#strongarm family

[froynlaventje]

Meanwhile at the Strongarm lot family dog Koh Oug meets a nice stranger named Rascal.

And Julien Cooke visits Tema. They continue their relationship where they left off last week and soon Tema is in love.

Tema adopts Rascal while Julien gets aquainted with Tema's kids.

[dukeofthomas]

I hate the insistence in pushing Jason into the batfamily.

If he doesn't wanna go to dinner, he doesn't have to. If he doesn't wanna hang out with them, he doesn't have to. If he doesn't want to see them, he doesn't have to. If he doesn't even want to contact them, he doesn't have to.

It's so annoying to read fic and always see it presented as his Family Knows Better. Jason is just being silly by not realizing how much they love him and he just needs to let them break into his home and comms and life because they want him there.

[moeblob]

Demotivational (bully) Sampo because I said so.

(original quote is in reference to Mt. Everest)

[angeltannis]

Crazy that using online payment methods with buyer protection is now considered Old and Boomerish

[lunarfeat21]

Was watching the 21 ep of s4, Denny just returned from scouting at the scrapyard (with Sideswipe).

Dude is ready to lecture when…

Denny presents a Rear Axel Poster (Bumblebee’s Rear Axel poster might add!)

He accepts the bribe

Me and my small collection of transformers at my room

(I really, really love this. Made me giddy hehe)

[metaphorical-goblin]

Maya, Phoenix, and Miles have a series of “family photos” in one of their apartments where they’re all posing for mugshots (think of those “Old Timey Photoshoot” things you see in tourist places) and there’s a fun game they have where they have new company over for them to guess which mugshots are real and which ones are fun fake photos

[mincedpeaches]

Finally, FINALLY sat down and watched the rid2015 episodes where Blurr shows up and my god I forgot how much I dislike rid2015. Dislike so strong its boarding on hate. And I only watched like a season and a half before I'd stopped. I've always thought to myself I should go back and finish it someday (which is why I held off on the Blurr episodes for so long thinking I would catch up on the show and get to them in watching order). But I don't think I can. I just watched the Blurr episodes only and I could just barely stand it. God as my witness I really don't think I could manage watching the rest of the show. I made it through ENERGON once. And yet.

[youcanthandelthetruth]

My aunts have known their cousins have a secret half-sister for more than a year... finally blackmailed them into telling

[radiance1]

Danny has a hoverboard, one he and his parents built for family time simply because he said he wanted one of them because he thought they were cool.

The Fentons, also, own a takeout business.

Now you see, the Fentons pulled away from being scientists after Danny revealed himself as Phantom, so they obviously had to do something to secure their new source of income that would allow them to spend more time with their kids.

So they decided to open a restaurant.

Now, his parents could cook, yes. But they had a habit of injecting so much ectoplasm into their food that it came to life and didn't see it as a problem, Jazz and Danny, however, saw it as a problem. Except, they didn't really know how to cook either.

So who did they turn to with, a rather large, amount of hesitance?

Vlad.

Sure yea, he was chilling out and on his 'redemption arc' or whatever but still. Did they want to get him involved? No. Did they have any other options? Also, no.

Right decision in fact, because Vlad was so offended by their lack of lab-safety that he somehow managed to strongarm them into doing something Jazz and Danny couldn't for years in a few months. He also, decided to help them out with the funding of their restaurant and, after finding their food not up to his taste (Which is weird since he would take every opportunity he could've to compliment Danny's mom. So maybe he is actually doing that redemption thing.) also took over teaching them how to cook properly.

So yes, Danny has a hoverboard, his family owns a takeout business, and Danny has decided to help out said business via hoverboard. It was either that or Jack doing it so, you know.

Anyways, for whatever reason, they get an offer all the way over in Gotham of all places. Danny, never one to back down from a challenge, decided to take it anyway and leave Amity park in Jack's (worrying yet capable) hands.

He rides all the way over to Gotham, thankful for his parents' invention to keep the food fresh and hot, while doing tricks and entertaining himself on the way over.

All to drop said takeout in the hands of some dude in a red helmet who wants to pay him over credit. Which, uh no dude? They clearly stated that they only accept cash!

Danny doesn't care if it was a joke, and he didn't expect him to actually come here!

[xythlia]

now that I finally have some time to myself I'm working on the next chapter ^⁠_⁠^

[froynlaventje]

The Strongarms spend their week socializing with the neighbours. Cled takes care of the gardening and fishing and Tema hunts. Tema is soon pregnant and gives birth to twin boys they name Vac and Vatzoc. They all sleep together in a yurt so the parents do not get much rest but they make it through this rotation fine.

[bruciemilf]

Okay but Duke can canonically see ghosts—or at least them to a certain extent. So imagine that as he ages so does his powers, and that includes this ability.

Duke, walking into the kitchen early in the morning one day:

Thomas and Martha Wayne, who both look very real and very see through, having a heated debate about family recipes:

Duke, immediately turning around to go back to bed:

I actually adore the theory of murdered ghosts having to roam around their resting ground until their killer is brought to justice, so, Thomas and Martha being one with Wayne manor? With Gotham in general?

Uhh, YES PLEASE.

Patron saints of protection and guidance for the Waynes. Even if they could cross, they wouldn’t do it.

Have you seen this little family their son built? They need all the help they can get.

Duke genuinely thought they were 2 am hallucinations. When Thomas gives him pointers with Anna during lunch, he’s no longer certain it’s the case.

“C’mon, you’re my nephew! You gotta have more game than THAT. Buy her somethin’ nice. Dinner, jewelry, Russian battle axe. Y’know, lady things.”

“Uhh. I don’t think that’d work, Gramps.”

“What kinda woman doesn’t want an axe? Fine, get her a museum then. I know where Bruce keeps his credit cards, c’mon.” Yeah, everyone knows where. Bruce basically hands them out like coffee.

Martha heavily disproves of Bruce’s and Tim’s sleeping patterns and ‘encourages’ (strongarms) Duke into telling them to sleep.

Have you tried sending Batman, the Dark Knight, Vengeance himself, to nap before? It’s terrifying. Somehow? Tim is a bit scarier.

[marlynnofmany]

Playing Translation Telephone

“Hi,” I said as the door slid open. “Captain Sunlight wants to know how your translations are going.”

Coals sighed. “They’re going. This one’s a mess.” He shook his lizardy head, brick-red scales dull in the light by the doorway. That part of the translation suite was always dim because Trrili liked looming in the shadows there.

But today she was at the workstation in the back, surrounded by glowing screens and a cloud of irritated hisses. “I think we missed a language,” she announced, snapping her pincher arms and angling her antennae into a scowl.

“What, really?” Coals asked. He ran a hand over his head, scales clicking quietly. “How many is that now?”

“Sixssss,” Trrili hissed.

Coals grumbled something I didn’t catch, and walked back over to the workstation.

Curious, I followed and let the door shut behind me. “What kind of project is this one?”

“Old records of a multi-species colonizing effort,” Coals said from his floating chair with the tail hole. “The originals are lost, and all that’s left is this jumble that’s been translated through a succession of languages, none of which they bothered to write down. And they want us to figure out what the originals actually meant.”

“Sounds tricky,” I said. Each of the screens held writing, most in languages I didn’t recognize. Some were notes in the trade language we all spoke, and I was amused to see how much swearing was in Trrili’s notes.

“It is very tricky,” Trrili agreed, jabbing a little wrist finger at the screen in the middle. “The grammar doesn’t match the words, and the idioms are an utter tar hole. It’s anyone’s guess what culture came up with some of these details.”

“I’m pretty sure the bit about rocks is a Strongarm saying,” Coals said. “It makes more sense than a Frillian interpretation.”

“Yes, fine, probably,” Trrili said with an irritated wave of her pinchers. “I’m stuck at this part that goes off on a tangent about the family arrangements of the wildlife. It’s clearly significant, and at least one layer of translation wanted to make sure the full interpretation was spelled out, but that just makes it more confusing.”

“How so?” I asked. I’d gotten the job on this ship because of my animal-care knowledge, so maybe I could offer some insights. I peered at the screen.

“This part,” Trrili said, “Is a recounting of a colonist’s experience in retrieving goods from a shuttle that crashed in a lake. The water creatures seem to have complex social arrangements, and somehow that relates to their behavior toward this particular colonist.” She folded her pinchers and leaned back, glaring at the ancient diary. “Of course this had to be written by someone disinclined to speaking clearly.”

“What kind of behavior is it?” I asked. “Are we talking mating advances, or aggressively protecting the young, or—?”

“Aggressive,” Trrili said immediately. “This word means mouth, possibly teeth specifically, and in the grammatical arrangement that it’s currently configured into, it has to be saying that the thing bit the colonist.”

Coals flipped through documents on another screen. “Do we know what the official name for the creature is?”

Trrili hissed. “Not even close. That’s what this whole tangent is: an attempt at describing it. I’d love to know if it was the original colonist or someone later who decided it would be helpful to tell us that this creature’s ancestors rejected social bonds.”

“Rejected how?” I asked.

Coals brought up another document. “I’ve got something on the legal system of the original colony. Sounds like there were multiple types of family arrangements at play. Possibly this colonist was just musing on a similarity to their own life.”

Trrili hissed. “How does that help us? I don’t see any accounts of this person’s family life, or even their species. We have no way to know if their own parents performed the socially-accepted rituals or not.”

“Wait,” I said. “Is this about the animal’s parents not doing a certain ritual? Like marriage? Is the colonist calling the fish a bastard?”

Both of my alien coworkers looked at me. Coals asked slowly, “That’s an insult in human circles, isn’t it?”

“Yes!”

Trrili threw her pinchers skyward and stalked away from the workstation. “Of course it is. You people are sentimental about everything, including reproduction. This would have been so much simpler if we’d known from the start that there was a human layer to this.”

“So what does it say?” I asked. “The colonist went into the lake to help with the crash, and got bitten by a bastard fish?”

Trrili was walking in circles hissing, so Coals scooted in front of the center screen. “Going by what we’ve figured out so far,” he said, “The colonist was trying to move salvage from the shuttle. Walking through shallow water. The water creatures were of many bright colors — it goes into detail about that, comparing them to refractive prisms and seaspray — but they kept their distance as long as the colonist kept moving. Pretty sure this part says one came in for a bite as soon as the colonist stood still. And that’s where we go off on an elaborate description of the creature’s family arrangements.”

I grinned. “‘Dear diary, today I waded through a lake and got bit by a rainbow bastard fish. Terrible experience; wouldn’t recommend.’”

Coals looked closer. “It does actually say something like that afterward,” he admitted. “There’s a suggestion that the next person to enter the water wear protective clothing.”

Over Trrili’s aggravated hissing, I said, “That colonist might have been a human.”

“Might indeed,” Coals said. He scrolled up through a page of notes. “That could actually shed some light on a couple other spots, now that you mention it.”

Trrili appeared beside us. “Bring up the part about the colony leader mating with someone’s mother.”

I laughed. “I can tell you right now that that’s an insult. The colonist is likely complaining about the boss, not describing something that actually happened.”

Coals looked at Trrili. “Told you we need an insult chart.”

Trrili tilted her head dramatically. “That’s so much work!”

“So’s this,” Coals pointed out. “How about you take another look at what we’ve got so far here, and I’ll start a list of common human insults.”

Trrili took a position in front of the screens, hissing quietly.

“I’ll be happy to help,” I said to Coals. “My people are very creative on that front.”

“So I gather,” Coals said. He scooted over to me, digital notepad at the ready. “And not one of those insults revolves around eggs. Mindblowing.”

“Well,” I said with a tip of my head. “There is the thing about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. That’s kind of an insult.”

“What?” Coals said. “Never mind. I can tell this is going to be a long list.”

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!

[najia-cooks]

[ID: Two large flatbreads. The one in the center is topped with bright purple onions, faux chicken, fried nuts, and coarse red sumac; the one at the side is topped with onions and sumac. Second image is a close-up. End ID]

مسخن / Musakhkhan (Palestinian flatbread with onions and sumac)

Musakhkhan (مُسَخَّن; also "musakhan" or "moussakhan") is a dish historically made by Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest season of October and November: naturally leavened flatbread is cooked in clay ovens, dipped in plenty of freshly pressed olive oil, and then covered with oily, richly caramelized onions fragrant with sumac. Modern versions of the dish add spiced, boiled and baked chicken along with toasted or fried pine nuts and almonds. It is eaten with the hands, and sometimes served alongside a soup made from the stock produced by boiling the chicken. The name of the dish literally means "heated," from سَخَّنَ "sakhkhana" "to heat" + the participle prefix مُـ "mu".

I have provided instructions for including 'chicken,' but I don't think the dish suffers from its lack: the rich, slightly sour fermented wheat bread, the deep sweetness of the caramelised onions, and the true, clean, bright expressions of olive oil and sumac make this dish a must-try even in its original, plainer form.

Musakhkhan is often considered to be the national dish of Palestine. Like foods such as za'tar, hummus, tahina, and frika, it is significant for its historical and emotional associations, and for the way it links people, place, identity, and memory; it is also understood to be symbolic of a deeply rooted connection to the land, and thus of liberation struggle. The dish is liberally covered with the fruit of Palestinian lands in the form of onions, olive oil, and sumac (the dried and ground berries of a wild-growing bush).

The symbolic resonance of olive oil may be imputed to its history in the area. In historical Palestine (before the British Mandate period), agriculture and income from agricultural exports made up the bulk of the economy. Under مُشَاعْ (mushā', "common"; also transliterated "musha'a") systems of land tenure, communally owned plots of land were divided into parcels which were rotated between members of large kinship groups (rather than one parcel belonging to a private owner and their descendants into perpetuity). Olive trees were grown over much of the land, including on terraced hills, and their oil was used for culinary purposes and to make soap; excess was exported. In the early 1920s, Palestinian farmers produced 5,000 tons of olive oil a year, making an average of 342,000 PL (Palestinian pounds, equivalent to pounds sterling) from exports to Egypt alone.

During the British Mandate period (from 1917 to 1948, when Britain was given the administration of Palestine by the League of Nations after World War 1), acres of densely populated and cultivated land were expropriated from Palestinians through legal strongarming of and direct violence against, including killing of, فَلّاَحين (fallahin, peasants; singular "فَلَّاح" "fallah") by British troops. This continued a campaign of dispossession that had begun in the late 19th century.

By 1941, an estimated 119,000 peasants had been dispossessed of land (30% of all Palestinian families involved in agriculture); many of them had moved to other areas, while those who stayed were largely destitute. The agriculturally rich Nablus area (north of Jerusalem), for example, was largely empty by 1934: Haaretz reported that it was "no longer the town of gold [i.e., oranges], neither is it the town of trade [i.e., olive oil]. Nablus rather has become the town of empty houses, of darkness and of misery". Farmers led rebellions against this expropriation in 1929, 1933, and 1936-9, which were brutually repressed by the British military.

Despite the number of farmers who had been displaced from their land by European Jewish private owners and cooperatives (which owned 24.5% of all cultivated land in Palestine by 1941), the amount of olives produced by Palestinians increased from 34,000 tons in 1931 to 78,300 in 1945, evidencing an investment in and expansion of agriculture by indigenous inhabitants. Thus it does not seem likely that vast swathes of land were "waste land," or that the musha' system did not allow for "development"!

Imprecations against the musha' system were nevertheless used as justification to force Palestinians from their land. After various Zionist organizations and militant groups succeeded in pushing Britain out of Palestine in 1948—clearing the way for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to be dispossessed or killed during the Nakba—the Israeli parliament began constructing a framework to render their expropriation of land legal; the Cultivation of Waste Lands Law of 1949, for example, allowed the requisition of uncultivated land, while the Absentees’ Property Law of 1950 allowed the state to requisition the land of people it had forced from their homes.

Israel profited from its dispossession of millions of dunums of land; 40,000 dunums of vineyards, 100,000 dunums of citrus groves, and 95% of the olive groves in the new state were stolen from Palestinians during this period, and the agricultural subsidies bolstered by these properties were used to lure new settlers in with promises of large incomes.

It also profited from the resulting "de-development" of the Palestinian economy, of which the decline in trade of olive oil furnishes a striking example. Palestinian olive farmers were unable to compete with the cheaper oils (olive and other types) with which Zionist, capital-driven industry flooded the market; by 1936, the 342,000 PL in olive oil exports of the early 1920s had fallen to 52,091 PL, and thereafter to nothing. While selling to a Palestinian captive market, Israel was also exporting the fruits of confiscated Palestinian land to Europe and elsewhere; in 1949, olives produced on stolen land were Israel's third-largest export. As of 2014, 12.9% of the olives exported to Europe were grown in the occupied West Bank alone.

This process of de-development and profiteering accelerated after Israel's military seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. In 1970, agriculture made up 34% of the GDP of the West Bank, and 31% of that of Gaza; in 2000, it was 16% and 18%, respectively. Many of those out of work due to expropriated or newly unworkable land were hired as day laborers on Israeli farms.

Meanwhile, Palestinians (and Israeli Palestinians) continued to plant and cultivate olives. The fact that Palestinians do not control their own water supplies or borders and may expect at any time to be barred by the military from harvesting their fields has discouraged investment and led to risk aversion (especially since the outmoding of the musha' system, which had minimized individual risk). In this environment, olive trees are attractive because they are low-input. They can subsist on rainwater (Israel monopolizes and poisons much of the region's water, and heavily taxes imports of materials that could be used to build irrigation systems), and don't require high-quality soil or daily weeding. Olive trees, unlike factories and agricultural technology, don't need large inputs of capital that stand to be wasted if the Israeli military destroys them.

Olive trees are therefore the chosen crop when proving a continued use of land in order to prevent the Israeli military from expropriating it under various "waste" or "absentee" land laws. Palestinians immediately plant olive seedlings on land they have been temporarily forced from, since even land that has lain fallow due to status as a military closed zone can be appropriated with this justification. The danger is so pressing that Palestinian agronomists encouraged this habit (as of 1993), despite the fact that Israeli competition and continual planting had lowered olive crop prices, and despite the decline in soil quality that results from never allowing land to lie fallow. In more recent years, olive trees have yielded primary or supplementary income for about 100,000 Palestinian families, producing up to 191 million USD in value in good years (including an average of 17,000 tons of olive oil yearly between 2001 and 2009).

Israeli soldiers and settlers have famously uprooted, vandalized, razed, and burned millions of these olive trees, as well as using military outposts to deny Palestinian farmers access to their olive crops. It prefers to restrict Palestinians to annual crops, such as vegetables and grains, and eliminate competition in permanent crops, such as fruit trees.

This targeting of olive trees increases during times of intensified conflict. During the currently ongoing olive harvest season (November 2023), Gazan olive farmers have reported being targeted by Israeli war planes; some farmers in the West Bank have given up on harvesting their trees altogether, due to threats issued by organized networks of settlers that they would kill anyone seen making the attempt.

The rootedness of olive trees in the history of Palestine gives them weight as a symbol of homeland, culture, and the fight for liberation. Palestinian olive harvest festivals, typically celebrated in October with singing, dancing, and eating, have inspired similar events elsewhere in the world, aimed at sharing Palestinian food and culture and expressing solidarity with those living under occupation.

Support Palestinian resistance by calling Elbit System’s (Israel’s primary weapons manufacturer) landlord, donating to Palestine Action’s bail fund, and donating to the Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee bail fund.

Ingredients:

For the dish:

2 pieces taboon bread, preferably freshly baked

2 large or 3 medium yellow onions (480g)

1 cup first cold press extra virgin olive oil (زيت زيتون البكر الممتاز)

1 Tbsp coarsely ground Levantine sumac (سماق شامي / sumaq shami), plus more to top

Ground black pepper

For the chicken (optional):

500g chicken substitute

5 green cardamom pods, or 1/4 tsp ground cardamom

4 cloves, or pinch ground cloves

1 Mediterranean bay leaf

1 Tbsp ground sumac

For the nut topping (optional):

2 Tbsp slivered almonds

2 Tbsp pine nuts

Neutral oil, for frying

Notes on ingredients:

Use the best olive oil that you can. You will want oil that has some opacity to it or some deposits in it. I used Aleppo brand olive oil (7 USD a liter at my local halal grocery).

If you want to replace the taboon bread with something less laborious, I would recommend something that mimics the rich, fermented flavor of the traditional, whole-wheat, naturally leavened bread. Many people today make taboon bread with white flour and commercial yeast—which you might mimic by using storebought naan or lavash, for example—but I think the slight sourness of the flatbread is a beautiful counterpoint to the brightness of the sumac and the sweetness of the caramelized onions. I would go with a sourdough pizza crust or something similar.

Your sumac should be coarsely ground, not finely powdered; and a deep, rich red, not pinkish in color (like the pile on the right, not the one on the left).

For this dish, a whole chicken is usually first boiled (perhaps with spices including bay leaves, cardamom, and cloves) and then baked, sometimes along with some of the oil from frying the onions. I call for just frying or baking instead; in my opinion, boiling often has a negative effect on the texture of meat substitutes.

Instructions:

For the onions:

1. Heat a cup of olive oil in a large skillet or pot. Fry onions on medium-low, stirring often, for 10 minutes or until translucent.

2. Add 1 Tbsp sumac and a few cracks of black pepper and reduce to low. Cook for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onions are sweet, reduced in volume, and pinkish in color.

For the chicken:

1. Briefly toast and finely grind spices except for sumac (cardamom, cloves, and bay leaf). Filter with a fine mesh sieve. Dip 'chicken' into the pot in which you fried the onions to coat it with olive oil, then rub spices (including sumac) onto the surface.

2. Sear chicken in a dry skillet until browned on all sides; or bake, uncovered, in the top third of an oven heated to 400 °F (200 °C) until browned.

For the nut topping:

1. Heat a neutral oil on medium in a small pot or skillet. Add almonds and fry for 2 minutes, until just starting to take on color. Add pine nuts and fry until both almonds and pine nuts are golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon.

To assemble:

1. Dip each flatbread in the olive oil used to fry the onions, then spread onions over the surface.

Some cooks dip the bread entirely into oil; others press it lightly into the surface of the oil in the pot on both sides, or one side; a more modern method calls for mixing the olive oil with chicken broth to lighten it. Consult your taste. I think the bread from my taboon recipe stands up well to being pressed into the oil on both sides without tearing or becoming soggy.

2. Top flatbread with chicken and several large pinches more sumac. Bake briefly in the oven (still heated to 400 °F / 200 °C), or broil on low, for 3-5 minutes, until the sumac and the surface of the bread have darkened a shade.

3. Top with fried nuts.

Musakhkhan is usually eaten by ripping the chicken into bite-sized pieces, tearing off a bit of bread, and eating the chicken using the bread.

Some cooks make a layered musakhkhan, adding two to three pieces of bread covered with onions on top of each other before topping the entire construction with chicken and pine nuts.

[lgbtlunaverse]

One underdiscussed aspect of the bone-deep lack of mutual understanding during the nieyao stairs scene is that Nie Mingjue doesn't know - and can't know - what he's actually asking of Jin Guangyao. Not because he doesn't understand how his father treats him, or how tenuous his position is. But because he has no clue Xue Yang is a demonic cultivator.

Remember: Nie Mingjue is still alive, which means the position of chief cultivator doesn't exist yet and Jin Guangshan is facing heavy pushback for suggesting it. Most of that is coming from a fear that the Jin will try to become the next Wen. So having an outer disciple murder an entire clan and then not even punish him properly? This is a collosally bad move politically! You might as well be waving a red flag around yelling "I want to kill other sects with impunity!" There's a reason that years in the future, the moment Jin Guangyao becomes acting sect leader, he will immediately order Xue Yang's death (He doesn't actually die, either by accident or on purpose on jgy's part. But the point is that as far as the public is concerned he had Xue Yang executed.)

From Nie Mingjue's perspective, Jin Guangshan just shot himself in the foot politically for some random outer disciple. It's morally wrong, but it's also incredibly fucking stupid. In his eyes, he is asking Jin Guangyao to do the glaringly obvious right thing, even when exclusively looking at the Jins' self-interest. The thing that surely everyone else in the Jin also wants Jin Guangshan to do! Jin Guangyao can say that he has no influence on his father all he wants, but it is obvious how much work he does and so, as much as his father may not respect him, he clearly at least trusts Jin Guangyao's competence. Nie Mingjue has already tried shouting directly at Jin Guangshan during the trial and it seemed to work, but then Jin Guangshan went back on his decision like a complete idiot. So now Nie Mingjue is asking the guy who is famous for being good at rhetoric and convincing people to convince his donkey of a father to do the obviously correct thing with minimal downsides because again, to Nie Mingjue, this is all about some random outer disciple. It makes sense to ask this! It's a pretty reasonable request! Jin Guangshan can't possibly care that much.

Except of course he does. Because Xue Yang isn't some random outer disciple. He's the only good shot Jin Guangshan has at recreating the yin tiger tally. And Jin Guangshan reaaaaaally wants the yin tiger tally. So bad that he is fully willing to tank an ungodly amount of political goodwill to get it. Jin Guangyao is fully aware that not only will Jin Guangshan never kill Xue Yang, he isn't planning on keeping him locked up either. In fact, after Nie Mingjue is dead, he'll free Xue Yang and strongarm Chang Ping into denying the guilt of his family's murderer. Jin Guangshan cares a lot about keeping Xue Yang in his employ.

And Jin Guangyao knows this. But he can't tell Nie Mingjue that! Because then he'd have to admit they've been doing demonic cultivation. That the fucking ghost geneal is in their basement. That, oopsie, they actually also killed a whole other entire clan just a while ago after framing their sect leader for an assasination attempt and then used their bodies as fodder to make more fierce corpses. You know, in case one mass murder wasn't enough!

So obviously he's not gonna say that. Which means Nie Mingjue has no idea what he's demanding from Jin Guangyao, and therefore no idea why he absolutely can't fullfill that request.

I get why it's not mentioned very often because there are a lot of other problems which are both more obvious and more fun to talk about. (Who doesn't love a little overcomplicated trolley problem?) But I think it adds just another layer to the chasm between them in this scene. They're not just disagreeing, they're having completely different conversations.

[fellthemarvelous]

Satine Kryze said war isn't the answer to saving lives and people in fandom love to crucify her over her stance. She would know! She comes from a warrior society with a history of bloodshed and violence, but when she lost her family in the Mandalorian civil war, she rebuilt Mandalore alone and was chosen by the people to lead them through an age of peace, something she successfully did for almost 20 years.

She remained neutral during the Clone Wars because her own culture's history with war already knew war was always a game for power.

The war was even fought between manufactured soldiers.

Planets were forced to pick sides, and the ones who chose to remain neutral were strongarmed into the war one way or another.

Satine Kryze died refusing to pick sides. Everyone loses during a war.

She was the target of assassination attempts because she chose pacifism. She was a target because she chose peace. The Republic did not have access to Mandalore, a planet that would have ensured a victory for Palpatine much sooner.

She died not long before the end of the war and Mandalore fell into the clutches of the Empire when the Republic fell.

Palpatine hated her. Satine stood for everything he stood against.

And just to add to her awesomeness, Obi-Wan Kenobi almost left the Jedi Order to be with her.