Mae Govannen

This is a what I feel blog first lord of the rings blog second and a goncharov hate blog third

[chandra-telescope]

hope is a skill

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

[chandra-telescope]

favourite additions

[chandra-telescope]

[tenaciouswritingdragon]

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

[wonderwyrm]

[eregyrn-falls]

It may not be apparent to everyone how to easily find out who wrote the poem in the tags, so: @mumblesplash

(an instant-classic example of a Tumblr thread where so many people add value!)

[pawnshopsouls]

So wherever you look, be it near or far,

know Hope can be found wherever you are.

[afurioushawk]

Piker dressing like Mao trying to seem like a brave bold leader is hilarious bc people seem to forget Mao also declared war on birds and promptly caused a famine bc all the birds he had killed had been keeping the locusts in check. Among other very not good things lmao

A rich Turkish American streamer LARPing as a Chinese dictator is, above all else, cringe.

[afurioushawk]

The issue of progressives being ageist could not be summarized better than in Massachusetts Markey is a long time ally to democrats, a champion of progressive causes with a storied career. He made his name by standing by others. His only flaw is his age which given his good health is a nonissue.

Moulton on the other hand made his name by attacking fellow democrats when unity was needed above all else. After the 2024 election Moulton was one of the first to throw trans people under the bus, blaming the focus on them for the loss. His ego could cost us.

Losing the Civil Rights generation to Millennials/Zoomers is going to be a net-negative on society, even tho at some point it's inevitable. But the idea that younger = progressive is where the real problem lies. I'd take an 80-year-old Civil Rights prog over a 28-year-old Gen naZi Keffiyeh Klux Klaner any day of the week.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[afurioushawk]

[afurioushawk]

[smegorl]

"It isn't christian to commit genocide"

*laughs in pretty much any religion that had had the misfortune to encounter christian love*

[zaprowsdower27]

She does realize Israel isn't Christian, right? This is like criticizing Norway by saying they're not living up to the teachings of the Buddha.

[afurioushawk]

She's targeting the Democrats who didn't vote for end all aid to Palestine.

[afurioushawk]

[mariacallous]

[afurioushawk]

Conspiracy theory: Mamdani wants to arrest Netanyahu so Bibi can get some last-minute boost right before elections because the Free Palestine movement needs the Israeli right-wing in control to have any relevancy, for the exact same reason leftists supported Trump.

[afurioushawk]

[afurioushawk]

[afurioushawk]

The white/Arab supremacist alliance is some nasty work.

[afurioushawk]

This is how I found out that the CEO of Taylor Fresh Foods is MAGA. If they'd just been the source of the outbreak, I would've just considered it bad luck. But now knowing they paid to get RFK Jr. to claim it was a "false positive", now I just gotta boycott.

[afurioushawk]

[joshuaballsett]

[babbhad]

[cipheramnesia]

[marseny]

[joasakura]

[mariacallous]

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Nolan's Odyssey & The Western View of Greek Culture

New mandatory-viewing video for the lovers of Greek myth and ancient Greek religion just dropped! If you're going to watch one video about how the West has mistreated Greek culture and people, let it be this!

It's an extremely informative and comprehensive essay by a non-Greek who knows the culture from the inside and has studied the historical trends of cultural misappropriation surrounding the West and Greek myths.

If you are not familiar with this issue, I promise you will emerge much wiser and more respectful from this viewing.

[touchiesgoddess]

so fucking stupid that shaving doesn't make the hair stop growing there. i told you to stop that

[chutzpahchesed]

Hamas Knew Gaza Would Suffer As A Result Of October 7

Sinwar anticipated catastrophic Israeli retaliation—and attacked anyway

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib—a Palestinian-American analyst who grew up in Gaza—has published a furious response to newly revealed documents attributed to Yahya Sinwar. He calls Hamas a “genocidal cult” that sacrificed Gaza’s population for an international propaganda strategy.

I understand his anger.

The document in question was seemingly handwritten by Sinwar on August 24, 2022, more than a year before the October 7 attacks. It was recovered in Gaza by the Israeli military and subsequently published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

According to the document, Sinwar envisioned sending as many as 10,000 fighters across the border. They would breach the barrier at 25 different locations, seize junctions, attack military bases and enter more than 200 Israeli communities.

Residents would be expelled or taken hostage.

This was a plan for an enormous invasion of southern Israel.

Sinwar also considered how Israel might respond.

He was apparently uncertain about whether Iran and Hezbollah would enter the war. But he was certain that Israel would retaliate with overwhelming force.

He wrote that Israel would use every weapon available to it. He contemplated the possibility that Israel might use an atomic bomb against Gaza.

Nevertheless, Sinwar described the proposed attack as a “battle of life or death” and continued planning it.

This is an extraordinary detail.

Sinwar understood that the attack would provoke an enormous war.

He knew that Gaza was a small, densely populated territory facing one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East. He knew that Hamas could not protect Gaza’s civilians from the consequences of the war it was initiating.

Indeed, in reality, they did not even try. There were no attempts by Hamas to build bomb shelters for Palestinian civilians. There were no attempts to secure Palestinian civilians alternative supplies of water, fuel, electricity in advance of the attacks, either. There was no plan to evacuate Palestinians away from the war.

Sinwar chose to attack anyway, without real preparation for the civilian toll.

(the rest of this essay is paywalled, but this section alone was worth sharing.)

Burn towns, slaughter, broadcast: 2022 Sinwar memo said to detail Hamas plan for Oct. 7

'Kill everyone you encounter': Recovered this year in an IDF raid on a tunnel used by Sinwar's brother, the document mirrors intercepted Ham

[violet-moonstone]

the amount of pearl clutching and moralizing in the iwtv/tvl fandom I'm seeing is insane

I cannot understand watching a show about violent, immortal beings who kill humans (most of whom enjoy the act) and getting upset when they say or do offensive things that make sense in the context of the show

on claudia's rant:

Claudia is trying to be as hurtful and cruel to louis as possible because she's trapped in some kind of hellish limbo, reliving all her pain and resentment in isolation without actually living. If you were in that situation would you be worried about being politically correct in your tirade against the parents who failed you?

claudia calling louis lestat's slave is in alignment both with the books and previous seasons. Both book and show claudia are disgusted by how willing louis is to follow lestat rather than stand on his own. The added racial element in the show only adds to claudia's resentment towards lestat. Considering the cultural context of seasons 1 and 2 she clearly does not like the idea of being ordered around and threatened by an arrogant white man. Louis' comparative willingness to do so infuriates her. Hence calling louis a slave -- like calling another black person uncle tom or a coon -- it's calling him out for being complicit in lestat suppressing their agency. A less racialized insult might be calling him a bootlicker, or sycophant or something like that, but clearly she wants to drive home the shame she thinks louis should feel at his lack of spine, so she calls him the most hurtful thing she can think of.

I've seen people call out black republican politicians and those who play into respectability politics by drawing parallels between them and a house slave -- a harsh reminder to them that even if they have the veneer of respectability, material comforts, and assimilation, they are ultimately cozying up to people who don't respect them as human beings

claudia calling louis' hair nappy is like...dear god in the grand scheme of things why tf are we getting mad about this? Yes, calling a black person's hair nappy is insulting. Claudia and louis have a shared cultural background and trading insults that are informed by your own experiences with cultural beauty standards and/or discrimination is pretty common. It's a shitty thing to do when it's not meant with affection, but Claudia is trying to be shitty.

So was this this offensive and even problematic? sure! but something being upsetting and having a problematic history associated with it doesn't mean your immediate response should be to condemn it entirely. Media isn't bad or irredeemable just because it makes you feel uncomfortable.

for the record -- I think it is absolutely valid to critcize the show and I have my fair share for this season. But being upset about Claudia's rant specifically just baffles me