#descendants ship weeks 2023 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

themotherofhorses · 5 days

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Hi guys, it's Vic! Also known as:

Round TWO at addressing the extreme racism in the CoD fandom!

So it’s both odd and funny that my Indigenous fem!OC has pissed off so many random people, especially with the fact that I created her to ship with Ghost.

(A fictional character that has NO canon love interest, FYI. Sorry to bust y'all's little bubble. Well, there's Mara and Urban Tracker....)

Anyways, I really don't care if this post sounds bitchy in nature. I really don't, not anymore. Some of y'all need a damn wakeup call. Several months ago, in December of 2023, I made a post (here) regarding the sudden influx of hate I began receiving following the posting of my OC, SilentDove Reyes. For around two weeks after that post, the hate died down, and I felt motivated to create more content involving Dove and Ghost.

Until the hate picked up again with every little thing I posted that related to my OC x Ghost.

However....this new hate incorporated the MMIW. A bold ass move, in my opinion.

If you are not aware, the MMIW stands for "Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women." Alternate spellings include the MMIWG & MMIWGTS (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirits). As of 2023, statistics indicate that Indigenous women face a 10x murder rate than any other race/ethnicity. I have made a previous post regarding the issue, seen here. The unfortunate truth is that young Indigenous girls are more likely to be SA'd and murdered than to attend college. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now, I am an Indigenous woman. That is no surprise there; I fashioned my OC to provide myself (and, by extension, others) with Native representation in a franchise I greatly enjoy. What IS surprising, however, is that me doing so has pissed off so many people. I'm very certain some of y'all must descend from Andrew Jackson, or John Wayne cause, christ on a bike driven by a pike.

Here is a screenshot of a hate anon I recently received:

Listen, I don't care who you ship Ghost with. I really don't. I've blocked numerous shipping tags, remained mindful of the content I'm interacting with, and surrounded myself with fellow mutuals who also have personal OCs. It is really that easy.

What I do care about is the fact that some of you CANNOT separate fanon headcanons from canon material.

Exhibit A:

So let’s clear some stuff up!

Soap x Ghost is NOT canon.

Ghost being queer is NOT canon.

And, most definitely, Ghost being a woman abuser who would harm/abuse/murder a woman (either physically, emotionally, psychologically) is NOT canon.

What IS canon is his and Soap's strong bond. In my eyes, that is a brotherly bond, reminding me of a big brother/little brother relationship; in my fanfiction, Soap is Ghost's children's uncle. In fact, his son (second-born child) is named after him.

You are, of course, free to view them as romantic; what you are not free to do is attack OC creators/non-shippers for not perceiving them like that.

That is just fucking weird and delusional behavior. Knock it off. You're giving your fellow normal shippers a bad name.

ALSO! Let’s clear things up!

1. I’m not straight — I’m bisexual and demisexual.

2. I’m only half white (Spanish, with Mexican heritage). I’m QUITE LITERALLY an enrolled Native, so I guess the best way to describe me is “biracial.”

3. It’s y’all ruining the canon gay representation by shipping Laswell—a GAY woman—with Price, despite the fact that she canonically has a wife.

4. My OC does not have a “dumb fucking name.” Her name is an Indigenous name with a specific backstory to it; it’ll be explored further in future fanfics once I find the motivation to return to writing.

Anyways, I highly doubt this will be the last post I create regarding this problem; apparently, a nice chunk of the fandom has this intense animosity towards fem!OCs, fem!Y/Ns, and BIPOC!OC creators. Alright. With that being said, I invite anyone who has similar experiences to share yours, either in the reblogs or in separate posts.

As sometimes we say during pow wows:

“The floor is all yours.”

Thank you!

#vic talks #fandom psa #fandom discourse #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #cod fandom #call of duty fanfiction #cod mw #cod mw2 #cod mw3 #cod simon ghost riley #cod simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon riley #cod ghost #ghost #cod oc #call of duty oc #orginal character

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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David Graeber's "Pirate Enlightenment": The true, swashbuckling lives of matriarchs, anarchists, and pirates at the crossroads of the world.

The untimely death of activist/anthropologist/author David Graeber in 2020 tore a hole in the future, depriving us of not just Graeber’s presence, but of the books he had left to write — incisive, brilliant, hilarious followups to the likes of Debt and Bullshit Jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/07/facebook-v-humanity/#spectre

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/24/zana-malata/#libertalia

And what books Graeber had left in him! Just weeks prior to his death, Graber finished Dawn Of Everything, his ten-year collaboration with David Wengrow. It’s a nose-to-tail reconsideration of everything we know about the civilizations of prehistory, and what they tell us about the essential nature of humanity:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/08/three-freedoms/#anti-fatalism

Today, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux publishes Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, billed as Graeber’s “final posthumous work” (more on this later).

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610197/pirateenlightenmentorthereallibertalia

It’s a reworking of Graeber’s anthropology doctoral research, studying the Zana-Malata people of Madagascar, the living descendants of the feminist, anarchist pirates who ruled the island in the early 18th century.

I read a prepublication draft of the book for a blurb, and I was riveted. In the early 18th century, the Zana-Malata people — a new culture created jointly by pirates from around the world and Malagasy — came to dominate the island. They brought with them the democratic practices of pirate ships (where captains were elected and served at the pleasure of their crews) and the matriarchal traditions of some Malagasy, creating a feminist, anarchist “Libertalia.”

Graeber retrieves and orders the history of this Libertalia from oral tradition, primary source documents, and records from around the world. Taken together, it’s a tale that is rollicking and romantic, but also hilarious and eminently satisfying.

For example, the pirates of Madagascar found it useful (and amusing) to trick visitors into thinking the island had “pirate kings.” They created sham courts, where Zana-Malata, Malagasy and pirates put on elaborate cons for visitors where they all pretended to be subjects of a pirate monarch whose treasures were borrowed for the duration of the show.

These shams, in turn, spawned a popular English literature, with the likes of Defoe penning bestselling, fantastical accounts of the pirate kings and their improbable adventures. Back in Madagascar, the Zana-Malata laughed themselves silly at the credulous crowds on the other side of the world.

18th century Madagascar was a crossroads of sea-traders, religious apostates (radical Jews!), exiles and sea-bums of every description. Graeber describes how the Zana-Malata’s egalitarian made them resilient and adaptable, able to meet aggression with force when needed, or to turn it away when possible.

Graeber tells this tale as skillfully as any 18th century romantic pirate novelist, but grounded in academic rigor and careful research. “Pirate Enlightenment” is a swashbuckling, anti-authoritarian thrill-ride through the true pirates of the Indian Ocean, and the legacy they left behind.

One note on that “final posthumous work” epithet. I’m told that Graeber left behind a mountain of unpublished work, in various degrees of done-ness, ranging from notebooks to unpublished articles. I’d be *very* surprised if this was the last work of Graeber’s we see in print.

[Image ID The Farrar, Strauss, Giroux cover for David Graeber's 'Pirate Enlightenment, Or the Real Libertalia.']

#pluralistic #Zana-Malata #david graeber #books #anthropology #history #madagascar #anarchism #pirate #matriarchy #gift guide #reviews

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gwaedhannen · 2 months

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Throwback Thursday

Not sure how much of a throwback it can be when I've only been writing for four months? But ok. Tagged by @thelordofgifs and @polutrope to rec a fic of mine that's at least a week old!

I kinda cringe a bit looking back at my 2023 writing, but I still have a fair bit of fondness for Kill the flame, as my first published work. It's got family angst! Gut punches! The blurry line between forgiveness and loneliness! Vague headcanons and hints of characterization that I've yet to do anything with! Shortness! Quintessential stormfallen.

For Turgon, steadfast always. Your descendants still build in the echo of Gondolin’s unforgotten glory. For Amras, quiet on the woodland trails. They say you went mad in the trees. Or did you simply find a truth no one else could accept? For Amrod, betrayed and yet unbowed. You were pulled from the fire, and walked back to it with eyes open and torch held high. She had not wept, to see her father again. She had not wept, as the Herald laid down his sentence. She had not wept, as the white ships sailed away.

No-pressure tagging @ceescedasticity, @undercat-overdog, @that-angry-noldo, @between-thepages, @thescrapwitch, and anyone else who wants in!

#stormthinken #tag game

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ltwilliammowett · 1 year

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The Hector

In early July 1773, the fluyt Hector sailed from Lochbroom, Scotland bound for Pictou in Nova Scotia. On board the Hector were nearly two hundred men, women and children. By all accounts, The Hector was not in the best shape. It had already seen twenty years’ service as a cargo vessel.

The Hector replica (x)

As the Hector approached the coast of Newfoundland, a fierce storm blow the ship far off course. It took two weeks to regain the ship’s previous position.

(x)

Today, it is estimated that there are more than one hundred and forty thousand descendants of the ‘Hector Scots’ living in Canada and the United States. In 1990, the Pictou Waterfront Development Corporation began the construction of a life size replica of the Hector. The ship is now moored in Pictou Harbour.

(x)

Due to the fact that the replica was 30 years old, it had to be fundamentally repaired. The repairs were supposed to start in 2020, but were postponed due to the pandemic and storm Fiona. Now they have been resumed and the plan is to lift the vessel back into the water on 15 Sept. 2023. That day will mark the 250th anniversary of the Hector's arrival in Pictou.

#naval history #fluyt hector #canadas mayflower #1773 #age of sail

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theculturedmarxist · 10 months

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The member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – consisting of the teetering Masters of Empire and their tawdry entourage of class-stratified vassals – have just concluded a historic confab in Vilnius, Lithuania, capital of the alpha Baltic chihuahua.

In a shockingly transparent but otherwise rather banal series of events it became unmistakably clear that their grand plans to subject Russia to the “rules-based order” have come to naught.

Among others, the following consequences will ripple in the wake of this reality:

Russia will achieve a decisive conclusion to the war on terms they dictate.

NATO is shattered as a military alliance, and coming apart at the seams as a political alliance.

Germany is on a trajectory of becoming a failed state, and as it goes, so will go the incoherent iron and clay mixture of the so-called European Union.

The great myth of overwhelming US armaments supremacy has been exposed as little more than a modestly scaled boutique enterprise utterly ill-suited and ill-prepared to prosecute industrial warfare against a peer adversary.

Of course, many will immediately object:

“But the US hasn’t even employed its military in Ukraine! If the US entered this war with its awesome air and naval power, and its “best-in-class” army … well, the Russians would get pounded to dust within a few weeks.”

Well, I hope the thesis is never put to the test, because it will NOT end well.

I am now more convinced than ever that Russia’s specific strengths match and will consistently defeat the American military’s perceived strengths.

Russia admittedly does not wield an expeditionary military, but the concept and constitution of the military it has built renders it effectively unbeatable in its own neighborhood.

A little over a year has now passed since I published an essay entitled The United States Could Not Win and Will Not Fight a War Against Russia. I have recently revisited it. I felt no impulse to change a thing. Indeed, I am struck by how much it is more apropos now than it was a year ago. I believe it constitutes an essential element of understanding in relation to the geopolitical realities at work in our world circa 2023.

Since I wrote the article, there have been many twists and turns in the path of the continuing quasi-proxy war in Ukraine between the rapidly descendant American Empire and an increasingly resurgent Russia. But in early July 2022, it had, in my estimation, become undeniably evident that Russia had effectively wrecked the formidable original proxy army the empire had built, trained, and partially equipped on the foundation of Ukrainian flesh and blood, and a substantial collection of legacy Soviet implements of war.

Sure, there were still scattered potent remnants, but it had been degraded at least 60% by that point in time. Despite a few own-goals along the way, the Russians accomplished this using a force less than half the size of the one the Ukrainians arrayed against them, while inflicting severe equipment losses and at least a 7 to 1 casualty ratio.

So NATO was forced to up the ante. Aspiring to address the obvious Russian advantage in firepower, they shipped several batteries of M-777 155 mm howitzers to Ukraine, followed soon by a few dozen M-142 HIMARS rocket launchers.

Both weapon systems enjoyed a smattering of early successes that were ecstatically trumpeted by western media and their devout disciples around the world.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Ukrainian young men were being trained in NATO bases dotting Europe and the western hemisphere. They were instructed in the use of NATO equipment, and to fight the Russians according to NATO battlefield doctrine.

By mid-summer, a significant portion of this second iteration of the Ukrainian army had arrived back in Ukraine, along with hundreds of NATO infantry vehicles, mountains of ammunition – and perhaps most significantly – a substantial contingent of NATO-affiliated “volunteers” from many countries within the western alliance, notably Poland.

I am convinced this escalatory step convinced the Russians they must immediately begin to more fully prepare themselves for the prospect that NATO would directly intervene in the war.

First they gave priority to learning how best to track down and destroy the limited-mobility M-777 howitzers. And rather than obsess unduly on targeting the elusive HIMARS launcher vehicles, the Russians instead focused on electronically jamming / spoofing the GPS sensors or otherwise shooting down the rockets with their short- and medium-range air defense systems.

(Their success in this respect has been nothing short of a revolution in military affairs. It is unprecedented in the age of aerial warfare. Yes, some missiles still get through, but not many, and typically only in the absence or on the outskirts of Russian ECM and air defense coverage areas.)

The Russians had, throughout early- to mid-2022, made significant offensive advances into the Novorossiya regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Lugansk, and Kharkov. But as the summer waned, they began to perceptibly consolidate the entire line of contact. They then quickly brought to pass popular referenda in all but the Kharkov region – thereby formally assimilating the other four into the Russian Federation.

In mid-August 2022, the AFU began to advance against Russian forces on the western borders of the Dnieper River near Kherson. The Russians savaged the initial attacks, but then assumed a tactical-retreat posture. This continued for many weeks as they methodically contracted their lines into a bridgehead on the western part of Kherson city proper, all the while exacting severe losses on the attacking forces.

They would eventually effect an almost-flawless evacuation of twenty thousand troops and virtually all their heavy equipment to the eastern bank of the river, blow up the Antonovsky bridge, and then proceed to savage the AFU troops on the other side with artillery and airstrikes that continue to this day.

As September rolled around, the Ukrainians (with significant numbers of NATO-affiliated “volunteers” in the vanguard) moved with an even more potent force in the Kharkov region, aiming for the strategic cities of Kupyansk, Izyum, and Kremmenaya.

Again, amid much triumphalism in the western punditsphere, as well as bitter recrimination and hyperbolic dooming from the Russian 6th column and its acolytes, the Russian high command effected what I observed to be an orderly, well-executed fighting retreat to the other side of the Oskol river, where they had prepared fortified lines and installed substantial reinforcements.

At that point, the Ukrainian offensive in the Kharkov region reached its high-water mark, and as autumn turned to winter and then to spring, every attempt to advance further was met with a decisive repulse.

Though consistently ignored by those who laud the “lightning advances” of the late-season AFU “counter-offensive” in Kharkov, the attacking Ukrainian forces were horrifically mauled between the first week of September and mid-October – and ever since.

As the Russians contracted their lines to much more defensible positions, they concurrently mobilized and commenced intensive training of several hundred thousand reservists; ramped up armaments production to completely unforeseen levels, and settled in for the next few months to fight a punishing war of attrition against Ukraine and its NATO benefactors – even as they simultaneously prepared to face the credible possibility of direct NATO intervention.

That said, despite a mostly defensive posture throughout late 2022 and early 2023, the Russians did launch an operation against the strategic cities of Soledar and Bakhmut that few foresaw would evolve into the greatest battle on European soil since the Second World War. “Surovikin’s Meat Grinder” would eventually consume many tens of thousands of Ukraine’s best remaining troops and equipment.

In the end, the second iteration of the Ukrainian army was degraded even more comprehensively than was the first.

Ukrainian air power has long-since been rendered effectively negligible. Provided with occasional but very sparse deliveries of old Soviet aircraft from the former Warsaw Pact nations, they have continued to manage occasional stand-off missile strikes, but close air support has been nonexistent.

Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure in early 2023 served to rapidly deplete the legacy Soviet air defense systems. And all western shipments of would-be replacements have proven to be inferior to Ukraine’s old stocks of S-300 and Buk systems.

Fantastical Ukrainian and western media claims of 90%+ shoot-downs of Russian missiles notwithstanding, the Russians now routinely strike targets throughout Ukraine where and when they will.

Most debilitating of all, persistent ammunition shortages have now become acute. Original and supplemented stocks of Soviet-sized 152 mm artillery are all-but exhausted. And despite the US having coordinated the shipment of millions of NATO 155 mm artillery shells from every nook and cranny in the empire’s vast global network of bases and those of its obedient vassals, the cupboard is now bare.

What was widely (albeit fallaciously) believed to be a nearly inexhaustible supply of equipment and ammunition in the warehouses of the Pentagon and its various less-than-sovereign minions around the globe has been exposed as entirely inadequate to the demands of a real war.

It is an astonishing development in the eyes of a great many in the world.

And yet, it shouldn’t be.

In my July 2022 article, I prominently cited US Army Col. (Ret.) Alex Vershinin's all-important analysis regarding The Return of Industrial Warfare, which had appeared in RUSI a couple weeks previous. If you have not already done so, I highly recommend this short but powerful essay. His entire argument has now been confirmed by events.

Here in mid-July 2023, almost everything that eighteen months ago was only seen through a glass darkly is now undeniably apparent to all with eyes to see:

Far from being massively attrited, as any number of empire-compromised NATO rent-a-generals and politicians have ludicrously argued from the first weeks of the war, the Russians have employed an extremely impressive economy of force to achieve their objectives. To be certain, they have suffered losses in men and equipment that would be far in excess of anything western nations could abide. But the fact remains that the Russians have inflicted the most disproportionate casualty ratio of any major war in the modern era.

My sense of the matter is that the aggregated total of Russian, Donbass militia, and PMC Wagner combat deaths is probably in the neighborhood of twenty-five thousand.

On the other side of the line, Ukrainian combat deaths are now almost certainly in the range of 250k to 350k – at least 20k of that total occurring just since the first week of June.

The third iteration of the Ukrainian army, equipped predominantly with imported NATO armor, artillery, and ammunition, has been torn to shreds over the course of the previous six weeks of their last gasp offensive. The AFU very likely has been husbanding its scant remaining stock of NATO equipment and ammunition for one last “charge of the damned”, but otherwise Ukrainian offensive potential is played-out, and there will be no fourth iteration of a Ukrainian army to face the Russians on the field.

Meanwhile, upwards of four-hundred thousand uncommitted Russian reserves are champing at the bit to be turned loose. With Russian military industrial output now in high gear, these troops are better-equipped than any that have yet taken part in this conflict.

The Russian air force has received substantial numbers of new airframes from the production line. Attack helicopters roam the battlefield with near-impunity. Russian supply of strike drones, cruise missiles, and supersonic air-launched missiles appears to meet all its battlefield demands. Its so far modest deployment of hypersonic missiles has shown them to be extremely potent weapons that defy the attempts of antiquated western air defenses to interdict them.

This war is a lost cause for the empire and its hapless allies in Europe and around the world. And that, of course, is the unavoidable conclusion that has finally managed to seep into the otherwise dense skulls of the various participants at the recent NATO summit in Lithuania.

The Masters of Empire now face a no-win scenario. They must abandon their failed Ukraine gambit — and inexorably, over the next few years, yield to maximalist Russian demands regarding the roll-back of NATO to its pre-1997 borders — or else yield to the mad impulse of a futile attempt to subjugate Russia by force of arms in the form of direct US/NATO intervention into this war.

Either way, the decline of the empire will be radically accelerated; NATO will almost immediately cease to function as a credible military/political alliance; the EU will dissolve as a monetary/political "union"; the demise of the global dollar system will rapidly gain momentum.

And though many, if not most, find risible the assertion that these things could possibly come to pass in anything like the near- or medium-term (2 - 5 years), I increasingly expect they will be proven catastrophically mistaken.

#russia #nato #ukraine conflict #european union #us imperialism

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enby-denby · 5 months

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And the polls are in! Thank you so much to the 103 lovely people who have voted, liked and reblogged this for me, you've given me some interesting data to comb through, such as:

A huge majority of you want a happy ending for these character (I do to, but I should admit I chose the steak dinner accidentally.)

The Toy Story AU, which I came up with spontaneously, is nearly twice as popular as the Hotel Staff AU that I think about every day. Go figure.

All Bishops must shut the hell up (at least until the chess gang au, voted 3rd place, contextualizes him)

Y'all like the idea of new ocs, but you're not ready for any Canon characters to abstract to make way for them. I get it, I really do.

There is a mild interest in body modification themed fics, especially if there is implied Yuri.

My reminder post did not change the results significantly, if anything it solidified Steak Dinner domination. Again, totally cool with that.

And so, with the results tabulated and ties weighted based on the expected length and complexity of each fic, here is my projected release order for these projects:

Good Ending/Steak Dinner (sometime in the following week, I have already begun writing and it will be a tidy 3000 word one-shot)

Toy Story AU (Coming December 2023, and updating for as long as I can come up with chapter ideas)

Chess Gang Flashback (January 1st, 2024, with about 12 chapters total)

Hotel Staff AU (February 2024, once again this one will update indefinitely until I run out of ideas)

Pomni as a System (March 2024, I have at least four chapters planned but it will probably be way more)

Zooble Theseus' Ships Themself (April 1st, 2024, as a one shot this one should take priority)

Totes joins the circus (May 2024, this is yet another multi-chapter story with no set ending.)

Descendants story (June 2024, by then I should have a plot planned)

Bishop lecturing Pomni (July 2024, another one shot that should come out a bit after the Chess Gang fic has ended.)

Pomni as Old Guard (August 2024, another multi-chapter with only one inevitable conclusion. The only question is how many chapters I can put it off for.)

I may need advice on aspects of these stories, and thus might make more polls in the future. These, as well as links to my fics, will be posted on my Tumblr via AO3 so stay tuned my Superstars!

#tadc #tadc oc #tadc pomni #tadc kinger #tadc ragatha #tadc jax #tadc gangle #tadc zooble #tadc caine #tadc au #tadc bubble #will probably try to time Pomni's Toy Story introduction to coincide with Christmas #which means I'll hopefully have a backlog for that and chess gang by mid to late December #if I fall off this scedule assume life got in the way and that I will continue production in this order when things settle down #i also have a SpyxFamily fic I should continue #thanks again everyone!

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olberic · 4 months

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ranking books ive read in 2023:

i actually read this year!!! so im ranking books (and their series) too :-) no gifs for this one because. yknow. theyre books. also im not including manga bc ive only read one this year and its dunmeshi and it would take first place. easy as.

6. the guncle (steven rowley, 2021)

brief summary: the book is about a man who lost his partner some years back, and is now known as the “guncle” (gay uncle) to his niece and nephew, who he takes care of for a few weeks while their mother is on vacation.

i was gifted this book as a joke gift last year, as the title’s like a syllable off from an in-joke in my friend group, but i decided to give it a read anyway. its the first modern, non-fantasy, non-scifi story ive read/watched/played in YEARS. not a whole lot stuck with me, as it’s simply not my genre of story, but it was very sweet.

5. the worst journey in the world (apsley cherry-garrard, 1924)

brief summary: an account written by cherry-garrard 11 years after his return from scott’s antarctic expedition. the author was primarily involved in the months-long task of retrieving emperor penguin eggs for study, and the journey to and from this point are what he calls the worst journey in the world.

ive discovered this year that antarctica fascinates me. everything about it from its landscapes to ecology to how to survive there is incredible to me. i decided to pick up the cherry-garrard book as a first-hand account of it, and its truly worth it to learn from someone who was there back in 1911 what it was actually like (without being focused on the race to the south pole). cherry-garrard has a very interesting writing style that really helps to flesh out what the experience was like, and the sheer amount of first hand sources he took from his fellow expedition members gives it a really rounded view. like anything from back then theres a few things that aged super poorly, but as a source of information i really enjoyed it.

4. project hail mary (andy weir, 2021)

brief summary: a man wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there, but with the ship failing around him.

my dad read this book in 2 days (unheard of for him) and immediately handed me his copy. i read it in a day. the author’s writing style is very entertaining, and while it’s a bit too quippy for my tastes, the actual story and how its paced had me glued to it. great use of real-world physics in a scifi story, which is what really stood out to me.

3. the priory of the orange tree (samantha shannon, 2019)

brief summary: on one half of the world, a spy-turned-lady in waiting gets close with the queen who’s the descendant of the one who sealed away the dragons centuries ago. on the other half of the world, a young woman tries to become selected to become a dragon-rider.

i learned after reading this book that apparently its one of those booktok ones… i picked it up on a whim last year when the cover caught my attention, and decided to read it while i was on a work trip earlier this year. i really enjoyed it! there were a lot of twists and turns in the story, but none of them felt like they were there just to surprise you. the POV characters had such different views about a lot of things that it was interesting to piece together the real story despite their biases. the romance was nicely developed, and the ending of the book felt natural and satisfying. all i can really ask for in a book of this size

2. the wax and wayne series (brandon sanderson, 2011-2022)

brief summary: (spoilers for the mistborn series) this four-book series takes place over a century from the end of the mistborn series. the magic system, allomancy, exists in tandem with the industrial age. the main character is a lawman from the equivalent of the wild west who’s returned to lead his family house in the city after his uncle’s death, and has to navigate new social norms with how much he doesnt want to be here.

the magic and industrial fusion of this series is amazing. sanderson has always been meticulous about creating and maintaining the rules of his magic systems, and allomancy is incredibly well done. the whole “wild west lawman moves to the city” story isnt something i’ve ever loved, but these books do a decent job of it, and it comes across as more anti-nobility than just colonialist. the mysteries in this series are attention-grabbing, and the supporting characters get good development too (even if it takes a few books for it to pay off). im doing a character-specific shoutout to steris, who i am so very fond of despite how underrated she is in the first few books.

1. the mistborn trilogy (brandon sanderson, 2006-2008)

brief summary: the world is divided into the elite class that can use allomancy, and the skaa, an enslaved class which can not. the main character finds out she’s one of two known skaa who are considered mistborn — people who can use all allomantic powers, instead of just one. she gets dragged into a resistance cell planning to take down the leader of the [NAME], the all-powerful lord emperor, despite their low, low odds of success.

i just love brandon sanderson’s work, but man this series is incredible. its fascinating to see the main character develop along with the story. she makes mistakes and shes deeply flawed and doesnt know herself at times but the impact she has on the world and the way the world changes her in return are just so so well written. the allomancy system is so well developed, as is sanderson’s modus operandi, and it’s so thrillingly used that it feels like im practically there. incredibly immersive. the twists and the lore reveals always fit perfectly into place while still surprising me. the world of scadriel is detailed and so easily pictured despite its bleakness, and as things change in the world through the series its difficult to look away from. 10/10

#t #im not tagging these except for the one series ive seen on here #cosmere

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mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune · 4 months

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Mamtella With Cherri & Sari: Happy Holidays (2023)

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Credit for Transformers goes to Hasbro

Credit for Helluva Boss & Hazbin Hotel goes to VivziePop

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[Note: click on the drawing to make it a bit bigger to get a better look at it and to see the characters in the said drawing better. :) ]

for some reason, the ship name "Mamtella" and I'm not sure if others will end up liking and using the ship name besides me, the ship name pop into my head because of these two...

but yeah, for some reason the ship name Mamtella, makes me think of something that goes on bread and you eat...

and just so ya know, the Sari in the red dress in both her human form and the disguise form thanks to using Asmodean Crystals that are in her hair-clips.

and the one of Sari that is really close to Cherri, and both are wearing a Holiday/Christmas outfits...

well like I pointed out before, this version of Sari is 23 years old, and at some point her eyes become purple, so even in her robot mode, she will have purple optics.

I kind of want her to get involved with a Robo-Fizz which she ends up nicknaming "Rozz" which comes from the name where she can get the idea from...

Robotic Fizzarolli...when you take some of the letters, you get Rozz.

it's like the name Roz but with two "Z" instead of one but the name is still pronounced like Roz with only one "Z"...

I plan to add that in Falling For The Angel In Disguise over at Quotev (the story is on a little hiatus, I might not update it until either later or tomorrow or 2024. and I know the story isn't 100% perfect and I might not make it very long but I'm going to try my best, even if it has a bit of a Semi-Ship between Swindle and Adult-Sari which might become a full ship later on.)

to which I guess it is a spoiler that I may have said before, that I changed it so the character that was originally the main character turns out to be a faux main character and the new real main character is now the Adult Sari Sumdac.

even though I'm just posting this drawing now on December 30, 2023 and didn't post it on the day it was drawn...

but I was mostly playing on my game console while the other times letting my cat be on me and being all clingy and cute...

and even if I talked about how my cat needed surgery some weeks ago, which I think it started around almost the end of November.

but when I can, I can talk about what type of surgery that they needed.

and if they weren't taken to the vet on time or those who work the vet did anything wrong to my fluffy baby, I would still want to do the Omnigeddon...which I know isn't possible, but if it were...

I would possibly go Feral Earth Angel on Lucifer or Archangel Samael...

I wonder if there could be like a parody of Jerry Springer in cartoon form like a Fanon Crossover AU with Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss (of course wouldn't be canon to the shows)

where it has to do with who's Cain's Real Biological Dad is.

and the audience who are a mix of both hellborns and sinners all scream and chant "Perry! Perry! Perry!" if it's going to be a parody, might as well have the name be Perry....

maybe like Perry Springy or something...

and whoever the real bio-dad of Cain is, wins a slap to the face from Cain and Seth's shared descendant...and it is insensitive to assume that all Cain's descendants will be "evil"...at least being one of his along being Seth's descendant, I can see that both Cain and Abel were at fault, and Cain wasn't given the proper help before his emotional and spiritual depression reached a very dangerous breaking point...

and even if not everyone has to agree me on this, but I can't help but think Abel may have had a little bit of vainglory in him, and both brothers ain't exactly 100% innocent in the actions they have taken...

Grunkle Grandpa Cain needs ice cream, a movie and a emotional support hug stat! O_O

Abel needs to learn a bit of more Empathy and be less vainglory if it does turn out he may have been suffering from that vainglory and that might of been the reason why he couldn't see Cain was hurting and was going to break at any moment in a very dangerous breaking point.

it be interesting if in a Fanon AU, Cain goes to Charlie's Hotel to be redeemed, well him and Abel...

anyway since some "ships" aren't always romantic, and there are platonic types which you NEVER use the words "I ship it" on, because it would give the wrong idea...

for family or friendship, where they are just family or friends...

ya use "I fam it" or "I bud it" even with some characters who are friends but end up bonding like siblings even when not being biologically related, you go "I sib it" which the "sib" part is short for sibling.

ya NEVER use the words "I ship it" with those types, you only use "I ship it" for the romantic & in love type ships or like the young love types....it should be considered a unspoken rule between the shippers, to NEVER under any means, call something that isn't a ship "I ship it" when it isn't.

it be like if Fizz and Ozzie weren't the most Adorkable Sweet Potatoes, who are just too cute and being as adorkable as sweet potatoes that they are, have no idea they are technically dads...

even if it might not end up being canon or mention in the show, and I don't mind if it stays in the fanon but I'm still gonna view Fizz and Ozzie being the Dads of the Robotic Fizzarollis that they technically created together, even if Fizz was just the template...

in a Crossover Timeline (which is still in the Fanon)

picture Sari standing next to Rozz (a Robotic Fizzarolli)

and glaring up at Ozzie with Fizz on his shoulder, and she ends up saying these words while pointing at Rozz.

Sari: "you got anything to say to him...?"

Ozzie & Fizz could look confused and in silence until Sari breaks it again by yelling a them while gently hugging Rozz.

Sari: "you two didn't even think before you made YOUR kids, did you?! at least one of my Dads took responsibility! and even if Megatron NEVER found out that I'm his daughter, but he mitosis while in stasis and I could of stayed as a liquid metal human size baby protoform if my Human Father hadn't found me! even if I became half-human by accident and my protoform self was born in my Dad's secret lab on accident, and Dad-2 who I'm also calling Mom, could care less because how he would care more about being the leader of the Decepticons than being a Carrier or Sire! so don't think I'm letting you both get away with being deadbeat Dads like Megatron! you are spending time with ONE of your creations aka one of your Sons, even if I have to kick your butts from here to where the Pit is until you agree to spend time with Rozz!"

and after saying all this, Ozzie and Fizz are processing everything...

then the next thing Sari and Rozz knows, both Fizz and Ozzie end up fainting.

even if the whole idea that Ozzie and Fizz technically being Fathers to all the Robo-Fizz would be more fanon and not likely to be brought up in the show, it's okay if it just ends up being fanon.

plus if Ozzie and Fizz did adopt Oliver, that would give Oliver a lot of Big Brothers to protect him.

Ozzie, Fizz and Oliver is a "I fam it" which has Ozzie & Fizz being the Dads and Oliver being their new son.

I'm still going to fan-headcanon that Megatron has two Moms, which is his Carrier Solus Prime and Mentor Termagax.

Megatronus Prime is the Sire who didn't get custody of his son, but when he tries to bring up the idea of wanting to spend time with him, his Ex-Sparkmate Solus and Solus's current sparkmate/junxie...

would both be giving Megatronus Prime very hateful and dirty looks.

so if Solus Prime was in a TFA Timeline, she would be one of Megatron's Moms, who tends to baby him a bit more than Termagax did.

I also want to ask if it is weird to think that Mammon and Stella might be too perfect together even if it isn't canon and it is just in the fanon...?

their ship name still makes me think of food, like even if the ship name pop into my head a few days ago, the ship name still sounds like something you put on bread...

the ship name Mamtella just reminds me of food....I'm just weird like that. great, now I'm hungry, ya happy Mammon x Stella...?

your ship name made me hungry. XD

well I'm going to hurry up and post this, even though I still wish I had posted it on Christmas instead a few days later but better late than never, and well I was thinking about waiting to post this next year because of something that got me a bit mad before which I'm not gonna talk about in this post.

I will wait a few hours to post another drawing I drew on December 25, 2023...and well I'm going to go watch a movie first and eat some food, because Mamtella all of the sudden made me hungry.

I must be really weird to think the ship name "Mamtella" makes me think of it as something that goes on bread, and it being like toast.

#do not reblog without permission #mature audiences only #crossover fanart #hazbin hotel fanart #helluva boss fanart #transformers fanart #transformers animated #mammon x stella #mammon helluva boss #stella helluva boss #sari sumdac #cherri bomb hazbin hotel #happy holidays #merry christmas #december 2023

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year

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By: Neirin Gray Desai

Published: Feb 23, 2023

Black Panther communist Angela Davis - who teaches that U.S. was built by racist colonizers - faces calls to pay reparations after genealogy show reveals her white puritan ancestor arrived in America on the Mayflower

• Angela Davis, 79, learned that her ancestor came to the US on the Mayflower • The former Black Panther also discovered she had two white grandparents • She appeared on PBS's Finding Your Roots in an episode that aired on Tuesday

A famed Black Panther who's also a communist has faced calls to pay reparations after discovering her ancestors were white puritans who arrived in the US on the Mayflower.

Angela Davis, 79, was flabbergasted to discover both sides of her family were white, and that her mom's ancestors were slave owners, on PBS show Finding Your Roots.

And the stunning revelations sparked calls for the famously woke Marxist University of California professor to herself pay reparations, having previously called on whites to pony-up in the past.

Sharing a tweet about the show, conservative pundit Matt Walsh wrote: 'It gets better. She's also descended from a slave owner. On her father's side is a pilgrim. On her mother's side is a slave owner. Looks like Angela Davis owes some reparations.'

Another Twitter user called AK Kamara wrote: 'Angela Davis, the radical Marxist and former black panther, recently discovered she is also the ancestor of colonizers and slave owners. I guess she owes herself reparations. This timeline is hilarious.'

Davis became nationally known in 1970 when guns she owned were used in the holding up of a Marin County courtroom in California which left four dead, including the judge.

After the FBI issued a warrant for her arrest she went on the run and became listed as one of the department's 10 Most Wanted. After her eventual arrest she spent 16 months in jail before being found not guilty.

Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1944 during an era of segregation and violent racial division in the South.

While studying in West Germany in her youth she was drawn to far-left politics and upon returning to the US became involved with the Black Panthers and the Communist Party USA.

She appeared shocked during the TV interview that aired this week in which Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. told her of her ancestry.

'No. I can't believe this. My ancestors did not come here on the Mayflower,' she said - only to be later told that they did indeed arrive in the US aboard the famed pilgrim ship.

The Mayflower was an English boat that brought white English families, known as the Pilgrims, to the American continent to permanently establish the New England colony in 1620.

'You are descended from the 101 people who sailed on the Mayflower,' reiterated Gates Jr., who is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

The one-hour show, in which public figures learn about their ancestry, outlined how William Brewster, who traveled aboard the boat with his wife Mary Wentworth Brewster, was Davis's 10th great-grandfather.

Mary was one of only five adult women from the Mayflower to have survived the first winter after arriving in the US and one of only four such to survive until the 'first Thanksgiving' in 1621, which she was said to have helped cook.

The revelation caused many to point out the complexity of ancestry and on social media some suggested that by some logic Davis should pay black reparations.

The concept of reparations - an idea she has endorsed in the past - is that people with ancestors who were enslaved should be financially reimbursed by those whose ancestors enslaved them.

'This vividly illustrates the absurdity of reparations as a concept, among other things,' said one person on Twitter, in response to a clip of the revelation.

'Before any talk about reparations everybody needs to take the ancestry DNA test. I think a lot of people would be shocked to to discover who they were descended from,' said another.

Davis also made discoveries about her mother, Sallye Bell, who was found to be the daughter of a successful white Alabama lawyer who himself descended from a slave owner.

Bell was a school teacher and grew up in a foster home, never knowing either of her biological parents. Her mother had genetics that traced back to Africa but her father was John Austin Darden, who was also involved in politics, and was born in Rockford Coosa, Alabama, in 1879.

'He has my mother's lips,' Davis said as she was presented a photo of her grandfather. 'I can't get used to the fact this is my mother's father.'

A clipping from an old Alabama newspaper shone light on who Darden had been.

'The former publisher of the Goodwater Enterprise, who served as both a representative and a senator at various times from 1914 to 1933, had practiced law here 40 years.'

'Was he a member of the Ku Klux Klan or the white citizens council?' Davis asked. 'That's something I would also want to know. Because in those days in order to achieve that power one had to thoroughly embrace white supremacy.

'I'm both glad and I'm angry. I'm really, really angry,' she added.

As Gates went back further in time things got murkier still. Stephen Darden, her fourth great grandfather, was born in colonial Virginia around 1750.

He was a patriot who played the drums during the Revolutionary War, according to a muster roll. Afterwards he moved from Virginia to Georgia, where he owned a farm and at least six slaves.

'I always imagine my ancestors as the people who were enslaved. My mind and my heart are swirling with all of these contradictory emotions,' said Davis.

'I'm glad on the one hand we've begun to solve this mystery, we have something we didn't have before, but at the same time I think it makes me even more committed to struggling for a better world.

'This world that could give rise to such a beautiful person as my mother was not the world I want to see in the future,' she added.

Davis's father Benjamin Frank Davis grew in up in Lyndon, Alabama. His mother was Mollie Spencer butm similarly, nothing was known about his father.

Alabama Census records indicated that for at least ten years Mollie lived next door to a white man named Murphy Jones. Records stated that he sold her two acres of land for two hundred dollars and that the two were likely relatively close.

Using genetic profiles of Murphy's known living relatives, researchers found multiple matches to Angela, indicating that Jones was her grandfather.

Mollie Spencer's father was named Isom Spencer and was listed as collateral on a loan document filed by a slave owner named William K. Pauling, who owned a plantation in Marengo, Alabama.

'I assume that my ancestors lived on plantations as slaves, but of course I didn't know who they were and I didn't know who the slave owners were,' she said.

It transpired that Isom was a remarkable figure who marked the transition of her family from enslaved to free. Court records uncovered by PBS showed he even brought a complaint against the slaver over his nephews, who were being held in the plantation under 'apprenticeships'.

'I'm happy to find there's a motif of resistance there because that is what I feel I've been trying to do since I was a teenager,' said Davis, reflecting on her grandfather's struggle.

Couldn't happen to a better bigger race-baiter. It's even better than the time Henry Rogers blew up his entire schtick with one tweet. It's kind of like David Duke finding out he's the descendant of African slaves. They should do Nikole Hannah-Jones next.

It will be interesting to see how much - or, more likely, how little - integrity she has in the face of this information. Will she reconsider the fraudulent scholarship she's injected into her bogus academic domain, of which she's now on the other side? Or will she adhere to it and admit to the same inherited complicity, benefit and guilt in colonialism and slavery, not to mention the racism her ideology (and historical revisionism) claims is the founding principle and primary inheritance of the USA?

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descendantsshipweeks · 1 year

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New and FINAL list of ship weeks for 2023!

Each week will have different prompts for each day, for fanfictions, fanarts, edits, headcanons, ect.

To participate, just tag your posts with the corresponding tags!

April 23-29th - Bevie (Ben x Evie)

May 7-13th - Jonnie (Jay x Lonnie)

May 21-27th - Jarlos (Jane x Carlos)

June 4-10th - Gal (Gil x Mal)

June 11-17th - Huma (Harry x Uma)

June 23-29th - Core4 (Mal x Evie x Jay x Carlos)

July 5-11th - Benry (Ben x Harry)

July 16-22nd - Janvie (Jane x Evie)

July 26 - August 1st - Bil (Ben x Gil)

August 6-12th - Maudrey (Mal x Audrey)

August 20-26th - Eviette (Evie x Harriet)

Sep 3-9th - Jaylos (Jay x Carlos)

Sep 17-23rd - Haudrey (Audrey x Harry)

Oct 1-7th - Malvie (Mal x Evie)

Oct 10-16th - Bane (Ben x Jane)

Oct 18-24th - Sea3 (Uma x Harry x Gil)

Nov 5-11th - Chevie (Evie x Chad)

Nov 16-22nd - Carvie (Carlos x Evie)

Nov 25 - Dec 2nd - Power Team (Gil x Jane x Doug)

Dec 3-9th - Baudrey (Ben x Audrey)

If I missed any, I'm sorry! Let me know and I'll try to add it to a 2024 list! And as always, any prompt suggestions would be lovely!

Looking forward to seeing everybody's works!

#descendants ship weeks 2023 #disney descendants #descendants

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primlydialanguish · 1 year

Note

I saw that you wanted more ships for ship weeks, so I’ll put some of mine

Ben/Gil

Ben/Jane

Gil/Jane/Doug

Jane/evie

Gil/mal

Ben/gil/mal

So I'm only really able to shoehorn five of these in, when I looked at the calender, but I did what I could!

June 4-10th - Gal (Gil x Mal)

July 16-22nd - Janvie (Jane x Evie)

July 26 - August 1st - Bil (Ben x Gil)

Oct 10-16th - Bane (Ben x Jane)

Nov 25 - Dec 2nd - Power Team (Gil x Jane x Doug)

(I didn't know their shipping names either so I made some.)

If you have any prompt ideas - like things that the days could be (i.e. Day 1 is 'historical AU) I would love to hear them!

Thanks so much!

#descendants #disney descendants #descendants ship weeks 2023

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reasoningdaily · 8 months

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Listen to this article hereIt may come as no surprise to Black people in North America that the United States’ closest European ally, the United Kingdom, has been accused of widespread, systemic discrimination against people of African descent.

After wrapping up a 10-day fact-finding mission on the treatment and experiences of Black people in the UK, a United Nations committee expressed “extreme concern” in a letter to the British government last week about its failure to address “structural, institutional, and systemic racism” against people of African descent.

“We have serious concerns about impunity and the failure to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system, deaths in police custody, ‘joint enterprise’ convictions and the dehumanising nature of the stop and (strip) search,” the working group said in a statement.

UN working group on people of African descent finds continued systemic racism in UK

Established a year after the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) is composed of five independent experts appointed on the basis of equatable geographic representation.

The group sent a 19-page summary of recommendations to the British government on Friday after speaking to hundreds of citizens throughout the country during a 10-day fact-finding mission.

Among the findings, the UN body discovered many Black elderly populations were made to feel like they don’t belong, school police officers regularly intimidated Black children, and the criminal justice system’s practices disproportionately targeted Black people.

What is the Windrush scandal?

Windrush refers to the people who arrived in the UK from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean islands between 1948 and 1971. The ship they sailed on was called the MV Empire Windrush, according to the BBC.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday in London, Dominique Day, one of the five members of the UN working group, said: “I’ve never visited a country before where there is a culture of fear pervading Black communities – relating to a range of asylum, residency, policing issues. An entire community experiences constant and ongoing human rights violations as a routine and normalized part of daily life.”

It’s unclear whether Day had ever visited the United States.

British government denies systemic racism

For its part, the British government pushed back against the report’s findings.

“We strongly reject most of these findings,” a British government spokesperson said, per the Guardian.

“The report wrongly views people of African descent as a single homogeneous group and presents a superficial analysis of complex issues that fails to look at all possible causes of disparities, not just race. We are proud that the UK is an open, tolerant and welcoming country but this hard-earned global reputation is not properly reflected in this report.”

The denial of racism comes just eight years after the UK finished forcing taxpayers to pay the descendants of slave owners as a bribe for abolishing slavery nearly two centuries ago.

Meanwhile, officials said they had a “robust” discussion about the report with the UK equalities minister Kemi Badenoch.

As part of its fact-finding mission, the UN working group visited London, Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol. It spoke with senior government officials, local city council representatives, Metropolitan police and members of the Human Rights Commission.

The UN working group will present their full findings and recommendations to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2023.

#UK failing to address “systemic racism” against Black people #uk #white supremacy #white lies #UN #systemic racism #white hate

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shellyseashell · 2 years

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MASTERLIST

howdy welcome to my blog! i write stuff, usually about lesbians. here’s everything i’ve written and headcanons <3 some stuff links to ao3 btw also fic recs can be found under the tag #naia recs fics, and fancasts under #naia fancasts

Taglist: @salt-warrior @yeah-asbestos @cinderswrench @linh-song @cindersassasin @healing-winston-pratt @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @thestarryeyedsapphic @zephyr-thedragon @that-glasses-dog

THE LUNAR CHRONICLES

breath of life - ocxoc, mulan retelling, canon compliant

tlc femslash february - mainly cressder and winlet

tlc ship weeks 2021 - kaider and cresswell

look like hell - kaider one shot, canon compliant

be alright - kaider one shot, canon divergent

all that matters - wolflet one shot, canon compliant

forgotten day - kaider one shot, canon compliant

grey hoodie - kaider one shot, canon compliant

AVATARVERSE

looks like we’re soulmates - korrasami soulmate au, modern au

RENEGADES

all those years - danissa one shot, canon compliant

noby headcanons

THE HUNGER GAMES

district 4 headcanons

WILLOW (2022)

i’m a wanted man (i got blood in my hands) - boorman backstory one shot

drown out the voices in the air - tanthamoretober one shot, filling the prompts magic, cursed location, and voices in your head

DESCENDANTS

heart made of glass (my mind of stone) - how claudine joined the lost revenge

harriet hook headcanons

mal headcanons

evie grimhilde headcanons

jay bin jafar headcanons

carlos de vil headcanons

ginny gothel headcanons

ben beast headcanons

audrey rose headcanons

celia facilier headcanons

calista jane hook headcanons

freddie facilier headcanons

gil legume headcanons

harry hook headcanons

jordan of agrabah headcanons

uma triskelion headcanons

jade bint nasira headcanons

ally of wonderland headcanons

maddy mim headcanons

yzla headcanons

hadie headcanons

anthony tremaine headcanons

sammy smee headcanons

marya rasputin headcanons

hold me close (never let go) - marya heals claudine’s wounds

elaine of camelot oc introduction

clovis de chateapuers oc introduction

rainfall - for a prompt. it rains on the isle.

not your fault (but mine) - brief history on elaine

charlotte turner oc introduction

our finest gifts we bring - my 2023 holiday gift exchange fic

magnus mim oc introduction

#doesn’t this look so much nicer #naia writes #the lunar chronicles #tlc #renegades #the hunger games #willow 2022 #disney descendants

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usafphantom2 · 1 year

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F-22 fighters, with the callsign "Frank", kill Chinese balloon that flew over the U.S.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 04/02/2023 - 18:19 in Military

President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he ordered U.S. authorities to take down the alleged Chinese spy balloon and two F-22 Raptor fighters slaughtered the balloon when it was outside U.S. mainland. The moment was recorded on video.

“They successfully knocked down and I want to praise our aviators who did this,” Biden said after descending from Air Force One on his way to Camp David.

F-22 Raptor fighters knocked down the giant white balloon off the coast of Carolina after it crossed sensitive military sites throughout North America and became the latest critical point in the tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Interestingly, the F-22 Raptors of the mission used the call sign "FRANK", and it is very significant. Frank Luke Jr. was an American hunting ace in World War I, better known as "Arizona Balloon Buster". He is credited with shooting down 14 German surveillance balloons.

Frank Luke Jr, who shot down 14 German balloons in World War I.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that Biden approved the slaughter on Wednesday, saying it should be done "so that the mission could be accomplished without undue risks to American lives under the path of the balloon".

Austin said that due to the size and altitude of the balloon, which moved about 60,000 feet in the air, the military determined that knocking it down on the ground would pose an undue risk to people on the ground.

The balloon was spotted on Saturday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the coast. In preparation for the operation, the FAA Administration temporarily closed the airspace on the coast of Carolina, including the airports of Charleston and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, and Wilmington in North Carolina. The FAA redirected air traffic from the area and warned of delays due to flight restrictions.

An operation was underway in the United States' territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean to recover the wreckage of the balloon, which flew at about 60,000 feet and had the estimated size of three school buses.

President Joe Biden had told reporters early Saturday that he “would take care of it,” when asked about the balloon. The Federal Aviation Administration and the Coast Guard worked to clean the airspace and water under the balloon when it reached the ocean.

Television images showed a small explosion, followed by the balloon descending towards the water. U.S. military jets were seen flying nearby and ships were positioned in the water to set up the recovery operation.

See below the moment that the balloon was shot down by the Raptors on the coast of the states of South and North Carolina.

The authorities intended to time the operation so that they could recover as much wreckage as possible before they sank into the ocean. The Pentagon had previously estimated that any field of wreckage would be substantial.

The Coast Guard advised sailors to leave the area immediately because of U.S. military operations “that present a significant risk”.

The public disclosure of the balloon this week led to the cancellation of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing, scheduled for Sunday, for talks aimed at reducing U.S.-China tensions. On Saturday, the Chinese government sought to minimize the cancellation.

"In fact, the U.S. and China have never announced any visits, the fact that the U.S. makes such an announcement is their subject and we respect that," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday morning.

China continued to claim that the balloon was just a meteorological research "driving" that had been diverted from the course. The Pentagon rejected this immediately - as well as China's claim that it was not being used for surveillance and had only limited navigation capacity.

The balloon was seen over Montana, which houses one of the three United States nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Base.

The Pentagon also recognized reports of a second balloon flying over Latin America. “Now we evaluate that it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” said Brig. General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, in a statement.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately answer a question about the second balloon.

Blinken, who was supposed to leave from Washington to Beijing on Friday, said he told Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in a phone call that sending the balloon about the U.S. was “an irresponsible act and that the decision (of China) to take this action on the eve of my visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions we were prepared to have.”

Uncensored reactions on the Chinese internet mirrored the government's official position that the U.S. was exaggerating the situation. Some used this as a chance to mock U.S. defenses, saying they couldn't even defend themselves from a balloon, and nationalist influencers took advantage of the news to mock the U.S.

China denied any espionage allegation and said it is a civilian balloon intended for meteorological research. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that the balloon's journey was out of its control and urged the U.S. not to "turb" it based on the balloon.

Source: With information from Associated Press

Tags: Military AviationBalloonsChinaF-22 RaptorUSAF - United States Air Force / US Air Force

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.