Can we as leftists stop pretending to care about national liberation as a goal and just be honest that we support only those liberation movements that weaken global capitalism as a means to that end?

"Arrest the entire J6 Committee for this fraud upon America!" 🤔

Indigenous here is a political designation which describes a people groups relationship with colonialism - ie. Saami people are an indigenous group but Finnish/Swedish/Norwegian/Russian people are not, even though they are both genetically from the same countries- because of the groups different relationships with colonialism.

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[The Herb Brides] are no one’s. They’re… the Earth’s. [...] And each other’s, sometimes.

Shörmös and Yyrghene 🌸🌾

when people talk about educating yourself on the origins of ideologies like zionism, it isn’t to ask for sympathy but to show that fascism always hinges on the same rules - dehumanisation and other-ing of scapegoat populations in the pursuit of power.

fascism is, at the end of the day, uncreative and there is value in recognising the signs. When an entire ideology is dependent on the inherent depravity of a certain identity, it is worth some scrutiny.

the director and the cameraman.

it is funny though how kids' shows are so so so careful about death, no one's ever killed except MAYYYYBE the big bad, all those random side characters are fine, here have a quick shot of them before we leave just so you know they really did survive that 50-foot drop into a stormy sea,

and meanwhile kids' books nearly all agree that it's not an adventure until it has a body count.

I’m just gonna spam all of them today LOL but next up is stucky 🙈💕 they are so vital to my development as a person it’s not even funny

Stucky nation are we still alive ?? Y’all forever rock the world 🫶

1 | 2 | 3

quinn was so smiley in this interview i'm so in love

Okay gang, here's a silly little game. I've assembled six teams of blended Narnia and Tolkien/LotR characters. Here they are:

For bonus points, tell me in the tags where you're going on your road trip, who has what role (driving, snacks, aux) on the road, and what you'll stop off and see along the way

the question of our times

hi, fully optional atla meta question: hypothetically, how would the rest of the gaang react if they somehow found out how very damaged and mentally ill sokka is? (also please know that I am asking this because you have the very bestest sokka takes thank you)

im so sorry, but something about the phrasing of this ask is just really funny to me??? idk why but i can’t stop picturing them all in therapy a la that one sunny episode. “the gaang gets analyzed.” aang being like “i was frozen in an iceberg for an entire century.” “that’s not possible.” “well first of all through the avatar spirit all things are possible, so jot that down.” azula constantly spouting that she graduated top of her class at the royal fire academy for girls so there’s no way some two bit shrink will be able to get through to her. toph insisting that she is impenetrable vault while spitting peanut shells at her therapist with utmost hostility, five minutes later she’s sobbing about her mommy. zuko doesn’t even need five minutes, he starts sobbing about his mommy in under five seconds. katara willingly recounts the entire story of her life but it’s the most biased narrative you’ve ever heard. ty lee somehow gets her therapist to open up to her. mai just does a little comedy bit to amuse herself until their time is up, and then afterwards she’s like “hm…. maybe i should’ve actually brought up my pervading existential dissatisfaction and constant unending misery.” suki doesn’t realize what the purpose of a therapy session is and keeps treating it like a first date. sokka keeps insisting that he doesn’t need therapy because he’s too smart for it. his therapist is like “i am perfectly willing to acknowledge that you’re a genius but that’s also totally irrelevant to the project of cognitive behavioral therapy.” sokka basically just treats it like a game to be won and somehow manages to describe every single facet of his life truthfully while passing himself off as perfectly well-adjusted and happy. katara and zuko come out of their sessions like “wow i feel so refreshed, like so many of my emotional burdens have been lifted, and i can finally navigate my feelings in a healthier way. isn’t therapy great?” and sokka’s just like “maybe for you normies. while you’re working on developing healthier coping mechanisms or whatever, i’m playing psychological pai sho with a guy who thinks i’m so mentally stable i don’t even need therapy.” so basically he is a lost cause.

Malaria, Dengue Fever, Hepatitis, HIV and Ebola are just some of the infection agents and parasites that were reputedly uncovered at an illegal Chinese biolab in California. 🤔

huge nat fan here, when i was showing ur stuff to my friend they were like “oh another glasses boyfailure fighting demons that u like” and i was like THEY COME IN GIRLFAILURES TOO OKAY!!

Fighting demons and failing is the great equalizer!

ok I don't think we as a fandom talk about the way Vash cries blood enough

we only see it once or twice from what I remember, the one definite time being here ^ when the puppet attack first begins & he's dealing with the emotional agony of seeing so many of his family turn into puppets.

so it's clearly something that comes out only when he's in severe emotional distress.

the interesting thing is that Wolfwood is fucking TERRIFIED of him bc of it.

whatever this moment is, Vash is giving off the same sort of oppressive energy that Wolfwood's experienced with Knives. it's the first time during their travels that he's really been forced to recognize What Vash Is. he knew it of course, saw him in Jeneora, but he's such a goofy guy it's easy to forget.

but whatever Vash is doing here, it makes Wolfwood Incredibly aware of what he is.

so the real question i think is What exactly is going on here? is it unintentional? is it simply a response to the emotional agony?

Vash isn't the type to indiscriminately terrify everyone in the vicinity on purpose. he wouldn't be doing this purposefully out of anger while Wolfwood's there. no, in this moment, he's not even angry at all. he's Distraught.

going from This

to this

in just a moment.

yeah. that's some fucking emotional agony. i dont think Vash is doing this entirely on purpose.

but THEN...

as both Leonof and Wolfwood stare at him in fear, Both feeling his oppressive energy, Vash then lets out some sort of blast that blows against everything between him and Leonof. it doesn't destroy anything, doesn't even injure him, but it's a physically tangible effect that scares the Shit out of Leonof & spurs him into motion.

there may be some anger involved in this moment, but it's not the hair-trigger rage you would expect from seeing his family turned into puppets. it's something Quiet, something almost cold. he's distraught, Resigned, & retaliating just because he has to.

Vash hates all of this. he doesn't want to fight him. he fucking Knows this guy too, knew him as a kid, & none of this makes sense. but he knows that he needs to fight him, & doesn't have any kind of choice.

but he's not happy about it. not in the slightest.

Baby Zuko (13 year old) being babysat by the Gaang straight after rescue (kidnapping) off the Wani?

Going with “only Zuko is aged down” and, to avoid just writing Little Zuko v the World again, “instead of Uncle Iroh, he sails out under the auspices of Uncle Zhao <3”

- - -

Fire Nation jail cells were everything Sokka ever imagined, if by ‘imagined’ he meant ‘had nightmares of’. And it was really inappropriate, and not a thought he’d ever share with Katara, but the longer they were down here the more his thoughts kept roaming back around to I’m glad mom was never in one of these.

There was rust, but not in any strategically important, make-it-easier-to-break-out places. Water dripping, but not in his cell where he would have been getting really close to wanting to lick it off a wall. Guards, but at the far end of the cell block, where they refused to interact with his witty banter and/or attempts to lure them into grappling-through-the-bars range. The only one who ever got close enough to grab was the tiny semi-feverish child who, given the huge fresh sorta oozy burn wound over half his face, Sokka was going to go ahead and classify as not the best hostage material. 

Unlike the son of Chief Hakoda, his waterbending daughter, and—

“How’s Appa?” Aang, who was another tiny child, who was the Avatar, who was arguably the reason Sokka and his little sister were in this mess but Sokka was still wrapping his head around the Avatar part, said. Said after wooshing towards the bars, and then wooshing again in a way that made him not hit the bars, and then he was holding them and leaning as far as he could through which was almost but not quite enough for him to slip through entirely.

“Fine,” the kid who’d gotten on the bad side of his own country croaked. Sokka did not get the impression he was allowed to talk much, outside of the prisoner block. The kid’s face was twisted into even more of a scowl than just the burned-on one. “He’s too fast for the catapult operators. Zhao said he’s going to keelhaul them if they keep missing, but when I yelled at him about it—”

The kid stopped mid-sentence in that sort of horrifying way he did sometimes. And then he set down his tray and gave them all their slop, which they got once a day, and which contained all the water they were getting, too. Something about Katara’s extremely ineffective waterbending had the big bad Fire Nation spooked. 

“Thank you,” his little sister said, her own voice a rasp-croak that pained Sokka a lot more than the random Fire Nation brat’s. 

The kid scowled harder, which was his general reaction to any gratitude from them. 

“So,” Sokka croaked his own croak. “About helping us with that escape…”

“I’M NOT,” the kid shouted, and then the guards turned to look at them all, and then he hunched in on himself and re-evaluated his volume decisions. “I’m not helping you escape.”

“Why not?” asked Aang, bless him.

“Because,” the kid said, which is usually as much of a reply as they get before he stormed off. But today he added, even if it was really hard to hear: “Because I want to go home.”

“So,” Sokka said, “did you get that on the ship or at home?” And he waved at his own face, like the subtle genius he was. 

Ah. There was the storming away.

“You forgot our bowls!” Sokka called after him.

“Keep them,” the kid shouted back, and left Sokka alone with a metal spoon and a Fire Nation lock.

- - - 

The lock was a bad idea, actually. It would have taken way too long to file the spoon down against the floor so it would fit, not to mention made way too much noise. Also: Sokka did not actually know how to pick a lock.

The screw slots on the hinges, on the other hand…

- - -

“What?” the kid got out, all sleepy-confused, before Sokka was shoving a literal sock in his mouth and tossing him over a shoulder and running as quickly and quietly as he could with a very angry sack of potatoes bouncing on his back. 

“Go go go go,” Sokka said, as he vaulted the rail into the saddle waiting below.

“Yip yip!” said Aang.

The catapult didn’t even come close to hitting them, in the darkness. Sokka kind of really felt bad for the operator team and their future date with the hull, but there was only so much saddle space, and there was an upper age limit on the Fire Nation soldiers he was willing to pardon no-questions-asked.

“Let me go!” shouted their squirmy new friend, as Katara held him around the middle, because otherwise he’d have thrown himself into the ocean an alarming number of times by now. 

“Nu-huh,” Sokka said, patting the kid’s angry little head, right on its ridiculous little ponytail. Which was nothing at all like his own extremely masculine wolf tail. “You’re our prisoner. Relax, and enjoy the improved living conditions.”

“My father isn’t going to pay for me,” the kid said back, with a glower. 

“...Please, please don’t tell me that Zhao guy was your dad.”

“What? No,” the kid said. 

And then he opened his mouth again, and Sokka’s world got both way more complicated and way more simple.