#we needed to see that he was abused and disfigured for the sole crime of being compassionate and soft hearted

[tanjir0se]

Just found out that in the Netflix ATLA, during his Agni Kai with his father, Zuko…fights back. He fights back. They just couldn’t resist having their cool little action sequence so they have him. Fight. Back.

The original Agni Kai scene is fucking heartbreaking to watch especially as an adult because it’s so clear that Zuko is just a boy, a boy so different from yet so devoted to his cruel and abusive father that he falls onto his knees and BEGS not to have to fight him. He’s not violent, he’s not angry, he’s a boy trying desperately to get approval and love from a man who probably isn’t capable of either. It’s one of the greatest Zuko scenes in the entire show because it so beautifully and heartbreaking tells the audience—WHO ISNT EVEN ROOTING FOR ZUKO YET—“he’s not like his father. He is not your enemy”

BUT NO LETS JUST COMPLETELY THROW THAT IN THE GARBAGE BECAUSE OOOO COOL FIGHT SCENE

FLAMING HAMMER EXPLOSIONS UPON THE NETFLIX EXECS FOR ONE MILLION YEARS

[shinneth]

Gem Ascension Tropes (White Diamond-specific: F - J)

Primary General Post ♦ Full Article ♦  Primary Peri Post ♦  Primary WD Post

Faux Affably Evil: White can put up a front of being pleasant, patient, and accommodating – at times even disregarding the slander tossed her way – but after achieving fusion with Chartreuse Diamond and becoming Celadon Diamond, she entirely gives up on this charade.

Flaw Exploitation: For being such a notorious perfectionist (despite sucking at being one), it makes perfect sense that White’s way of finally breaking through Peridot’s stubborn defiance in Act III was to pinpoint her biggest weakness and attack it relentlessly.

For Science: Her rationale for all the gems she experimented on with diamond dust across the millennia. Well, that and her own amusement.

Forgiven, But Not Forgotten: True, by the time White Diamond is completely neutralized as a threat, most of the Crystal Gems think the best course of action is to shatter her so she doesn’t hurt anyone else. However, Iridescent Diamond insists White be given a final chance to make a new (hopefully better) life for herself now that she has nothing left of the life she had before. Steven fully endorses this; Peridot begrudgingly respects the decision, and the rest opt to just disregard White as soon as they can once the motion is passed. When Steven grants White an Energy Donation before the Crystal Gems part ways with her, it’s telling from his neutral expressions and manner of speaking that even he is pushed to his limits when it comes to forgiving White’s many atrocities. Peridot makes her stance very clear after Steven gives his verdict…

Steven: “I’m letting you start over, White Diamond. Peridot here would’ve never come along as far as she has if she wasn’t given a second chance. And while I think this is maybe… the fifth time I’ve given you one, this is where you need to make it count. Please don���t let it go to waste.”

Peridot: “Because should you choose to do so, even he won’t stick up for you when we make you pay for your crimes. And that’s the only reason why I’m not shattering you right here and now for taking Pumpkin away from me.”

Fright Deathtrap: Almost falls victim to the scared stiff variant when Peridot halts her Backstab Backfire retaliation at the very last second. When White Diamond opens her eyes to realize she hasn’t been destroyed, she sees the deflected attack frozen right in front of her face. This terrifies White enough to visibly destabilize her, and it brings her too much shame to bear when she realizes a Peridot of all gems actually scared her like this.

Gaslighting: Employs this tactic once she has Peridot as a hostage. Given who this hostage is, it’s by no means a simple feat. White only started making headway after she managed to separate Peridot’s indomitable willpower from the rest of her conscious mentality. Once she manages to convince Peridot to ascend and become Chartreuse Diamond, White is easily able to completely screw with her captive’s perception of everything. She even outright abused Chartreuse after the latter considered herself and White equals (something White said verbatim minutes ago while trying to sell Peridot on giving in to temptation) and shook her new minion up so badly that she completely forgot it even happened until Chartreuse’s later Heel Realization.

Glory Hound: What White fears more than anything is to be regarded with neutrality and feel irrelevant to everyone and everything. She will gladly take bad publicity over no publicity, and her past atrocities throughout the galaxy during her long-lived tenure are a testament to this motive.

Heel: Simultaneously The Authority Figure and The Narcissist.

Hikikomori: Per canon, White Diamond never leaves her ship/palace… at least, until the final chapter of Act I, though that was a proxy of her likeness rather than her true self, as she stated to a shocked Yellow Diamond (who didn’t anticipate White coming out in any way, shape, or form). By Act III, however, she finally comes out after fusing with Chartreuse Diamond in Chapter 7, and she remains outside her domain (which is torn down later in the same chapter by Garnet and Moonstone) for the remainder of the act. She was basically forced to do so by this point, anyway.

Hive Caste System: Per canon.

Hive Mind: The concept of White’s pallification powers.

Hope Crusher: White definitely made it part of her life’s mission to successfully do this to Peridot in Act III, which did work out, initially. Honestly, Peridot’s failure to escape with her friends in Act I was a bigger factor in that than anything else. Once White made her Chartreuse Diamond, she was momentarily able to control her through this trope as well. Later in Chapter 6, White pulls this off with Peridot/Chartreuse again when she learns about her inability to fuse and inadvertently being a terrible influence on Steven/Pink 2.0. By killing off Pumpkin a chapter later, this trope works a little too well; now Peridot’s indiscriminately destructive and accelerating Homeworld’s demise. This event was initially meant to inflict this trope on Steven via killing Greg (which she almost managed to pull off). By Chapter 8, she’s indirectly afflicted the rest of the Crystal Gems like this, though White isn’t thorough enough to completely incapacitate them.

How the Mighty Have Fallen: It just might be impossible to fall from a greater height in a shorter amount of time; White Diamond’s fall from grace is that drastic. While she’s been running her empire into the ground for thousands of years, the moment she kills off Blue and Yellow is when it all starts to unravel. White Diamond, omniscient ruler of Homeworld who was seldom spoken of and almost never seen, was forced to the forefront to fill in for Blue and Yellow’s responsibilities. Within a week, the vast majority of Homeworld’s population is reduced to pallified zombies, Homeworld itself can barely function as a society due to this, and the planet itself is on the verge of total collapse. White takes it all in stride as she’s banking on becoming the Diamond of Miracles to instantly reboot her world to make it perfect again (while being the sole revered Diamond throughout Era 3; she intends for Pink 2.0 and Chartreuse to be little more than glorified slaves). While the prophecy is fulfilled just in time to initiate a Genesis Effect for Homeworld after it expires, White was never part of the equation. The Crystal Gems evacuate all Homeworld gems to nullify White’s omniscient powers, her proxies are destroyed (and she is decisively defeated by the Crystal Gems soon after), White’s actions cause Peridot/Chartreuse to rapidly accelerate Homeworld’s destruction and nearly takes everyone down with her, then is promptly disregarded by her enemies after Iridescent Diamond saves them all. White has nothing left of her life by the end of Act III, and rather than attempt to make a new life for herself elsewhere and change her ways, she just can’t handle losing so much within a day and be regarded as irrelevant to the Crystal Gems. After blowing her final chance at redemption in hopes of shattering her enemies with a sneak attack, White ends up trembling in fear before an Era 2 Peridot deflecting her attack back at her, then later suffers some mild disfigurement from a final parting shot via Connie, a human. Falling this far proves too much for White to continue living with, as those final two blows to her credibility are what pushes her over the edge as she self-destructs soon after.

I Regret Nothing: Not once does White show the slightest hint of remorse for anything she does, be it within GA itself or the distant past. At best, she’ll be sarcastic about it. She doesn’t even regret screwing up her own planet, as White believes it needs a total reboot to be “perfect” again, anyway.

I Reject Your Reality: White never once tries to look at the world from any perspective other than hers. While she is aware of Homeworld’s impending doom in Act III, she just takes it in stride because she’s certain she has a perfect plan to reboot the entire planet to make it perfect again before it was run into the ground. Surely, that wasn’t her fault to begin with…

I Surrender, Suckers: White has no leg to stand on near the end of Act III. Her planet’s about to go boom, she was never part of the equation of a legendary mythical being that she was once so certain of, and she has no subjects left to rule. But what really gets to White Diamond is how the Crystal Gems (or at least the ones she pays the most attention to) really don’t think much of her in the end. Most would prefer her shattered, but in respecting Steven’s decision and knowing White’s really no threat to anyone, no one’s reacting to her any longer or feeling strongly one way or another. Even Steven and Peridot, the ones she wronged the most in the group, are quick to disregard her after offering mild neutrality at best. After Steven honors her request for an Energy Donation, White Diamond’s focus is not on what to do with her life from here, but instead horror that she’s so quickly becoming irrelevant to everyone and everything. Not long after she’s healed with Steven’s energy, she tries to get one last dig in (if for no other reason than to get some kind of reaction or acknowledgement) by going for an In the Back approach using that very energy she was granted out of mercy. Unfortunately for White, it’s not long before an attempted Backstab Backfire intercepts, only to be spared because White’s terror is far more satisfying to Peridot than simply letting the energy fully bounce back and shatter her.

Ignorant of Her Own Ignorance: Ironically, the Diamond of Omniscience has a bad habit of being ignorant of concepts and events outside of Homeworld. She doesn’t comprehend love or friendship, her inability to truly acknowledge anything about Steven or Peridot’s lives and identities on Earth comes back to bite her many times in the end, and she really can’t understand why she should be tried and judged as any other gem when she commits a criminal act. Yet she not only continuously claims to know it all, but insists she is “perfect” without once acknowledging her mile-long list of oversights, missteps, mistakes, and screw-ups.

In the Back: Attempts to destroy the Crystal Gems with Steven’s Energy Donation like this, but ends up inches away from a Backstab Backfire by Peridot instead.

In Her Own Image: Fusing together several helpless pallified gems at once creates a single mindless being that is this.

Insistent Appellation: Even when she’s directly told by Steven that he would prefer to be called as such, it never registers to White. She continuously calls him Pink/Pink 2.0 or Starlight, but the only time she refers to Steven by name is when she’s part of the Celadon Diamond fusion, and that’s solely contained to the moment she becomes Dead Serious. She treats Peridot similarly, only rarely calling her by name (again, the rare exceptions are courtesy of Celadon) in favor of Twilight and Chartreuse. Peridot similarly objects to the “Twilight” nickname, but White dismisses her as much as she did Steven.

It’s All About Me: One of White’s most identifiable traits in the GA continuity, and also her most Fatal Flaw. The very thought of this trope not being the case 100% of the time is what White Diamond fears above all else, which is why she rejects even the kindest mercy if she believes the ones granting it to her no longer regard her as a relevant factor in their lives (good or bad). The reality of this trope not being the case is one White literally can’t live in, hence her eventual self-destruction.

Judge, Jury, and Executioner: While all of the Diamonds were literally this on Homeworld, White was so far more than the others, and the only one who truly exercises this trope in the GA continuity. Peridot lampshades this in relation to White in Chapter 6 of Act III.

Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Despite Steven’s beliefs, White proves to be a Complete Monster. Subverted somewhat as Pink Diamond’s spirit tells Peridot that she isn’t literally irredeemable, but White will never willfully seek redemption, and most likely will have the majority of the Crystal Gems shattered before she could possibly be browbeaten into it.

[facondevie]

A political prisoner who spent seven years at Alem Bekagn prison recalls the torture and abuse there. He was interrogated several times and forced to confess to crimes he didn’t commit. Mentally ill prisoners were neglected. A friend of his was tortured for three days straight, then put in front of a firing squad and was left out in the street. He lost several family and friends to the Red Terror and the memories still affect him today.

“I was only 20 years old in August 1978 when the Ethiopian security agents of the Derg regime accused me of engaging in subversive activities and sent me to prison. I was one of the lucky few political prisoners who came out of the Alem Bekagn prison alive after seven sua may lanh relentless years of incarceration. I am a man of 54 years of age now and those memories of my confinement still haunt me to date.

In Alem Bekagn, I was tortured and beaten, especially on the soles of my feet. I underwent numerous interrogations and was made to confess to crimes I never committed. Before I was moved to Alem Bekagn I was kept in Keftegna 25 which was filled with hundreds of prisoners.  Some were so badly beaten and tortured they were rendered immobile for a long period of time. One story that stands out is that of an individual with broken backbones who, consequently, could not control his limbs anymore. Looking back, I consider myself lucky for not suffering such injuries; and perhaps that was due to the intervention of a family friend who happened to be a high official in the government. We used to be locked in a crowded cell filled with stench. We were only allowed out for half an hour including brief morning and evening visits to the toilet in groups of ten under the watchful eyes of the guards.

The overall condition at Alem Bekagn was simply appalling and our basic rights as human beings were abused on a daily basis. Although women and men had separate quarters, the most disturbing memories were the conditions of the mentally ill prisoners. They were totally neglected. The other disturbing memory I have is to do with roll call – guards used to mistakenly call out names of those who had already been executed. That showed me that the prison administration did not have a good record or knowledge of the people that were being slaughtered.

During my detention the most atrocious incident I remember was the case of Shimelis, a friend of mine, who was brutally tortured for three consecutive days after his capture by the notorious butcher of Addis Ababa, Kelbessa Negewo who is currently serving a life sentence. Shimelis was put in front of firing squad but miraculously survived three bullet wounds. His bullet-riddled body was discarded in the streets of Addis. One bullet broke his nose between his eyes which blinded one eye, another bullet broke his spinal cord and the last bullet penetrated his ribs. He was discovered by a passerby and luckily was taken to a hospital.  After his condition slightly stabilised he was brought back to prison. His face was so disfigured I simply could not recognize him.  He was later released but I never saw him again. Afterwards I heard he was taken in and out of prison and died in the process.

I lost many family members and friends to the Red Terror campaign. I am still traumatized by the fear and insecurity that one feels when friends are summoned and led to their death or severely tortured.  Most of my closest friends now are the survivors of that awful era. We support each other to heal the scars Alem Bekagn left in us.

I think commemorative events are so important that all of us should be reminded that such history does not repeat itself. I wish to see events like this need to be broader to encompass all actors of past atrocities. I know records of the atrocities are not properly kept and should be made available to the general public.

Name of survivor is deliberately withheld

Source: A former prisoner of Alem Bekagn interviewed by the Ethiopian Red Terror Documentation and Research Center.”