#the again maybe he's pro genocide what do I/we know?

[hazbinbabbling4ever]

Sorry, as far as I care about Keany Reeves, which is 0, this seems exaggerated even for tumblr standards. We possess one photo of him being polite to a foreign prime minister 10 years ago. Was he supposed to slap a foreign dignitary or what? You arbitrarily deciding he's a zionist and then saying "he needs to prove he's not one" seems like someone spreading rumors without the other party knowing, and then saying they're guilty because they haven't said anything to defend themselves lol. Again, absolutely 0 fucks are given to this man, this is just a critique to this tumblr witch hunt method, which is ridiculous and also dilutes the meaning of zionist to the point where it means nothing, because if everyone is a zionist then no one is. The meaning of this word has become so large and encompassing it lost its gravity.

a brief recap of what has been going on with the sonic movieverse in the past several months:

paramount has come out in public support of israel

a man who has publicly rubbed elbows with none other than benjamin netanyahu reportedly gets cast as shadow for the upcoming third movie

the guy who plays tom got exposed as having written a letter of support for a convicted pedophile

there's fucking??? zionist propaganda in the knuckles series???

kind of connected to the last point but the guy who plays wade is evidently pro-israel too

this is a complete and utter joke.

[heterosexualgayhusbands]

every single day is another day where ethan klein still breathes and that is a horrible day he needs to shut his stupid fucking mouth

"😔a lebanese woman is telling ME an american man that there is material reasons as to why people in the middle east do things instead of what i know to be true that they are mindless jew hating animals who want to eradicate the jews"

also there it is again doesn't have the balls to attack hasan directly so he does this fucking shit i hope he never has a moment of peace in his life again

"😡her voice is not a fringe in his community and that's why we had to end leftovers"

or hey you know maybe people hate your guts because you told a random guy that hamas would kill him on the spot for being a sex worker, that the group JVP are kapos for being pro-Palestine, and that Palestinians need withstand being genocided a little more because calling for a free Palestine hurts the feefees of israelis obviously the most important thing that we need to be considering at this time

[prussiasqueen]

Hey genuine question: how can someone be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine? I understand you have family and friends in Israel but how can you be both when Israel has been

-using white phosphorus bombs

-targeting Palestinian journalists for reporting the truth

-shooting children (even BABIES) in the head

-refuse hostage negotiations

-basically running concentration camps and torturing Palestinian civilians

And a bunch of other war criminal shit that even South Africa has recognized

People criticizing Israel and wanting them to give back the land to Palestine is not antisemitism. Yes, there are people who take it too far but historically, Israel is a settler nation and Palestine should get the land back. No sane person is saying they want Jewish people dead/not have a place to go. There are Jewish people in Palestine, it was never about wanting Jewish people dead, it’s about freedom and ending the occupation.

I apologize for the lengthy rant, I just want to help educate people on this matter.

Ok so I’m gonna keep this simple as I can anon, not because I don’t think your questions aren’t important… but it sounds like to me you may need to actually sit down and talk to some Israeli people and get the full scoop and idea of what’s happening on BOTH sides. Can’t really rely too much on listening to just one side, because ya know… propaganda and how the media twists so much.

As stated a lot of what you are saying sounds like a bunch of propaganda and rinse and repeat of the same things being said over and over again.

Truth of the matter is, you’re not seeing beyond October 7th, you’re not seeing what’s been going on beyond 1948, a little bit of searching online and heck, even checking in with Israelis about said information could help a ton with this. Secondly, all the information you provided, Hamas literally did the same things to the Israeli as well and to their own people. Hamas has been torturing people since before all this has happened. Literally you sound like someone who hasn’t batted an eye to any of this until suddenly when things happened during October 7th.

This was never a genocide, this has always been a conflict.

There’s so much here to cover, maybe I should suggest you chatting with parts of jewblr?

Another man I might recommend listening and watching is Mosab Hassan Yousef.

A Palestinian man who not only is just a Palestinian but the son of Hamas co-founder, he is also known as “the green prince” you want some true insight and someone who can really break it down for you to understand, I highly recommend having a listen to his videos online (if you can find them) and also his book “The Son of Hamas” Will help give you a better perspective.

I personally could actually sit down and look at you and say, “alright, so where do we start” but I really don’t feel I need to explain when you can literally see what a lot of us have been saying. I mean hell, if you really wanna know more… (I won’t say tumblr is the best of sourcing but, the Jewish community here and my own reblogs on my other blog have walls and walls and walls of text and sources you can go and read.)

“Shooting children, even babies in the head”

Were you…. Not present when you heard what they did to some of the hostages? Umm… you do know that Hamas killed women and children too, right? I mean this is a conflict and war… I mean like I said so much to cover…

War is gray area when it comes to how it is, it’s never fully one sided, there’s casualties everywhere and there is no winning outcome in it at all.

Also can I just… can I throw one thing in here, yes people want Jews dead. People have been wanting Jews dead since the beginning of human existence on earth, I don’t know what planet where you think this is not the case, but Jews have been ostracized for many many many many years, by the Romans, ancient Egyptian, Greeks, the Germans, the polish, the Russian, the Turkish, and the list goes on and on and on, let’s be real here most of Middle East does not want Israel to exist and the people in it. (Especially Jewish) most Palestinians that support Hamas, do indeed want the Jews dead. That’s not up for debate, so by saying no “sane” person wants Jews dead, well when you support a terrorist group like Hamas, you do want Jews dead. End of discussion.

Many one else willing to help put in more info here… that’d be awesome.

@bottlepiecemuses you have anything to add to this for anon? I’m like really tired and don’t feel like breaking this down more…

[hello-nichya-here]

Do you think Lula might try to patch things up with Israel considering the rally that just happened in Brazil?

Let's make one thing clear here: the rally was not pro-Israel. Not really. The flags had a pentagram instead of the star of David, and people in said rally were saying shit like "We support Israel because they're CHRISTIANS like us."

The rally was really about a bunch of useful idiots that sympathize with fascism and straight up neo-nazis (some of which were friends with or direct descendents of the actual nazis that fled to Brazil after WWII, including the monster JOSEF MENGELE himself) who support the wanna-be dictator, and sadly Brazil's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, PRETENDING to give a shit about the Israel situation solely because Lula finally grew a pair of balls and called out the genocide against palestinians - and thus the supporters of Bozo the clown are now trying to use that as an excuse to impeach him, as yet ANOTHER attempt to ignore the results of the elections in which Lula defeated the fucker in 2022.

There's video recording of Bolsonaro (who has never been shy about wanting to turn Brazil into a dictatorship again and actually said the words "I'm pro torture, and this country won't be fixed until at least 40.000 people are dead") full on saying "We can't allow the elections to happen, otherwise I'm gonna lose."

The police tried to prevent people in the northeast region of Brazil (where nearly everyone is pro-Lula) from voting, to try and tip the escala in Bolsonaro's favor. They STILL claim Lula's victory was a fraud.

Finally, on January 8, 2023, his supporters tried staging a coup, fully inspired by the shitshow the USA had when Trump lost (and something that Bozo the clown had ALREADY said he wanted his supporters to do were he to ever lose an election) by invading government buildings. They stole and destroyed lots of valluable art-pieces - lots of which were from jewish people that either fled from nazi Germany before they were sent to concentration camps, and some that actually BEEN in said concentration camps.

And this was not a case of "Maybe they just didn't know what it was", not fully at least, because like I said, Bolsonaro's supporters have VERY strong ties to the nazis. They have done the sieg heil in his homage, say Brazil should have a nazi party, and have tried to make schools say the holocaust never happened. Some of Bolsonaro's ministers have also said shit like "Brazil's economy won't get better until we get rid of all the jews" and a fucker actually copied one of Hitler's speeches, on camera, wearing a nazi-inspired uniform, with one of Hitler's favorite classical pieces being played in the background.

As for Bolsonaro, the slogan he chose for himself "God above everything, Brazil above everyone" is clearly inspired by "Deutschland über alles" (Germany over everything). After his victory in 2018, SBT, one of the TV channels that supported him the most, used the slogan "Brazil - love it or leave it" which the dictatorship Brazil was under used for 21 years as a not so subtle threat to exile people who opposed them (and exile was the KIND fate they could be given, considering the people tortured daily in prison, or full on murdered).

So no, I don't see Lula trying to patch things up with Israel to try and win the support of these people, because they don't actually care about Israel. This was an anti-democracy rally, filled with nazis, and if they were to rise to power again, and not destroy themselves from the inside like they did during the pandemic, it would be the worst case scenario as it'd mean one less government calling Israel's genocide against palestinians AND a bunch of antisemites in power trying to make their own reich, putting all the jewish communities of Brazil in danger.

Remember folks: Israel does not represent all the jews in the world, no matter how much it desperately tries to pretend that it does. Calling it out for commiting genocide is not antisemitic, and supporting it does NOT mean making sure jewish communities will be safe - as you could see, in my country's case, it could mean nothing but a stepping-stone in making said communities the targets of actual nazis, pushing them to exile or something way, way, way worse.

[f0point5]

This may be completely left of field so don't answer this if you don't want to, but I'm pissed off and need to get this off my chest. Im sick of this f1 community and there "activism". Ive gotta give some context to what im going on about, this is regarding f1 fans and their continued belief that they are right and the drivers should be so left winged and hippie esque people.

Firstly regarding lewis and his OG insta story about the Palestine/isreal war, from my view point that wasn't taking sides that was asking for a ceasefire and peace FOR ALL. All these f1 fans and lewis fans think he's some amazing top tier moral belief guy, but he still hangs out and according to them dating some Brazilian model who has and continues to post pro isreal content, supposedly going agaisnt boy/friend lewis' moral beliefs as according to his fans. So if he's so morals based and is stance on his pro Palestine side according again to his fans who'll read anything the way they want for it to be portrayed why is he associated with her? Maybe because he's not as pro Palestine as these people think or maybe he's neutral but knew people would "rely on him" 🙄 to be the "political humanitarian" driver 🙄 nothing wrong with using your platform for the better but stop with God esque stature.

Side bar lewis' friend Shaun White settled a law suit with a alleged victim over sexual harassment claims in 2018... no one talks about that huh? Bit high horse there huh lewis. Friends with a dude who settled a lawsuit and even admitted of doing some of the alleged wrongdoings but talking high and mighty about the Christian Horner situation.

And this leads me to where my real pissed off postion comes from, lando getting ripped to shreds on tikotk for having a Starbucks drink. God forbid. "Starbucks supports a genocide" "boycott starbucks" okay but why in my town are they still packed to the rafters at each location? God forbid the man gets a drink. Honestly. These fucking fans will call out everything becuase they are in the right in everything they believe but not for one minute think about peace or just not bringing politics into everything, I've been told to shut the fuck up when I mention some genuine Antisemitism rooted hatred against lance and told I'm reaching and a Zionist bitch but these fuckers are so quick to call out lando for a fucking drink. Sometimes maybe these drivers just don't give a fuck or maybe they have personal political opinions that don't align with yours so stop thinking your in the right about every God damn thing. Lando can drink whatever the fuck he wants, the teams can have puma as there sponser, it's not that fucking deep. You wanna call out drivers for there comments on the CH issue, call out lewis for being friends with a dude just like that!!!! If you wanna say that's the standard for men than fuck me I'd rather die.

Yeah, all this.

Rip lando and his Starbucks because newsflash maybe the guy is not chronically online and doesn’t know about the Twitter mob boycott…or he just doesn’t care about his two Aussie dollars going against the Twitter mob boycott.

The witch-hunt really does make me laugh. When you realise that morality is arbitrary, it becomes borderline scary how we now encourage shaming and bullying people who don’t agree with the accepted wisdom. It’s so…1600s.

Literally just…you’re right. You’re 100% right.

[soon-palestine]

Today I resigned from an editorial board.

I realized my colleagues are Zionists and since they do not care about Palestinian lives, I can't work with them .

At a meeting for an academic religion board I'm on, incoming + current presidents and a Jewish member spoke on Israel.

They said there is selective overemphasis on Israeli atrocities.

A Jewish member suggested a pastoral conversation with a rabbi, an imam and a pastor so they can discuss what's coming up here in the US in their congregations.

I'm like 🤔

Then he suggested discussing generational trauma that's coming up for Jewish congregants. Board members suggested steering away from people who are actually involved in the "conflict." We shouldn't get into the conflict itself, they said.

Picture me, open-mouthed.

I prefer to be low-key at these meetings, but my heart sank further and further.

I said: "I'm flabbergasted at this conversation. Have you seen the images and videos - or do you watch CNN? Do you know 30,000 people are dead?

It's like living through the Holocaust and theorizing about over-emphasizing the atrocities and looking away from them."

The incoming president seemed irritated at my comments. He added explanatory notes which were worse. I said I could not serve under his leadership.

I said, "How can you speak of a 'conflict'? This is no conflict. This isn't a civil war. This is a colonial endeavor. There has been NO WATER in Gaza for 3 months because Israel still hasn't turned on the water."

A Jewish member of the board (the one who suggested speaking on Jewish trauma) jumped in to explain, to soften the impact of the previous speaker--saying that he thought it was a tragedy, and that yes Israel is a colonial state

BUT, he added, that Israel "came too late" in the colonial enterprise (he cited Khalidi, you see), so there is a lot of over-emphasis on it being terrible. I was flabbergasted all over again.

Not one board member disagreed with the idea that public opinion is victimizing Israel.

I said, "Again, have you SEEN the numbers? The images? You're really saying there is excessive focus on Israeli atrocities? Have you seen that everyday children are being maimed? That children's limbs are being amputated without anesthetic?"

I could not take it anymore.

I've been in an OK place with this org before. Maybe I didn't see it before. But as the genocide whitewashing emerged, I realized I could not work with these people and wait for a better day. There is no reforming this. THIS has to reform before we can contribute to these spaces.

I said, "You're clearly a Zionist board, and I can't work on a Zionist board. I will not associate my name with it. I won't be your token Muslim. Thanks for the opportunity."

And I left the zoom.

I'm still in shock.

This is the American academy. The "best" minds on religion, whitewashing a current genocide.

American universities and scholars should undergo a wholesale addressing of all your shame, your complicity in Israeli genocide, not just of the past 3 months, but 75 years.

US academia has no shame. They are branding Palestinians and pro-Palestinian people "antisemitic" wholesale. Their boards are Zionist, busily defending Israeli genocide.

Not just Israel but almost all of the American academy should be pariahs in the world for their complicity.

[userpeggycarter]

your 'won't reblog' list is so funny imagine being a loser who hates fun that much. imagine being such a sad little butt baby you can't interact with anyone who likes things you don't. couldn't be me!

wow. i don't even know where to begin.

it's kinda hilarious that **I** am the sad little butt baby but you're the one having a meltdown in my inbox? being butthurt because a stranger has a "won't reblog" section in their about page????? do you have self awareness??? read that second to last sentence I just typed again. read it. HOW CAN YOU NOT GET IT???? 😱

second of all, the "won't reblog" section is a guideline for tagging me on posts. i don't reblog that stuff for a reason. it's not a DNI. in fact, I do interact with people who reblog and make content about (some of) that stuff listed in my blog because the morals of media consumption are complicated and very personal. some things i draw a very hard line on, some i don't. let me explain each of those "forbidden media" in my blog for you in basic terms like I'm talking to a child (because i am):

Wizarding World: JK Rowling is a TERF, an antisemite and a racist. i thought this one was self-explanatory. it's 2023 ffs

MCU!Maximoffs are white-washed, anti-romani and very antisemitic. google that stuff if you don't know. next question. (i did reblog a MCU Wanda gifset recently btw, but a mutual tagged me on it and i felt awkward ignoring it, but when that happens i tag those posts with #mcu wanda because some people blacklist that tag and for good reason. also it's a subtle way to say I'm not okay with her. i wish these awkward situations didn't happen but they do and i like to support creators, despite your allegations that i don't.

starker is a p*do ship. thorki is inc*st. duh

ngl reylo is not necessarily problematic i just think it's lame lol maybe it shouldn't be on the list because all of that other stuff has serious problems (IN MY OPINION!)

red/orange/color-washed content is racist if done with POC (and it's even a bad look if you're dealing with white people, to a lesser extent ofc)

i don't need to explain johnny depp do i? christ

henry cavill dated a teenager. google it

the last of us's creator is anti palestine and pro genocide.

elizabeth olsen said the G slur on air in the Graham Norton show AFTER he told her it was a slur!!!!!!!!!!! again google it.

gal gadot is also anti palestine. remember the IDF cunt post? iconic

taylor swift: same thing with reylo, i'm just not interested in her, even though she's not exactly a saint either... but honestly i put TS on the list mostly because most of the gifmaker community loves her and i was worried people would tag me on TS content and that would be an uncomfortable situation, because i don't like to ignore tagged posts but also i like to have boundaries/preferences, even though YOU deem them silly or stupid (like if that's your right to do so lmao alexa play toxic by britney spears)

i'm betting money it was the taylor swift thing that pissed you off lol maybe mcu wanda???? both?

stolen/reposted content is also self-explanatory right? or are you that stupid? considering the tantrum i think you are but hope springs eternal i guess...

LAST, but not least, i'm gonna end on a positive note because unlike you I'm not a cunt (derogatory). I'm gonna address your first message here:

listen, i get it. i get frustrated with notes too. the grass is always greener and there's always a bigger fish i guess. you envy me and i envy other creators bigger than me. but we shouldn't do that. first of all, it's not a competition. my "success" (it's tumblr at the end of the day... silly stuff!) is not a threat to you or anyone else. people can reblog my gifs and yours, they don't have to pick a creator. unfortunately, tumblr has been suffering from lack of interaction lately and it's just getting worse. all creators are complaining about it. creators of different sizes and different niches, btw. we complain in private and in public. and what tumblr does in return? text posts complaining about us complaining get 50k notes in a day. it's tough. we shouldn't be treated this way, even though no one is obliged to reblog stuff and we aren't owed notes. but it's natural and fair to feel sad about lack of recognition and complain about. tumblr's lack of engagement is going to kill the website, but that's a conversation to another day.

i want to end with this:

you need to create because you want to create. you need to create because you want to get better at your craft. recognition is good and it's natural to want and feel upset about the lack of it, but it shouldn't kill your creative spirit. social media has poisoned our brains. 50 notes might not sound a lot but imagine 50 people in real life complimenting you. you might be someone's favorite creator. you might be a niche creator who is carrying your community on your back and people in that niche are so grateful for you, even though they don't say that. because unfortunately, hate speaks louder than love. case in point, this hate mail. for every one of you out there, there must be 10 people who like my work. but i never hear from them and that sucks, but i must believe that they exist and be thankful for them. sometimes people will recognize my hard work and i'm very grateful for those moments. they do motivate me, but they aren't the only thing that motivates me. making posts i wanna reblog but won't exist until i make them motivates me. getting better at my craft motivates me. making friends because of my craft motivates me. knowing i'm entertaining people (even though they're very silent about their appreciation of my work) motivates me. tumblr is a social media platform and social media is made by its users. if anyone stopped posting, there wouldn't be anything to do here. my gifset might not change the trajectory of someone's day (sometimes it does!), but it's my drop of water alongside thousands of other drops of water from other users that make this ocean that we all swim in. don't give up. keep making gifs. you will get better at them. people will follow you. you will get more notes. might not be enough followers or enough notes in your opinion, but we shouldn't put a number on our value.

and let me tell you a secret: when your goal is numbers, you're never satisfied. believe me, i learned this lesson. i thought i would be happy with hundreds of followers. then i got hundreds of followers. suddenly they weren't enough, i wanted thousands of followers now. and then i got them. guess what? i still seek validation through numbers (google David Foster Wallace's This is Water btw). but it will never be enough because you are now and i was then looking at the wrong solution to the problem. i need to FEEL enough, not be told by numbers or people that I'm enough. I'm the one that decides that. and i am enough. I'm good, even. hell, I'm great. and in theory, so do you, but god that attitude... it ain't it. it will only cause you pain. and worse, it's causing you to try to cause pain in others. isn't that sad? isn't that shameful? i do say try because newsflash pussycat, it didn't work. i was baffled by your hate (thankfully i don't get a lot of hate around here!), but i wasn't hurt. because I'm not threatened by your perception of me. because it's superficial, childish, hateful, you name it. i know myself. i love myself. in the words of my beloved URL namesake, i know my value. do you know yours? it doesn't seem like you do. and that type of attitude only lessens your value, babe. this is not getting you anywhere in tumblr or worse, in life.

this would be the moment in which i would wish you the best, but you know what? fuck you. i hope you get no notes until eternity. but in case an innocent person is reading this and is also battling with their self-worth due to tumblr notes: i wish you the best. don't give up.

[userparamore]

I think Paramore becoming political is a good thing cause they have a massive influence and so far the stuff that they supported has been good but every time white celebs do these things, they need to do more extensive research cause how did they promote maxwell frost without finding out how much of a liar and zionist he is in 2023. The way that man was very vocal about his support for Palestine before he got elected but then changed and abandoned his support and proceed to make fun of the movement and like tweets about being pro of the opposing country was so fucked up. There will never be a perfect politician, the band sees a gen z congress person who is very anti white supremacy in Florida but white people always stop at the bare minimum with this type of stuff cause supporting maxwell can also be seen as supporting a country that is pro genocide

I hope they don’t bring out any more politicians on stage or massively support someone because you know that they want to do good things in this one area only. Maybe it’s why it’s hard for me to listen to “the news” cause I know that the message is coming from a good place but the first verse especially feels so reductive to me. That “war on the other side of the planet” line has the same energy as Taylor swift’s “shade never made anybody less gay” 💀 this is not only paramore cause phoebe bridges and muna were also seen with Maxwell and it's so disappointing to watch

as a non-american i'm gonna air my ignorance and be completely honest and say that i know nothing about who maxwell frost is. so just to clarify that, and if i seem ignorant on this topic, then you know the reason.

i do agree with you tho. there is a difficult line to balance when it comes to being political as a band/celeb. i think it was a good decision for them to go down this route, but like you said there has to be done in the right way after doing the right research. again as a non-american the idea of endorsing politicians is just a weird concept to me. american politics and politicians are so celebritized (if that's even a word). it's like we're watching a reality show and voting for who we want to stay on the show for another week. i would rather paramore focused on shining a light on or raising awareness on a topic than endoring politicians like you said. and i think hayley and her "abort the supreme court" t-shirts on stage, or them encouraging people to go vote are a good way to do it. (again this is the perspective of a non-american so please excuse my ignorance <- pmore reference intended)

i share your feelings about "the news" tho. i think it's my least favorite song on the album bc the message of the song is so easily twisted. acknowledging the war in ukraine while sitting halfway across the world, and then turning it back on herself in the form of a headache is... unfortunate. i understand what she's trying to say with the "turn on / turn off the news". that you can't disappear into the doom scroll. that you need to protect yourself sometimes. but i really don't like the encouraging to turning off the news- especially in a post-trump world and his "fake" news. it is almost like what the right wing does. they turn off the "fake" news. i don't want to be encouraged to not be informed. to not ask questions. to not check the sources. it's how you end up in an echo chamber, and i don't want that.

[essskel]

okay i said i'll leave your inbox but i'm a very curious person and like to talk a lot BUT THIS THE LAST TIME I SWEAR i just want to specify and ask one thing.

i meant that i don't like when people label roche as a RACIST monster not if people hate him because he's pro-genocide (that's valid i hate him for that too). it's like 'i'll be mad if you ignore my blorbos flaws but i also get mad if you make him something he isn't' kind of thing.

besides if roche was racist he would actually be irredeemable. and if it's not obvious by now but i only like ves and roche for that reason. they're not motivated by racism despite their horrible job and they can you know work on their mistakes but other blue stripes are just...mehh. good that died i guess.

and this is why i'm curious do you think roche is racist? i got the impression that you're not sure.

Dw I enjoy your commentary!! Below the cut again :))

-> I do think that in the second game Roche makes it pretty clear that his hatred is for the Scoiatael, not non-humans, and by the third, his role as an oppressor is essentially dropped completely and written over. But then, of course….the Scoiatael are a group of Elves trying not to be killed and colonized because of their race. They’re standing up against racial oppression, Roche was fighting to keep them there - even though he or the writers don't see it that way. So … I’d personally agree that while he’s not a racist or a bigot in the classical sense, he IS a major aggressor in a racist institution. So, yeah to me that is racism. Idk, is a racist a person who does racist things, or someone who hates another race? …yes?

The writing is so convoluted though, that’s why you may sense hesitation from me when it comes to blanket statements. Roche isn’t a real guy, he’s written as a narrative, and I don’t think that it's meant to be one of a violent bigot, it’s that of a soldier who’s consumed and internalized every inch of military propaganda he’s ever been served. Racism is part of that, the concept is inseparable and we lose almost everything when people try to erase it, but the ‘is he racist or not’ debate doesn’t move anything forward a ton, to me. The answer to the question (which is yes to me), doesn't really solve the politics of the factional warfare, or how willing an elf would be to accept help from him - I think this is where motive really does matter (Geralt does trust him for a reason). I also think it somewhat flattens the intersection of poverty that his character has a lot to say about.

EDIT: I took out a paragraph about the scoiateal cause I was using in-universe explanations and that doesn't actually matter very much here. CDPR throwing in crazy war crimes for their oppressed people to be guilty of is not legitimate justification for further oppression, its just bad writing. The well-intentioned extremist trope does not equate grey morality. The internal politics and witcher-world rules matter very little compared to the real life implications of the narrative. Roche isn’t real but violent, racist, unsympathetic soldiers who got where they are through their experience with poverty, propaganda, and privilege are. Therefore the way that I talk about these characters should always be with that context in mind. Narrative themes and the statements being made by writers, that’s what I really care about, not so much whether or not a fictional solider would be classified in a fantasy world as being racist towards elves or not.

tldr maybe: I don’t think Roche’s actions are ever truly written to be motivated by racial bigotry, he wants to defend his country, that’s the core of it. But his character - or maybe just the Blue Stripes as a whole - function as a racist, a racist institution, and they represent real militarized racial conflicts. He's oppressing people, and he never lifts a finger to undo that. I think talking about what that means and where that could go (hopefully somewhere better??) is the best we can do with what we have.

[knuckle]

Roy Cooper also dropped out of the race 5 days ago, or I would be talking about him too. So really, what sets my comment apart that you're accusing me of antisemitism by bringing up an opponent who is no longer in the race?

The fact Shapiro's record on ousting a UPenn president, supported police responses against protesters (at a school my sister was in college at) across Pennsylvania, contributed to that moral panic, materially, by calling each and every protest antisemitic, said a restaurant owner doing a fundraiser for Israel that went to the military was being targeted only because he was Jewish, again tried to enforce anti-boycott measure in Pennsylvania, and that I am a person who lives in Pennsylvania who personally has seen all of this as I explain - maybe as a Pennsylvanian who knows Harris will announce her pick at a rally in Philadelphia, I am equipped to understand he is at imminent risk of being picked and someone who has been relatively silent like Tim Walz as someone who has said Biden needs to listen to the "undecided" campaign would be a better pick, even if he's not an amazing pick.

Perhaps as a Pennsylvanian, I also understand that Shapiro has intentionally had a high profile response to this - going as far to intimidate pro-Palestinian employees for being "scandalous or disgraceful." We as Pennsylvanians against genocide have had to watch as Fetterman and Shapiro, our two most nationally recognized politicians betrayed every principle we hoped they stood for after voting for them. I don't think it's possible for you to understand how disillusioning it was to watch unless you lived here during it. All of these things, by the way were things I knew and cared about before he was on a VP shortlist not because I'm personally mad at him for being Jewish but because he had approved of state violence against people I care about and holds immense power as my governor. Being against Netanyahu is an extremely low bar and most of Israeli society views him disfavorably - that does not bode well for policies on actually ending the genocide. Most Democrats also support a two-state solution, and Shapiro would look radically out of step if he did not - this is not the amazing feat you think it is.

hello for those planning on voting for kamala harris. could y’all start emailing or calling her specifically to pressure her to stop the genocide. even if you’re a decided voter, mention you are undecided and that this is the issue you would flip on. here I’ll leave a link where you can email

[jaythelay]

Blue fanboys once again missing the point and pushing people away from their party.

https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1dwnqwx/guts/

It really couldn't be more obvious what the messaging was. Literally the Devil vs a pile of goo and people wanna act like it's all propaganda by some rightwing machine to get people to vote for Dump. Sure kiddos sure. Go Larp in a video game or some shit, not real life. We criticize leaders in the adult world okay? Okay.

The fact is he's a terrible opponent to Dump but he's guaranteed to win so fuck it who cares about anything but the here and now. Good lord ya'll are setting up future generationa for what we went through acting like this. Boomer shit.

Literally everyone shits on Hilary for causing Dump to win. The only difference so far has been an effort in marketability at most. Otherwise people don't ignore her past and present because she's never getting in and is a terrible awful human being. Much like Biden.

You can criticise Dear Leader and vote for him, scary I know! But you can try being an adult without a hand holding your opinion for you, for once, right?

When you take away criticism for yourself and others, you tell people not to vote for him. It's really, really simple folks. Stop being scared and start thinking, both parties want your fear, all media wants you scared. Calm down, focus on what we're gonna deal with. No shit Dump is bad, no shit you're voting for the only other option, you're not a martyr or hero you're a peon pretending to care long enough to feel safe at the expense of others by doing the barest of possible minimums you were told to do by others.

Right now, Genocide isn't enough to criticise, All Republicans Call It a Genocide in a Positive Manner, Biden is aiding it, you are actively aiding a republican's wet dream lead solely by Biden and all but 10 dems. Holy Fuck. Blue Fanboys approve of Genocide. Might as well say democrats, because all but 10 were too pussy to call it a genocide. All But 10. Incredible.

How bad can it get from there is anyone's guess. But pretending Biden is great because he's 5% vs -1000% is beyond ridiculous, it's enabling further problems. Shit aim for a 20%, anything but fucking Biden%.

We will not defeat republicans with Biden, we only ensure they stay relevant. Picking the corporate decision means Dump stays in the race next election as yet another fear mongering for dem voters, and I guarantee, we're gonna be RIGHT BACK HERE but even louder than before. But with far, far more on the line. All thanks to Blue Fanboys refusing the smallest bits of critique.

Again, it's easier to be anti-genocide than pro-genocide, logically, but if you ignore it then no longer is there any moral challenge. That's Biden. So long as you ignore his past and present, everything about him, he's a solid candidate! Best president ever! Until his terms up and we can be honest. Can't wait for the blue fanboys to stop Larping like they did with Hilary. Hey, maybe we should go for someone not corporately picked for a change? Might be insane, but hell, this shit ain't been working at fucking all.

[ourladyofwaysandmeans]

When I was fidgeting on my phone, instead of being "The World's Best Employee" or some such, I opened Facebook (almost always a mistake). On this sojourn to the site of regret, I saw a comic one of my old schoolmates posted in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision(s) about the need to fight back against fascism using voices and protests. I'm not going to repost it here, mostly because I want to nitpick it to death despite agreeing with large swaths of it (not the thesis!). I'll just pull out one line:

"You deserve better than the lesser of two evils"

I can't say I disagree with that. We do deserve better than the hand we've been dealt*. I wish this wasn't where we are.

However, the people I went to school with are or will be 30 this year. And while there are steps we as a country could have made to improve our upcoming electoral choices, it is still incredibly likely that the path built 30 years ago would still lead us to the lesser of two evils.

The religious right rose up over forty years ago to protect segregated schools, though they claimed it was to be "pro-life"

Even after the Fifteenth Amendment:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude— The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

was passed, Supreme Court cases have ruled against a "right to vote," which has led conservatives to inhibit the ability of people to vote for certainly more than four score and seven years.

There's also the societal belief that the best president who stands and acts a certain way, which partially led to Biden being the nominee, but that is not a can of worms I am fully opening today.

I'm not going to say that voting for the "lesser of two evils" is any fun. Looking down the ballot this year, none of my choices are going to make me feel great. The Democrat running for the House of Representatives in my district made some real bad choices in the month or two before the primary, when it was clear he was running unopposed and there was nothing we could do about it. I'm still going to roll up to my polling place and vote for him, and every single other Democrat on that ballot, because my choices are all bad but feeling like I wouldn't do the bare minimum is worse.** We don't have a choice between the lesser of two evils, and maybe we can't make it so future generations won't have a choice. Maybe it's too late. But we can do what we can to make the path smoother, and maybe make those lesser evils lesser than what we face.

I wrote most of this yesterday, before some dipshit in the New York Times put up an opinion piece titled "Why I Won't Vote," which they had to change from "Why I Don't Vote," because someone looked it up and this fucking guy voted in the last two elections. I didn't get past the paywall but it started with "Abstinence is having a moment" so I'm not going to try. I know everything sucks, but if dipshits in the opinion pages of the New York Times try to lie to you and tell you that voting isn't worth it, on FUCKING INDEPENDENCE DAY, I hope you know how to tell them where to go.

*This is not a post to argue that Joe Biden is not a "lesser evil," as the schoolmate was horrified by the genocide in Gaza that the United States still funds as of this writing and I'm not going to say believing that makes Joe Biden evil is wrong. If you think the presumptive Republican nominee was ever a "lesser evil", we have nothing to say to each other.

**I live in a state with early voting, where I've been in a kinda long line for voting once. You could say my vote doesn't count, that it won't affect the big picture, but my current representative is a Republican and that wasn't always true. My state government is making some real /interesting/ choices and I'm going to show up to primary the governor if she runs again. But I understand that voting isn't as easy for people in other states, and that's because people who don't want you to vote have made it hard.

[sclfmastery]

thoughts on ruby sunday? i feel like the writers are rushing her relationship with the doctor big time, but otherwise, she's genuinely fun.

i will say i am a little teensy bit bitter about the fact that yaz waited three seasons for information she really never even fully got whereas 15/14 (what are we calling ncuti's doctor?) just dumped it all onto ruby first episode lol. but obviously not bitter at ruby, just sad for yaz. i recognize it was probably a very specific choice by RTD to show the doctor's growth though, so ill get over it

At only 3 full eps (including Christmas special) in, I think I'm gonna withhold any strong critique, but so far, I'm feeling the same qualms, friend! Don't feel guilty about it.

I think a lot of the problems we're seeing with narrative pacing and tone are to do with adapting a kind of quirky counter-cultural program (DW's a main staple of sci fi, but it still had that less crowd-pleasing, more weird unique low-budget vibe until now) to suit a mass-appeal streaming service. The nuance of the Doctor as a character and the franchise as a whole feels a little lost in the almost heavy-handed desire to "start over fresh" (the symbolism of the bi-generation and the time Fourteen is granted to heal before becoming Fifteen) and the urge to make a very quirky story more palatable both to mass audiences and to younger kids. There's a bit of dumbing-down in the dialogue, in the true danger of the stakes, even in the Doctor-companion relationship. Problematic elements have been scraped away to make for a safer environment of storytelling. And there are pros and cons to that method. Disney is sadly good at swallowing counter-culture and somehow spinning it to seem like they were on its side all along: "Look how diverse our new cast is!" Yeah, and that's totally laudable, but that's not to your credit, Disney.

Maybe some of my apprehensions have to do with how terribly self-conscious the show now is. For instance, it made sense for Maestro, an omnipotent and omniscient being, to wink multiple times at the audience, and to "know the theme songs" of characters beyond the fourth wall. But the Doctor? Doing a musical dance number? Adorable, fun, granted, just not very Doctor Whoey. Not the correct TYPE of "weird," LOL.

In short, the show feels good, the show is well done as a STAND-ALONE projet, but it doesn't feel like Doctor Who just yet. It feels like a buddy comedy with ultimately circumstantial similarities. None of this is to do with Fifteen or Ruby, but yeah, I think they're trying to hard to say "this is as much a reboot as a continuation! This is season one! The Doctor is happy and trauma-free again!" And yes I think that lends itself to rushing the relationship's development, and yes, in so many ways, no matter how this season does, Yaz deserved better. Frankly, so did the Master, and so did Thirteen.

Could I be wrong? Maybe Ncuti's Doctor is supposed to be unproblematically wholesome and socially adept. Maybe he's still our neurodivergent cryptid gremlin with a deep-seated sadness behind the smile and the almost alarming propensity for talking tepidly, flippantly, about the genocide of his own people. Maybe at some point Ruby's origin story is going to unlock the things the Doctor is ONCE AGAIN running away from.

[tahri-nhupuju]

I gotta say, I did not expect this particular post to get so much attention, nor so many replies. I guess saying that Gridania is an Ascian plot is less controversial than saying Emet-Selch is kinda mean!

(That's a joke, I do genuinely appreciate all of the replies and this is far from an Emet-Selch hate blog)

I want to add that I love Emet-Selch as a character, and maybe calling him "uniquely nasty" ended up sounding like far more of a condemnation than I intended.

I see a lot of people bringing up the unimaginable amounts of trauma that Emet-Selch has vis-a-vis the sundering and the sundered, and how that colours his view of them, and I'm not denying that, or trying to paint him like some kind of mega-hitler inherently predisposed to hating "non-humans" (even if -let's be real- he did found at least two genocidal totalitarian empires), I was just musing about how interesting it is that Emet-Selch's justification for his actions (That every "real human" would be disturbed by what has happened) is sort of debunked by the Speaker and Emissary of said "real humans", the representatives of their entire culture in a way, not only don't share his views, but indirectly condemn his (and their own) actions.

Especially since it pairs so well with one of his other major pieces of "pro-rejoining" propaganda: him returning Y'shtola from the aetherial sea and blithely playing off what he did like it was no big deal by the standards of his people, and that he's a little disappointed we're so awed by it, when we later find out that Emet-Selch was in fact The Guy In Charge Of Doing That Kind Of Thing, chosen for his prodigal skills at Doing That Kind Of Thing.

It blurs the line between what's The Truth, what's Emet-Selch's Rose-Tinted Glasses, and what's Emet-Selch Just Straight Up Lying to the WoL to try and convince them to join him.

This turned into a massive tangential ramble, but what I was trying to say is that I do think there's a reason that while Elidibus settled on "I am the hero trying to save the world and you are the villains, therefore everything I do is justified" and Lahabrea seemingly embraces his role as The Villain, complete with evil maniacal laughter and over-the-top evil monologues, Emet-Selch settles on "You are not even truly alive, therefore killing you isn't wrong" as his ultimate coping mechanism.

Like, yes, his mentions about consistently getting let down by the sundered explains his actions, and it's clear the death of his son hurt him deeply, but considering he was raising said son as heir apparent to the violent, expansionist,racist, revanchist, military dictatorship driven by war crimes and xenophobia that he himself built, maybe there's some deeper issues at hand, you know?

Again, I love Emet-Selch, he's an amazing character and one of my favourite villains of all time. I just feel like it's a missed opportunity not to examine whether the kind-of assholeish guy who 100% goes to bat for a deeply flawed and fucked-up society, and who -at least as far as I recall- defends said society the most, and is shown to take to extremely fucked-up measures (see aforementioned genocidal, slave-economy empires) to reach his goal, might actually be a little bit flawed.

It's interesting to me that despite being the only unsundered that doesn't appear, Pandaemonium actually does show us a bit about how uniquely nasty Emet-Selch is as a person.

Like, he has his whole spiel about how the sundered are not even human to him, and how all the unsundered would agree with him if they saw us.

But then a rejoined-with-Hephaistos, from-right-before-the-summinging-of-Zodiark Lahabrea sees the unsundered and goes "Oh, there are people here! Surely this means my plan succeeded and we saved the star!" Like he not only doesn't have any issues with the sundered, he just immediately accepts that they're people.

Likewise Elidibus and Erichtonios also don't seem to have any issues whatsoever accepting the sundered as people, but Lahabrea is the one who talks about/interacts with them the most.

When he finds out what he ends up doing to the sundered as an Ascian, he immediately accepts it, and describes what he does as monstrous, and pushes the point that it was the right thing to do to oppose and kill him.

And yes, sure, they all get tempered and go mad in various ways, but Emet-Selch is constantly shown as the most complete, the one who is the most like his old self. And while the Amaurotines are shown to have a fucked up relationship to non-human life, Emet-Selch is really the only one of the Unsundered shown to view the sundered as Not Human.

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: December 2023

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of December 2023 to make sure that they are never forgotten.  

The pro-Israel lies continued apace with Danielle Greyman claiming that all those photos and footage of dead children and babies being pulled from rubble in Gaza aren't actually dead children or babies, but actually lifelike dolls which Hamas placed there - which definitely doesn't make it look as if the Netanyahu apologists are so far gone they refuse to acknowledge dead children as human beings just because their "side" keeps bombing houses and hospitals they happen to be in at the time of yet another missile strike

...which was soon followed by David Collier lecturing Medecins Sans Frontieres  for having the sheer gall to report that they witnessed Israeli tanks destroying their clearly-marked vehicles by accusing MSF of not just "empowering and protecting" Hamas (because of course) but also accusing MSF staff of being Hamas agents, which is an interesting twist on "Look what you made me do"

...though then we had Benjamin Netanyahu decide to go Full Baddiel by accusing the International Criminal Court investigation of war crimes by Israel of being "antisemitic" - although he sprinkled in a little Trumpism too by referring to them as "fake war crimes" because why the fuck not at this point?

...as opposed to Eli David who responded to the death of Refaat Alareer and his entire family in an Israeli airstrike (one of those "fake war crimes", I presume?) by gloating that he deserved it because of a tweet. That's right a fucking tweet is now justification for your death in the eyes of Netanyahu apologists

...meanwhile the always calm and rational Tzipi Hotovely was once again raging about letting Israel "finish the job" without being asked the obvious question about what that means (clue: it's genocide) and following up with talk of how Palestinians have been allowed to live in peace for seventy years with heavy "So therefore..." connotations to what she was saying - even though what she was saying was, you know, a complete fucking lie as Palestinians have not been allowed to live peacefully next door due to Israel making sure they don't and more importantly can't live peacefully

...and then it turned out that the Israeli Defence Force really need to keep their murder boners under control when it emerged that they "mistakenly" shot and killed three Israeli hostages who were shirtless and literally waving white flags at the time they were gunned down - contrary to what Bethany S Mandel said about Hamas having them wear burqas when moving them from place to place which is why the IDF "mistakenly" shot them, by the way

...on the subject of murder boners David Azoulai apparently wanted to say that his was even bigger, advocating that the Israelis should make Gaza look like Auschwitz without considering that, hey, maybe that sort of rhetoric makes him look so utterly demented that he's reduced Auschwitz to a threat to make towards Palestinians?

...while on the other hand Fleur Hassan-Nahoum had her own way of dealing with reports that the IDF had bombed a Catholic church in Gaza: by pretending that there aren't any Catholic churches in Gaza, in spite the inconvenient little detail about how there are - and there's one less, due to the IDF bombing it

...but speaking far more plainly was Itamar Ben Gvir when he said that Israel should execute Hamas members they have in prison every single day that the Israeli captives are not returned, a statement which actually becomes even more monstrous when you realise who is and isn't a Hamas member in the eyes of Likud is based solely on how many people were around to witness them being shot or bombed regardless of age

...meanwhile Naftali Bennett was having trouble keeping track of his dogwhistles when he accuse Iran of being a terror octopus, apparently forgetting that any and all references to an octopus is "antisemitic" because that's what the hard Zionist extremists were screaming about Greta Thunberg

Ultra-relatable nice guy Rishi Sunak showed everyone just what an ultra-relatable nice guy he was by thundering how the UK is a sovereign country - which means that the government can overrule UK courts to bulldoze through whichever batshit insane policies it has decided are the hills they want to die on, in this particular instance the Rwanda policy which has been deemed unlawful repeatedly by British courts, and now Rwandan courts are looking into how unlawful it is

...and then a few days later Rishi Sunak showed just how in charge of his own party he is when he claimed the additional £100m of taxpayer's money given the the Rwanda scheme was signed off by Suella Braverman, which suggests that he doesn't even know when his (now ex-)ministers are throwing around colossal piles of taxpayer's money - or he knew and he's just a fucking liar

...but don't worry, ultra-relatable nice guy Rishi Sunak (and the camera crew he had with him) bought a few boxes of mince pies in a shop in King's Cross Station to give to key workers, which definitely didn't look staged nor draw attention to how those key workers continue to be diddled out of a pay raise but a few of them might get a mince pie at Christmas if they were in Sunak's vicinity

It took less than a month before Javier Milei opened the fascism box and, oh boy, he did so with gust not just ordering the army to break strikes and arrest protestors but also to take away the children of anyone arrested for either of the former

...and once Javier Milei opened the fascism box he just kept on going, introducing 300 new laws overnight without debate let alone a vote in parliament, laws which included complete deregulation of the housing market and planning permission, selling off state assets for chicken feed, and removing public transport subsidies meaning bus fares cost ten times what they did the previous week

Habitual liar George Santos managed to make history, becoming only the sixth Congressman to be expelled from Congress in US history, and all it took was him spending campaign funds on his Onlyfans subscription

Barking MP Margaret Hodge was so casual with how she told the News Agents podcast that she did everything in her power to prevent Jeremy Corbyn from becoming Prime Minister in 2019 - you know, the exact thing centrist twerps have spent four years saying was just something that you'd imagined. I'm sure that Keir Starmer will hear this and consult the constitutional rules of the Labour Party and expel her from the party, which is what they say he should do...

Unifying force for good Keir Starmer once again showed his credentials to lead Labour by praising Margaret fucking Thatcher, which seems to be a trait of his inner circle given Rachel reeves also did so, because if one thing will appeal to Red Wall voters it's praising the person who made their communities destitute in the 1980s

Once again billionaire manchild Elon Musk had another one of his genius ideas, this time deciding to run a poll about whether he should reinstate Alex Jones - in spite Jones being in repeat violations of Musk's ToS on Twitter, let alone the Twitter ToS of people who had a clue what they were doing

...this was soon followed by billionaire manchild Elon Musk publicly arguing with MS Word's inclusiveness function - and then arguing with the Twitter Community Note which pointed out that you need to activate the inclusiveness function in order for it to work

...and then billionare manchild Elon Musk demonstrated what a small, petty little douche he is by removing Disney+ from Tesla's streaming options as he continued his bizarre rants at Disney removing their ads from Twitter as if they were the only company to not want their ads promoted next to far right material, once again making the Very Clever Business Move of pissing off Tesla customers who definitely haven't gotten sick of his shit by now

Brilliant idea by the Israel Defence Force to drop pamphlets with a QR code on them telling Palestinians to leave the area so they can bomb more hospitals and schools and claiming those too are Hamas outposts, what with Gaza not having internet for over a month due to the Israelis cutting it off thus making the QR codes unusable for anyone who they dropped a leaflet on

Looks like the Jewish Chronicle was really determined in their efforts to smear Owen Jones, bringing out Hadley Freeman under the impression that she qualifies as "the big guns" - only for Freeman to vomit out an article riddled with factual errors that somehow, in an article putting out a hit Owen Jones for the version of "antisemitism" where valid criticism of Israel are "antisemitic", still found space to bleat non-existent fears about the trans community in spite being about as relevant to the subject as Freeman is to journalism

The GTA6 trailer dropped and billionaire manchild Elon Musk could only pontificate about how he couldn't get past the tutorial of GTA5 as it required him to shoot police, with Ian Miles Cheong wading in to say he too couldn't shoot police in Clusterpunk 2077...only for Twitter's Community Notes to say that was bollocks, but of course we all know the real reason neither can shoot NPCs in videos games is because NPCs are their target demographic

I get the feeling that Grzegorz Braun thought that taking a fire extinguisher to Hanukah candles in the Polish parliament would be a guaranteed vote-winner, as opposed to what it actually did which was make him look like Basil Fawlty's fascist cousin

So nice of proven liar Boris Johnson to sneak into the Covid enquiry at the crack of dawn in order to avoid the people outside who might have had a few things to say to him about his handling of the pandemic by arriving there long before they arrived, which makes him look so brave and non-guilty

There are ways in which Michelle Mone could improve public opinion about her and MedPro making off like bandits with dodgy PPE contracts, but bankrolling a documentary where she moans about people not liking her while claiming she had no idea how her company kept getting these dodgy contracts is not it

...though quite why Laura Kuenessberg though it was a good idea to jet off to Spain so her flagging show would have an exclusive interview with Mone begs all sort of questions, not least why the first question wasn't "Why did you want to be interviewed in Spain, is there any reason you don't like the thought of the British authorities knowing your exact location?" - though Michelle Mone still managed to repeatedly implicate herself in a car crash interview where she couldn't even deny everything properly

...all of which caused Lord Bethel to go on the offensive by posting screengrabs of WhatsApp messages between himself and Mone. This would be the same Lord Bethel who had previously told the Covid enquiry that he had quite conveniently lost all his WhatsApp messages when changing his phone but suddenly he found them, which I'm sure Rishi Sunak and proven liar Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson would be thrilled to hear given how they to had lost all WhatsApp messages

Yet again Liz Truss left the nation wishing she'd just fuck off into obscurity where she belongs, but no, we have to see her make Vote Leave architects Matthew Elliott and Jon Moynihan life peers in her resignation honours list

The current Health Secretary Victoria Atkins demonstrated just how qualified for the job she is by calling junior doctors "Doctors in training" during a TV interview, meaning she's either too stupid to understand what a junior doctor is or she's being patronising and failed to understand how being patronising made her sound too stupid to understand what a junior doctor is

You would think that waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage would be used to losing by now given the amount of elections he's lost to opponents both human and dolphin, but no, the grifting cunt did not take his coming in third place on I'm A Celebrity well and is whipping up his followers into attacking ITV because his bot campaign failed to win, which is frankly begging ITV to withdraw the £1.5m they paid him to be there

Bold move of Rafael Edward Cruz to introduce a bill to limit the use of preferred pronouns when you consider how he uses the preferred pronouns of Ted Cruz in his everyday life

Nominative determinism debunker James Cleverly once again did that thing where he opens his mouth and something utterly moronic spills all over the floor, this time thinking it would be a good laugh to joke about slipping Rohypnol into his wife's drink to keep her quiet over Christmas - a few hours after a crackdown on drink spiking was introduced by the Home Office, which just so happens to be the department Cleverly is the head of...

Totally normal behaviour from Derrick Evans to tweet a picture of Christmas tree ornaments that depict various members of Biden's cabinet being lynched on a Christmas tree on Christmas day - followed by an utterly cowardly attempt at walking that one back after it quite surprisingly drew a lot of backlash, with him claiming it wasn't his tree and admitting it was in bad taste...possibly because the FBI are particularly grumpy when having to talk with people who joke about murdering the government if they make those jokes on Christmas Day

So nice of Johnny Mercer to remind people that he exists by spending days on end yelling about Carol Vorderman on Twitter - not least because this was the latest in a long list of examples of Tories failing to understand the Streisand Effect, as it only drew attention to the fact Vorderman pointed out his pledge to reduce homelessness in the ex-military worked so well that it increased in 2023

Suffice it to say James Somerton did not take his utter dismantling at the hands of H.Bomberguy particularly well, with him rapidly deleting all socials and leaving co-writer Nick Herrgott to take the flak - and Herrgott didn't help himself by trying the defence that he can't be accused of plagiarism as he never did any research

...though somehow Internet Historian fans decided that they were the true victims of the H.Bomberguy video and that meant that H.Bomberguy must be destroyed, best exemplified by one of them posting on Kotaku in Action (which is still a thing, in 2023, long after the basis of GamerGate was exposed as a bitter ex-boyfriend making shit up...) offering a cash reward for any evidence that allows them to destroy H.Bomberguy, which is totally a normal response to pointing out that IH plagiarised the shit out of an article for a video

...and then James Somerton crawled out from under the rock he was hiding under in order to issue the standard nonpology - and by complete coincidence, with the nonpology video up he reactivated his Patreon without telling anyone and unprivated the videos on his Youtube channel, all in the hope of getting a nice little payout

Of course beanie-wearing testicle Tim Pool is the sort of person who spends days of the only life they will ever live trying to teach Grok AI to be transphobic and post the evidence of him doing so in the belief it doesn't make him look like a sad, pathetic waste of jism

Potato in a t-shirt two sizes too small for him Ricky Gervais has once again demonstrated what a thin-skinned little twerp he is by searching for his name on Twitter so he can retweet anyone and everyone who praised his latest Netflix comedy special, you know, the one which narrowly beat the competition from the fireplace effect for your TV screen for the prestigious title of most-watched thing released on Christmas Day

For some reason Joey Barton decided to put a lot of time and effort into trying to pick a fight with Mary Earps, presumably because he was narked by misplacing his book of inspirational quotes to post online and pass off as him having some sort of knowledge

So either Fntastic were in way over the heads with The Day Before and scaled back severely on their promised features when the game was released...for all of five days before it was pulled from Steam, or Fntastic were a bunch of scam artists who ran away with the money for their piece of shit game which they flung onto Steam before announcing the company closure - and judging by the statements they've issued, literally saying "Shit happens" in one case, the latter looks far more likely

[sylenth-l]

I hope it’s ok to ask, if no, just ignore it. Do you have a fav lore piece/flavor/quote about/with each of the hunter gang: Andal, Cayde, Shiro and Tevis? If so, which one? I know we all digged “The Man they called Cayde”, but maybe there’s a specific line or piece that you remembered the most?

MAN. SO MANY.

Of course my favorite one about The Gang is from "The Man they called Cayde", because it's like... the only lore book where they all are mentioned together... oh well.

Andal and I used to run with one heck of a crew. This was before he got himself roped into fireteaming up with the top brass. Oh, we were legendary.

The warmth and longing for the good ol' days with which Cayde always spoke about them gets me to the verge of tears every time.

But if we'll exlude that book, let's see...

For Cayde it's hard to choose, since there're A LOT. But I think I'll pick the one I quote all the time especially when our fireteam tries some GMs/dungeons/raids for the 1st time, his line from the Arms Dealer strike:

Plan-shman. Take the radioactive thing and put in explody place. There... there's your plan.

Sums up Cayde and his way of doing things pretty nicely in a couple of sentences, I think 😂

For Andal it's probably this quote from the Tall Tale ship lore:

I said, "Warned you? I was dead, then I floated here. All I've ever done in my entire life is barf into the Pacific Ocean."

It gave me a good laugh back when I read this entry in the game for the 1st time, not even knowing who the hell is Andal. I really like how its overall goofiness and light-heartedness adds up to what other people usually say about Andal and what a cool pro Hunter mentor he was.

For Shiro it's of course this quote from the Holdfast Mask. It got me so emotional I even drew an illustration for it.

There's a stone cairn outside the city; been there since Six Fronts. No one visits it, but once a year, I put a fresh lily on top. I hope it brings them peace.

It's not often we're allowed to see softer and more vulnerable side of Shiro, so moments like these always melt my heart. Also, tbh, I didn't expect something like that from him, but it was a nice surprise. Probably that's why I remembered it so well.

For Tevis it's also easy, this part of his monologue from the Graviton Forfeit helmet sends me each time I read it:

You know what I'd call "dark," in the sense of "grim," in the sense of "cosmically upsetting"? A universe full of weaponized puppets, enacting a genocidal war against the servants of a rival god.

Is this making you uncomfortable? I'm sorry. I'll be more evil. Boo. Grrr.

It's like the quintessence of Tevis, you can really tell what kind of the man he is reading just this one small piece imo.

AND in the end I'll add a bonus one for candal. Sure, everybody knows this absolutely heart-wrenching quote from "The Man they called Cayde" (which made me ship them almost single-handedly):

We both laughed.

Wow. I wish I could hear him laugh again.

Just once.

Funny how all the cool kids leave the party too soon.

BUT HOW ABOUT THIS PARALLEL

But Andal…? Playing nice was his forte.

Cayde was thinking about him on his deathbed, thanks Bungie, it's not like I haven't cried enough about them already, nuh-uh.