by you going around insisting that any acknowledgement that women are systemically oppressed or attempts to challenge patriarchal structures is Gender Essentialist Radfem Rhetoric.

so the claim that any acknowledgement of systemic bias against women is a claim of Inherent Female Superiority was already one of the biggest tools in the arsenal of the antifeminist cause. but the rising tendency to also claim that naming gendered bias is inherently and irrevocably tied to radfem rhetoric, transphobia, racism and whorephobia also serves to strengthen the TERF form of bigotry. bc if you acknowledge the clearly obvious fact that there's a gendered power structure embedded deeply in our society and people are like ONLY TERFS THINK THAT then uhhhh. you either pretend misogyny doesn't exist/isn't systemic, or you are being told that only reactionary radfems are willing to tackle the very evident system of gendered bias. which. neither of those ideas are true and both are actively going to make the world worse.

just stop fucking ceding the entire concept of systemic misogyny to radfems.

what makes TERFs TERFs isn't that they think men oppress women it's that they think of trans women as a uniquely oppressive sort of man rather than as a marginalised subgroup of women.

what makes SWERFs SWERFs isn't that they think that there's a constant undercurrent of sexual violence against women in media and sex, it's that they treat sex work as the cause of that and sex workers as ciphers incapable of self-management or agency.

what makes radfems bad isn't that they acknowledge that there are vast violent systems of oppression which punish women and prioritise men's power and influence, it's that they simplify this, ignore the complexities added by other intersecting systems of oppression like racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, colonialism and capitalism, and treat it as a problem of women's Incorrect Behaviour and Inherent Vulnerability.

but no you're right fuck yeah any time someone says 'here is a systemic bias against women' that's radfem female supremacist terf shit. even if they are acknowledging that the systemic bias affects trans women. and that it's a problem of systems not of Men Being Evil. and completely ignoring any systemic gendered power structures is what feminism is you're so right how could this cause any problems

[larktb-archive]

Thinking about Creoles and "broken colonial languages," my cousins were telling me about how they were told by their teacher to stop speaking gangster afrikaans. Now... we speak Coloured Afrikaans or, at least, one dialect of Coloured Afrikaans, and it really made me think how institutional the dismantling of Coloured cultural affects is. Like... what gets into your mind that you as a teacher can shame a child for speaking... their native tongue? Especially considering that teacher is a Coloured herself. And so many middle-class Coloureds do this where... poorer Coloureds or we who grew up in the outskirts of urban areas speak gangster Afrikaans or gebroke engels, and they speak real languages, regte taals.

And hearing how African Americans go through the exact same thing and practically all speakers of broken or ghetto dialects really helped me contextualise this in broader anti-indigenous, nationalist and anti-black rhetoric. But it's still crazy to think that the same thing that happened to our ancestors when they first standardised Afrikaans is happening now and is perpetuated by other Coloureds..

[niniane17]

🔥harry potter/jk rowling

Aaaaaaaargh

I have a bunch of them, but for the sake of brevity I'll limit myself to just one :)

Keep in mind that this is an opinion I've held ever since 2007/8, so current events have nothing to do with it.

I think that what the books describe as "Gryffindor ideals", such as chivalry, courage, self-sacrifice etc. are actually much more vulnerable to be used by a Fascist Ideology. In Italy for example fascists worshiped courage and being reckless to an insane degree, and Fascist rhetoric used the Lion metaphor a lot.

Rowling, like many British authors, tends to see Fascism as synonymous with classism and extreme self-interest, because these are the most pressing issues in her country, but they are not necessarily the same as Fascism. In fact, Fascist often portrays itself as the "common men's voice" (emphasis on men) against a world of stuck-up weak Ivory Tower high classes morons that don't understand them (this how Fascist Italy characterized Great Britain).

This confusion is especially evident in Deathly Hallows, where a straight line is drawn from XIX century British/European colonialism and its "White Man's Burden" rethoric and the rise of Fascism, and while they are both very, very bad, they are once again not the same nor do they have exactly the same causes. On a very basic level, we know that Britain was very much a colonial powerhouse when it fought Hitler.

I think some people in the fandom picked up on this, which is why several years ago there was a popular headcanon stating that "Grindelwald was/would have been a Gryffindor".

I often joke that Evil Harry Potter wouldn't be Voldemort, he would be Tyler Durden because "first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die" is totally something an unhinged Harry Potter would say, and I can see his classmates go crazy over it. Even in canon he set up his own personal Fight Club!

In short: Gryffindor House, such as it is written, is one charismatic leader away from becoming a Fascist House, and it is a result of the author's provincialism. It would be a great fanfic though.

Thank you!

[unconditionally-bella-love-light]

Anti-Wokeness Must Not Become Its Own Religion

By Chris Hearn (source)

Wokeness is often called a religion. Anti-wokeness must not take the same path

Wokeness. It's a hot topic, as the kids say. The kids still say that, right? Anyway, wokeness has been compared to a new religion. And those describing it that way aren't wrong in their assessment, really.

So, why is wokeness seen as a religion by some? Generally speaking, when it comes to wokeness, there is a set of dogmas that has been developed around issues like race, gender, sexuality, privilege, oppression, colonialism, etc. You must adhere to the narratives engrained in these dogmas and repeat the mantras that have manifested. If you do not, you are deemed a sinner and must repent. If there is no repenting, then there must be excommunication. There is little room for blasphemy and if you dare cross a line, cancel culture comes calling. Yup, a very religious structure. To be woke is to be very strict and unforgiving - fundamentalist, shall we say. It often involves brimstone and fire rhetoric. There are sacred cows that must not be criticized or spoken ill of. So the analogy is apt.

The whole woke culture thing has made some quite angry, creating a negative pushback. Critics of wokeness are starting to gain traction. There are those who are tired of the narratives, tired of the demands for conformity, tired of being called racist or a bigot for not saying the right things. They are tired of lectures, of diagrams fitting everyone into neat categories of victimhood, tired of seemingly everything revolving around race and gender. People are tired of being shunned for questioning questionable ideas. So, yes, there is a pushback. It's understandable and necessary.

However, the growing backlash risks become it's own religion in short order, in which case we are all back to square one. It is important to stop anti-wokeness from becoming the new wokeness if it's not too late already.

Too often, in the woke camp, words are thrown around to discredit those that go against the doctrines of the woke. Nazi, fascist, alt-right, grifter, transphobe, TERF...this a small sampling of the lingo that the woke love to use against those that dare disagree.

But, the anti-woke camp would be better if it didn't adopt a similar way of dealing with opponents. Unfortunately, it may be too late. In fact, using the term woke as a slur and writing off the opinions or ideas of anyone deemed woke is a perfect example of the anti-woke brigade slipping into religious territory. The sin, in this case, is being woke. In order to regain acceptance, denouncing all that is woke is necessary for some. That's not good. That's not progress in this matter.

Some have made a good career out of being woke and selling wokeism. Some will cite people like Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo who have made a lot of money from white people telling white people how awful and racist they are. Can't blame people for that, really. The same thing seems to be happening in the anti-woke camp. Now, I am a big fan of Bill Maher, for sure. BUT, I have noticed much of what he is doing these days is obsessed with anything and everything deemed woke. Honestly, there is plenty of comedic material in some of that woke stuff. He's often quite spot on with his assessments, but sometimes it just seems like the obsession with being anti-woke is equal to the obsession I see some have with being woke.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YapmWpPO2AM

Ya, there you go. Funny? I think so. But, you know, when every week it's an anti-woke fest, at some point you want to say, "Hey, Bill, maybe expand your repertoire again." Big fan, think he's funny, but, definitely, turning anti-wokeness into a bit of a religion in itself.

And then, we have critics of being woke, like Ben Shapiro, who fall decidedly on the right-wing side of the debate who have their own crazy ideas going on. So, him and folks like him being critical of the woke and their crazy ideas often comes across as hypocritical and short-sighted because they are the anti-woke bizarro world, mirror image of the craziest of the woke.

The thing is, not everything woke is bad. Woke can get pretty cringy, nasty, ugly, bizarre, hypocritical, lazy, judgmental. But, you know, there are some good ideas at play. Things like racism or homophobia do thoroughly suck. Maybe those deemed being woke don't handle anti-racism or anti-homophobia in the best way. Quite a bit of anti-racism, for example, has just turned into a new form of racism in itself. But, to just shun everything that is considered woke is a bit foolish, if you ask me. I can agree with a LOT of wokeness, honestly, even if the execution is a bit on the questionable side.

Many in the anti-woke camp see themselves as free-thinkers that don't want to conform to the scripts set forth by the woke brigade. But, it seems at times that these free-thinkers start to develop their very own scripts and quickly stop actually being free-thinkers.

Who would have thought? Two polarizing schools of though mirroring each other? Again? And, as often seems to be the case, the woke and anti-woke are divided by a tribal line, with many anti-woke folks being on the more conservative side of things, while those deemed woke are on the left side of things. Funny how this keeps happening. But, because it does, it almost seems that it's a very natural thing. It's almost like this is how humans are, this is how are brains are wired. It's almost like us human animals have a predisposition to tribalism and conformity in thinking. It probably has some kind of evolutionary benefit. Or, at least, it highlights the fact that even though humans are intelligent, we are still animals with limitations.

By Chris Hearn (source)

[ragingbookdragon]

Even In Different Lives, We Always Find Each Other PT. 5

A Connor Kenway x Reader Story

Word Count: 1,799 Warnings: None (Well, minor angst lol)

Author’s Note: I honestly have no clue how many parts this story is going to be. Enjoy! -Thorne

If the training dummy had been a real enemy, they’d be dead and trampled by now. He reached up, wiping the sweat from his brow before moving back into the routine, palms slapping against the wooden pegs. Thousands of thoughts crossed his mind, and ever since he’d been banned from the homestead manor for a week from his insubordination, they’d only grown more worried. (Y/N), in this world was the Colonial Rite’s deadliest assassin hunter. His wife, the very one who stood beside him, was standing on the opposite side of him now. If she was saved by Shay who was supposedly the grandmaster, he’d no illusions that she was likely in the same position he was. Learning what had happened in their world, wasn’t what happened here. Of course it didn’t. He thought. My parents are still living. And assassins no less. He shook his head, trying to burn off the concerning feelings. He needed to focus, needed to dig up enough information in order to get back to (Y/N); no doubt she was doing the same. So caught up in his training, he didn’t hear the footsteps behind him until he caught sight of someone standing in his peripheral. Twisting, he pulled the tomahawk from his waist, raising it in defense. The cocked eyebrow from his father made him falter and he lowered it as the man said, “You’ve been here for a long time Ratonhnhaké:ton.” Connor frowned, sheathing the hatchet.

           “I need to clear my mind.” Haytham took a step forward, undoing the cloak he wore before moving to his hidden blades.

           “Then shall we spar?” The young assassin watched him a moment before nodding, setting his coat and blades aside. They stood a few feet away, circling one another, and his father asked, “I am curious to know why you’re so attached to (Y/N) Cormac.” Connor knew it was bait, and he raised his hands, trying to shield his expression as he countered,

           “You say that, but you mean something else. What do you really mean?” Haytham stepped forward, tossing an easily deflected punch.

           “You were insistent that she was an assassin and not a templar. Almost like you know more than you’re letting on. I’ve never seen you so passionately defend the enemy before.” Connor brushed off his punch, throwing one of his own; Haytham shifted out of the way but grunted when his son took another step, throwing out his leg. “Is there something you wish to speak about?” His son halted, lowering his arms, returning to an idle stance as he surmised,

           “We are not sparing to clear minds, father. You are sparing with me because you think it will distract me enough to tell you what is on my mind.” Haytham knew he was caught, and Connor knew it too because he pointed at him, adding, “You are digging for information you need not obtain or understand.” His father matched his stance, questioning,

           “Why are you acting like this Ratonhnhaké:ton? What’s changed in the past night and day that makes you so adamant to protect a templar?” Connor couldn’t fight the anger boiling inside him and he took a step forward, voice holding back his barely contained rage.

           “My thoughts and actions are my own and I do not owe you an explanation for them.” Haytham’s eyes went wide at the threat but they quickly narrowed, and he demanded,

        ��  “They do if they’re compromising your faith to the brotherhood.” His son shot him one last glance before turning, pulling on his coat and blades.

           “Rest assured father, my faith in the brotherhood is far from compromised.” Haytham took a step towards him, pleading,

           “Then please, tell me what is going on. I want to help you son.” Connor stopped, fingers twitching in the laces of his hidden blade, and suddenly felt his anger dissipating. It wasn’t his father’s fault he was here. Wasn’t his fault that he and (Y/N) were on different sides. Their reality was different from this one. He let out a sigh, turning to face his father once more, allowing himself to be calm.

           “Father, I understand you wish to help me, but this is not something you can help me with.” Haytham’s face twisted with hurt and he added, “It is not that I do not trust you, it is the fact that the changes are too great to speak of right now. I need to figure them out on my own, and when I do, I will come to you with them.” His father opened his mouth to respond, but Connor reached out, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Please father…trust me.” Haytham stared at him a moment, then nodded, reaching up to take his son’s hand in his own.

           “I do Ratonhnhaké:ton.” He offered a sympathetic smile. “But you know I worry about you. You’re all Ziio and I have…we don’t want anything to happen to you.” Something inside Connor snapped and he looked away, pulling his hand back; his father frowned, but in an instant, Connor had him in a hug, arms wrapped around his back. “Ratonhnhaké:ton?” He reached up, returning the hug. After a few seconds, the young assassin pulled away, reaching up to wipe at his eyes.

           “I apologize. I just-” Haytham chuckled, placing his hand on his shoulder.

           “Don’t apologize son. I understand.” Connor offered a tight smile, then he cleared his throat, saying,

           “I need to get to Boston.” With confusion written across his face, his father asked,

           “For what?” He went silent, thinking of an excuse, then he admitted,

           “If (Y/N) has escaped her fate then we need to find her.”

           “And you think you can?” Connor nodded.

           “I have studied her movements for some time. I know where her safe places are.” Technically what he was saying wasn’t a lie. He did study (Y/N). He knew her better than anyone where she’d hide if need be. “I can find her and take her down.” Haytham shot him a look that told him he was unconvinced of his reason, but he said,

           “You’ve been placed on watch for insubordination, but if what you’re saying is true, then I’ll take this to Achilles and see what I can do.” Connor nodded and moved to walk to the stairs, but his father grabbed his forearm, warning, “But do not leave the homestead until you’ve been given leave to do so.” A remark of indignation crossed his mind, but he nodded and Haytham continued, “Then you go home, and I’ll go see Achilles.” They climbed the stairs, and Connor watched him leave in the direction of the manor. When he was out of sight, he turned, heading to the stables. As he entered, he was startled when his mother entered his vision, arms crossed across her chest, face set in a mask that screamed You’re in trouble.

           “Mother!” She took a step towards him, questioning,

           “And what are you doing, my son? Not leaving without permission, I hope?” The inquiries were rhetorical, and he knew it, so instead of floundering for excuses, he sighed.

           “I was trying to.” Ziio frowned, tipping her head to the doors; Connor let out another sigh, obeying her silent command. The two stepped outside and she waved a hand as she passed him.

           “Come with me.” His face pinched, but still, he did as she commanded, following close behind her, listening as she talked. “You have made quite a scene today Ratonhnhaké:ton. Many are displeased with your actions.” He hadn’t been scolded in such a long time, especially by his mother that he looked at his feet, mumbling,

           “I am sorry mother.” She let out a huff, tipping her head to look back at him.

           “I am more concerned with whatever reasons you had that made you act like that.” Before he could speak, she added, “And I heard you with your father. I trust you, but I do not trust that you are telling him the whole truth.” She spun on her heel and Connor went still as she asked, “What changes were you talking about earlier?” He worried the inside of his cheek, trying to decide what to reveal to her and what he should keep silent. Sighing, he said,

           “Mother, I awoke yesterday and…and I…” He started trailing off, she tipped her head to the side, urging,

           “Yes?” Connor took a deep breath and admitted,

           “And I am not remembering things the way they have occurred.” Ziio’s face turned with suspicion, but also concern.

           “What do you mean?” He raised a hand, feeling around the back of his head until it met the center of the wound.

           “I think I fell and hit my head…I am…” He waved his other hand, fumbling for a vague truth he could commit to. “I am remembering things differently from how they have happened.” She took a seat on a stump, patting the ground next to her. He sat down and she questioned,

           “Like what?” Connor swallowed thickly and looked up at her, begging,

           “Will you promise to not think me crazy? I know it will sound like I am.” Ziio gazed at him a moment, then nodded and he sighed, “Mother…I watched the British leave the colonies a year ago on Evacuation Day. The patriots won the war…we were free of the Crown and templar control.” Indeed, she certainly looked at him like he was growing a second head and he turned his head, words tasting like soured grapes as he spat, “You think I am crazy.”

           “No.” The sudden response made him look back at her and she said, “You must have hit your head. Ratonhnhaké:ton, the British have controlled the colonies since they were established.”

           “But the war-”

           “The patriot army was defeated at Trenton and Saratoga by the British. However, many of the generals of the Crown spoke to the king and begged him to make reforms in the colonies. Taxes were alleviated as well as the repeal of British soldiers in colonist homes.” Connor went silent and she sighed, “I have heard of things like this happening with head wounds.” She smiled, reaching a hand out to him. “We will help you remember what has happened.” He wanted to smile, but the pending question on his tongue made him inquire,

           “Who is we?” Ziio cocked an eyebrow and explained,

           “Me, Haytham, and Ahyoka.” Connor blinked at her, questioning,

           “Who?”

           “Ahyoka? Your wife?” For a moment, he couldn’t speak, and she watched his mouth open and snap shut a few times before he blurted out,

           “Excuse me? I am not married to a woman named Ahyoka.” Her face revealed a stunned expression and she murmured,

           “My god…you truly do not remember what has happened recently.” All Connor could manage to say was,

           “Evidently not.”

[popatochisssp]

If any of the diamond skeletons pull off a Rose Quartz and start a rebellion, who and why would they do that? (I just want to tell you that your posts bring me life! ❤️)

If it would be anybody, it really seems like it would be Violet Diamond (Swapfell Papyrus).

He’s the youngest of the Diamonds, the least comfortable with authority and certainly one of the biggest bleeding hearts among their number– and also in frequent contact with fascinating planets being colonized or set for colonization.

Like Rose, he could very easily fall in love with a planet, maybe even a sentient species like humanity, or just…one human in particular…?

There’s a difference, though, something standing in the way of Violet feeling like his only option to be heard and to spare an organic world and its inhabitants is to pretend to die and start a war.

He has Purple Diamond (Swapfell Sans).

Violet is and has always been Purple’s soft spot and when his brother comes to him with all this crazy rhetoric about how this organic life is important and special and needs to be protected, it’s only at first that he’s dismissive. The more Violet insists and tries to get Purple to understand, the more he realizes that…well, while he may not really get why (yet), this is…this is something that’s really important to Violet…

Alright… alright, fine, he’ll help.

Purple is, of course, something of a mastermind, knowing how people think and being able to predict behavior in certain circumstances to at least some degree of accuracy, so here he knows exactly what needs to be done.

He advises his brother to go talk to Gray Diamond (Horrortale Sans).

Purple’s not particularly fond of that oversized layabout, but he is the oldest Diamond, with all the clout that comes with that, and more importantly– he’s the big, broken domino that’s going to get all the rest toppling after him.

Gray pretty much never leaves Homeworld these days, but he has a deep respect for and fascination with life. Generally gem life, but if he actually got off-world and saw some interesting, sentient organic life– and if it’s captured Violet’s fancy so much, it must be interesting–there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t be just as taken with it.

And of course, Brown Diamond (Horrortale Papyrus) would never leave Gray to make such a journey alone, he’d come with, too! And as another notable bleeding heart amongst the Diamonds, he’d probably feel just the same.

So that’s already four out of ten on board: only six more to go…

Both Brown and Gray are sort of reclusive back on Homeworld, but Brown at least keeps up sporadic contact with the other Diamonds, and as soon as they get back, he’s going to share his concerns about the colony in question with one of them, a like-minded individual, so similar that they even share a cut.

Orange Diamond (Papyrus Undertale) is naturally deeply concerned by the idea of sentient beings suffering from the efforts of their Empire, he never considered it before but now that he has, it really doesn’t seem right! Maybe he ought to talk to the guy who holds the rule-book around here, his brother Blue Diamond (Sans Undertale).

Blue considers it and looks over everything about this colony and its species, coming to the conclusion that… yeah, that’s kind of an oversight isn’t it? Not to already have any rules about sentience on the books… They really should put something in, a little late but bureaucracy ain’t ever perfect or fast.

Blue brings it to Yellow Diamond (Underswap Sans) to determine what said rule(s) should be– because this is one case where having full impunity to just decide that himself is way too much responsibility– and Yellow comes to the same conclusion, that organic life is messy and complex and all over the place, but the sentient kind… that’s rare. It is special and should be protected, and thankfully, they caught this early before really encountering too much of that kind of life while colonizing!

So that’s it, they’ve gotta change the protocol– Yellow asks Green Diamond (Underswap Papyrus) to figure out the appropriate means they’ll need to determine sentience in organic species (as one of the Diamonds with the most downtime to spare for a side-project like that), and then calls up the last remaining Diamonds on the outer reaches, actively expanding the Empire to tell them the news: Red Diamond (Underfell Sans) and Black Diamond (Underfell Papyrus).

Red thinks the reasoning is kinda goofy, probably doesn’t particularly believe in it, but at the same time, getting to skip over any planets with sentient organics sounds kinda great. It’s less work and the few times he encountered those kinds of organics, they always put up a real nasty fight and he’s happy to be rid of that.

Black is probably equal parts relieved and disappointed at first. He liked the hard-won wars and the chance to employ his brilliant tactics in battle…but he also was never very fond of beating someone who couldn’t possibly hold their own against him and his armies, it felt…unfair…

But then he remembers that there’s always enemies of the Empire out there, advanced civilizations more on their level who want to steal resources or dispute territory– nothing at all like the primitive, fledgling forms of life that these new laws would make off-limits– so in the end, he’s perfectly happy to abide by the decision!

After it all, Purple asks Violet if he’s happy with the way it all worked out, now that his precious not-going-to-be-a-colony-anymore and all its weird lifeforms are protected.

Yes. Yes, he is. UwU

[companionjones]

Children In Chaos

Requested by: Anon

Request: Hello! Could I please request an Even Buckley x reader where she's English and she helped a kid in a crisis and calmed him down, even getting him back to safety when they couldn't and that's how they meet? He thinks she's really sweet and kind but she can also be quite sassy so she gets along w everyone? Ty x 

Fandom: 9-1-1 (FOX)

Pairing: Evan Buckley x English!Reader, Platonic!OC x English!Reader

Warnings: Nothing much. Bit of a disaster. A dash of angst.

*******

    Everything was so loud. There was the expected loud noises, such as the initial crash and the walls and ceiling falling. Then, there were new loud sounds. You could suddenly clearly hear your breathing and heartbeat. You hoped that would stop soon.

    For the longest time, you thought you were alone because all the people you had seen in the department store before hand were abruptly gone due to the devastation. Then, you heard the whimpering.

    “Hello?” you cautiously called out to the near-darkness.

    It was a little boy. You realized that when you crawled around a corner. “Who-Who are you?”

    “Uh, hi. I-I’m Y/n...and uh...Okay, we’re in a pretty crazy situation right now, but you and I are going to stick together until we get out of this. Okay?”

    The boy started nodding.

    “Okay...okay, good. Why don’t we take a look around, huh?” you suggested.

    He nodded more, and let you helped him out of the corner he had tucked himself into.

    After about an hour, you had given up on searching for your own way out. By then, you had learned the boy’s name, Todd, and the two of you had spent a long time crawling around tight spaces. Sweat stains had developed a long time ago.

    As you and Todd leaned against opposite makeshift walls, he asked you, “Miss Y/n, why do you talk so weird?”

    “‘Talk so weird?’” you laughed. Todd was only 7, of course he didn’t know much about accents. “It’s my accent, Todd. I’m not American, I’m actually from Britain.” You spent the next several minutes explaining accents to Todd. You didn’t mind. It took both of your thoughts off your current situation. The two of you actually spent a good amount of time discussing when Americans switched from English to American accents after colonial times. Again: Todd was 7.

    Some time after, you nodded, “That is a very good point, Todd. It has to have been some time after--aAH!” The ground shook, and things started falling again. You immediately went to protect Todd.

    After the small panic had passed, a new voice sounded, “Hello?”

    For a moment, you and Todd just looked at each other. Then, it hit.

    “Yes! Yes, hello! We’re over here!”

    A man’s face was suddenly visible through the parts of concrete. “How are you guys doing?!”

    “Yes, we’re alright.”

    The man asked a few more questions, like if anyone was hurt and how many people were present. The young man turned out to be a firefighter. He revealed his name to be Evan Buckley, or ‘Buck’ for short. In return, you and Todd gave your own names.

    Fireman Buckley went on to tell Todd that his parents made it out okay, and that they were just outside the site, waiting for Todd.

    Buck ended up handing you a walkie-talkie in case anything went wrong and you and Todd got separated from him.

    Less than ten minutes later, just that happened. Buck had mentioned that the once-department store was still unstable. That was what caused more concrete to fall.

    Soon after the third collapse of the day, Buck’s voice rung through the walkie-talkie. “Are you two okay?”

    “Yes, we’re fine.” It took you a moment to find the proper button.

    Buck comforted, “Can you take some deep breaths for me?”

    You did so after nodding at Todd to breathe, too. “Fireman Buckley...Buck, are there any plans that involve us getting out of here?”

    Buck answered, “Yep, my team is working on something right now...The thing is, it’s going to take a few hours...and it could get thrown off if there’s another collapse.”

    “Not to mention, another collapse could kill--cause worse things to happen,” you hastily added after remembering the young boy that was with you. Sighing, you leaned your elbows on your knees so the walkie and your free hand could hold the weight of your head. You rhetorically mumbled, “Got anymore bad news, Buck?”

    The young firefighter mumbled sincerely, “I’m sorry, Y/n.”

    You decided not to reply.

    Instead, Todd filled the silence. “So, that firefighter’s pretty cute, right?”

    Chuckling, you inquired, “You think so?”

    He responded, “I’m wondering if you think so.”

    “How old did you say you were again?” You were still grinning.

    Todd nonchalantly answered, “7.”

    “I...It doesn’t matter what I think about Fireman Buckley. Now is definitely not the time for those kinds of thoughts, Todd.”

    His voice got low as he mumbled, “It might be the last time for any kind of thoughts, Miss Y/n.”

    “Don’t think like that.” You kept your voice gentle. Fireman Buckley seems very capable.”

    Todd’s voice was still spiteful. “Of course you would think that.”

    “And I’m sure his team have the same skills,” you continued, “Now, what would you like to do while we wait for our rescue? How do you feel about a game of ‘Would You Rather?’”

    The boy sighed while he thought about it. Then, “Okay, Miss Y/n.”

    “After what’s happened today, I don’t think we need the ‘Miss’ anymore. Alright?”

    Todd nodded as he crawled over to a spot next to you. “Thanks, Y/n.”

    “Anytime, sweetie,” you smiled.

    It took five hours, but Buck’s team finally found you and Todd. You were thankful, and that was in no small part because it was getting harder and harder for Todd to keep Buck out of his ‘Would You Rather?’ questions.

    The way you got out was kind of dangerous. Basically, the piece of concrete that was acting as yours and Todd’s ceiling was removed, and a woman was lowered down to lift you and Todd out of there. Obviously, you let Todd go first. When your turn came, things turned for the worse. Objects started falling again, and you were one of them. Hen--you’d later learned her name--almost lost her grip on you. Almost. You made it out okay. Only, you were a little shaken up.

    “Are you okay, Y/n?” Todd asked, then cradled in his mother’s arms.

    Smiling, you nodded in response to the young boy. “Yes, I’m alright, Todd. Go get those scratches checked out, okay?”

    He nodded, and his father spoke up, “We cannot thank you enough for what you did for our son. Please, give us a call if you need anything.” The man handed you his card.

    “Thank you,” you accepted. “Todd is a very brave boy.”

    Todd’s father agreed, then went back to his family.

    A young fireman showed himself where you were getting examined for injuries. He appeared to be listening to the previous conversation. “And you are a very brave woman,” he added.

    “Nice to see your face again,” you smiled.

    His face matched yours. “Same to you,” Buck replied. He paused, “Are you okay?”

    “Yes, I think I’m alright. A few scrapes and bruises...and I’m only a little shaken up. Thank you,” You sincerely added, referring to what Buck was really asking about: your mental health.

    The fireman donned a smile that let you know he was trying to be charming. “So Miss Y/n, I was wondering--”

    Interrupting, Todd called over from where his wounds were getting checked out, “After what’s happened today, I don’t think we need the ‘Miss,’ anymore. Alright?”

    Todd’s parents immediately shushed their son.

    Buck leaned over you to respond to Todd. “Thanks, Todd.”

    You couldn’t hold in your giggles from the interaction very well.

    “So, Y/n,” Buck stressed your name, “I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me sometime? I could give you my number.”

    Then, you were giggling for a different reason. “I’d love that,” you replied.

    For a moment, Buck seemed relieved that you had agreed. He finally, albeit clumsily, pulled out his phone. “I, uh, cool. Here--here you go.”

    Again, Todd sounded out. He was laughing. “Smooth, Buckley. Smooth.”

*******

Author’s Note: Thank you for reading! Fill up that heart and reblog if you liked it! If you would like to read more, I have more fics on 9-1-1 over on my page. You should go check it out. Also, REQUESTS ARE OPEN. I take requests for one-shots, multi-chapters, headcannons, and preferences. No smut, please. I write for a variety of fandoms. If you’re wondering if I write for a specific fandom, please ask me. Have a nice day, night, or whatever time it is for you.<3