#Worthless War | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xtruss · 8 months

Text

Almost Nothing Is Worth a War Between the U.S. 🇺🇸 and China 🇨🇳

Americans and Chinese have to rehumanize each other in terms of the way we conceive of our problems and engage.

— By Howard W. French | Foreign Policy | August 21, 2023

A child sitting on a man's shoulder takes a picture as she visits the Bund waterfront area in Shanghai, China, on July 5, 2023. Wang Zhao/AFP Via Getty Images

Midway into my just-completed one-month stay in China, I found myself seated alone in a tasteful restaurant in an upscale shopping mall in Shanghai, where I had gone for dinner.

There, amid dim lighting and soft traditional music, I had a kind of revelation. Bear with me. Against the opposite wall sat a three-generation Chinese family dining together. Two grandparents, slouching a bit, their visages deeply lined, faced in my direction, and seemed to exhibit mild curiosity about what has become a rare sighting recently, even in China’s most cosmopolitan city: a foreigner. They watched closely as I spoke with the waiter in Chinese to complete my order.

Two other people—from all evidence their much taller daughter, who was dressed in the refined way of a well-paid professional, and a small grandchild—sat with their backs to me. I was only able to see their faces when the mother stood up mid-meal to take her girl to the bathroom. In this little glimpse of three generations, an entire world opened up for me, as did a deep sense of alarm over one of the most urgent problems facing all of humanity in these times.

As a former longtime resident of China and someone who has been studying the country since I was a college student many decades ago, I could not prevent myself from trying to imagine the run of experiences the two elders had lived through. I guessed they were roughly my age, meaning in their 60s, but they looked a lot older and more worn than your average well-kept American of similar age.

This meant they would probably have harsh memories of the Cultural Revolution, the decade of political violence and upheaval that began under Mao Zedong in 1966. They or their families may also have suffered even worse tribulations late in the previous decade during the “Great Leap Forward,” when Mao’s crash effort to industrialize resulted in tens of millions of Chinese people starving to death.

Now, the elderly looking man who gazed across the narrow space separating us wore a light blue Gap t-shirt as he picked his way gingerly through a three-course meal, seemingly taking his time to chew. What did he understand of the symbolism of mass consumerism represented in the white logo emblazoned on his shirt? What did he make of the proliferation of this temple of marketing and surplus that is the shopping mall, a cultural phenomenon that contemporary China has made its own? How did he feel about the long curve of his life? Of the grave errors that China had made, but also about where it had ended up, or at least where it stood in this moment? I almost wanted to ask him, but thinking it would have been too much of an intrusion, I restrained myself, with regret.

In those moments, these thoughts impelled me to think about the curve of life in my own country, the United States, too—of how easily one can assume a kind of superior or even triumphalist attitude toward other people in other places. I had just missed being of draft age in the Vietnam War, a senseless tragedy visited upon tens of millions of Southeast Asians, for reasons as specious as many of Mao’s economic and political ideas. I thought of the persistent denial of civil rights for African Americans, which continued in a de jure sense almost into my teenage years. I thought of the devastation to the planet caused by America’s heedless crusade for wealth. Then, based on the evidence, I concluded that bad decisions and human folly are, well, universally human.

The biggest human folly I can presently think of, though, would be something that nowadays seems frighteningly easy to imagine: a war between the United States and China. Until the coronavirus pandemic, I had either lived in or visited China every year since the late 1990s. I plan to write several columns based on my recent return to the country after four years of pandemic-enforced absence. But this is not yet the occasion for a deep exploration for the political, economic, and strategic issues that are pushing to the two countries so far apart and fueling ever greater risk of catastrophe.

I’ll just say here that this is not a situation where, as so many in each country may be inclined to think, if only the other side would stop doing things that threaten or provoke us, the war clouds would dissipate. We have problems together, and if they are to be prevented from causing mass death and destruction, both countries will have to escape the endless loop of reflexively problematizing and sometimes essentializing the other, along with the relentless self-justification.

Many will think me naive, but this has to begin with something all too rare. Americans and Chinese have to rehumanize each other in terms of the way we conceive of our problems and engage. Actually, seeing people in China, like that family across from me at dinner, helped bring this home. But how can this be achieved for the crushing majority of Americans and Chinese who will never visit the other’s country? How can we strip off the layers of surface things that separate us to get in touch with the profound humanity that should unite us? It’s hard work, and the answer is not obvious, but it is urgent.

Since I’m ready to be accused of naivete, I’ll try to start first. There is almost nothing that is worth a war between the United States and China. I’ll come back to the tricky sounding “almost” in a second—it’s actually not as big of an asterisk as some might imagine. Control over Taiwan, which the government of Chinese President Xi Jinping has made into an all-too-public obsession, is not worth the killing that would be unleashed by a Chinese invasion and by any U.S. response in defense of that island. Continued U.S. geopolitical preeminence in the world is also not worth a major armed conflict with China. This is not a call for capitulation, but rather for both countries to find ways to prioritize coexistence and avoid disaster.

As a non-academic historian, I read an inordinate amount about the past, and I have always been struck by the airs of overconfidence and intoxication that have preceded many great past conflicts. On the eve of World War I, for example, elites on both sides—in Germany and Britain—were blithely predicting the troops would be home by Christmas.

Most Americans (and most Chinese) probably spend precious little time thinking about what war would do to their own country. It would be useful to give a wider airing of war game scenarios, such as one carried out recently by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that make clear just how devastating a conflict could be. In this example, just one of many, Hawaii, Guam, Alaska, and San Diego, California, would all come under withering Chinese attack, up to and potentially including with nuclear weapons. Lest Chinese people think that they would have little to fear by way of direct impact, just for starters, many areas of coastal China, where the country’s population and wealth are heavily concentrated, could face a rain of U.S. missiles.

What are people willing to concede in order to avoid such a fate? In a book I wrote about China’s conception of itself as a great power, I concluded that the United States needed, for starters, to signal a lot more serenity in its competition with China. For at least two decades, my country has behaved as if a bit haunted by the prospect of being overtaken. But for objective reasons—including China’s extraordinarily profound demographic problems, the declining effectiveness of China’s economic policies, and a plethora of domestic challenges in the country—the United States needn’t be. What is more, though, is that the signals of American anxiety, which are rife in the political culture and come through in many U.S. policies, fuel Chinese nervousness, insecurity, and over-assertiveness.

China, for its part, needs to get over its own insecurities. The air of self-confidence it seeks to project is powerfully belied by the constant resort to overt nationalism and to assertions that in its dealings with other countries—or with international bodies like international tribunals governing laws of the sea, for example—only others are capable of incorrect positions. China, by contrast, is not only always right but also righteous.

Beijing is profoundly worried about the staying power of its own political system, but it needn’t obsess, as it claims to, over the supposed efforts of others to undermine it. Whatever threats there are to China’s system of rule come from within China itself. Nobody outside of the country, in other words, is trying to bring down the Communist Party. Only the party itself can achieve this, by failing to reform in step with the desires of the country’s own population.

So how can we restore some confidence on both sides? First the asterisk from above. War should be ruled out except in the case of a direct attack by one side on the other, which means we should rule out attacking each other. China should meanwhile also lower the temperature on Taiwan, in tandem with more reassurances from the United States that Washington does not support the idea of formal independence for the island.

Chinese and American leaders also have to start speaking with each other and meeting much more often face to face. There is really no substitute for this, for as much as what were once called people-to-people exchanges can reinforce a shared sense of humanity, seeing political leaders shake hands and smile and meet across the table to discuss thorny issues separating the two sides can also remind both countries’ public and political classes that there is nothing so hard that it can’t be talked about.

— Howard W. French is a Columnist at Foreign Policy, a Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and a longtime Foreign Correspondent. His latest book is Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War.

13 notes · View notes

thelaurenshippen · 1 year

Text

a remake of "you've got mail" called "you've got kudos" about two fic writers who make flirty comments on each other's fics, only to realize that they already know each other because they used to be on opposite sides of a fandom war when they were teenagers under different usernames

#this is essentially the plot of tweet cute #and probably the exact plot of a real book somewhere #which is why I'm posting it instead of putting it in my little ideas folder #so that someone can direct me toward the version of it that almost certainly already exists #so that I can consume it #the original rivalry is on ff.net #and it gets UGLY #but like...not so ugly you don't root for them to get together #and then they grow and realize fighting over ships is a worthless past time #and become cheerleaders for each other's work #only to eventually put two and two togehter #but also #like....fUn fan wars #not cyberbullying fan wars #it would be a careful balance #anyway I saw the phrase you've got kudos on here and thought about youve got mail #so here I am cringeposting book ideas like its 2013 or some shit

8K notes · View notes

tomatette · 21 days

Note

SOBBING at the fact the entire armitage hux fan base is being roused and coming together to vote for him as the hottest star wars man😭 im out of the star wars fandom at this point and have been for a while but the voting came across my dash. hux was ALWAYS my boy i can’t let him down

#hux #general hux #armitage hux #first order #star wars #tumblr polls #he's pleased #babygirl was told he was worthless so much #he loves being praised lol #he might not want to admit to it #but he does lol #domhnall gleeson #ask #thank you nonnie #i'm glad you still participate #fandom loves never really go away do they?

91 notes · View notes

kiwikipedia · 10 months

Text

it’s actually astounding how quickly a fandom can devolve a well-written Character to One (1) Character Trait They Exhibited Once Forever

#im staring directly at the spiderverse and starwars fandoms #mostly the star wars fandom #but also kinda fate #idk a lot of the fate characterization does come from the fact that FGO woobified its own cast [head in hands]#like. plo is ONLY clone dad apparently and people forget that this is a 400+ year old 'man' who has killed and will kill again given the opp #hes not even technically seen as having fatherly traits towards the clones not to say that i dont like the trope but MAN #all he did was have the basic decency to state that they weren't worthless to him and actual human beings. its not like he went out and #bought wolffe his first car #anyways #kiwiki speaks #im not even gonna get started on the nero tamamo and drake case in fate because that still makes my head hurt

262 notes · View notes

the-senates-one-fear · 2 months

Text

Minor Bad Batch Season 3 Spoilers

Thinking about how Crosshair probably thinks he needs to be useful to be alive because thats what he was raised as a experiment clone and how his hands shake so much it probably affects his shooting

His shooting the one main thing he's known for and the one thing that probably stopped the kaminoans from decommissioning him, the batcher's sniper and his name and now he has difficulty doing that and how thats affected his mental state

#i just know he thinks himself worthless and i dont like it #he deserved so much better #and if he doesnt get better this season #if he doesn't reunite and mend bonds with his brothers #if he and hunter dont have a long emotional talk cause they need to #i will walk into lucas studios and start screaming #star wars #the clone wars #tcw #tbb #the bad batch #tbb crosshair #the bad batch crosshair #the bad batch season 3 #tbb season 3 #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers

44 notes · View notes

vacantgodling · 10 months

Text

worthless war

You never learn his name.

Your thoughts have already devolved into the most basic of actions to sustain you along. Eat. Sleep. Forward. Retreat. Swing. Parry. Kill.

There is a reason generals do not wear helmets. Their matted, blood soaked hair used to be windswept and glorious. They bark orders and their pawns follow; the matted grass of stinking, rotting corpses, the board of a most convoluted game of chess. In the beginning, how foolish your company thought, should you make it behind enemy lines that you would become kings. It didn’t take long to realize it didn’t work that way. That eyes cast up to the heavens stayed that way, glassy and unseeing in their swift death.

Your eyes weren’t adept at seeing anymore. Your helmet made the world dark and despairing, a fitful mirror to the fruitlessness of this Worthless War. It was a war of pride, not a war of glory. By the time you entered the fray, any semblance of morality had long fled; back to the homeland where praises were sung of a warrior’s valor and the duty of the sword. There was no honor in this place.

Except.

You met him when a stab to the side, under the chink of your chain mail made you kneel. In the centre of the battlefield, you knelt there, statuesque and unseeing. Was it your time to die? Maybe. You were so tired. This war has taken everything from you. You could still see the face of your dear sweet Lucasta*, rosy faced and bright, cheerful and kind. You had not kissed for she was chaste, but you held her hands tender as a newborn babe and bid her farewell.

I will return a hero! You said—what a fool you had been! Young and suckling like a calf to a teat; you knew not what awaited you, young lamb to the slaughter. You knew not of how this war would betray you.

But you felt an arm raise you up.

No words were spoken, only the gleam of his sword in his hand in the sunlight. His helmet was impasse, but his arm that held you felt like warmth, felt like summer, felt like the joy of a child. You leant heavily into him, and he supported you, and took you far away from the battlefield.

It was the first thought you’d had since your mind fell away some time ago. Where are we going? You could ask. Are we advancing? Retreating? How else would you know your place in line? Are you God? If perhaps, you were religious. You weren’t. But maybe you were—if only for the way he sat you squarely down on a rock in some remote and desolate field in some forgotten daydream. Even if the war raged, the clashes of swords and armor not too far off on the horizon, it was a muted murmur this far away. The war but a distant night terror. Your body felt lighter than air, your head clear yet clouded, perhaps it was the dizziness from blood loss.

He didn’t speak, but his hands were verbose. He left your helmet fast to your skull, but pulled you out of your armor, piece by piece. What an intimate ritual—you oft used to think of undressing Lucasta when the two of you were finally wed should you make it back from this war. From her corset and over skirts, to her chemise, her stockings; to unearth what bounty lay beneath cotton coverings, just the same as he unlatched your breastplate. Cool hands spread across your collar and chest, then came to the side just underneath your arm where blood, thick and viscous, stuck like molasses to your skin.

Where he retrieved water when rations were low, you didn’t know. For so long you have just been some spectral floating thing; only manifesting as a sword for your general to wield. But now you felt horribly human; your mouth dry with thirst and caked with dirt and grime and the sins of taking life after life. Heaven knew no prayers would wash you clean, but he did. He washed your wound and dressed it as best he could. He ripped pieces and pieces of his own spare shirt and wrapped them round and round your body, pressing until the blood stopped. Until the blood rushed from your head south at the novelty of another’s touch, never mind the touch was a man. This was the touch of your savior; your holiness, your shining grace given from Lucasta’s Lord above.

“W…” You managed to croak, and he stopped his ministrations. If you had hydration enough for tears, perhaps you would’ve shed them. Don’t stop. You wanted to say. Those glorious touches that reminded you that you were alive and a soul and part of this world. “Why…” Your voice was no louder than a field mouse.

Behind his helmet, he didn’t say a thing. Not a grunt, not a hum, not a word. He only kept dressing your wound. Round and round he twirled those makeshift bandages, and you imagined Lucasta on your long awaited wedding day, twirling in your arms as the blushing bride she ought to be. But here, and bare, and carnal, you felt you ought to be the bride. Why shouldn’t you receive such tenderness of a strong hand to your lips or touch to your brow? Why shouldn’t you linger in this comforting daydream where you were just a man, and the knight dressing you was another, and in the hay of this little barn of innocence you sullied it with passions that Lucasta’s God would blush at?

You gripped his hands, hissing as he bade you stand. It was always easier to suit standing. When he returned the chinks of your breastplate and tightened it fast, it was every deceleration of love you could ever hear. It was a proposal, a wedding, devotion divine. You took his hand. He gave you your sword. He led you back to the battlefield. Your thoughts returned lifeless, but when he took his place next to you in formation, your mind bloomed with flowers; roses and daffodils and forget-me-nots; an endless springtime where he knew your scars and perhaps, you knew his.

And as all evils do, the Worthless War drew to a close.

There was no grand finale. No heroes of lore or legend were born out of this war. You stood at the foothills of your hometown, with nothing but a small ration, and a few bits of coins for the trouble of it all.

You returned to Lucasta. She knew the light in your eyes dimmed. She spoke to you of the wedding, of babies, of summertime—but your life was paused; ever stuck and transfixed at that moment he took you aside to patch your wound. Suspended in that one shred of humanity that you felt in that moment, and the lingering warmth that you felt after, for the days and weeks until the war came to an end. He never spoke, but he was always by your side, and you fastly to his.

Your head was bare, but your soul never took off its helmet. At night, you lay awake with Lucasta’s head pressed delicately to your chest, dreaming of the metallic hiss of his breath in and out as he undressed your soul.

some footnotes:

* = the name Lucasta i lifted from the 17th century poet Richard Lovelace as the meaning is “pure light”. in this piece Lucasta serves two roles: as the bride to be the protagonist has waiting back home, but also represents his innocence that the war has taken from him. how even though he’s returned home and has his former life waiting for him how he can never truly regain that innocence.

#ren writing #still thinking about knights and so this came out #i’m kinda obsessed with it #short stories tag #<- ig #s: worthless war

103 notes · View notes

youngyoo-apologist · 15 days

Text

OG Choi Han they could never make me hate you cause if some random rich boy was yelling at me and telling me my family deserved to die like a day after it happened and all I wanted was to know how I could get help I’d beat him up too

This plus the added fact that the Harris Village people were the first people to take Choi Han in and take care of him after years and years in the dark forest. Like he’s obviously not going to be mentally stable after all that, and he was so young when everything happened to him like I cannot blame him at all. I don’t think I can ever hate OG Choi Han like ever, he’s flawed, he has problems, but I love him dearly. He deserves the world. This kid who had to fight for his life, was taken away from his family, and in the process had to give up parts of his own humanity to survive, and like went to war two years later, they could never make me hate u OG Choi Han…

Like yeah violence is bad I guess but OG Cale had it coming(saying this as an OG Cale fan, I love him, but he was mean as hell when he was younger!)

If I’m honest, I think they were both in the wrong to an extent. Like OG Cale shouldn’t have said all that no matter the circumstances, and OG Choi Han shouldn’t have beaten him up so much. But u say mean shit and you get hit, that is how it will work when you’re talking to the guy who just saw his entire village get murdered like idkkkk man

I understand where OG Cale was coming from, but he had many issues and while he wasn’t an awful person, he was capable of doing bad things because of his own internalized pain and emotions that he never got to properly process because of his emotionally distant childhood and relationship with his father who should have been there for him more when he was younger.

Okay speaking of his childhood, Deruth isn’t the WORST father in the world but there are a lot of things he could have done better. I think a lot of Deruth’s flaws come from his fear of failure and messing up. He’s scared of doing the wrong thing, and so he sticks to doing what he knows and using what he knows best. That’s why he uses his money, that’s why gift giving is his way of showing affection, he knows that it is one thing he cannot mess up.

The problem is that money and gifts is NOT what OG Cale needed. I think what that guy needed the most was a parent who wasn’t afraid to talk to him, to ask him questions. Not to say that Deruth gave up on OG Cale, but I think in a way he gave up on OG Cale by giving up on himself. Deruth didn’t trust himself to have the capabilities to talk to OG Cale, which is why he never did. It’s because that Deruth was scared, and didn’t trust himself, that he could never face OG Cale

If Deruth was able to trust himself a little more, and pull himself together, I don’t think OG Cale would have turned out the way he did. As a kid, he probably thought the only way he could help his family without relying on anyone(no doubt this whole ‘I have to do it myself’ thing came from the fact that he couldn’t rely on his father when his mom died, and instead was acting as a pillar of support for his father when it should have been the other way around) was to sabotage himself, the only heir. If he was shown to be unfit to be heir, then everyone else would have no choice but to direct their hatred towards him instead of his family.

If Deruth had talked to his son at least ONCE when he was a kid, asking him why he was upset or why he did the things he did, I think OG Cale would have told him. Why? Because he’s a kid!! A kid will obviously want to rely on his father, if he just had one sign telling him that he didn’t have to do it alone I’m 90% sure OG Cale would have said something.

Basically, while Deruth isn’t the worst father, he’s not really a great father either. I think he does do his best, but he has issues with communication lol

OG Cale and OG Choi Han are both complex characters and had their own reasons to behave the way they did. The thing is with people is that they’re complicated and have layers, so the situation with them would have layers behind it as well with multiple co-existing truths and stuff

#guys I’m a big fan of Choi Han #and I get sad when people bring up this scene and all the blame is on him #like okay he was wrong but if YOU saw your entire family dead and some random rich boy started yelling abt how their lives were worthless #you’d be mad too no?#like his feelinsg were totally justified cause OG Cale was REALLY mean in that scene #‘their lives are worth less than the bottle in my hand’ OHHHHH OKAY OG CALE THATS ENOUGH THATS ENOUGHHHH #I love OG Cale but u have to admit he wasn’t very nice when he was younger #like the statements ‘he had his reasons’ ‘being trash was an act’ ‘he wasn’t a bad person’ ‘but he did say bad things’ can co exist #yes being trash was an act but he is ALSO capable of saying mean things and things that are wrong #LIKE TELLING THE GUY WHO JUST GOT HIS FAMILY MURDERED THAT THEIR LIVES WERE WORTHLESS #HE WAS NOT INNOCENT FOR THAT #Younger OG Cale is not a black and white character #and neither is older OG Cale but this post isn’t abt him #okay I’m gonna bring up someone who isn’t from TCF #but take Eunyung Baek from no home as an example okay #eunyung did bad things and was a bad person because of his childhood right #the reasons to being a bad person do not take away the bad things he did #but just cause he did bad things and was capable of them did not mean he could not change #I love OG Cale a LOT and I just think that his character has a lot behind it #Older OG Cale is obviously very different from his younger self #years and years of war and tragedy have matured him and like he’s not the same person he was anymore #okay back to Choi Han I love that guy I will defend him with my life #beating up people is wrong yeah but with the circumstances I’d say OG Cale had it coming #like okay it would be different if it was unprovoked but it was very much provoked #I swear I love OG Cale I just think he was very wrong for that #not to say he can’t change or isn’t capable of change he definitely is #idk I guess my point is that OG Cale was wrong but he changed as a person #and OG Choi Han was wrong for beating him up so much but it wasn’t unjustifiable #tcf #lcf

22 notes · View notes

hussyknee · 6 months

Text

Will white queers please come and get their people

The staggering half-wittedness of this logic aside, ALL OF THIS IS ALREADY HAPPENING YOU IGNORANT FUCKS PEOPLE ARE GETTING FIRED REPORTED AND DOXXED RIGHT AND LEFT.

I cannot tell you of the depth of my sheer, utter loathing for these craven, snivelling, ghouls. The last fucker doing this with both the trans flag and Palestine flag in their bio is the final insult. There has been a barrage of these posts by white queers both here and on twitter in tandem with the escalation of Israeli bombings, and some of the responses have been in the vein of "yes we know, but now is not the time". As if it that makes it any less repugnant or your hands any less stained in blood.

After three fucking weeks, the Rafah border has been opened for all of 500 people, most foreigners and dual citizens and a handful of gravely injured Palestinians. Instead of calling for a ceasefire, this demon wants brownie points for letting them leave and leaving the other two million people with a few trucks of """"aid""". So they can patch themselves up before getting blown to pieces. And repeatedly, repeatedly, liberals want us to acknowledge this as the "good" we will lose if Trump comes to power.

This grief is fathomless, depthless, unbearable. Anyone who does this is the same as fascist appeasers and collaborationists. Kids in cages? You don't care about kids being massacred!White queers will literally lick the boots of genociders and child-murderers. You would have sold Jews out to the Nazis, the African slaves back to the slavers, the Civil Rights Movement to the segregationists, the Indigenous tribes to the scalpers and their children to the residential schools.

If you are our allies please shut these scumbuckets down. Otherwise, don't worry, I'm sure the Democrats are gearing up to be the same kind of defenders to you that they've been to Muslims, Latin immigrants and the Black community. Genocide will definitely feel better if you've chosen who gets to do it to you.

#i'm too exhausted and heartsick to do alt text #if someone wants to do it for me i'll add it #i dont know why i keep expecting the bare minimum of decency from white or western people lmao #but how do we feel like we belong or that we're safe here #when our noses keep getting rubbed in the fact that we're less than worthless to them #it's always fuckers with progress flags and blm and whatever flag in their bio #how do you look at 3500 dead children and square your conscience #white privilege #white sociopathy #white queers #western leftists #free palestine #fuck joe biden #genocide joe #palestinian genocide #palestine #war crimes #knee of huss

30 notes · View notes

nostalgia-tblr · 5 months

Text

u know, in terms of Frigga Discourse:

There is clearly no throne for a queen (or any other consort) there, nor is there space for one. She'd have to sit off to one side, in a much smaller chair that's less... well, that's just less generally, and while I will ignore that (and have!) for fic purposes I think it's interesting anyway.

(It might be Historically Accurate, though possibly by accident? Cos English consort queens weren't usually crowned in the Viking era, as far as I know. Queens are just the king's wife back then, why would you give his wife a throne of her own that's just madness right guys?)

So if - as seems reasonable from what we know - Frigga's been acting as regent while Odin's napping, she gets to sit on The One Chair to do that? (Though having said that this film hasn't heard of regents so maybe she's just King Frigga on those occasions. Why not!)

#usually you can't un-king someone without a civil war happening hence regents #HEY. HEY. DID YOU KNOW THIS IS BASICALLY HOW THE WARS OF THE ROSES STARTED?#also the AMOUNT of gold on Asgard makes me want it to be basically worthless to them because there's just so much of it all over #asgardian peasants with their gold cutlery and their gold plates and so on #“oh that? nah that's just some worthless gold why do you ask?”#maybe the palace is made of solid gold because they couldn't afford bricks and that's actually a source of shame for the realm #AU where King Whoever bankrupts the kingdom in his quest for a nice concrete facade to cover all that embarrassing gold

15 notes · View notes

capriszn · 6 months

Text

isnt this so absurd and surreal??? i feel like im losing my mind. wdym a veto against……..saving lives?? its so unreal to me that there needs to be a voting in the first place. theres a literal massacre going on and youre telling me there needs to be a decision made to stop a whole genocide, to stop warcrimes in real time even though youre perfectly capable and have the power to put an end to this? and instead you support it, you fund it, you celebrate and applaud it, you willingly want more children to die than already have?? its insane. there is no justification no forgiving ever its so absurd and insane

#idk youre telling me theres like a dozen of people who decided arab peoples lives are worthless and will keep going until theyve killed all #and they get to just decide??? are we in medieval times are you legitimized by god?????#the global north profiting of war of oppression and murder the global north built on blood misusing power #nothing new #im sick im sick im sick its so absurd you dont get to decide which lives are worth saving you dont get to scapegoat entire people #living on earth is hell its literal hell #personal

15 notes · View notes

ask-ozai · 1 year

Note

What was iroh’s wife like

Too good for Iroh.

I was fourteen when Iroh got married. His wife was the perfect princess, strict, strong, loyal and intelligent. Not the kind of princess who tries to send secret intimate letters to stinky peasants behind her prince and husband's back, but Iroh never appreciated his privileges.

She was so strong and proper that she could afford to be kind. No one could resist her charm. Everyone wanted to please her, she had a curious effect on people. My father was very nice to her, too (because, of course, she never sneezed into the portrait of his dead wife, unlike his other daughter-in-law), and for a while he was in a better mood, even around me. She was even nice to me too, probably because she knew that even at such a young age I already held immense power and deserved the recognition of a proper prince. She used to ask me to show her my best firebending moves. Maybe that's what it feels like to have a mother.

When she died, Iroh, Lu Ten, and my father got through it together. Losing his wife made Iroh and my father even closer, and there was a new kind of understanding between them. And as before, the two forgot about me again. Of all the stupid things Iroh has done in his life, letting his wife die must have been the worst. I don't think I ever forgave him.

#Me: I don't actually think I will ever want to get married. I prefer to focus on winning the war #My father: You will get married I need you to sire powerful firebenders to serve Lu Ten when he's firelord #Me:... Alright but can it be someone smart and strong? who's loyal to me and raises my children to be strong?#My father: No you're marrying the granddaughter of a traitor obsessed with a peasant who will raise your first son to be a worthless loser #Me: 🙁 I shall do what you order me father I'm your loyal son #*13 years after*#My father: Zuko is a waste of dna. Eliminate him #Me: Don't you say 😑#ask ozai #Ozai #Azulon #Iroh #Iroh's wife #Atla #avatar the last airbender

54 notes · View notes

spockesque · 1 month

Text

#i literally feel like i don't even deserve to look at his face like i am a sack of worthless shite compared to this #hyunjin i will do the cooking and the cleaning by hand on my hands and knees #also can someone tell me where the nearest volcano is so i can book a flight on a faulty boeing so when the door rips off i can #jump out the plane and land directly in the lava so i can be boiled alive #in 2000 the year i was born the universe decided to make me horrendously ugly so that all my beauty genes were sacrificed #and this guy got all of them #this is literally a face that men would go to war for #skz #I FEEL SOOOOO FUCKING NORMAL ABOUT THIS I PROMISE IM NOT DERANGED #stray kids #hyunjin

6 notes · View notes

lord-squiggletits · 7 months

Text

So for anyone who doesn't know, in IDW1 Trypticon is actually a really interesting character. Earlier in the timeline, he's basically just an ancient evil monster that gets awakened and used as a fighting force by the Decepticons (covered by the events of Monstrosity and Primacy, although I'm not sure if he made an appearance earlier in terms of the comics' release order).

Later on in the IDW1 comics, Trypticon becomes a character with his own personality and desires as written by Barber in the Dinobot trilogy (not the phase 1 series but Punishment, Salvation, and Redemption). Basically, Trypticon is very aware of the fact that people see him as a violent monster, but he decides to abandon Cybertronian society entirely because he's tired of being used as a vehicle for others' violence. By the end of the trilogy, he actually has a new hotspot inside of him and is nurturing the next generation of protoforms within his own body. He's literally done a 180 from being a source of destruction and death to being a protective, nurturing, life-giving force. And this is interesting because, although Trypticon DID have a personality before Barber wrote him, Barber's take on Trypticon gave the "big scary Decepticon titan" a much more 3D personality that made him a person with his own goals, disinterested in the plots and schemes of others. And that's really cool!

So what ended up happening Trypticon in the finale of IDW1, Unicron?

He gets killed off. In the background. With no one giving a shit about it. Because Barber decided it was more important that, IN THE FINALE OF THE SERIES THAT WAS ENDING IDW1 AND WOULD BE THE LAST ISSUES HE WOULD EVER WRITE, we as the viewers be subjected to a Literally Who OC that no one cares about crying and bitching about how Optimus Prime is a tyrant and a fascist. This entire panel is almost literally shot in a comedic way, like the trope of "person monologuing while something crazy happens behind them that they're completely clueless to."

Trypticon got an interesting characterization that made him more than just a monster, but I guess it was more important to kill him off in the background of a panel so that Miss Literally Nobody can waste an entire page of the LAST SERIES OF THE CONTINUITY being a whining bitch about Optimus, which by the way is what she's been doing literally this whole time since she basically exists just to complain about Optimus.

Oh and by the way, Trypticon was carrying the next generation of protoforms inside of his body, and Cybertron (plus every other colony) got destroyed during the Unicron finale, so I guess an entire fucking generation of new Cybertronians also got slaughtered in this panel. How fun and exciting! I guess putting in that really depressing character death of "man changes his ways and gets to live happily but gets killed off for shock value" was really important to put in the ending of the series to make us readers feel satisfied about our beloved story ending! Oh but not only does he die, he dies IN THE BACKGROUND PRACTICALLY AS A FOOTNOTE so that a different character no one cares about can talk about her feelings, wasting crucial time bitching about how much she doesn't like Optimus while TRYPTICON IS LITERALLY DYING BEHIND HER BUT I GUESS SLIDE IS SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT FOR US TO BE CARING ABOUT.

This is what happens when you're more concerned about huffing your own farts Writing A Theme, Man than you care about creating a satisfying ending that fans will actually enjoy lmao. Who cares about Trypticon and possibly his children that we got attached to as a result of the previous comics dying? This literal nobody who no one cares about needs to have her time in the spotlight monologuing about shit that doesn't matter while everyone around her is fucking dying.

#squiggposting #slide is the worst character in idw1. literaly the worst #she's like the peak of barber sabotaging the readers by interrupting emotional scenes just to have someone complain #also she's a privileged colony bitch who's never lived through war in her life but still feels entitled to judge the ppl who lived through #like. i don't care about her. she's stupid. she's an idiot. she's annoying. she got way too much screentime #she existed just to shit on optimus prime who's a character that actually matters unlike her #but i guess we couldn't even cut off IDW1 in an aborted season finale #without barber having to insert his depressing 'cybertronians suck and optimus sucks' nonsense in it #bc god forbid the FINALE OF THE CONTINUITY be focused on characters that are more important or have had more development #yes this is me being petty and fan wanking but also. slide sucks #little fucking worthless brat wasting way too much screentime existing only to complain about all the other established characters #that have actually had a whole series behind them and who the readers are actually attached to #absolutely worthless character who only existed to waste my time and improved nothing with her existence #squiggle being petty

16 notes · View notes