#the least we can do is not forget him

[nothazellevesque]

a man self immolated in front of the israeli embassy in washington dc yesterday. not just any man. an active member of the us air force. he live streamed his death, and said that he refused to be complicit in a genocide any longer. he said that compared to what palestinians were facing every day, setting himself alight was nothing.

let me reiterate. an active duty air force member burned himself alive because he was so disgusted by what the us government was openly supporting. he live-streamed his own suicide, so the whole world could bear witness as a man in his military uniform set himself on fire to protest his government’s complicity in the horrors that we have all been forced to watch happen in real time. he became a new horror. footage of the immolation blurs him out the moment the fire catches, but you can hear him. it is over in seconds, really, but you can hear him screaming. he shouts “free palestine” until his body physically cannot make any sounds other than guttural screams of agony. and then he falls silent. a police officer arrives and points a gun at his still burning body, shouting at him to get down on the ground. and it is over.

his name was Aaron Bushnell. he was twenty five years old. and he isn’t here anymore because the political ruling class has decided that genocide is perfectly fine as long as it preserves imperialism. in the coming days, people will try to discredit him. to say that he was mentally unstable. they will try to bury his actions to save face and defend israel’s propaganda. do not let them. aaron knew what he was doing. he knew what he was doing when he put on his military uniform, set up his twitch stream, and made his final walk up to the embassy. he knew what would happen to him when he flicked that lighter. do not let them forget. aaron’s blood is on the hands of the political ruling class.

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[vaperarmand]

have you ever seen two people more married in your entire life. please

[yet-another-haven-of-dollya]

I was re-reading your Little Mermaid PC-Syd comic (I keep re-reading them every once in a while. It's just that good! Thank you for making it!) and remembered that Vrel said Corrupt Sydney is probably the most obsessed after Kylar. It really fits, huh? wwwww

And even though Lya stopped flirting since the middle of the comic cuz she started to feel envy toward Sydney, this repressed mf, like a snowball rolling downhill getting bigger and bigger, can't stop.

"It is what it is then, better go with the flow, at least maybe I can get closer to Jordan-" And she continued with her biggest mistake...

So yeah, here's Lya, months later after Rite of Defilement, flipping the amateur boyslut off one last time cuz she can't fuck Jordan and the monthly Temple inspection is a pain in the ass (literally)

[robin-with-a-pen]

Okay I’m having ideas I need someone to stop me-

Anyways, so we all know that Chilchuck probably doesn’t have the healthiest relationship with food? Right?

I don’t think he has an eating disorder but more so disordered eating- that hellish middle space, right? I mean “maintaining his body weight at an acceptable level” really sticks out to me

So picture this- my man retires, he doesn’t need to control his weight anymore, no worry about setting off or anything, but he realizes that the unhealthy habits he’s developed over he past ten years are harder to break than he thought

[randomnameless]

Do you think Edelgard perceives herself as a victim? I’ve been thinking and I can’t decide myself, on one hand she clearly hates the idea of people being victims or helpless, and constantly reframes the victims of the war as “necessary sacrifices” instead of, y’know, tragic causalities of a war she started. She plays up her sad backstory to try to get Byleth to join with her in WC, but then she does all these things to concentrate as much power as possible on herself. On the other (other) hand, she pushes the culpability of the war on everyone except herself, and has trouble taking accountability. She’s obsessed with controlling everything but she doesn’t want to be blamed for the problems she’s created. What do you think?

Oh!

(sorry for replying one literal month later lol)

I find Supreme Leader hard to write because of this, but in a way, I believe that yes, she does.

However, for all the flak Faerghus gets for "ToXiC mAsCuLiNiTy" and "Chivalry BaD", there's something very toxic with the way some Adrestian victims (often women... blame the writers I guess?) deal with their abuse.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Doro because I already typed a lot about her, but while she still sees herself as a victim from what she endured and suffered in her childhood, she adopted the toxic mindset of "this suffering is a thing of the past and I grew from that/beyond that to become the person I am now" - which we can also see in Manu who suffered from, roughly, the same traumas.

Petra also follows this pattern, being a hostage and treated like shit, but she grow "beyond" her status of a victim to become the strong person she projects and believes she is - it's only out of House that she realises more accutely her status within the Empire, the reality of her situation and, in Houses, refuses vassalage to Adrestia to make her country independent without having to "ask the Emperor".

It's the same pattern : "I was a victim" but "I became strong" so "I am not a victim anymore, this is something of the past".

Applied to Supreme Leader...

Well, trying to ignore the Agarthans and her dad's own infuence on her character (which is kind of hard, since the games try their hardest to make Agarthans responsible for everything BaD and we're not clear on how much they had an influence on her), I think Supreme Leader believes she was a "victim" of abuse.

But - through further abuse and surviving said abuse - she became strong* enough to "not be a victim anymore".

Which is why her line of "if the weak remain weak it's their fault" feels like it echoes part of her mindset : she was a victim but became strong enough, maybe by hardening her own feelings to become "strong", so she is not the same helpless "victim" she once was.

If she managed to do that, then everyone can do the same.

As for the "necessary sacrifices", since early 2019 someone theorised that "the people" she pretends the fight for as seen as some general "concept", much like the "greater good". So if some people are sacrificed, it's for her ideals - the goal and aim of her newfound strength - , and it piles on her drive, she must realise them otherwise those people would have died (and she would have suffered) for nothing.

However, despite acknowledging her past self as a victim, and because she's now "strong", she's not above using her past trauma (but actually, still present! Remember the rat scene?) to reach her goals, because, at her core, Supreme Leader is soemone who is very determined. Maybe it's her only drive to grow beyond the trauma, or her own illusions, or a mix of everything, but AM made it clear, Supreme Leader is not above, well, using herself if it means seeing her goals come to fruition : unlike Lobotogard from AG, AM!Supreme Leader willingly transforms in Hegemongard.

This is the cost she's willing to pay, so while the memes about Lord Farqaad were on spot, I still think that Supreme Leader is ultimately willing to sacrifice** herself for her goal (but only when there's no other way to ensure her future will come to fruition, and in a way, I guess she thought she would survive the Hegemon transformation, jury's out on what she meant to do in AM's finale, but imo, she still tried, even beaten and battered as she was, to claim Dimi's head).

Ultimately I think everything's a bit muddled by the fact that, as @fantasyinvader pointed out, Supreme Leader is a liar and knows the importance of maintening good PR.

She lies and manipulates the truth to reach her goals (which again, is a red flag when CF claims to want to restore the "distorted history" of Fodlan!) and for all the flak I give them, the devs managed to scrap enough material to give us a peek in Adrestia's mindset (or at least its top nobles), they're not people who self reflect, they are salty because they aren't ruling the world anymore, and they feel like they are better than the rest of Fodlan.

Put everything in the mixer, and you indeed have Supreme Leader (but also her court, especially Ferdie in SB who dares to say, as he is invading and trouncing people who don't really like and accept the idea of being invaded, that the fear those people feel are only in their mind, or something like that? Like, dude, you're rolling over their people and country, of course they'll fear and hate you!) giving her weird rhetoric lines (why are people opposing me if they are going to die?), victim blaming (something Treehouse swallowed like honey, if their lolcalisation is anything to go by, remember, it's Rhea's fault for not offering her head on a platter that is the reason why the War continues in CF!) and so on.

IDK if the devs wanted to bank that much on the Dany parallel with her "if I look back i am lost", but again, I don't know if her drive to make a "better Fodlan" is motivated by her trauma, Adrestian revanchism, Ionius telling her dumb things or Agarthans agarthaning, but her goal and vision are everything to Supreme Leader.

So she will do anythign to see them realised, even if it means sacrificing her people, starting a war, tweaking "the truth" or using her own trauma to motivate and recruit powerful people who might assist her with her goals.

To reply to your question, IMO she sees herself as someone who had once been a victim, but won't let that stop her from reaching her goals, even if it means creating thousands of "hers" in the process, because, in her mind, reaching her goal is more important than anything else.

*I know, she refutes Dimitri's claim that she is "strong" or laughs at it, but imo, it was more in the sense of "I was weak and became strong" so everyone can "become" strong.

**I don't think she wanted to throw away her life, but more something in the lines of "putting my life on the line" or sacrificing her precious (and to see how precious it is, just play CF lol) humanity.

[wisecrackingeric-2]

Can I be mega autistic here and vent for a second and ask if anyone else is lowkey scared for whatever the next RE game is HSBWHDNDJ

[laniidae-passerine]

catch me laughing in the club awkwardly because this season has a 19 year old blonde female companion from London, a space travelling left of law brunette queer boy who flirts heavily with the doctor, absolutely zero writers of colour and no mention of sensitivity readers…….and next season the new companion is a woman of colour. uh oh!

[nenoname]

grumbling about the Joke i despise cos judging by stan's letter i think he knows full well to dismiss bill as being important at this point and knows how much ford was genuinely hurt and had his life ruined by him

(plus i feel like it's become one line not to cross and make fun of, like how stan would never mock ford's hands while he's fine bringing up other stuff to make fun of or use as insults against ford)

[camellcat]

WTFFF I thought thirteen would be my new girl crush love of my life heart eyes wife you-came-after-twelve-you-must-be-better-than-they're-all-saying bbygirl and then I had to sit down and watch as she told a man who (if he were not a murderer, of course) literally every regeneration before her would've LOVED and FULLY SUPPORTED that "the systems aren't the problem. how people use and exploit the system, that's the problem. people like you" </33333 !?!?

[deus-ex-mona]

i miss her…

[kiwikiwiandkiwi]

.

[arsenicflame]

why does it feel like the only options anymore are babygirl ed teach into oblivion and pretend like he never did anything bad, or make him the worst person on the fucking planet and incapable of doing anything to earn any forgiveness (not that he even tries)

[penisbilt]

the bittersweet but absolute flood of relief that comes from admitting defeat at living independently, to have to move back in with parents. we tried! we gave it our best shot for almost 3 years! but living like this (being on our own) is just not possible for us at this time of our lives. we've finally proved it to ourselves that we can't do it. it'll be okay to let ourselves rest now

[anophelei]

The people unashamedly trying to take advantage of the thousands of innocent Palestinian people murdered in Israeli war crimes, twisting the knife in the back of Palestine for an opportunity to remind you that you still have to vote for Joe Biden, undoubtedly counting among the people with the most blood on their hands, have already made it clear they do not care about anyone but themselves, and have gone out of their way to prove it.

Somehow they've managed to sink even lower, and are genuinely, in all earnesty, justifying their continued support for Biden in the wake of him pledging his unconditional support of genocide, with the exact same fucking line they used almost 3 fucking years ago to pressure people into voting him into power in the first place. It was already obvious they had no intention of "Pushing Biden to the Left", that they didn't give a single shit about any of the people they were so ardently claiming to be protecting from Trump, and that they would go to the ends of the earth to justify anything and everything he could possibly do.

And now that he's chomping at the bit about aiding and abetting Israel in raining down hell and phosphorous and napalm on innocent people, now that thousands of people have lost their loved ones to such irreverent cruelty, they've decided it's time for an important reminder; Genocide doesn't change anything, and not only do you have to get out and vote for someone complicit in every single atrocity, every single casualty, you have to do it for the same pathetic excuse we made last time, "because we can push Biden to the "left"", even though there hasn't been a single shred of progress, or even any attempt to do so in the three years since we said this last time. You could say that participation in actual, ongoing genocide, is a catastrophic failure in that metric; that we might as well have been pulling this whole fucking time; and right this very moment is the most unbelievably selfish, entitled, petulant and self interested, and abhorrent, manipulative, cruel, spiteful, bitter and fucking disgusting time anyone could have possibly chosen to say this, when people are entirely cut off from their loved ones with no way to know if they are okay, it's important to remember that you're the bad person here due to your belief that supporting genocide in any capacity is an unforgivable crime. The real crime is NOT voting in support of genocide, when the other option is Literal Fascists !!

I'm not even fucking joking, this entire thing started because this piece of shit thought a Palestinian calling people out for supporting Biden was akin to "thinking the entirety of one side is bad", which due to a complex reasoning and nuanced understanding of "this conflict", he was able to realise that was far too simplistic, and now enlightened, knew that attacking enemy toddlers was wrong. So too did he share his nuanced and complex understanding with OP, since they were understanding things too simplistically. "American politics is not that simple either"

Just like killing babies is wrong even if they're on the enemy team, American politics is not as simple as you thinking I am disgusting and selfish for supporting genocide. #nuance

[palalabu]

jv is thinking to replace his crash prone driver with another crash prone driver mid-season? well good luck with that I guess.