The Greatest Generation would be so heart broken to see that the American youth is now promoting the very thought and propaganda that they fought and gave their lives to keep OUT of America.

Back when I was studying World War II in high school I never would’ve dreamed that my beloved United States would be embracing and pushing the same exact propaganda as the Third Reich.

Had we lived in Nazi Germany many of you would’ve sold out the Jews and the Christians who stood up to Hitler and it shows.

General relationship headcanons for Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley and John ‘Soap’ Mactavish

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Disclaimer: Little to no military knowledge from the author 🕺 don’t come for me i hate the military but i love these military men 🫠

Gender Neutral Military Soldier!Reader

this is also a test to see how i’m gonna write for these two. Yes you can request for them. I can’t do the entirety of the 141 YET but stay tuned 💃

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Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley

At first he was very intrigued by you. Having caught Price’s eye enough to have him assign you to the 141. He’ll be absolutely in denial that he’s caught genuine feelings for you. Not wanting to get close to someone after all he’s went through. But he can’t help the warm feeling he gets when you make eye contact with him from across any room when he stares for far too long.

Eventually he’ll accept that he’s in love with you, will probably outright tell you after you were reckless on a mission, using yourself as a human shield for him. He’d be angry and frustrated and as he’s scolding you for your actions and you arguing back that he would’ve been killed, he’ll blurt out that he was fine if it was him, he doesn’t want to see the only person he can’t get out of his mind hurt because of him.

Ghost will pause as he watches your reaction, and slowly take off his mask, eyebrows furrowed and eyes on the ground. You take his face in your hands and confess your feelings too. From then on you’re an official couple, to Soaps delight. (He won a bet against Price and Gaz.)

You’ll have to be very patient with Simon. He’s been through a lot and lost a lot of people he loved dearly. Being emotionally vulnerable is very hard for him.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you. He’s just really bad at communicating it. Like. Really bad. His actions do speak louder than words.

It usually little things. From watching you like a hawk during missions together, making sure you’re okay at all times. From small, brief touches every now and then before and after missions to cleaning your weapons for you. Sometimes he’ll grab your hand during missions when you guys aren’t separated, away from the eyes of others, slowly running his thumb across your knuckles.

Most common physical contact is him putting his hand on your back between your shoulder blades. And on rare occasions, forehead touches. That damn mask gets in the way though but it’s still a nice gesture and one of his more intimate ones he’ll do in front of the others. Since he knows they don’t really care all that much.

If Soap says anything about it though he’s getting one of Ghost’s nasty dead eyed stares. And a threat that holds no true malice behind it, just annoyance.

He has trouble vocalizing his affection to you. That doesn’t come easy to him. Usually it’s such a normal, everyday phrase no one seems to notice the importance of when he says anything to you. From reassuring you he has your back from any threats, to simply asking you how you’re holding up when the two of you are separated.

Sleeping out in deserts, jungles, boats, anywhere not at home he has to have your cot next to his or he won’t sleep. Usually he doesn’t really sleep actually, but having you around eases his mind, letting him get much needed rest even if you’re a couple feet away, facing each other as you rest.

He’s not used to having someone around his apartment when he’s home away from war. Having someone there when he wakes up is new to him again. And he’s definitely not used to you praising him. Telling him how much you love him and how handsome he is. Kissing him because you want to. Looking up at him with so much love and adoration.

During the hours where the sun is just beginning to rise, the birds are softly singing outside in the trees, he’ll wake up before an hour before you so he could go on his morning jog. But he’ll stay in bed for a few minutes, admiring your sleeping face. Gently cupping one of your cheeks in his hand and slowly run his thumb over your cheek bone. And when he gets up to get ready for his run, he’ll kiss your forehead before he leaves. Coming back to find you cooking breakfast for the both of you.

The privacy of the apartment lets him be more vulnerable. If only a little. He still has trouble with words. But physical touch comes easier to him. He’ll come up behind you when you’re doing something in the kitchen and put his hands on your waist, kissing the top of your head. When sitting on the couch he’ll pull you towards his side so you can snuggle up to him. When sleeping he likes facing you, arms wrapped around your middle, rubbing up and down your back with your head to his chest, his chin lightly pressing on your forehead.

When he does vocalize his feelings it’s usually an ‘I love you.’ It’s rare but he means it entirely. If you say it back immediately when he does he’ll bring you in for a tight hug for a minute or two, pulling up his mask to kiss you briefly. His love is soft, warm and intense. He may be wary about loving you because he’s afraid it’ll put a target on your back, even if you know how to take care of yourself, but he really does love you. Like i said be patient with him.

John ‘Soap’ Mactavish

Johnny is more openly emotional. He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve but he does actively show and say it. After missions he’s always asking you if you’re okay. Making sure you’re stocked up in ammunition. Handing you weapons he knows you prefer. Always going ahead of you first in tight spaces to act as a human shield for you. Yelling out your name when you’re in trouble, and etc.

It was like this since he got to know you after you joined the 141, eyes always following your every move, helping you out any chance he got, showing off in the worst moments getting scolded by Price and Ghost.

He’ll confess his feelings after a mission when you save him from an enemy sniper, telling him to duck as you take them out. Not as intense as Ghosts confession but he’s still in absolute awe of you, he couldn’t stay quiet about it anymore.

Really, he’s a love sick puppy, always looking at you with those grey eyes full of admiration and awe. Always close to you when he can. He enjoys any time he can get with you when on duty. Sitting right next to you while you two clean your weapons. Leaning on a wall and chatting away about anything and everything when you have time to simply relax. Sitting next to you in car rides as you two stare out the windows, feeling each others body heat from being so close.

He is touchy, but he restrains himself in front of the rest of the 141. But when a mission requires the team to separate into groups and you two aren’t in the same one he’ll always without fail run up to you and spin you around when it’s done and over with, especially if you were very heroic that mission.

He will constantly boast about you to the annoyance of everyone. Alejandro is the only one who doesn’t really mind. But he does tease Soap about how love sick he is. They definitely act like school boys around each other. Ghost is constantly annoyed by his blabbering about you though. He’s trying to sleep please shut the fuck up oh my god.

When alone together it’s rare for him not be physically touching you. His hugs are tight and playful. Ruffling your hair constantly to make you laugh. Squishing your cheeks. Picking you up and hauling you over his shoulder. Dancing in the living room to a high energy song and slow dancing when he’s feeling extra romantic.

He also melts when you praise him about anything. And turns into putty when you run your fingers through his mohawk, giving him scalp massages. He falls asleep like that on the couch often, his head on your lap as you two watch a movie or tv show.

Can’t cook for shit but he loves when you offer to teach him. It’s a reason to be close with you and he gets to learn something so it’s a win for everyone involved. It feels so domestic to him. Listening and watching you as you focus on the meal you’re preparing, telling him about every step in detail. From the cooking lessons he’s learned how to make a mean spaghetti and meatballs, and it’s one of the first you taught him since the sauce and the meatballs are from your own family recipe. It’s turned into his favorite meal and usually cooks it on date nights.

He’s talked to you about life after the military. Finding a home somewhere nice and quiet. Maybe by a lake, possibly having a farm. He does know he wants a dog. Any kind of dog will do. The topic of children is all out to you guys if you’re willing to have them or not. If no he’s okay with it just being you and a dog running around. If yes he’d want one child. Doesn’t matter what gender, he’d be delighted by anything.

He definitely writes about you in his journal by the way 100%. About how lovely you look certain days to how well you fought in hand to hand training. To moments in battle where you do something he deems as heroic. Some pages are filled with only you, others you and the rest of the squad. Sometimes it’s little notes about little details about you.

He also likes to write you those little notes on sticky notes. Sticks them in random places he knows you’ll be the one to see them. Just some cute worded messages. Nothing too detailed that’s for his journal. He knows you always save them, and when you find them he gets a quick peck on the lips from you with a big smile.

i blacked out when i typed this and these turned longer than i expected lmao

the thing is that in real life I’ve been accused of “only caring about Palestinians” or abandoning Jews or something after Oct 7 because I’ve been so focused on the ceasefire efforts and advocacy, and it’s like, of course I am. If I could bring back anyone killed on October 7 I could but I can’t and so the only thing I can do now is prevent more deaths. That’s what I can do. And on here I’ve now been accused of being a selfish nihilistic white nationalist cryptozionist for talking about antisemitism, because that is the fire I see happening every day on social media and at this point it has now got a body count. And it’s like, we have got to allow people the realization that the best thing we can do is put out fires where we see them. We do what we can. That’s the best we can do. but a few addendums:

Let’s stop assuming peoples opinions based on what they /don’t/ post. There’s so so many reasons people are /not/ posting about things on (anonymous/semi anonymous) social media in particular that governments everywhere /are/ cracking down on pro-Palestine activism and so peoples posting may not be apathy but rule number one of protesting, which is don’t doxx your comrades!

in the immediate aftermath of Oct 7 I reblogged a post with links to support, one of those links ended up leading straight to a group that had celebrated the H AMAs attacks. A day later I saw a post trying to discredit recordings of the attacks and it linked to a website that linked to the daily stormer. This is the newspaper of the KKK. I’ve also reblogged things that were shared by people who have also supported the Russian and Syrian governments continuously. This is not me telling you NOT to support journalists or the need, but it is me telling you how I have been part of the misinformation feed as no well and why I am hesitant to share unsourced information. I will not reblog or post anything that does not have an immediate source link. White nationalists, tankies, and white supremacists are not your friends. They do not care about the Palestinian cause.

I think people are really, really lost on the dangers and extent of antisemitism. I am patently not saying that what’s happening to Jews is /as bad/ or /less bad/ than the absolutely horrific war crimes being inflicted against gazan citizens right now. I am not saying that. I am saying that whole hearted willful antisemitism is being partaken of by a huge sector of people around the world, both white and nonwhite, and I do not think people fully understand there repercussions of it because they think Jews are still ultimately privileged and it ranges from /not that bad/ to /something they’ve all collectively made up to justify war crimes./ I cannot emphasize enough how bad public, violent antisemitism done in the name of the Palestinian cause is to both antizionism and the support of Palestine. This is not a two sides zero sum game, this is something that is actively harming the movement in real time and which people do NOT comprehend is happening in the age of the screenshot, where anyone can get recorded. One of the most significant issue is that attacking Jews and Jewish institutions has now made this a domestic citizen issue in many countries, and that has given Islamophobia and anti-Arab security states a legal prerogative to attack Muslims and Arab communities as well as any Palestinian activism. Calling for the mass death of Jews (even the ones you don’t like) on social media is an incitement to ethnic violence, guys, and it’s made so so much worse when you’ve put a Palestinian flag in your bio. These “neutral” things on social media are having a REAL impact on attacks on Jews AND on legal crackdowns against Palestinian activism.

there are a lot of bad actors out there and both Jewish and pro-Palestine groups I fear have gotten in bed with some really sketchy people because they’re saying what they want to hear. “I hate terrorism and especially Arab terrorism!!!” Is something conservative white nationalists have been saying for years and it’s best if Jews don’t get in bed with those who want to claim everyone is supporting Hamas! Likewise, the idea of “Zionists” and “the Zionist occupied government” or “evil Zionist pigs” has been used by the kkk and other explicitly white supremacist groups for years, and it’s for the fucking best if people don’t deny what actual white nationalists are saying, and don’t decide that everyoneeee calling for the death of the Zionist scourge is their friends.

Preliminary Poll

Everyone

Submission reason:

Original Leverage had excellent character, story, found family, etc. 10/10 all around. In the reboot, the stories are less interesting (several of the cons feel like they could be done with half the cast, like a lot of them just aren't doing anything a lot of the time and it feels overcrowded) and the characters all feel a lot flatter? For example: Eliot. The most haunting scene for his character in the original is when the rest of the team learns he used to do work for Damien Moreau, the super evil guy they're currently trying to take down. We get this interaction: Eliot: The worst things I ever did, I did while working for Damien Moreau. Parker: What did you do? Eliot: Don't ask me that Parker. Because if you ask me, I'm going to tell you. So don't ask me. We never find out what he did. There is a strong implication it involved killing innocent children, the families of targets he was hired to take out. There may have been more. We don't know, and that's what makes it such a chilling moment for his character- whatever it was it was bad, so bad that it doesn't need specifics. In Leverage: Redemption, we get a scene where Eliot is captured by evil security company lady (I don't remember exactly who she was, but one of the main bad guys). She injects him with a drug that is described as making it easier to bring up traumatic memories somehow? and triggers a traumatic memory by saying "Operation Kansas". We then see footage of Generic War Flashbacks (with no detail as to what that actually was or any stake we should have in it, we're just told "it's traumatic"). He also starts branching out a lot more from the team looking for romance (and struggling with it) which is a lot more depressing than where he was at in the original (the team is his family). Granted this probably has something to do with Hardison's actor not being available and not wanting to focus too much on Eliot and Parker's relationship lest that read as cucking the black man, but it does weaken the found family of the original (it has a bit of the vibe of "we're growing up and growing apart" when the original was "broken people finding strength and community in each other"). They also don't seem to know what to do with Sophie exactly- in the original, she was the heart of the team. There's a line one of the others has about how they trust Nate to come up with the plan, but they trust Sophie to make sure they're all okay. For a lot of the show, this is more focused on Nate than the others because he's the most off-the-rails, so with his character gone there's a gap that isn't really adequately filled.

The support relationship she had with the trio is also weakened because in the time since the first show they've all become even more competent and successful without her, so her taking on a teaching role with them feels weird (they mostly do this with Parker, which has the awful effect of making her seem less competent than she did in the original). Her relationship with Harry works the best in the new show, but since Harry's problem is entirely born of lack of experience/competence with this sort of crime, she can't really play off him in the same way as the others- it's all very teacher-student. It was also established in the original that she's a grifter, and she's not actually interested in running a team so making her character the leader after she's been out of the game for years feels out of place. And Parker. Beloved Parker. She's Word of God canonically autistic, and it was done SO WELL in the first series, which makes the massacre in Redemption so much sadder. Parker's arc in the original series involved her learning to open herself up to the world after closing off so much of who she could care about due to repeated trauma throughout her life. She shows so much growth throughout the series, and ends up implied to be the leader of the team after Nate and Sophie leave. She's weird and kooky but this isn't a flaw and it doesn't detract from her competence as a thief and teammate. And while she does struggle with certain things (grifting especially because of the social component) she does learn and improve with the help of the team. And then in Redemption, there's just. an enormous backslide. She's been at least co-leading teams around the world with Eliot and Hardison for years, but when Sophie comes back into the picture she gets implicitly demoted (it's not emphasized, but Sophie being promoted to solo leader implies it) and within the team dynamic, she is paralleled in skill level to Breanna, Hardison's 20-something sister who just joined the team (for comparison, Parker should be mid-30s at this point and has been doing this sort of crime for over a decade).

Still, Parker is put in the same category as Breanna; that is "good at her specialty, trying to be better, still has a lot to learn". She maintains her character growth from the original in regards to opening up and caring about others, but her skills and competence feel a lot lesser- despite the fact that years have passed offscreen where presumably she'd continue to learn. Ultimately she comes across as much more childish and immature which really does not sit right with the wonderful autistic representation she was in the original. Harry and Breanna I have less to say about because they are new for the reboot, but I think they also could be done a lot better. Harry's entire thing is that he used to be exactly the type of Evil Guy the team would take down but he's had a change of heart and wants to fight for what's right. And like, he did do a lot of evil fucked up shit! But the extent to which the other characters will like. Rub his face in it? Feels excessive.

Maybe this is just me having a lot of thoughts on "how to effectively de-radicalize someone" but like. For example, there's a point where they're deciding how to run a con and he offers some information as to how these guys work (I don't remember specifics unfortunately) and the rest of the team is like "Oh. And how do YOU know that? Right, because you were EVIL. 😒" when like??? He was literally already acknowledging that? And constantly shaming someone for their past when they are actively trying to improve is bad practice. As for Breanna... I want to like her. I do. And there are a lot of good things about her character. But they also kind of make her a Millennial Mouthpiece at times, where like she just expresses the opinions that Kids These Days and Our Generation have without any weight behind them. There's an episode about Fake Magic the Gathering where she gives a big speech about kids who didn't feel like they fit in, but there's nothing personal about it, so it ends up feeling empty. Character building in the original was heavily focused on specific personal details and experience, and she doesn't really get much of that which takes away a lot of potential depth. Also I would be remiss if I did not highlight this comparison because it's a big part of why I had to stop watching the reboot: In original Leverage, there is a scene where the con has spiraled out of control, and Hardison and the mark were caught on a US army base with a camera. The team is trying to figure out how to get them out without blowing the con and Hardison says "Damn the con! I am a black man caught on an Army base with a video camera! I am going to jail forever!" They manage to get him out safely, having him stall so they can break him out without blowing their cover. But that one line highlights the fact that his race does put him in more danger than the others in that scenario, and the show knows it. Even if it doesn't play out, the awareness is there. This is one of many cases in which this is emphasized. Redemption has an episode, The Great Train Job, where the mark is the head of a group of white nationalists. Breanna is one of the teammates on the train, and there's a point where she says she's going to try something and Eliot reminds her to be careful because she's in more danger than the rest of them. This is the sum total of acknowledgement of that danger, aside from some quippy lines about the evils of white supremacists. A few key things: Also in this episode, while Sophie is grifting the mark, he comes onto her very strongly in a private train car, getting way too close to Actual Sexual Assault for comfort, in a scene that was genuinely unpleasant to watch. In the original, while the stakes were often high, there was never the fear of "they're really not going to make it" or even "they're going to experience something genuinely horrible" (beyond like, "getting shot" level of injury). This situation for Sophie was new and unexpected, and because of that I no longer trusted the show not to cross another line. And because they highlighted the racism present on the train (by having the white man remind the black woman about it, which isn't inherently bad but I don't love it), I spent the entire episode on edge waiting for something bad to happen to Breanna. Nothing did, but fundamentally I did not trust that. The quote from Hardison, among other scenes, did make me feel safe in the understanding that the writers knew the gravity of the situation and would tread carefully. But the casualness of the line with Breanna, coupled with Sophie's awful scene in the same episode did the opposite. This is less of a character complaint and more of a structural one, but still.

Propaganda:

A lot of my gripes with Redemption are about the show as a whole, so idk how well this fits this poll, but the characters are a huge part of that because it's such a character driven show. Anyways I'm genuinely curious to see how this does because I am so strongly pro-original and so strongly anti-reboot, but I have the impression that a lot of people really like the reboot.

ok, this has been burning a hole in my notes app and i’m just gonna send it out there:

Why (i think) the Finale was Like That:

to preface, if you liked the finale, good for you!! that’s totally valid and i’m not trying to bash that. but i know a lot of people were left wanting more, and i’m one of them. anyway, to my point:

as silly as it sounds, this show is not written for us.

we’re fans. the producers already know we’re gonna watch the show. they don’t need to convince us to give them our attention, they already have it. why waste time digging into random side characters in the larger Star Wars saga when the average person doesn’t even know who that is?

their real job is to convince outsiders to watch. to get hooked. to see an element they like, probably from the main movies, and tune in, even for one episode. if they can get them hooked with fennec or ventress or hell even rex, that’s a win for them.

the plot lines wrap up in such an unsatisfying way because honestly? they cant waste time focusing more on these characters than they have to. the people writing and designing the show might love them and want to include more meaningful resolutions, but that takes too long and costs too much money. you know what’s cheaper and will satisfy the average viewer? kill the mystery clones, cut off the “trauma hand”, and wrap it all up in a nice little “look, she’s joining the rebellion, guys!” moment because the more bland and broad the ending, the more people will understand it.

i mean, remember the Fives mention? Echo didn’t react, he didn’t even stutter, he literally moved the conversation along like they were talking about where to go for dinner like HELLO. we already know they cannot be bothered to show real important emotional scenes because that would take too much spotlight away from the whole star wars politics plot or whatever were supposed to care about. (honestly, who is watching bad batch for the og trilogy implications? woah tarkin and a couple other empire dudes are talking about project stardust definitely gimme more of that and not any meaningful connection between these characters i love)

it’s scummy, it sucks, it especially kills me that the story is basically lost to corporate greed but let’s be honest, this is Disney’s Star Wars. i could literally just leave it there. meaningful moments will always be sacrificed for shock value and character cameos because the random guy seeing an ad is only gonna watch the show if he thinks “oh cool, tarkin, i didn’t know he was in that show, maybe i should see what that’s about.”

and yes, i know, there absolutely is a ton of love and care poured into this show. i appreciate the effort that went into it. i’m just sad they didn’t have full creative freedom under Disney to give us the story we wanted.

but you know who won’t sacrifice story for money? you know who’s guaranteed to have the fans’ interests in mind? you know who does have full creative freedom and is equally pissed about bad show moments and want to do them better? FANFIC AUTHORS. Fan artists, theorists, even roleplay accounts and every other type of dedicated fandom blog is here for that shit and will reshape things however they want a million different ways because that’s the point. the show simply cannot give us what we want, but we can make it ourselves.

your support, your creativity, and your determination to give these characters what they deserve is how we can solve the problem.

i didn’t really mean to turn all “we’re all in this together” here lol but yknow what i really do mean that. i think supporting the community around you is the best option we have for truly enjoying all of this show’s potential.

tagging a few people cause i value your input!! and let’s be honest i’m probably leaving a few things out that you might be able to expand on: @the-bi-space-ace @inkstainedhandswithrings @phantom-of-the-501st

In the Defense of Saw Gerrera......

Ever since I've rejoined the fandom few years ago, my blog gets notice for a lot of pro-Jedi arguments and sentiments but I don't always get the time to talk about another character in the franchise who gets grossly mishandled by fans: Saw Gerrera.

A lot of fans like to prop up his character as a showcase of "extremism" that makes the Rebels not the quissitessinal good guys and vindicate the Empire, giving them a legitamate reason why they do what they do.

Today, I'm going to call out some things I believe are important to remember about the character.

"Saw's methods hurts the Rebellion more than it helps"

I've seen this sentiment come up a lot, especially after his appearance in The Bad Batch. In canon, there are certainly people who think that, chiefly Mon Mothma (The Rebel Files, Rebels) but the consensus within the Alliance until it's official formation is that they cannot be picky and that he and his PARTISANS are KNOWN for getting jobs done.

And say what you want about his methods, but the Alliance themselves have more than one time asked for his help and even when they didn't like him whatsoever. And when they didn't, it hurt THEM badly.

In Leia: Princess of Alderaan, Bail is big mad because he killed Moff Panaka, believing he was more sympathetic and didn't like how it almost costed his wife/daughter's life (despite the fact the Partisans had no clue they were meeting). Despite all the hubup and Bail getting bigmad, it actually saved Leia, as he was about to reveal to the Emperor that based on the resemblance, she had to be Padme Amidala's daughter.

In Rebel Rising novel, Saw explicitly talks about how he doesn't like how they prioritize things but remain critical about his methods. One of his former Partisans, Idryssa, went to form her own group in the Rebel Intelligence but found when she wanted to help liberate Tamsye Prime of slavery, the Alliance High Command didn't believe it was worth their time to fight, prioritizing other unnamed dilemmas. She ended up going to Saw in hopes he could do a recon mission that'll give her valuable intellgience. He lambasts her for it, telling her it's ironic she had all the ideas to help the galaxy but could only hope people like him do the dirty work. For context, that part of the story is where Saw gets invited to the Alliance (despite doing the worse thing he's done in canon), which he accepts the mssion for FREE, and it is that mission that created the reason why Jyn was abandoned (ill get to that later).

In the episode "In the Name of the Rebellion" for Star Wars Rebels, the Jaliandi Station the Empire established essentially made it possible for the Empire to quickly respond to any distubances, including a mission Hera was on that was botched unexpetedly. The episode, while grooming over Gerrera's methods, also mentioned that he already warned them about it and they ignored it, paying the price for it. This stems from the fact all their tactics are going to, ultimately, come to a "peaceful resoultion". They also try salvaging this by wanting to plant a tracker so they can also listen into communications and adjust their strategy. Both Ezra and even Hera herself believe it's a damn useless tactic and destroying it was the best option. Plot tiwst: it was. Empire took a L.

Rogue One had a big point that the Rebel leaders were unwilling to act decisively and Rebels had shown that for YEARS, Saw warned them that the Empire were building a superweapon. The reason he wasn't listen to? According to The Rebel Files, Mon Mothma dismissed him entirely on grounds that it was too extreme even for Palpatine and that she doesn't like his line cynicism. It took confirming the Death Star to convince her and High Command to talk to Gerrera and/or take him seriously, who has since cut contact with them altogether.

The Bad Batch is the most recent of these examples as his attempt to kill Tarkin and higher up leaders of the Empire led to a series of events that cumilated to Tech's death and TBB's eventual capture. A lot fans wanna blame Saw despite the fact that they interrupted HIS operation and he was planning to assassinate both Krennic and Tarkin included. Tech has a "counterpoint" but as the audience, we know thsoe two are instrumental to the Death Star and given Rogue One's context, the Empire wouldn't have been able to have a Death Star BECAUSE the research on kyber crystals came from Galen, who was a FRIEND of Krennic (to an extent; Galen wasn't favoring him that had especially later), and after Order 66, a lot of experts on that field were killed or they hid because they knew anybody involved with Jedi was gonna get hunted too. Saw would of killed two importantfigures in the Empire in one fell swoop and lets not forget it was TBB that alerted the Empire in the first place and he was doing it in YEAR 2, when the Empire was still up and coming and had a leadership deficit.

Both the Rebels and TBB show gave counter points with comparing his tactics to instead using it to gather intel. I wanted to address the fact that despite what Tech and one of the guys in High Alliance state that ultimately, they were WRONG: the Jailandi relay being destroyed was a all out positive and Tarkin and Krennic's respecitve connections is what brought to fruition two big parts of the Empire and you couldn't replace the leadership capability Tarkin had. It is literally no surprise in canon, the Empire fell apart in 4 years even if they were close to winning but even in that timeframe, both Sidious and Vader had to be more direct in their approach and the galaxy was quickly against them.

One of the real reasons the Alliance had problems was because of their leadership; it was a known fact that in general and especially after Bail's death, High Command would only act dependent on Mothma or otherwise be indecisive and stall. Her core belief was on searching for a peaceful resolution and she stood on that hill to the point she ERASED Saw contributions while being okay with it if it were her friends that did it, as according to Bloodlines, there have been at LEAST 2 instances prior to the destruction of the Death Star the Rebellion under her leadership engaged in "terrorist tactics", one that involved slaughter.

In fairness, Mothma had a problem with her camp (Rebel Intelligence) using those tactics but at the end of the day, guess what? She endorced Draven, even when he got on his mysoginistic bullshit with Jyn. The Alliance's own propaganda department had to start lying/exageratting because they found out ignorant people will not listen to the truth (shocker). [Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy] And guess what? She signed off the destruction of the Death Star, which totalled to about 1.5 million deaths, the majority being civilians and low-ranking officers dedicated to maintaining it. (Bloodlines) Mothma spent YEARS ignoring, underplaying, and erasing Saw's influence, contributions, and her problem with him was personal, as essentially, she didn't like how Saw both underline the very methods she will have to endorce/support/perform one way or another and that his actions didn't benefit HER, as he was on that "IDGAF about her methods" team. All that and she ended up having to support doing the more morally repugnant things he said she would have to do.

In short? It's complex but Saw doesn't inheretly actually hurt the Rebellion in any special way, despite what the Empire propaganda in universe claims and some opinions of characters (typically Mothma).

"He is a short-sighted fool who just blows stuff up"

Another big claim I see fans put out here is that Saw lacks forsight and doesn't think things through. It's a hilarious thing because the "short sighted fool" was the only one who saw the the Death Star coming YEARS before anybody suspected otherwise. Characters spent so much time writing him off, trying their hardest to contend with it, and wanted so badly for him to just do things their way even when he told them they were fighting an enemy who plays dirty and didn't care about people.

Funny enough, Leia in canon (by the time she led the Resistance) doesn't actually hold too must amnimosity for Saw because at that point, the New Republic paid the price for playing with Mothma's mindset, the First Order took advantage of her compassionm, the Rebellion/New Republic's still possessed indecisiveness without a clear leader telling them what to do, and the Rebellion/New Republic did not learn their lessons when it comes with dealing with the Empire when they were the leading government. Leia had to create her own militia to fight the First Order and they didn't have no allies for a while. She actually thinks they owe him a lot (The Rebel Files)

Saw said it in Rebel Rising: it'll take a tragedy, the galaxy can't ignore it to get people actually united. And guess what? It happened...3 times over: the 2 Death Stars got people working together after the destruction of Alderaan (Jedha too except in universe, a lot people still bought Jedha being destroyed in a "mining accident") and Palpatine publically announcing himself alive was the only thing that got people to come together against the Empire/First Order/Final Order. The latter happened 35 YEARS AFTER HIS OWN DEATH.

I don't personally agree with his actual methods typically but lack of foresight my ass. Dude had foresight on a level comparable to a Jedi and he has no Force sensitivity. He called out the Death Star and knew what it'll take for the Alliance to get their shit together.

"He's a hot-head, self centered, paranoid leader who hurts his own allies"

I've seen a combination of things, especially regarding his character youthful appearances in Clone Wars/TBB, that suggest he is a hot-head, that he is paranoid (usually spoken in retrospect to his later appearances), and that he doesn't care for his allies. I've seen people in fanfiction try to say he burns people when they outlive their usefulness or claim he on'y is worried about his own skin.

That's especially not true. There's a reason why he parallels as a non-Force senstiive version of Anakin Skywalker; they are both hot headed, they are both competent leaders, they hate slavery and indentured servitude with a passion, their best trait is the care and compassion they have for others in which they subvert with logic and reasoning and it isn't always easy for them, and they are respectively feared in similar ways. With that said, there are some difference

Saw does possess compassion even with his darkness; he is willing to protect his Partisans and not risk their lives. Even though he loves them, he also KNOWS some of them are on that "Fuck them kids" team (which he is not all okay with) and typically tries doing good things for them, he "abandonded" Jyn (she knows why but she refused the explaination) because his own group were wanting to use her as a extortion tool for Galen, which didn't sit right with Saw. He genuinely likes Ezra and Sabine too. He likes Megyn. He was willing to help refugees displaced by the Empire way back since TBB. There's a reason for his own databank saying "Saw loses much in his decades of combat, but occasional flashes of the charismatic and caring man he once was shine through his calloused exterior". Even in his more morally bankrupt decisions like adopting Jyn as a child soldier, he explains he does it because he recognize that child innocence will not protect her from Stormtroopers and evil who don't care and rather teach her how to survive and fight for herself. And he genuinely teaches her everything he knows. She is a good foil for Leia for a myraidof reasons.

That man had inhailed Genosisian insecticide from a mission and chemical burns from saving Jyn's life and that man still fought. He apprently lost his leg the same year he died in and he was almost willing to keep fighting even when he was going off his rockers towards the end.

In all, it's again complicated when you get all things but he is not this cold man who abandons his allies at the first sign of trouble. He is one of the first original rebels, the Empire's most wanted person that isn't a Jedi or in the Alliance (tbf, he was dead then), and one of the most deadliest rebels the Alliance had without factoring in Jedi.

The real reason fans don't like him

Let be for real; a lot of people don't like Saw is because he parallels a lot with Mon Mothma, who is a white privilege woman who emobdies the traits associated with heroes (restraint with enemy, peaceful resolutions, "rising above to be better") though unlike Jedi, she is going to be judged differently because she won't have to worry about the responsibility of the Force and it's relation to a character's mindset. She is on the side of the protagonist whe emobody these similar traits so Saw is always going to be seen as "wrong", even when the good guys run headfirst into his methods like gundarks seeing headlights. That's not to say she doesn't have her own points, reasons, stife, and whatnot but fans in this fandom wanna side with "Mommy Mothma" for a reason.

Another reason is that he is a black character and unlike Mace Windu, he HAS crossed lines and does things morally repugnant and distasteful. That I will never argue. However, people love having black characters like that to vindicate and excuse their racist behavior; there were people on tumblr making actual comments about having a mob and lynching him after bein blamed for Tech's death and tried to pass it off as a joke. I have never seen peole wanna lynch mob Anakin Skywalker for killing younglings but they'll go talk about it for their residental, white-washed favorite boi (he's my favorite too btw) onto Saw and thought they were slick all the while pretend Tarkin isn't there or "Well he's a villain so it's expected". Got people out here making headcanons about how all the Clones hate Saw for what happened to Tech or xyz knows when most likely, they don't know or don't care like the way they think their faves would.

What personally frustrates me about this and why I'm invested in even calling this out is because, in all, this fandom will have people ask for nuance and looking at things beyond the surface but the moment the concept is rooted in ideas outside Western ideals or the character in question is a person of color or at least is "coded" as such, they lose their mind and spread the most surface level of misinformation and Saw is no exception.

Saw doesn't represent the favored protagonist; he does not follow their logic and mindset, isn't conventinally attractive to people in ANY iteration, and he is a BLACK MAN in a story about fighting oppression and tyranny using some of the Empire's curelty against them. It aint no surprise and yall not slick.

Biden's issuing an executive order to stop Israeli settlers from hurting more Palestinians. Kinda late after tens of thousands of people have died because of his previous executive orders!

President Biden issued an executive order on Thursday targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians in the occupied territory. The order named four people and will lay the groundwork for financial sanctions against settlers who carry out violent assaults, which have increased since Hamas launched an attack on Israel three months ago, triggering a full-scale war in Gaza. The order will not target U.S. citizens, who make up a significant number of the settler community. The Biden administration had issued an order late last year imposing travel bans on Israeli settlers who had attacked Palestinians. While only four people are named, the order marks the first time that the U.S. has targeted Israeli settlers with the threat of frozen assets and bank accounts in an attempt to rein in settler attacks on Palestinians living in the West Bank, which Palestinians see as the central plank of a future Palestinian state.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that he wants to put pressure on Israelis to stop the violence. I'm happy to hear that, as long as it actually goes through.

Here are where the problems lie.

The executive order is against Israeli settlers only. It does not stop violence coming from the military forces of Israel. He is not taking meaningful action against the violence of the state.

He is not owning up to any of his own violent actions. Tens of thousands of people died at the hands of US weapons. This frames it as if violence from the state is more justifiable than murder by individuals. It's pushing the blame away from him. So basically it's "you're not the one I gave permission to kill. That's the other guys' job."

You can't send over bombs that are made to kill everyone around them and then say "I don't want innocent people to get hurt." He wouldn't have sent weapons of mass destruction over if that was the case.

This in no way makes up for his role in the genocide. He has bypassed congress and the UN to give Israel permission to commit their crimes against humanity. He has known for a long time that this is a genocide he's contributing to.

Why doesn't this apply to USAmerican Israeli settlers?

After months of Israelis plastering their evidence of torturing Palestinians online, how is it that only 4 people are just now being prosecuted?

What's the difference between a settler torturing someone and a soldier doing it?

How does this make any meaningful reparations for the people who were already harmed?

It's like trying to heal an amputated limb by slapping a band-aid on it. Hell, it's more like slapping a band-aid on a dead body and expecting them to feel better.

He's clearly just trying to save his ass now that his approval ratings have dropped.

What are your thoughts on Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist (manga/Brotherhood)?

I have many thoughts on Scar, because I love him to pieces. Best character in both anime and manga

One thing that bothers me even among people who are staunchly pro "Scar did nothing wrong (except the one time when he was completely out of it due to immense trauma)" and "Scar should have been allowed to kill more people" , is that they completely overlook that Scar just doesn't enjoy killing people. He does it because he feels that those who denied his people the right to live would never face justice for their actions otherwise. And also because he's really, really mad at them of course. Actually the part about justice might be moreso the fandom's view of it, and Scar's desire for vengeance is his primary motivation(when you look at what he said while fleeing through the desert). So Scar feels he's doing what is necessary, but he doesn't usually take enjoyment out of it. The closest he came to show glee during a fight was when Mustang showed up to intervene in chapter 7/ episode 5. And that was more grim satisfaction than anything. He doesn't even show any joy when mangling Envy and Kimblee, who kickstarted the genocide and brutally murdered his family. Every action is trenched in anger, and that anger is born from tremendous pain and loss.

So Scar doesn't want to kill (or at least doesn't want his whole life to be centered arround it). He wants to protect. He wants to do something for his community, his people. But for the longest time he felt that he had lost the chance to do so forever. His immense relief at finding out how many Ishvalans had actually survived was wonderful to behold.

Now you might say "But he's doing the right thing by killing those unrependant war criminals! He shouldn't feel bad about it!" And while that's correct (at least from my perspective) you have to look at Scar's other circumstances too. It's not an enjoyable life if you spent your days solely focused on the people who brutalized you. And Scar is doing it all alone, with no help or support system. With no breaks from the struggle for survival and recurring death battles. It's good that he stopped killing (outside of the necessary battles), not because Edward and the other good guys kept whining at him, but for his own sake. Because he finally feels he's actually doing something for the people he loves again.

Anyhow, how painful is it that Scar who was afraid about his brother creating or turning into a human weapon via alchemy, became exactly that?

"Your brother may discover a way to gain enough power to face those state alchemists, and perhaps even enough to destroy their army. With power that far surpasses theirs, to retalitate against them with alchemy! Make them pay for their sins with blood!'

I'm crying.

Another great thing about Scar is that you can guilt trip this thirty something, hardened warrior with "You'll make your brother sad." And he has no proper reply for that.

To end this with my personal headcanon, Scar outlives all the remaining State Alchemists sans Edward, and dies aged 103 surrounded by his 20 grandchildren.

I don't think the kataang fandom is perfect/ has never harrased people all fandoms have bad apples but im getting annoyed with how much zutaras keep insisting that they were never the bad guys and were always jut the victims of the ship wars. that kataangs are nothing but big bullies who wont let em ship in peace. . when i myself was met with hostile aggression from their fandom as a aang and mai supporter zutarian they were ruthless ,angry, called anyone that didnt agree with em abuse supporters.. bryke D suckers. SExist ect. i just wish that they would be humble and admit that their fandom has lots of bad apples but no its always Kataangs bullied us.. we did nothing wrong and are the victims of the fandom. I'm tired.

Yup, them calling out when Kataang shippers are being dicks is one thing, and I'd even accept them doing it more often than they call out "one of their own" because duh, obviously the bad apples of the zutara fandom would not be hostile to them, so they could genuinely not know about some things.

But denying anyone "on their side" could EVER be bully? Pretending there isn't nearly two decades of evidence of Zutarians threatening and doxxing people and telling them to kill themselves? Acting like there's any truth to all the conspiracies and full on lies about Bryke, Ehasz and a "secretly planned Zutara endgame" just because said conspiracies and lies would put Zutara as the underdog and the writers that liked Kataang as cruel, unfair, downright abusive bosses? Acting like it isn't super hypocritical to imply Bryke are PEDOPHILES for "self-inserting as Aang to date Katara", but praising Dante Basco all the time for being a die-hard Zutara fan and understanding that him liking a ship doesn't mean he's attracted to actual children?

Not to mention the classic: screaming "But what about what THIS person did?" whenever someone calls out any bad apple in the Zutara fandom - like one cancels the other out.

Zutarians don't just deny their fandom has bad apples, they go out of their way to protect them from any criticism - and then wonder why the sane zutara shippers end up finding a safe place in blogs like mine, even though I constantly make my negative feelings on the ship very clear.

Decent people don't turn a blind eye to harassment just because they aren't the target of it, and the more the Zutara fandom tries to excuse the actions of bullies in their community, the more decent people will avoid said community like the plague, regardless of how they feel about the ship, which in turn keeps all the bullies and enablers off in their own little bubble because literally nobody else wants to interact with them.

what are your thoughts on Russia’s mobilization and reports that they’re heavily ‘recruiting’ from ethnic minority populations?

What is happening right now is not at all surprising to me, or anyone else who has studied Russia for a while. I have said this before, but it remains an utterly tragic irony that Putin, who is so bent on recreating the USSR/Russian Empire glory days at any cost, is so totally blind to the fact that he's also sending it down exactly the same path to yet another collapse that will set the country and society back for generations. Widespread/forced mobilization in 1917, in order to send more Russian troops to their extremely costly and failing efforts in WWI, contributed to further grievances against Nicholas II and eventually led to the successful revolution/overthrow of the monarchy in October. In other words, it was extremely unpopular last time and I seriously doubt that it's going to be any more popular this time. Besides, if 50,000 actually trained and (somewhat) equipped troops have already been killed, and now they're down to forcibly drafted civilian conscripts with two weeks of training, and over-50 guys in debt who were lured to sign up with the promises of generous bonuses (that, like other promised Russian financial rewards, aren't being paid), against highly motivated Ukrainian troops equipped with NATO weapons... yeah. It's going to be a slaughter, and the only question is whether the Russian public actually starts protesting on a large enough scale, despite the obvious threat of force and repression, to exert actual pressure on the Kremlin and force it to change its mind. But because they're already so committed, and there's not much of a way to be "oops our bad," there's also no way to back out now. I don't know how it'll end, but it isn't going to be good for anyone.

The whole thing is a tragedy on a terrible scale, especially since I don't see any way for Russia as a country to recover from this any time soon. The combined impact of sanctions, global isolation, and all the other (extremely deserved) consequences for this pointless war of old-school genocide and imperialism has undone, and then some, all the progress that Russia has made at integrating into the global community since the fall of the USSR. Because Putin's ego now cannot bear the possibility that he actually loses in Ukraine, after he launched his invasion against every shred of common sense to the contrary, he will act like every Russian tsar of old and throw countless lives of his own people down the drain in a futile attempt to prolong the inevitable. This is also why rabid Western defenders of Russia (a la tankies and their ilk) are just... so... fucking.... stupid. For one thing, if you know literally anything about Russian history, especially post-1917 Soviet history and the ways in which information has been tightly controlled, censored, edited, ideologically distorted, and otherwise used for propaganda purposes, you know that it's absolutely idiotic to trust literally anything the official Russian state and media apparatus says about the war, because it's all lies. Second, the Soviet system was built on the mass repression and (especially in the 1920s and 1930s) mass destruction of its own people, especially those pegged in any way as "traitors" to the revolution. (I suggest Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum, which goes into this into more depth and casts a horrifying but necessary light on this period.)

As such, the relatively wealthy (by Russian standards) and Europeanized cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg have always existed in a different social universe from the extremely poor, rural, isolated, and persistently underdeveloped Russian regions. So yes, mobilization of Russia's ethnic minorities as cannon fodder, rather than going for the urban city-dwellers directly, also serves Putin's project of building a more racially/ethnically "pure" Russia, and this approach has been supported by Alexander Dugin, the imperialist/fascist Russian ultra-nationalist who is one of Putin's chief advisors. (His daughter was recently killed in a car bomb that was probably meant for Dugin himself.) However, Moscow and St. Petersburg aren't going to escape altogether unscathed either, and the largest protests against mobilization, as has been the case with anti-war protests in Russia overall, have taken place in these two cities. Basically, Putin's (corrupted) social contract with the Russian people is that they let him and the siloviki do what they want and don't try to interfere or remove them from power, and in turn, these actions don't impact on their daily life. But between the slow destruction of the economy via sanctions and now directly forcing ordinary citizens to fight in a deeply unpopular war (all those people who have supported it online are probably likely to change their minds when they're actually asked to die for it), that's fallen apart too.

In short, I see no way for either Russia as a modern nation-state or the Putin regime to survive this. I don't know how long the end will take or what form it will ultimately arrive in, but... yeah, they're all fucked. When you're forcing your own average joes to fight in an imperialist war that's already gone terribly and led to your complete global isolation, then you're in desperation mode. Putin literally only has "I WILL SUPER DEFINITELY USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND IT'S NOT A BLUFF!!!!" left as a bargaining tool, which is just an attempt to frighten everyone into backing off long enough to let him try to make this idiocy work. But as I said, everyone in the Russian army who had even some training is already dead, they're using Soviet-relic weapons, morale is shit, the Ukrainians are (rightfully) extremely motivated and riding off the back of recent victories, and throwing a bunch of untrained conscripts into that meat-grinder is going to result in incredible and incredibly unnecessary bloodshed. There are some groups who seem mostly willing to go at the moment (though again, I'm not sure how long that's going to survive contact with reality), and there are a lot who are totally unwilling (see: the current mad rush to leave Russia by any means possible). The problem goes so deep, on so many levels, that yeah, this isn't a fixable situation anymore. The only thing that remains to be seen is how much damage it does, both to Russia and the world, on the way down. Alas.

can we....can we hear a little bit more about Sig? 👀

CAN you! absolutely!

first of all, it has to be said, i was not thinking about the fact that loki's mythological wife's name is sigyn when i named this guy sig, i just did what i did for all of my asgardian OCs and looked through a list of norse names until i spotted one that felt like it fit. also my childhood crush on sig from the jak and daxter games may have had something to do with it shh

ANYWAY. sig is my obligatory "regular asgardian citizen" viewpoint that we don't really get if we're always focusing on thor, loki, val, or heimdall. any of the asgardians are many times stronger than the average human, but he doesn't have magic like thor and loki do, and he doesn't have centuries of training like val does. he DOES have centuries of smithing behind him, so like, he's not a twig, but until ragnarok he'd never really seen any serious battles, and he'd certainly never killed anyone - that marauder he killed with loki's sword was the first. he's gonna get through that with minimal angst though, because asgardians have different perspectives when it comes to killing in battle, and also because he's got his daughter to worry about, so there's bigger fish to fry. like, this man will try to 1-v-1 against the collector if given the opportunity and if his daughter's in danger. asgardians are brave idiots and he is no exception, and also, after ragnarok, runa is literally all he has left

so like, sig is a dad above all else. he's a nurturing kind of person, he's really good at talking to people and kind of coaxing them out of their shells (hence his first interaction with bruce) and he's sort of taken it upon himself to look after runa's friends, since their parents didn't make it through ragnarok. he's not the only person caring for runa's friends, since asgard has sort of by necessity become more of a communal situation where there's a lot of childless parents and parentless children, but he's always keeping an eye out for them (when he's not light-years away being dragged on an adventure to save his daughter from an infinity stone and a bunch of bounty hunters and a superpowerful megalomaniac, anyway)

as far as his relationship with the revengers: he sort of implicitly trusts thor, because that's asgard's golden boy and everyone is sort of in agreement that they'd all be dead if thor hadn't shown up in a blaze of lightning and fought hela off while they escaped. he VERY implicitly trusts heimdall, and honestly no one on that ship doesn't after he kept them all safe during hela's attacks. he's a little starstruck about val but manages to be cool about it, and he loves that there's an honest-to-god valkyrie on the ship with them, because it certainly makes their precarious situation feel a bit safer. bruce, he's immediately bonded with and now considers a friend. and loki... okay so it helps if you know that my headcanon is that all the asgardians knew or at least suspected that it was loki posing as odin that entire time, they just didn't care because there were no wars going on and he wasn't actually doing a bad job as odin, so they just sort of... let him get away with it?

so, you're sig. your planet's been destroyed, you're grieving your wife and your home and the rest of your family, you're trying to keep your daughter safe, but now she's been possessed(?) by an infinity stone and the only person who can probably help her is the guy you'd only heard stories about before, who was impersonating the king for a few years and also might have committed some treason at some point, you don't really know the details. but now he's teleporting you and your daughter across the cosmos, and he's definitely saved you and your daughter more than a few times even if he's being kind of standoffish about it, and also he might be suffering from a little infinity stone possession of his own, but shit, you don't know how any of this works, he's the magic guy, but also it's a little concerning that the guy who's supposed to be helping you with your daughter's infinity stone problem also kind of looks like he's got a foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, and his eyes and his veins keep glowing blue which, i mean, that can't be a good sign, can it?

fast forward way past the events of the revengers to avoid spoilers, but i like to imagine that eventually, the little mini-oneshot i posted on tumblr happens (you'll find it under my "revengers: the show" tag if you haven't already seen it) where runa seeks out loki years later and demands to learn magic because the whole infinity stone situation sparked an interest in it, and she wants to know how to do all that stuff he does, and THAT would be the "meticulously crafted 100K of slow burning build up" that i was referring to earlier, where loki's teaching her magic and sig's, like, VERY reluctantly allowing this to happen. because like, yeah, he and loki are cool now, but he's seen how out-of-control magic can get, he's seen how reckless loki in particular can be, and this is his daughter. loki is on thin ice forever as long as runa's involved.

but yeah, that's sig. and you may have seen me mention this before, but i've fancasted him as dev patel from the beginning. it just feels right, and that's who i'm picturing when i'm writing his scenes :)

I swear if I hear one more person call jews colonizers for daring to live in Israel I'm going to go fucking insane.

Like, listen

I'm the like 16th generation of my family here? Like I'm not even talking about israel, I'm the 16th generation of my family specifically in jerusalem because, shock of all shocks you insane people, a ton of the jews in israel are Mizrahi. We lived here, and I'm not even talking about the biblical sense, we. Lived. Here.

Now, just for the benefit of you guys, let me explain this to you what every israeli knows by the time they'relike 10, cause shock of all shocks we do get it. The situation in the gaza strip is bad, and I'm also very disturbed by it, and as a whole, I want us to move forward towards a solution where the Arabs can get some land back and we'll live in fucking peace.

But (and I know you hate any kind of moral complexity so try to hold onto your sanity when I say this), it's not as easy as just " give all of Israel back to the Arabs whooo"

So listen

You all know that the vast vast vast majority of European jews were killed in the holocaust, and I'm sure that the smarter ones out of you also know that jews regularly had to deal with antisemitisem and pogroms for the vast majority of human history (especially in Europe and stuff), you know the history of Ashkenazi jews, or at least you know a bit about it, and decided that's enough, so good for you

But let me tell you a bit about Mizrahi jews, my dad's family has been here for generations, like I already said.

but my mom's family is from iraq, in Iraq, like a lot of Arab countries, life as a jew was.. interesting, like the antisemitisem came in waves, and a lot of the time, in the calmer times, they were way more ingrained in society than jews ever were in Europe, simply because, shock of all shocks all of you Europeans (yes that does include americans) your ancestors were all antisemetic as fuck compared to Islam at the time.

But anyways, israel under a British mandate since world War 1, and my great grandfather worked on smuggling jews into israel, since basically all of Europe was heavily antisemetic, and a lot of then recognized a turning point in Germany when they saw one.

So, a lot of jews went to America, some went to South America, others got smuggled into other countries. But a lot of jews were stuck, because the Arab countries were quite unfriendly to non native jews (they were barely friendly to the native ones), Europeans still hated jews with a burning passion, and not all of them had enough money to move their entire lives over to America,

so that left them only one area with an established Jewish community, israel, and so, anyone with enough funds got onto a boat that would hopefully not be found by the British and slowly tried to get to one of the very few places where they'd be safer

But hopefully you know that part already, that the Ashkenazi jews that came here, escaped, and didn't have a place to return to when the war ended, with broken familes and so so so much untreated ptsd, and that a lot of Ashkenazi jews' entire family homes and properties and ids were taken from them so, now they only have what they have in israel

(and no sweetie most don't have their European nationalities because their great grandparents did not go through the most proper documentation stating that they were jews when they were fleeing extremely antisemetic countries)

But anyways, again. That's basic

My mom's side of the family was living very differently in Iraq, they were pretty wealthy, and while the tides of the country were becoming more and more antisemetic, they heard about a different option, they heard that in the holy land, that they grew so much hearing about, there was a Jewish country being established, a place where their glass windows won't be randomly broken, where my granddad could wear a talit and a kippa in peace out on the street, and where they could actually you know. Be jews.

And, the Iraqi government being the kind government it was desperate to get jews out of the country, even offered to let them leave, just asking that they sign up to a trip to Israel, so my great grandparents, like so many others, did, and immediately had their entire fortunes seized by the Iraqi government, including their ids.

Now without a choice, they also came here. It was a very big change, they started from literally nothing, they didn't have their stores anymore, and it was a completely different country to get used to, but they did.

Tldr: I'm sorry sweetie that your great grandparents literally expelled us from every other place in the world, but the vast majority of Israelis are a. Like 3rd generation al least at this point, but more importantly b. Literally do. Not. Have. Anywhere. Else. To. go.

Queer Zelda

Miyamoto designed the hero of the game to be androgynous so that anygenderbody could imagine themselves as the Hero. (Well. Bi-gender continuum Hylian people anyway. That's why Ganon's the bad guy, he's neither Hylian nor on the bi-gender spectrum. #joking #orAmI)

There's a lot of topical things that can be said about the Zelda series, so I try to limit my scope when I write posts like these. I could fit so many tangents into this baby otherwise.

Everybody knows about Sheik and Girl-Link--Not to be Confused with Linkle, who is also a girl-link, but not Link in girl clothes. Even though she happens to also be wearing Girl clothes. I have theories about her, how she might be a maiden, or Zelda in Green clothes instead of her standard Hylian Blue. (And sometimes Pink. [Trans Zelda?]) And she's not to be confused with Tingle (or Twink-le, which is either how you describe starlight, or a whole NSFW section of the internet.)

Speaking of tangents...

Let me point out the scene where Link meets Zelda in Z64. "I hope he didn't see me/us." This could be interpreted as queer representation young children. Peter Pan is often played by young women in school plays, and then there's the whole interpretation of *only* queer kids enjoying theater in any aspect. AND then there's the whole spectrum of interpretations you can give to Peter Pan as a whole.

And then there's the hair-cutting ceremony in Japan. This started with Samurai who would cut their hair to depict the end of an era. Or end of their old life.

Life is measured in how long your hair is allowed to grow. And cutting it symbolized stepping into a new era.

But this is also depicted in a lot of Japanese Fiction as women growing out of their innocence. Because women with children also cut their hair to symbolize the *new life*.

This is a willful stepping out of the *girl roll* into the *man roll*.

In this context, Girl *is* childhood, and there is no difference between man and woman as older being. Which is a stark contrast to more western beliefs that suggests a clear separation of boy to man and girl to woman.

For women, this has a deeper context, that they (being women) have the option to stay in *girl hood* as a benefit given by biology and sociology (or the divine, depending on interpretation)

This is arguably why Peter Pan, is the boy who never grew up. He refused to take that *man hood* role in order to be a provider. To be a caretaker for the other *lost boys*.

(War is a terrible things that kills parents and leaves children without them)

That was a lot more than I thought I would have to explain to get to the next point:

Trans Ganon.

The Gerudo are depicted as a community of women led by a single ruler. And that one ruler is *allowed* to be the *only* man. Because only a Man can rule in a Patriarchy. And there isn't a benefit to multiple rulers *except* to cause infighting. So everybody else *must* be women.

This is why Girl-Link is allowed in the Gerudo city despite not technically being a Girl, and the Gerudo *already* know what's going on with him. Because dressing as a women, being a women, denotes subservience to the ruler. Who is the only Man allowed.

This is the masculine/feminine depiction in the yinyang and in the Bible. Why tribes were depicted as being *one man* the leader. And why tribeless "men" were remembered, despite being put through tortuous situations.

Because they didn't submit like the women did. (Note, women in this context is the negative use by masculine leaders who had their own way of thinking, not how I think the world should be. )

They didn't need to be taken care of by the systems in place, and like Moses, instead provided care and salvation.

(If I ever get any sort of notoriety, I'm going to be so cancelled.)

Speaking of Tangents...

So the Gerudo have a forced gender caste system. Where only the one ruler is allowed to be a Man. Zelda doesn't have any specific Gender, and can be either Man, Woman, or Shiek. Because all maidens, princes, or Princesses are Zelda.

This has a more complicated history that, from the perspective of the common people, all royalty are really men trying to be women (You know; "Liberals") But in all honesty, it's the stupidest thing based entirely on clothing and make-up.

But that also mirrors what the Gerudo do. All Gerudo are Ganon. All Hylians are Zelda. But there's always one who is neither Man, Nor Woman, Nor Shieka. (Not Ganon, not Zelda, Not Shiek)

And that is Link.

Despite being given he/him pronouns, Link is never given a gender. Because he is inherently Genderless. He is the *anybody* a stranger who hears the call to action and acts. The one who takes sword to the powerful, shields the weak, and cares for those who need it most.

The balance between both the Feminine that Hyrule depicts, and Masculine Ganon depicts.

(oh there's more)

The Jataro boss fight!

Fresh off of Taichi's death, Komaru isn't having it. He was a good key and she's mad that Jataro broke him-- I mean, the heartbreaking death of this character who was definitely important and definitely left feelings to be felt is still fresh for her. She's in a state of absolute Fuck These Murderous Kids.

Komaru's moved out of the insecure phase and into the vengeful phase. She's going to defeat the Warriors of Hope with the power of friendship and this cool gun Byakuya gave her!

Traditionally, the audience is meant to agree with the hero. The villain drives the plot while the hero sets the tone. The hero is the lens through which we experience the story, and we are meant to more or less be in-line with their interpretation of events.

If the hero says, "I believe there's still good in that person," then we are meant to believe that there's still good in them, even if all we've seen is that character being a total monster. Conversely, if the hero says, "You are a monster and I will never forgive you," then we're meant to take away that the person they're talking to is utterly vile, beyond any hope of redemption - at least, according to information that the protagonist has at this time.

However, this is not always the case. Some protagonists are designed to, themselves, be an unreliable witness. Someone whose opinions and perspectives are more communicative of their own warped personality than of the events and people and things they're commenting on.

And, more relevantly to this particular moment, sometimes the audience is aware of key pieces of information that the protagonist is not. Information that drastically changes the circumstances that the protagonist is trying to understand. This is what's called "dramatic irony", where the protagonist must react in the moment based on limited information and is lacking key details that we already know.

So it goes with Jataro's initial confrontation. He explains his particular trauma, how he was forced to wear a mask because his mother hated his guts and verbally abused him. How she made him wear the mask to atone for being born ugly - And we're already starting to piece together that there's probably nothing wrong with his face at all.

But Komaru doesn't care. These kids are monsters and she just wants to take them down. She's making a lot of sense, too. And. Then. He drops the bombshell.

Three words: Big. Sis. Junko.

These words fly right over Komaru's head. Like water off a duck's back. They mean less than nothing to her. She's never even heard that name in her life.

But we have. We literally just came from a game about deprogramming the victims of Junko's cult-like influence. We're now seeing layers to this conflict that Komaru can't possibly understand. In this moment, the coalition between protagonist and audience fractures.

We know. We know that this isn't as simple as "The evil children must be destroyed." This is Junko Enoshima. This is another round of her sinister games continuing to haunt us from beyond the grave. This isn't a war; This is a city-wide Mutual Killing Game. When we saw those images of global violence in DR1 and wondered what she could possibly doing to the Earth, this is the answer. This is what the Tragedy is.

Too bad Komaru was shackled under a rock for a year and a half and doesn't know a single goddamn thing about it. All she can think right now is "Defeat the bad guys."

She is on the road to despair.

I have a very frustrated idea in my brain and I just finished forming the thought after a little bit of time. When the Ukraine-Russia conflict kicked off, there was this solemn "idk how to enjoy life without being guilty cuz people are dying in Ukraine rn" and Ukraine has obviously deserved that care and concern and empathy. But when it comes to Palestine-Israel I'm seeing people who care and have that empathy but God damnit if a lot of what I'm seeing isn't just tearing each other down for supporting the wrong side and I know the conflict is very different than the Russia Ukraine conflict but I also saw that "do you care about the dying children or is it complicated when it's middle eastern children " and I was like yea tbh. Ukraine got so much empathy without questioning or fighting online because uh not that Ukraine is a majority white place but it partly is that and cuz it's Europe. God forbid something happen to Europe suddenly people are a lot sweeter and kinder.

Yeah I've definitely seen the same thing :(

A big part of it I think is, like you said, Ukraine is in Europe. Another part of it at least in the US is that our culture is already primed to see Russia as bad due to years of propaganda, so people were much quicker to want to stand up for a country that was being invaded by Russia. While it's great that Ukraine is getting the support, it feels like the widespread support for Ukraine is more bc of some automatic reaction of "Russia -> Communism/Red Scare/Cold War -> Enemies of the US" than any actual concern for human rights or preventing colonialism

On the other hand, when it comes to Palestine, the US is already primed to support Israel bc of years of propaganda on behalf of 1) our government who wants to use Israel as its own personal military base and 2) Christians who believe that we need to support Israel in order to bring about the rapture. So it's very difficult to try to get people to think past that programming and realize that the people they've been primed to think of as the good guys are committing a literal genocide and that's BAD

And it just gets even worse when you factor in the construct of whiteness. Like you said, with Ukraine being a European nation they're given the privilege of being considered majority white™ in the eyes of US Americans and, consciously or not, that makes people in our white supremacist society more sympathetic to them. Palestine, on the other hand, is a Middle Eastern country and our society has been primed through racist propaganda to view Middle Eastern people (especially those who are Muslim) as bad™. And although Israel is also obviously in the Middle East, it seems like the sympathetic propaganda here has paradoxically primed US Americans to view all Israelis as white. It probably doesn't help that "Middle Eastern" as a distinct racial category is still a relatively new idea here, only becoming popularized after the 9/11 attacks—the US census still legally categorizes all ethnicities we would consider Middle Eastern as white. We're probably witnessing the same type of shifting of the definition of "white" that occurred in the early days of the US with the changing goal lines that determined which European immigrants got to be seen as white and which got oppressed. Just like back then, the answer is always going to be the one that better serves to uphold white supremacy

So yeah, I definitely see where you're coming from. Ukraine gets public sympathy and support from the West as a whole but Palestine gets next to nothing, and the reasons seem to be entirely tied up in white supremacy. People really do think "it's complicated" when the kids being killed are Middle Eastern

I had a dream a while back where I was back in school just minding my business doing homework when a ring of light appears on the floor around me. I blink and suddenly I’m standing in a forest but the forest is much smaller than normal. I quickly look around and notice a small figure in a classic wizard outfit with 4 sets of fluffy ears and round excited eyes looking at me. This lil wizard starts saying something in another language and I just stare at them confused. They’re walking back and forth talking and staring at me with such excitement and wonder with just the slight hint of fear. They seem to be talking to themself and I decide to lean in closer to them. I look at them while they talk to themself and they freeze realizing I’m staring at them and have lowered myself to the ground. They stare in awe and wave at me and I give a lil wave back. They get even more excited and jump up a bit. They rush up to me and hold my head in their hands as best they could. Studying me and talking. They dig into their pockets and pull out a bottle of blue liquid that the point to me and then to themself opening their mouth. They take a little swig and point back to me. I then open mine and they freeze with actual fear. I can tell they are scared of my teeth but idk why. They slowly give the liquid to me and I swallow which makes them pause for a second. We stare and they say “did it work?” To which I get surprised and say “I can understand you now” they explain that the liquid was a translation potion where when shared between two species they’ll be able to communicate between each other but not anyone else. I then ask why they were scared of me opening my mouth and they seem awkward and whisper “your teeth, you have canines… people here don’t have those…only monsters do…” they explain that they were worried that I would snap and kill them cause that’s what all other things with sharp teeth did in that world. I then ask where I am and they explain that I was summoned because they were asked to summon a protector for the kingdom…and they also needed a familiar to form a bond with and it so happens that I help strengthen their magic which is why I was here now. They explain something has been happening in the kingdom and that they were the last wizard in the kingdom who hadn’t had their familiar bonded yet and hadn’t had their familiar stolen by the forces from below. They say that every other wizard’s familiars were taken by the below and now would attack the kingdom and surrounding areas. It was our job to stop that and also for me to not get stolen either. They become worried that because I have sharp teeth that things might go bad because there hasn’t been a wizard with a sharp toothed familiar for centuries, and that ended in a bloody war and the wizard disappearing. I scoop the lil guy up and hold them close and say they have nothing to worry about. I won’t hurt them or any of the people. I’ll protect everyone, as long as I don’t have to go back to Pre-Cal. They agree and we go to the castle and they chat with the king whom I can’t understand but still listen in despite only knowing one side of the convo. The king apparently said I needed to prove myself in battle against a beast and I get put into an arena where I am to battle a beast…

That’s when I woke up…I didn’t even get to see the beast…I just heard it running towards me.