i have made like 57 reddit throwaway accounts in my life because my only use for reddit is to login once a year to pose niche questions to a sub i assume is compromised of mostly autistic dads desperate to impart their knowledge upon anyone who will listen. when i got my first fisheries job the equipment list my boss sent me just said “knife.” i emailed back asking what kind of knife and he replied “any knife.” i got on reddit and went to some sub about fish and i said “i got a hatchery job in alaska. what knife do i need for multipurpose use. a knife that does it all.” one guy responded in ten minutes breaking down everything about knives & salmon work. gave me a better idea of my job than the interview did. then he recommended a single knife and like twenty other people replied after him “this is the correct knife. no notes.”

bought it. pretty good knife, no notes.

sorry should’ve said:

I wanted a reliable, fixed blade for under $30. I was broke. Got a Morakniv companion. Did everything I wanted for my budget. In fisheries work most people go for a serrated Victorinox, aka a “vicky.” I carried my companion & a vicky for the rare occasions I absolutely needed serration.

so maybe it wasn’t truly completely do-it-all but I mostly used by companion. I just liked it better. i still use my companion for everything from cutting campfire kindling to paring veggies. it’s my bestie ♥️🫶 i also use a morakniv eldris now

Slaves who escaped were breaking the law. Literally. Outright.

Jewish people who escaped the Nazis were breaking the law. Literally. Outright.

The law is a horrible judge of morality.

After all, the SCOTUS says that the POTUS can break the law through official actions. if the people at the top say lawbreaking is fine to do horrible things, why should it be bad for you to break the law to do good things?

An unjust law is no law at all, and all that.

Transcript:

I’m signing part of what I’m saying tonight because while we were making the movie, we all became more aware of the problems of the handicapped. Over 14 million people are deaf. They are the invisible handicapped, and can’t share this evening, so this is my way of acknowledging them.

Losing my mind at the idea of sitting on tumblr criticising Jane Fonda who has certainly done more than most of the people who would deign to take issue with her over this

Post canon Toph who doesn’t want to go back to her shitty parents so she just decides to stay in the Fire Nation and bum off Zuko’s hospitality.

Zuko’s like no, yeah, I totally get it, and just makes her one of his advisors. At first it’s just so she has a good excuse to stay but after the first meeting Toph storms out shouting about how EVERYONE was lying why would you even need to lie about what kind of tea you want??

Zuko: I mean they’re politicians…..but also who, and when, and in what way

They make a subtle Morse code system so Toph can warn him when someone is lying to him without tipping anyone off that she can sense lies.

Zuko gets a reputation for somehow being both extremely socially inept and yet somehow disgustingly perceptive?? You can’t get ANYTHING by him???

#my lord what EXACTLY is ms Beifongs role in these meetings #a nervous nobleman asks after the third time she interrupts them with stupid commentary #zuko with perfect deadpan: she’s my scribe

You CAN’T leave that in the tags

atla heritage post

“Wait, you know the Fire Lord?”

“I’ve never seen that man in my life.”

we only get snippets of what iroh was like “back when he was a different man.” we know that he joked about burning ba sing se to the ground in a goodnatured manner; that azula referred to him as “his royal tea-loving kookiness” before his change of heart; that he learned from the dragons and respected the sun warriors, but lied about it to protect them as well as his own image. we know that he was azulon’s uncontested favorite, that ozai resented him for it, that he was once a mighty general, but still a charming tea-enthusiast who kept a level head.

before the death of his son, he viewed war as a game to be won—like pai sho—rather than recognizing the brutal reality, the senseless violence and devastation war truly is. he had a reputation—as a mighty general, a fearsome firebender, the dragon of the west, next in line for the throne, a charming, affable, tea-loving ladies’ man.

we don’t see lu ten, but we can vaguely infer snippets of what he was like from the way iroh attempts to raise zuko as his surrogate son. he is endlessly supportive and yet he still makes assumptions about what zuko would want and would like, and perhaps this is based on both his own proclivities as well as those of his first son. lu ten was a soldier. he was the heroic older cousin of zuko and azula. he was raised by a loving father as a doted-on only child, destined to someday take the throne in a peaceful exchange of power and continue to promote the fire nation’s conquest, their greatness.

iroh, and by extension, lu ten, do not wholly align with the typical image of the fire nation disposition that we are shown as embodied by ozai. yes, iroh conforms perfectly to standards of fire nation masculinity. he is a powerful firebender. he is a confident chauvinist. but despite his imperialist outlook, he does not view his family as mere pawns in his game. he is so self-assured in his position that he could never be so insecure as to not love his family. he cares about his son, his nephew and niece (despite not actually being around enough to truly understand them), his father. azulon might be a powerful, intimidating figure, but he clearly cares for iroh, and iroh cheerfully conforms to his standards and expectations without breaking a sweat.

what must it have been like for the great dragon of the west to knock down your gates and raze your village to the ground with a calm yet mischievous twinkle in his eye, pouring himself a cup of ginseng tea while he oversees the abject destruction of your life, your family, your people? he laughs merrily as he summons lightning effortlessly. he is just doing his job. this is fun for him, just another game at which he excels.

ozai is heartless, power-hungry, and deeply insecure. he has something to prove, and he cares about nobody but himself. he is exceedingly easy to hate. but what about general iroh, the dragon of the west, who is completely confident in his position, who genuinely loves his family, who cultivates hobbies, who charms, who takes an interest in the arts, who approaches every conquest with a carefree cheer that chills you to the bone? what then?

 one thing you don’t see as a kid watching avatar is that iroh is, himself, growing and maturing over the course of the series. that he loved and cared for zuko in his own way at first but he also, without quite meaning to, put zuko in a position of having to parent him. iroh has never not been a beloved prince. iroh has never not had support staff. the first time iroh really lost at anything was when his son died, and it rocked him to his core, and it took him years to figure out what to do about it, and he didn’t really figure out what to do about it in time to be an effective parent to zuko until it was almost too late.

iroh was never poor. he was never despised by people who could actually deny him food, shelter, safety. zuko’s exile was something he took on as a game– a game he thought he was too clever to lose, a game he thought he could eventually turn to his advantage. season one iroh is still incredibly complacent! he was on tour, he was letting zuko grow up in a loving and supportive environment, he was getting him valuable experience in traveling the world and managing a crew instead of letting the poor kid get turned into Ozai 2 at court. he struggles a little with trying to connect to zuko past the boy’s frustration and impatience, but he’s still confident in his goals and methods.

but being poor, having to watch zuko steal to survive, having to fake like he had all the answers, while not knowing what their next move might be, and realizing for the first time they might actually die, alone, unnoticed, in abject misery, and that the fate of the world was coming down to a bunch of scared kids because iroh had fucked up? fucked up a lot? and then iroh might still continue to fuck up? i think that really scared the shit out of him. i think he really had to do some growing up in a hurry. who was he when he wasn’t a prince? when he wasn’t even a firebender? was he still a good man? was he a good uncle? could he still say that?

iroh needed to do some serious work on himself! and he does! and the kids don’t notice because he seemed so damn wise the whole time. but it’s still cool., that he grew up too.

There was a movie tie-in graphic novel called Zuko’s Story that had live action character designs but was really good which I always gotta bring up. There’s a bit here that’s relevant!

wow tumblr turned the quality of the panels super crispy so I’ll just. show the whole page.

apparently early concepts had iroh going to betray zuko eventually? so some of the growth he goes through is accidental on the creators’ parts because they were having to adjust the character for a new purpose over the course of season 2. which is neat. organic.

anyway yeah i love it.

i think iroh didn’t sack villages, though. that’s detail work, grunt stuff. i don’t think he was someone who looked that kind of blatant injustice in the face and smiled, ever. he saw it occasionally and either treated it as a discipline problem to righteously sort out, if it was Not Necessary To The War Effort, or thought ‘how unfortunate,’ and looked away.

i think he’d been sheltered from all that ugliness, at the head of his armies. for iroh, right up until he lost lu ten and realized this was what it had felt like for everyone else the whole time–the awfulness of war was an abstract.

it was something he knew about, something he may have even thought he cared about. but it wasn’t real.

^That was exactly what I was going to say. In the Fire Nation, generals really didn’t get their hands dirty, at all. I don’t think Iroh ever really saw the people he was hurting, just faceless enemy troops.

In this way, I think the best character foil for Iroh is actually Katara and Sokka (combined).

Imagine Katara and Sokka as facets of a single person. Clever, headstrong, witty and charismatic, a natural leader and a prodigious bender.

Throughout the series, Katara and Sokka have absolutely killed people. Many people. Katara is fearsome; she can cleave battleships in two with icebergs and control people’s limbs with her mind. Sokka is a brilliant tactician who can devastate a whole battalion of Fire Nation soldiers with a back-of-the-napkin plan.

The main difference between them and Iroh is that they grew up face-to-face with the horrors of war, while Iroh was sheltered from it.

Of course, Iroh was raised deep in Fire Nation propaganda and had no reason to doubt that the war was just, but he was never cruel like Ozai. So of course he learned from dragons and Sun Warriors. They weren’t his enemies who threatened the peace and stability of the great nation; they were just wise teachers along his journey. Although he did know some of his peers could be more bloodthirsty than he, and thus he kept the dragons and Sun Warriors a secret, he didn’t believe that war itself was a bloodthirsty nightmare.

(And perhaps he have doubts about the war and their methods when he was a youth, like Zuko did. But because he was cleverer and more restrained, he didn’t have a similar outburst, and he made the difficult decision to quash these doubts inside himself, and double down on the justness of the cause—until Lu Ten’s death brought these doubts back out in full force, that is.)

So yeah, Iroh trained in firebending from a tactical and dueling perspective, and he trained in fine culture as well, but these skills were not brought onto a battlefield. His role was mostly in the palace war chambers, or at the very most, a lavish commander’s tent overlooking his troops. In terms of personality, I suspect he was a very high-minded, noble person. He would not lash out after losing an Agni Kai like Zhao did, and even when violence was needed, he would not be cruel.

Back in 2013, I posted a Welcome to Night Vale fic and someone commented, “I’m autistic and I see myself a lot in the way you write Carlos. Did you intend for him to autistic?”

And I was like “I’m flattered you think so! No, he’s not intended to be autistic, but I’m glad you can see yourself in him.”

Now twelve years later I spent some time this evening trying to track down that comment to give a very belated clarification. Whoever you were stranger, hey. I only said no because I based Carlos heavily on me, and since I wasn’t autistic, Carlos wouldn’t be either. Well. I’ve learned some stuff in the intervening decade that strongly support your literary analysis.

for the non-Americans who are very confused right now:

Everyone hates The Chiefs this year because it's quarterback Patrick Mahomes is low-key MAGA and the orange pestilence is in attendance in the game. And the racist ass "chop" their fans do. and that Traves Kelce said it would be "an honor" to host the orange pestilence at the game.

and now they're fucking losing and Taylor is going to DUMP him and join Kendrick in writing an absolutely devastating breakup anthem.

and Kendrick Lamar just called Drake a pedophile at the fucking superbowl

the eagles also refused to visit the white house last time they won the superbowl in 2018. when asked how he felt about trump coming to this game, eagles qb jalen hurts said "he's welcome to do whatever he wants." philly fucking hates trump and they are kicking kc's entire ass right now.

The pestilence vs the REAL ORANGE PRESIDENT OF THE USA.

student just miserably said "articulating is hard" in the saddest voice. I know kid. I know

A Crash Course to Kendrick's Super Bowl Performance, from a Black Woman

Let's start with the first visual we get:

UNCLE SAM - most notably recognized from WWII American wartime propaganda, Uncle Sam is the personification of American patriotism and freedom. The term "uncle" is also evocative of Uncle Tom from Uncle Tom's Cabin, an abolitionist book that aided in inciting the Civil War. Uncle is also a very common term (both endearment and derogatory) towards Black men (eg. "unc"). Samuel L Jackson was fantastic.

Uncle Sam also resembles a circus ringleader, notable for my next point:

THE GREAT AMERICAN GAME - no, not Super Bowl. The GAG is us the people being pitted against each other: through late-stage capitalism, through the culture war, through class warfare, through being built of the backs of slaves. We are all players in the GAG because none of us on this site were the oligarchs seated at the inauguration.

This is also seen as Kendrick's stage was a Play Station controller. Not only did it remind of circus rings visually, but it was a game battle stage. The Great American Game is a battle royale of the commoners for the amusement of the rich whites.

Remember the foods / Them color was tin and brown / But now they 100 and blue - For this I'll just say, look what the last election said about lowering the price of eggs... and look at the prices now.

The revolution about to be televised / You picked the right time / But the wrong guy - Election 2024 once more.

THE FLAG DANCERS - yes, the dancers formed the US flag... off of the backs of Black people. Not a single white person in sight, and that's true of the cotton pickers in the fields. Plantations are part of how the US came to economic prominence after being a "backwater" colony. Remember tobacco? Cotton? Our bloodlines do.

The red and blue dancers are also notable for representing the Crips and Bloods, two infamous street gangs. The dance in Not Like Us is the Crip Walk. I recommend researching more on your own time about them, but just know they are a large part of the stereotype of Black people being "ghetto."

TOO LOUD, TOO RECKLESS, TOO GHETTO. Do you really know how to play the game? - This is exactly what Black people, especially Black men, get told all the time. It's why we change our names on resumes if they sound "too Black." It's why we codeswitch in non-Black company. This is especially rich considering how non-Black people love our culture and love to make money off of us, as the latter part of the quote points to. And it's even more profound during the Super Bowl-- the NFL is majority Black players.

STREET LIGHT A CAPELLA -- "thug" stereotype dancers to counteract the a capella connotations, with Uncle Sam then saying that Kendrick figured out "bringing other street guys around being a culture cheat code." Yes, this is a direct hit at Drake (listen to "Not Like Us") but also politically. Look up "model minority". Notably I would point to Candace Owens, or the Miami Venezuelan political group that's been in the news recently, especially as this directly led to Kendrick being surrounded by...

DANCERS IN WHITE -- it's white America. That's... that's the allegory.

NOT LIKE US TEASER -- Kendrick says "Not Like Us" is "their favorite song." -> he means white people specifically here. It comes after he's surrounded by all white dancers, the women around him who are his call and response are also in white (my opinion, they represent the industry). He's saying "Not Like Us" is the favorite of yts because it is about BLACK MEN FIGHTING. This again is reflected in the video game stage and ringleader Uncle Sam.

SZA -- instead of giving what they want, we see SZA. She's one of Drake's exes and Kendrick has always supported her.

ALL THE STARS -- This was in the first Black Panther movie, which I recommend you watch. Rest in Power Chadwick. Notably, this movie was incredibly mainstream as a major Marvel movie, and then we have Uncle Sam say...

"THAT'S WHAT AMERICA WANTS: NICE AND CALM. DON'T MESS THIS UP" -- translation: Marvel (the industry, America, etc.) wanted a safe, semi-pop song because white American likes safe pop songs, not Kendrick's usual heavy rap style about his life as a Black man! Don't mess up what you've got going mainstream for having this "Black rap feud" with Drake, who is an R&B model minority to white people because he's safe.

So what does Kendrick say?

IT'S A CULTURAL DIVIDE / IMMA GET IT ON THE FLOOR -- He was warned not to be political or apologetically Black for this Super Bowl performance, but he is using this big stage opportunity to speak out.

40 ACRES AND A MULE / THIS IS BIGGER THAN THE MUSIC -- 40 acres and a mule are what the freed slaves were promised. Instead, this land went to white sharecroppers. Research Jim Crow laws.

THEY TRIED TO RIG THE GAME / BUT YOU CAN'T FAKE INFLUENCE -- rig the election, rig the industry like with model minority Drake, rig the Great American Game with culture war to distract from active class warfare.

NOT LIKE US -- the only thing I'll mention because it made me holler is Serena Williams crip walking on Drake's metaphorical grave. She's another one of his exes.

TURN THE TV OFF -- exactly like he said! The TV is a distraction, the Super Bowl is a distraction, the mainstream news is often a distraction. Turn it off and get with your people!

In conclusion, Kendrick Lamar is a visionary and thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Oh that immediately and insufferably makes me want to write an experimental fic that uses different coding/formatting specifically to play with the problem. Oh it would be SO obnoxious

Me: So yeah, casual english has completely changed since then. Nowadays instead of 'There was a crying baby on the bus today' you would say 'Me when I'm in a being loud and annoying competition and my opponent is crying baby on bus.' And then you'd post this picture of Squidward. Oh, uh, Squidward is a guy from a cartoon-"

Reanimated Corpse of John Wilkes Booth: *Has been staring angrily at a penny for the last 15 minutes and not listened to a word I've said*

Oh, hey, everyone playing through Veilguard right now. If I share with you something helpful, do you promise not to judge me for spending waaay too much time on this? awesome.

You know how all the "Valuable Items" in Veilguard are just grouped together, even though there's some that give bonus Faction Strength points to different factions? And you have to either memorize which ones you're saving for another faction or press the "sell all" button and lose the precious precious points that another vendor might give you? And the Dragon Age Wiki isn't very comprehensive yet?

Yeah I made a spreadsheet.

It's very much in-progress because I only realized I should do this on my second playthrough, but I'm trying to document all the different items and which faction merchant you should sell to and where you can buy them and their flavor text and also the "cost per strength"

Light spoilers about which vendors are where. Tabs are broken out by which to sell to which merchant, (some are worth extra points to multiple vendors) and then there's the true "vendor trash" then the ones I'm still investigating.

Enjoy, tell your friends, let me know if there's anything glaringly wrong. 💜

Oh I’m so glad people are finding this helpful!

In response to some tag comments:

Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology

by Ellen Ullman

a while back I made a post along the lines of "every STEM major should have a required 'history of science' course that's just all about previously wrong and bad scientific theories like sperm all containing homunculi and spontaneous generation" and I got a lot of responses like "but STEM majors already have gen ed requirements!" and would not understand why I was specifically asking for a course that would teach people about why science is not infallible and does not exist in a vacuum and THIS IS EXACTLY WHY ACTUALLY

Another reason I actually liked my program at my school - we HAD that class, specifically tailored to engineering but touched on many other things as well.

It’s called an ethics class, and a GOOD one goes into the history of WHY we don’t do or suggest certain things. And stresses that (with a few exceptions, such as weapons designs) our designs specifically must NOT KILL OR INJURE PEOPLE when functioning properly.

It’s like, the basis of sound engineering.

okay but how can you NOT have a class like this? it’s so important. in my program during biotechnology tech studies we had obligatory ethics or philosophy, also ethics of science was mentioned in several other classes so i’m honestly astonished that that is not the norm.

People in this town, I swear.

"There's a man who sits oh his back porch and threatens anyone walking through the alley with a gun. He will try to get you onto his property so that he can shoot you and claim you were trespassing. Please be careful if you use (alley) to navigate downtown, and tell your kids not to use this alley to get to and from school."

Several other people in the thread:

"Wow, he has a right to own a gun."

"None of that is illegal."

"It's his property."

"Woke much?"

"I'd want to hear his side of the story."

You know, I grew up in a really conservative small town in a very conservative state and when I was a kid, this would not have flown. Someone would have gone and talked with the guy at the very least and probably have involved the police. It's wild seeing how this has shifted.

This town is making moves towards being more progressive, which I think is giving oxygen to the 'culture war.'

I think the 'both sides' people are assuming that the person posting is doing so out of an anti-gun perspective instead of a 'this dude is behaving erratically and the cops aren't responding to it, please avoid' perspective.

Someone who used to be his neighbor chimed in and said 'oh yeah, he's very argumentative and will go out of his way to have an altercation, so it doesn't surprise us that he's doing this. He knows the exact boundaries of the law and he tries to get other people to break it first so he can use tge 'stand your ground' statute.'

And there's still people like:

"Well, when I was a kid I did some awful things so maybe he has a right and good reason to protect his property."

Straight up will never understand

Please please please don't click those phishing texts