#this is just a bunch of personal bullshit

[seewetter]

I mean it seems rather explainable.

The reasons given for the war were fabricated, because that is a habit for American military interventions. Vietnam was the first time this kind of deceit could be perceived by the public and the Gulf War was when new forms of propaganda were invented to fabricate reasons for war.

Why don't people talk about it all the time?

On the one hand, because a media capable of ignoring Germany's invasion of Poland and a political apparatus capable of presenting their media with false testimony by a small child (!) trained in lying (see first link) are not going to keep a memory of national failure alive if it isn't in their interests and the news cycle moves fast. (On that note: a small child testifying before Congress, but the kid is acting and the whole thing is a PR stunt to start a war -- isn't that "a catastrophe that should utterly delegitimize the society that made it happen" ? Like the Gulf War is at least as ridiculous as what happened in Iraq. I don't mean to downplay the horrors of that war, but like I sense a larger and more enduring historical pattern of "utterly deligitimizing" bullshit that people could reasonably be expected to be talking about all the time).

Another reason why people don't talk about Iraq all the time is that this pattern just never stops. Not only are there ridiculous examples of foreign policy prior to the Iraq War, there's ridiculous examples now. The so-called "Israel-Hamas War" or recently "Gaza War" (why do we call the recent attempt at intensifying the Nakba into a second Shoah a "war", even now, Wikipedia?) is no less spectacular and no less "mysterious" than the Iraq war. America's 2024 solution for a genocide: not only will they, as in previous years, supply weapons -- nope, they'll send some soldiers to help too. "This is a war that destroyed a country" -- I mean is that not something we can say about Palestine?

Richard Haass may never know why the war he advised on happened, but neocons wanted this was to happen since the 80s. The Iraq war is no less mysterious than the current ambitions of various American politicians who don't like Iran. If we ever see a military intervention or proxy war in Iran, we'll know that it's the result of decades of whining and begging on the part of people who had personal incentives to destroy that country. The postmortems of such a war would also be "uh, it's a mystery why it happened" because if some event remains unexplained and mysterious, then nobody has to make ugly confessions.

And a destabilized Middle-East seems to be part of the point, no? Why is one of the largest Middle-Eastern ethnic groups, the Kurds, a culture who aren't granted nationhood (not that I like nation states, but under normal circumstances nationhood is granted to groups like this, so this should make people think)? Do people ever benefit from a region being unstable?

Imagine if the Middle-East was a stable political region where people could, say, build trade networks between Europe and East Asia, connected through the Middle-East. Whose economy would suffer? Or say a bunch of Middle-Eastern countries were independent enough that they gave Russia nice sea access through the Red Sea or the Gulf of Oman / Arabian Sea? The US just don't like some prospect of some sort that has to do with their economic interests. I think we can be sure of this.

Now it *is* wild that the people who fabricated a claim of Saddam possessing WMDs would later go public about lying. That absolutely is wild. It's genuinely hard to understand why that was done.

But in the grand scheme of things it was mainly a costly and visibly unnecessary war. The Gaza "war" caused millions to be displaced and resulted in devastating losses to the cultural heritage of the region too. And people will also refuse to explain "why it happened", though the reasons seem fairly intuitive if one realizes what the US is getting out of this.

I missed most of the Iraq war due to being a baby, but every time I read about it I start wondering why we aren’t all talking about it all of the time

[honey-minded-hivemind]

I like the idea of being called wasp anon thank you for giving me a name :)

And more silly ideas for X-Men au's

I've dubbed one "what's one more" because silly names are fun

Reader is a homeless teen who sees the mansion and breaks in one night planning to steal some food and stuff that a rich person wouldn't notice missing, when raiding the fridge one of the X-Men I'm thinking someone with a mutation that effects their looks (Kurt, Morph, anyone else) comes down stairs because of the noise they just think reader is another student they haven't met yet getting a snack reader realized "these people are like me!" And goes along with it in hopes of not getting in trouble.

They offer to walk reader back to their room letting them lead the way, reader who imagine having a mutation that lets them know where people are (enhanced smell or hearing as a part of their mutation) picks an empty room and says that they definitely live there and choses to stay the night and leave in the morning but they don't they meet all these nice people who think there new and they just play along somehow always narrowly missing the telepaths that could learn the truth, leaving the kitchen seconds before Xavier enters, checking out a library book and leaving moments before Jean enters looking for the exact book reader checked out.

Reader plays along because food, a warm bed, clean clothes, and no one judges them because of their mutation.

They take it as far as coming up with a fake schedule for classes and going to study sessions, heck reader didn't even know what and "X-Men" was until they managed to get their hands on one of the schools pamphlets.

Teachers, storm, Logan ect, just think that the email about reader joining their class got lost in the junk folder full of emails from parents screeching about grades or hateful emails from anti-mutent groups that got their emails.

They think they just forgot to mark reader as living in their dorm.

Reader lies about why they don't go in the danger room they just have a horrible medical condition that they conveniently forgot the name of

Reader makes sure to stay out of trouble to avoid having interaction with teachers that could figure them out.

The teens are now really obsessed with their new friend that just seemed to show up overnight their nice and kind and helped Kurt pick his lock after he left his key in his room! (Reader made them promise to never ask where they learned that skill) And they never go to parent teacher night saying their parents are just way too busy and live in another state.

Then there's the adults, reader is this child who showed up one day and started going to their classes and sat alone until they were invited for lunch by the teens they worry about reader they always seem on edge and only had three pairs of clothes until Jubilee invited them to go shopping they offer after school help but reader never shows up even if their failing they once saw reader pickpocket a kid who stole kitty's hair clip and get it back plus the kids wallet (they chose to ignore the theft) they wonder where reader learned these skills but feel it's rude to ask.

Until reader gets hurt one day when playing tag with the teens and they go to email readers parents about the incident they realize reader isn't in the school system infact reader never met Professor Xavier and it all comes to a head with reader sitting in the medical bay in a cast confused as to why every adult is shoving adoption papers in their face.

All in all it's just a bunch of chaotic lies and tactical bullshitting on readers part that they hope people believe.

It can be for literally any X-Men series.

Anyways thank you for listening to me ramble -the newly dubbed wasp anon!

F*ck yes, Wasp Anon! (I apologize for the long wait!)

This seems like maybe it'd fit in my reboot au of X-Men Evolution, X-Men Revolution, or The Animated Evolution, if you combined Evolution with TAS/97...

Reader, a homeless teen who was kicked out, snuck into this loaded house that full of more things than they've ever owned, it doesn't have mold or roaches, and theres food, LOTS of it. They're raiding the fridge, they're on high alert, they're gobbling whatever is closest and easiest to open, and then completely get lost in the fact they're eating for the first time in days and the food is good.

They're so lost in it, they don't notice Morph walk in, hoping to grab a glass of water, only to stumble on... a new kid? Huh. Must be recent. Well, mihht as well introduce themself and make sure they get back to bed, it's a school night! They ask to take a snack to bed, and well, why not? So off they go to find their room... and huh, the one this kid, Reader, they said their name was, lives in is a bit dull... Hmmm... this means a shopping trip is in order! They can do that this weekend! They bud the new kid good night, tell them where the bathroom and shower is, and leave an extra blanket by the door in case they need it.

Reader can't believe their luck. One, they'd didn't get caught; two, they now live here; three, they have FOOD. This. Is. Gold. They better keep this up though! If they get kicked out, they really will be sh*t out of luck, again... Except maybe since that person was weird, maybe this is a place for weird people? Huh...They can work with this-

Kurt is excited to have a new classmate, and they know how to pick locks and climb walls and how to hide snacks! They're so cool! And their mutation is useful, helping them sense where things are and different pheromones and how crowded a room is! It's like a dolphin, or a bat, or an owl, or something! Very rad!

Scott is trying to figure out when he missed the new kid coming in, but he figures they arrived late and just went to sleep. Of course they also know how to jerry rig first aid and are a master at capture the flag and hide and seek training. He wonders if they had to hide from someone before... Hmmm... He thinks their parents shouldn't visit. Or ever be near them again, if they're this jumpy about getting caught with food or hiding their protein bars. He'll try to keep an eye out for them...

Jubilee likes this new kid! They know have to how fun, they can do all kinds of tricks, and they are so good at color matching! They're perfect for shopping trips and picking out clothes to wear and new music to try! She's a bit concerned when they hide, or want to be alone, because that's not healthy signs, according to Xavier and Logan... She knows! She'll be their new friend, and help them break out of their shell! Then they won't be so scared, and she'll have a new friend, and everyone can have fun!

Logan is surprised to see a new kid in his classes, but assumes Xavier added a new student at the last minute. He's a little more suspicious when they happen to struggle with some of the homework. A few tutoring sessions in, and he finds they're a smart kid, they were just missing a few of thr basics. Who taught this kid? They're great when they understand what they're doing, but who forgot to teach them basics like subtraction and how to properly use adjectives in sentences? Sweet Nature, he has some words for their last teacher...

When the new kid ends up hurt during a training session, the Professor tries to find their paperwork so he can contact their parents or guardian or family... and discovers none. A bit more digging reveals they are not in fact a signed in student, but a runaway. And he feels sympathy for them. He looks up what he can about their real name amd background, and is horrified horrified find they ran away from home due to developing their gift, and being rejected... Well. That won't do at all. He decides to launch an investigation, and offers to have Reader placed under his or his friends' care...

What do you mean you don't need to be adopted? Yes you do, poppet, now please pick who you want as your legal guardian so we can start helping you get better. No, no arguing. You will rest, and we will talk about it later. Good. Now get some rest, and sweet dreams... We'll wake you up later to talk after a nap...

[max1461]

Ok, so obviously this is not going to convince the people who already don't agree with me on this, who find it contradictory or unsatisfactory, but I'm merely stating and not defending the position in this post:

I care about about people, I care about the general population of every country equally, and I don't care about countries or nations as entities. Actually this is not quite true—I believe that caring, if coherent, has to involve some degree of adopting others' ends as your own. @tsarina-anadyomene thinks this is one characteristic of love, and I would indeed like to be able to say that in at least some minor degree I love every person (indeed every creature) in the world. Uh, Serbian nationalists care about Serbia and therefore I care about Serbia, at least a little bit.

But governments, well, first of all fewer people care about governments qua governments as much as they care about nations in the abstract, but more importantly I think that governments as individual entities do a lot of really heinous shit that makes it impossible for me to like them. This is distinct from any anarchist position that the state should not exist—it's more like, point at any individual national government. Do I like those guys? Do I think those are good guys? Well they do some good stuff, they keep the roads paved, hopefully, deliver the mail, all that's great. But they also do a lot of killing and torture, and economic sabotage and shit like that, that hurts a lot of people. And the closer you get to the top, the closer you are to discussions of "grand strategy", the more you're explicitly or implicitly talking about shit like economic sabotage and killing people and the less you're talking about delivering the mail. I guess building roads definitely comes up, and that's good, but it's always "building more roads than the other guys so we can sabotage and/or kill them better" which is :/

I've always been a little contrarian on governments. I've always been a little bit of the famed "median voter" on governments. Get me talking about my preferred system and I'll sound sound like those peasants from Monty Python. Uh. I've made a bunch of posts about it. I want some kind of decentralized, directly democratic, cooperative, federated bullshit like the ancoms talk about for real life and the techno-libertarians talk about for software. Everything other than that is, uh, bullshit, it's the man keeping you down, man. But second place, if we don't get that? I'll take a well-run oligarchy, I'll take the façade of democracy to reduce political violence and attract foreign investment while a party of crony-capitalist technocrats actually runs the show, I'll take the 1955 system before the Plaza Accords, you get the idea. Representative democracy is a sham, basically, it's a sham. So if you're not going to give me freedom, which none of the liberal democracies do, at least give me peace, stability, and prosperity—which they're pretty good at!

But this means I look at, say, China, and I think... sucks they don't have freedom of speech, that's a big issue for me. I mean not so big an issue that I couldn't live there, just a big issue. I'd strongly like it to be otherwise. But the rest of it? Single party state? Who cares. Standard of living is high (for the urban middle class—actually this is my biggest issue with Chinese policy at the moment, they need to do massive wealth redistribution towards the rural poor) but anyway, standard of living is high, there's political stability, it's fucking fine. I hung out with a tone of Chinese international students in college and none of them were like, unhappy with the state of China, although the really wealthy ones all wanted to park their wealth abroad for pretty obvious reasons—

Right, that's another thing China needs to fix: fears about overall stability lead the local elites to siphon money out of the economy and park it abroad. I think, as a non-expert, it seems like Xi's rise and centralization of power have been worse for this. Go back to Deng, go back to term limits and power sharing! God I love Deng Xiaoping.

Uh, freedom is a ruse, uh, Ted K was lowkey right that in a modern techno-world freedom is kind of a ruse. I mean people have to be uh, we have to act or be made to act like worker bees if we want a hive this big and cantankerous to function. Uh, sucks man, sucks that we had to choose between freedom and antibiotics. Maybe we don't, right, that's my whole idea. You know how they had the Juche idea, Kim and his assholes had the Juche idea, well I also have an idea. Maybe we can have decentralized, directly democratic control of economic and civil institutions and still maintain a modern industrial economy. Maybe we can escape Ted K's trap <- new name for it I am inventing. Well one can dream, one can solve a lot of math problems and maybe one day I'll read a bunch of econ books and solve the right math problems and discover the answer. Marx, I love Marx I'm a genuine Marx fan but he doesn't have it. Sorry. Just does not got it. Soviet Union was in a Ted K trap just like all the others. They drained the Aral sea bro! That's hard to forgive...

[ninjaturtlecosmo]

Reblogging this again because I suddenly remembered when an old friend from Deviantart somehow got caught up in a drama with some of their other friends..... I wasn't involved in the drama and only know about it because I read a few comment threads they had going on back when it was happening (learn to handle your conflicts privately people, Deviantart still has notes last I checked), but basically one person drew art of Sylvia from Wander Over Yonder being shipped with someone and another person in their friend group got pissy about it because they ship themselves with Sylvia and felt attacked by the fanart....... and no one in the drama seemed to call out the Sylvia self shipper out on how ridiculous they were acting, it was all just a bunch of dumb fighting and pity party bullshit. I was in highschool when this happened, and these were grown ass adults, and even I knew what a bunch of idiots they were all being.

not submission. I really hate the "My OC, my rules" thing. Cause like, no? Just because they are your oc doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with them. If you want to make your oc suffer and not like them get help, you deserve to lose rights over them. Especially if you only do that stuff to purposely trigger people. Once you do that, your oc no longer belongs to you. they belong to the public who will take better care of them instead

Making a comment to get this to post.

[aholotte]

Comparing Twitter and tumblr queer culture is so amusing

Twitter queer culture: reminder that if you’re an mspec lesbian every character from honkai star rail hates you (?)

Tumblr queer culture: does anyone know if we have butch faggot joy tomorrow

[rojekte]

ok actually one of my least favorite things about this whole watcher fiasco has been seeing people try to figure out what steven shane and ryans "true" thoughts are based on like.... their body language or whatever.

please god make it stop. u are not a body language expert. no one is. because its bullshit.

[mealonlegs]

After beating endwalker, I think his problem is that he's royalty. Like, the problem he has with his life. He's probably going to be a problem for all sorts of people no matter what, but so is everyone with that drive and power. WoL causes all sorts of problems.

But Zenos, Zenos was raised as royalty, heir to the empire, and taught with the assumption that others will work to bring things to him. The best weapons, the best trainers, the political people he needs. Everything is handed to him, so when he's not handed the thing he really, truly, wants (sick epic fights to the death that push him to the limit), he has no idea how to actually get that.

He kinda fumbles around trying to get people to fight him, but he's bad at it. You can see him treating enemies with a sort of respect, while trying to encourage them to be stronger. He leaves foes weakened but not dead, hoping that they'll just sorta happen to dedicate their lives to training and beating him. When he meets one of the best, who still isn't quite on his level, he leaves them alive.

And if you're in a 'get into wicked sick fights' it's a pretty shitty success rate. Epic sick fights Goerge (also known as the WoL), knows exactly how to get into epic soul-rending fights: By doing a bunch of boring tedious shit that makes you want to pull your hair out.

You gotta go on stupid fetch quests. You need to kill 3 squirrels to prove you can stab someone with a slightly shorter sword then the one you saved the world with. You gotta be told to talk to this person, and then go back to this other person, and then return to go talk to the person who you were told to talk to, but an Important NPC didn't tell you, so you gotta check in with them, when this all could have been a link pearl conversation instead of being told via link pearl to come back and report before being told to go do what you were doing.

But you do that long enough, eventually you'll be in a place where whenever there is some epic monster, or battle, or god, you know about it. And you can go fight it. You can fight and fight and fight until there is no one left to fight, but if you grind a bunch of wrap up political bullshit and do some stupid fetch quests, another fight will come around soon enough. And every poor-broke no-skill having adventurer knows this basic fact of life. You gotta do the boring, tedious work to get that real high of pitting your soul against everything and all. But Zeno's, who never had to work at anything he didn't want to, just was completely blind to the adventurer-based economy that defined the world. There's more then a few Zeno's Types, even in FF14, and for the most part these thrill-seeker adrenaline junkies have no problem finding shit in the world to test them. Alisaie, that guy from the ARR capstone society quests, Estinien, That Warrior quest trainer... everyone implicitly understands how to find challenging trouble: Be out and about in the world, but Zenos stuck in an ivory tower of royalty and generalship is blind to how 99.9% of the world works. Even in his general social sphere, someone like Gaius gets in a lot of sick fights, because he's out trying to do shit. But Zenos sits around waiting for problems to come to him, and that's why he hates his life. He may still be an evil villain causing naught but pain and suffering for all those around him, but he could have been happy like that if he wasn't the crown prince.

I wonder what Zenos would have been like, had he grown up under different circumstances? Like, is he just evil/endlessly selfish to the core and that's the way he is as a person and everything about him and his actions were just inevitably going to happen no matter what - or, if given a chance, could things have been different?

[swagging-back-to]

the way literally every fucking person has been REPULSIVE about euthanasia lately.

[musical-chick-13]

The problem is. When I go, "Oh, this system is bullshit" and try to live outside it. My choices are still defined by that system. And that makes me feel really weird.

[appropriatelystupid]

Below Deck AU, yesssssss

i cannot describe how desperate i am to actually get this one written

basic set up is as follows:

lena, upon gaining access to her trust fund, also officially inherits a ship lionel bought and remodeled into a yacht (basing it on bd down under s2’s ship)

in the interest of having nothing to do with the family business, lena studies environmental sciences for her many degrees and ultimately begins sailing the yacht to various parts of the world for research and running yacht seasons in route to help keep funding her work against climate change

the crew changes season to season but it’s mostly made up of our familiar faces

kara is still a journalist (no powers in this one btw) but she is determined to tell whatever story in the world matters so she’s very much a bit of a nomad and happens to be traveling (not for work) nearby when alex (1st officer) calls because they need a new deckhand

it would break from below deck in that, no one is filming them, but the structure of the ship and season would be the same

[coridallasmultipass]

Long shitpost silly vent and conspiracy theory for funsies:

I'm really tired of UI being simplified to symbols on every website and program and app, especially on PC, but especially-especially on mobile when I click 'desktop view' on my browser. Where'd my text go? I want the text. Give me the text. I don't want to be bombarded by every site's minimalistic takes on mobile-friendly web design, and the same 5 symbols and 3 new ones. We're like three generations off from people knowing firsthand that the save icon is a floppy disk. I don't even click the save icon when I'm on PC. I don't even remember the last time I clicked one when I had the option to do anything else, because I'd rather use the text menu. Like, I use the keyboard shortcut or I click file>save. I'm not clicking a fucking modern hieroglyph in Corporation A's visual icon dialect. ('Dialect'? Icon dialect. Dialex-icon. Idk.)

I miss you, text-based internet.

I miss you, text-based PC operating system. (Windows 7. I'm using hyperbole here.)

Details and long-form content are being pushed aside by 60-second summaries and abbreviated/sanitized representations of images and ideas, by corporations dictating how the digital world should function. Also, fuck censoring words to be advertisement-friendly.

Anyway, I'm sick of deciphering what new random minimalist symbols are supposed to represent. There is a bottom line to minimalism, and right now, this is what the internet, UI in general, and web design feels like to me:

It's fucking flat.

Next thing you know, they'll take the snake out, too. The Obsolete Snake.

Then after that, in a digital world of shapeless, entirely minimalist colour, you'll have to decipher meaning from a highly specific colour used to convey a wide range of meanings depending on its digital value, and the colour shown before and after it. Let's call it hex-icon (like 'lexicon'), after the limited hex-code characters (0-6, A-F) used to comprise digital colour.

Can I call dibs on this highly specific colour as my new corporate-aesthetic-friendly minimalist username??

((Naming yourself after popular media is a trans rite-of-passage and I missed out the first time by renaming myself before I knew my gender.))

But wait, that's a highly incendiary colour!! Don't you know that #FF06B5 is associated with an anti-corporate agenda? You can't pick that colour as a name on an internet owned and operated by the censorship overlords. Dangerous ideas like that are a violation of the Terms of Service. This post cannot be monetized. Name yourself something more family-friendly. That shade of magenta is too indecent. Think of the children.

> Try again.

*record scratch*....Hol' up. You kno... You know what... I was gonna assign myself a less fruity colour, and then I realized I was about to implement some kind of colour-based naming caste system, where only certain tones are allowed as names depending on your status, and aberrant colours are disallowed due to controversy. Suddenly, the Homestuck quote I just used makes sense for the direction I was headed with Cyberpunk 2077 magenta (fuschia, AKA a royal blood colour in Homestuck) being forbidden in hexicon.

The saying was right: every so often someone does reinvent Homestuck. I just went about it from a moebius double reacharound direction. Thankfully, I have the Homestuck experience to tell me when I've arrived at the solution.

(That's enough internet for today, lmao.)

Tldr; say no to corporate user-shiterface. Don't let detail become obsolete. Consume long-form media again. Stop encouraging sanitized minimalist content. Or else I'll see you in the roof, #413612. Can't abscond, bro!

Appendix:

One last important message in hexicon for everyone. Because I know, you know, you want to know, how to say this one. It sure is a beautiful colour to display vibrantly towards the ever simplifying internet.

[melonisopod]

Idk I think more mentally-unwell lonely nerds who develop parasocial relationships with the anime girls in their gacha games need to learn how to write fanfiction and make AUs. Or idk commission a fanartist. They literally have the money to blow on glorified slot machines, like bro just toss some cash at your local artist and commission them to draw your waifu making out with your self-insert. Better use of your money imo.

[peachiyyy]

lol extremely religious people are always objectively horrible people it’s crazy i thought you guys were supposed to be the good ones!!

[221bshrlocked]

And here I thought spending a month in an isolated monastery will make me more spiritual.

[caterjunes]

i fucking hate how like EVERY website decided that if you wanted to buy a single thing from them, you also wanted to sign up to receive promotional emails from them for ever and ever

[snubbullls]

.