“It very vaguely describes "unlawful* violence** by non-state actors*** for political aims****"”
“International terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations (state-sponsored).
Domestic terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.” - www.fbi.gov
I don’t know, it’s pretty clear to me, OP.
Also you casually forgot to mention that there are different types of terrorism and that terrorism is universal. It is a loaded term but only when it’s used in a certain context. (Aka, when used to stereotype any different types of people, especially Arabs and Muslims)
Otherwise, it’s just a crime. A horrible crime but a crime never the less.
The racist usage of Terrorism is just one connotation.
What Tommy and Harry meant to joke about was the denotation, aka the pure definition.
Let me make an example to help explain this. So, there’s jokes about people being whores and sluts made by people towards themselves and friends everywhere. Whores and sluts are, by the pure definition, people who sleep around and people who get paid to sleep around.
However, whores and sluts are both words used as a insult towards women specifically for anything really. Like “used goods.”
Does that mean that the terms themselves are sexist? No. It’s just one shitty connotation.
(For reference, I am a woman and a massive feminist at that.)
So, if a couple of friends called themselves Slut Duo, would it be sexist? No. It’s just a joke using the denotation.
That’s the same story with Terrorist Duo. They are purely using the definition as the punchline. They are clearly not acting like Muslims or using Muslim names as part of the punchline. They are just acting like themselves commenting terrorism. It makes sense also because they come from a faction called the Hostile Faction, which is a faction of Pirates. Pirates are some of the world’s first terrorists. (Angry privateers who have gone rouge to steal from and pillage to piss off their old employers.)
I get your concerns but the joke is harmless.
Terrorism is infamously ill-defined as a crime by national and international law in a way that has been reported many times over for the concern over human rights. There are plenty of papers on this
Here's an article discussing it in plain terms:
https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/misuse-of-anti-terror-legislation-threatens-freedom-of-expression
Here are some papers available to the public about the topic:
1. https://ejournal.fisip.unjani.ac.id/index.php/JGSS/article/view/ 1038 /3242.
2. https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLawJI/2004/22.ht ml
And here are some examples from Amnesty of anti-terror laws being applied to suppress dissent:
1. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/philippines-dangerous-antiterror-law-yet-another-setback-for-human-rights/
2. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/russia-surge-in-abuse-of-anti-terrorism-laws-to-suppress-dissent/
And here you can see a case in the UK recently where the Northern Irish government tried to withhold funding from the a Republican rap trio. Unionist politicians frequently accuse this group of glorifying terrorism: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/29/kneecap-uk-government-acted-illegally-in-withholding-funding-from-irish-rap- trio
Maybe it's just the area and circles I run in, but it's an incredibly contentious term that I almost never see separated from the racist, xenophobic, and ethnocentric ways that governments apply it to justify extreme force against minority groups and when people use it for joke value, they are always trying to be edgy or for shock-value careless of the people it affects. And I know many people who find that upsetting.
I never once implied that I thought they were "acting like Muslims or using Muslim names as part of the punchline." I do not think they are doing this at all. What I think is that they are flippantly using a term that has been and will continue to be used to suppress and attack minority groups—especially but not exclusively Arabs and Muslims—because it has never been a term that affected them.
Also yes, if Harry and Tom were calling themselves "Slut Duo" that'd be sexist. It's literally a derogatory term against women. You can't undo that just because it's commonplace to say; that doesn't magically remove the sexist origin or connotation. You are simply using the word in spite of that, for whatever worth you find using it.
You can be a feminist and use the word, but at least don't pretend you can rid yourself of its historical and derogatory context nor that there aren't women who find it upsetting or distasteful to hear casually.
Anyway I have no interest in discussing this ad nauseam with anons when we very clearly disagree. Disagree with me all you want, I will continue to find it inappropriate.
bro terrorism is not inherently racist it’s just. a crime. humanity has been doing terrorism for literally thousands of years across every culture. the romans did terrorism like all the time. yes it’s been weaponized in modern history and obviously that can’t be completely discounted but like the other anon said connecting it immediately to racist stereotypes is not the win u think it is. please get out of the 2021 ass “everything should be taken in bad faith at its worst meaning all the time” mindset and just let this kid play minecraft. he’s not racist he’s just stupid let’s just call him stupid
I'll assume you mean this in good faith, so let me clarify:
I am not trying to take things in "bad faith" and Tom and Harry aren't children. They are perfectly capable of being racist, just like every person alive, and your discomfort with my word choice rather than their actions helps no one.
They are perfectly capable of realizing their actions are harmful and stopping it. I don't hate Tom or Harry; I just want them to not use this word flippantly as it's disrespectful to the experiences of people who get called this term.
The best faith interpretation of them calling themselves terrorists is ignorance as to why that's bad to say flippantly. That does not make it less racist.
And it IS bad.
It will make the space and the server less friendly to racialized audiences. It will exclude people. It does make light of the real experiences people who get called that term have. And then people will wonder why non-white fans get pushed out of minecraft spaces.
People deserve to be able tune into a Minecraft stream and not hear a term they've been called by racists or Islamophobes being thrown around by white dudes having a laugh.
Terrorism is a heavily loaded and imprecise term with no set definition. It is not just "a crime." The concept has not always existed (even if you can retroactively apply it to the past). It is intrinsically tied to its present political usage.
It very vaguely describes "unlawful* violence** by non-state actors*** for political aims****" and is changed to suit whatever narrative the parties with most political power want it to mean. Nelson Mandela was on the terrorist watchlists until 2008. No white school shooter is ever called a terrorist by the press. These aren't magical coincidences.
———————
*the guys with the most guns in the conflict decides what laws apply
**the definition of violence can also include "disagreeing with the guys with more guns"
***if the guys with the most guns doesn't think you count as a state, you get counted in here
****the guy with the most guns decides what's political and if it's they agree with it or you look like them, it probably doesn't
Wow the guys with the most guns sure decide a lot here huh wonder why that is
bro terrorism is not inherently racist it’s just. a crime. humanity has been doing terrorism for literally thousands of years across every culture. the romans did terrorism like all the time. yes it’s been weaponized in modern history and obviously that can’t be completely discounted but like the other anon said connecting it immediately to racist stereotypes is not the win u think it is. please get out of the 2021 ass “everything should be taken in bad faith at its worst meaning all the time” mindset and just let this kid play minecraft. he’s not racist he’s just stupid let’s just call him stupid
I'll assume you mean this in good faith, so let me clarify:
I am not trying to take things in "bad faith" and Tom and Harry aren't children. They are perfectly capable of being racist, just like every person alive, and your discomfort with my word choice rather than their actions helps no one.
They are perfectly capable of realizing their actions are harmful and stopping it. I don't hate Tom or Harry; I just want them to not use this word flippantly as it's disrespectful to the experiences of people who get called this term.
The best faith interpretation of them calling themselves terrorists is ignorance as to why that's bad to say flippantly. That does not make it less racist.
And it IS bad.
It will make the space and the server less friendly to racialized audiences. It will exclude people. It does make light of the real experiences people who get called that term have. And then people will wonder why non-white fans get pushed out of minecraft spaces.
People deserve to be able tune into a Minecraft stream and not hear a term they've been called by racists or Islamophobes being thrown around by white dudes having a laugh.
please don't automatically connect any mention of terrorism to Islam when it wasn't mentioned, you aren't helping the way you think you are
I did not automatically connect it to Islam. I said them using the term was bad and racist. Terrorism as a concept has racist and xenophobic connotations—even outside of its demonstrated connection to the rise in Islamophobia post-2001—because of decades of US and European imperialist efforts to silence political dissidence and justify violence against any number of domestic groups or nations.
The casual use of it as a 'funny' 'edgy' term on TRSMP makes the server less friendly to racialized audiences and I think it's fair to criticize that. It is not a neutral term and it carries a loaded history for a lot of different people who've had it used against them and Harry and Tommy are not in that group.
Calling themselves terrorists is funny to them because as two politically-uninvolved white men they've never been pulled aside at security for their last name, or shouted it in the streets, or investigated by cops for attending a protest, or had their emotions held under impossible scrutiny lest someone decide they're 'dangerous'.
They are two white guys using a term they know is politically-loaded (to put it lightly) because they think it's edgy to say and I think that's tone-deaf and bad and gross.
There are like 50 million terms they can use to call themselves and make it clear they're there to shit-disturb and cause chaos. I just want them to use one of those.
Do you think if we act swiftly enough to criticise it we can stop Tommy and Harry from thinking "terrorist duo" is an acceptable thing to call themselves, like why is it necessary to explain why that is a bad and racist thing to do.
If Tubrat was being REALLY honest, his day with Ratcumber was the best day he can EVER remember. Ever ever. Ever ever ever.
Of course, that feels mean to Mordecai—that his best day ever could possibly be on a day when Mordecai was gone and he didn't know if when (the Angelic One says soon) he will be back—so he doesn't say it out loud. Doesn't even think it, really.
It's just, he was SO worried. Because Ratcumber was so nice and then he hurt her. He REALLY hurt her. On purpose. She screamed. She must have been so hurt and scared and lonely. And no one stopped him! Everyone saw it happen (like always) and didn't do ANYTHING. And it was really scary, like REALLY scary and he can't stop thinking about it. About hurting her. About doing what he was told. She should hate him forever like everyone else but he had to. He HAD to.
He can't be without Mordecai again. He can't be alone and face all the other rats who hate him and don't care about him and left him to die and want to forget he exists.
Because he's so awful and broken and he can't shut up about it because it hurts less to say everything wrong with him before anyone else can spot it on his face. Because it's worse if someone else says it first. Because Everyone knows, but only he should say it.
Mordecai doesn't say it. He's just there. He's always there for Tubbo and he doesn't leave. He never leaves. Until he was ABANDONED and left to DIE and Mordecai was lost. Because TUBRAT let him go. Because Tubrat failed. Because Tubrat didn't deserve to keep him.
He has to earn him back. He'll do WHATEVER the Ancient Ones Angelic Ones want. So he's not alone anymore.
And Ros knows. Ros knows. She gets it! She GETS it. She also doesn't want to be alone. She was a companion to a HUMAN. She lost them. She wants to GO BACK.
It's so scandalous he can barely imagine it. Rats don't mix with humans. Humans are SCARY. They're scary. They're so scary that is Tubrat is willing to hide in an attic with rats who hate him just to avoid them. He can't imagine how Ratcumber feels SAFE around one.
But he can imagine being alone after losing a friend. And no one caring, well knowing. No one else KNOWS Ratcumber is missing a human. Because Ratcumber doesn't tell people. She keeps her worst parts secret like Shelby keeps her worse parts secret.
Which Tubrat also can't imagine because it's like anytime he tries to keep something bad a secret it seems to burst out of him like bees escaping a hit hive.
(Unless he needed to be sneaky, like right now with the plan to hide Ros' sacrifice. Then he can be sneaky because he HAS to be. No one will notice he's up to something until it's too late. Owen and Munch and Ratman know NOTHING. Totally. Definitely. For sure.)
Of course, the other rats would PROBABLY care if Ratcumber told them she was missing her human. If they got over their fear and anger. Because Ros is good and kind and nice. The rats would understand that Ros wants her human back. They would want her to feel safe and happy (unlike him).
But Ros DOESN'T tell the other rats. Because Ros is scared. And lonely. And she doesn't want to live in a place where everyone hates her for being friends with a human.
And that's.... awful, really. How scared and lonely and desperate Ratcumber must be all the time. And it makes Tubrat's stomach twist to think about. Especially because her sadness makes him HAPPY.
Because she GETS it.
Gets him.
The Angelic One was RIGHT.
She was the PERFECT sacrifice.
Even though it hurt her. Even though it was scary. Even though it felt bad.
Because now she understands. That Tubbo's not crazy. That the Great One ANGELIC ONE can save them. That it was necessary.
And this is good for Ratcumber. Because she gets her friend back (maybe, no definitely, the Angelic One wouldn't lie).
But also it's good for TUBRAT. Because now it's almost like he has a friend.
Ratcumber talked to him! And listened to him! And built a new altar with him.
She made it better. They worked together and made a BEAUTIFUL altar that the Angelic Ones will LOVE and then he'll get back Mordecai and Ros will find her human and everything will be so GOOD.
Because Ros gets him now. She gets HIM. Tubrat. No one ever has before. She saw the very worse parts of him. Really saw them. Felt them. Was hurt because of his desperation. His need. His weakness.
And she DIDN'T leave.
She talked, listened, built with him. Even more than that she PLAYED with him.
Ros played with him.
SHE PLAYED WITH HIM.
No one plays with Tubrat. But Ros DID. She ran around (not away from him) together with him and lied to other rats about doing a play and teaching Tubrat how to talk to rats.
And It was FUN. It was FUNNY. Tubbo laughed SO much it hurt. He didn't know laughter could DO that.
And it was true. Kinda.
This was the longest time Tubrat has EVER spent with another rat in a LONG time. And it did feel like Ros was showing him how it works. And she wasn't scared off when he did something weird.
Ros played with him and he played back and nothing went wrong. No one yelled at him. No one caught them.
(Which, by the way, Ratman didn't CATCH them. He just said scary words but he knows nothing. They can fix it. They can fix it TOGETHER. Because Ros GETS it.)
And the play. The play! Owen sounded like he wanted to buy tickets. So maybe they WILL put on a play. To keep up the act. They'll HAVE to do Ratcumber's Shake-Spears thing. Even though it's probably stupid. But, it might be fun.
Maybe they could have Beky join too once she's been sacrificed. And then he'll have TWO friends. Almost friends. Kinda friends.
No, THREE friends.
Because then Mordecai would be back (right?). And Tubbo REALLY won't be alone anymore.
And, well, Ros' human still sounds scary, but maybe they would watch from a distance.
And Beky would invite El.
The point is today was a GOOD day. Ros GETS him. He ALMOST has Mordecai back. Nothing can go wrong now. And all the bad-scary-awful things that had to happen don't matter anymore.
They only have ONE more sacrifice to do, and Beky will WANT to do it. To save her wife. So it won't even be THAT bad or scary. He doesn't even have to do it. Ros will do it and he just has to WATCH.
Tubrat just has to do ONE more thing and then maybe everything will stop feeling so bad.
im so glad empanada, even after a tough day, got to have that talk and hug with richas and then bagi where em got some lovely advice about dealing with grief from richas & talked about what went wrong during the day
but i can't help but contrast this with sunny. sunny who empanada still hasn't seen. sunny whose been alone for days. sunny whose talked with almost no one. sunny who doesn't know bad is dead. sunny whose pretending tubbo isn't dead. sunny who got no goodbye. sunny who got no long talks about grief. sunny who got no explanations. sunny who no one visited today. sunny whose birthday is tomorrow. sunny who no one will wake up for first tomorrow
honestly I think it’s kinda interesting how phil’s relationships with wilbur, tallulah, chayanne & tubbo are all reflecting back into his view of sunny tbh. like he has such complex delicate interwoven dynamics with all of them and it all gets thrown onto sunny, this poor kid who he loves in theory, but in practice is a stranger to him.
like wilbur left tallulah in phil’s care and didn’t come back. even now way after he was initially supposed to, wilbur hasn’t returned (that one day aside). and phil, who had already taken on a big commitment watching tallulah, has been left permanently with two eggs in his sole care. and even though he loves tallulah and wil, and won’t want them out of his life, this is a stress for him. it’s a big undertaking for anyone, to care for two kids alone, but especially since tallulah required a lot of changes in his life.
for better or worse, in many ways phil sees chayanne as an extension of himself. they’re similar in a lot of ways, and often on the same page, and it means phil often struggles to catch up when chayanne’s emotions aren’t on the same page as him. we’ve seen this week, phil having such a hard time understanding the depth and breadth of chayanne’s grief. when he catches on, he usually does a good job empathising and talking it through, but when he doesn’t, he really doesn’t and it can be hard to watch.
the same is NOT true for tallulah. he has, through hard work and practice, learnt how to identify her emotions. he had to. she needed it. she would have been miserable otherwise. she desperately needed asked for the emotional care and birthdays and consideration that chayanne would never ask for. and he’s good at it—tracking her moods, knowing what upsets her & what she cares about in a way that doesn’t come as naturally with chayanne (or sunny or tubbo or anyone else really expect maybe wilbur). but that took A LOT of time and effort, months of work, and I do think he’s a bit wary of the idea of having to do that again, even when it comes to people he loves like chayanne (or god forbid tubbo).
now tubbo is not wil. tubbo is not phil's son. but he’s still not dissimilar to wil in phil’s mind. whatever the backstory is, phil introduces tubbo to tallulah as an old friend of him and wil’s. he makes tubbo his kids’ godfather. he calls tubbo his boy. he looks out for him. but past those first few weeks, their relationship doesn’t progress. they mean a lot to each other bc of their pasts, but they don’t put any work into upkeeping their relationship and phil in particular doesn’t reflect at all on what how that changes their dynamic. and it does change it—this is clear in purgatory, with phil having zero trust in tubbo to protect chayanne and tallulah, and after, with tubbo endlessly poking at phil’s sore spots trying to illicit a reaction he’ll never receive.
it's also clear in the way phil has no understanding of what’s going on with tubbo. if he’s struggling to grasp chay’s emotions, he’s not even touching what’s going on in tubbo’s head. tubbo’s death makes no sense to him. it’s sudden. it’s random. it’s illogical. it’s stupid. he wasn’t joking about having two lives? he still took a death bet with richas? he’s not come back? he can’t come back? he’s left phil with distraught kids for no reason with no warning. he doesn’t see the erratic suicidal behaviour, the unending depression, the desperation to be loved. he doesn’t want to see it. he doesn’t want something to be wrong with tubbo, but he also doesn’t even know how to see what’s wrong. he’s annoyed he’s having to deal with it and he desperately desperately wants to believe this is all happening for no reason.
bc at the forefront of phil’s mind is still his love for tubbo. of course, phil would drop everything to help tubbo (if he could recognize something was wrong). of course, he would care for sunny as his own. of course, he would make the same sacrifices he’s made for wil. and he assumes he’ll have to. he thought that sunny would now be under his care. that he’d have to figure out the logistics of a third egg to care for. with wilbur, phil was the only person who could ever have taken care of tallulah. the only person he trusted, the only person who knew tallulah enough. now this isn’t true for tubbo. it’s a genuinely illogical assumption for phil to make: three eggs would be a genuine burden on him; they've never spoken about it; there’s a long list of people who would tubbo expects for sunny before; and he doesn’t even know sunny well enough to name these people for her as comfort.
but still in the moment, alone with tubbo’s eggs and dealing with everything he left behind, phil can only think that the exact same thing that happened before will happen: he alone will be left to care for another scared hurt kid of someone he loves.
and here we come to sunny. a kid whose dad he loves. a kid whose dad he doesn’t understand. a kid whose dad is suddenly gone like his son is gone. a kid who would need him like his daughter needs him. a kid who his son needs to protect. a kid he cares for. a kid he can’t afford to care for, a kid he wasn’t expecting to care for, a kid he doesn’t know how to care for, a kid he would care for if he needed to, a kid he doesn’t know why he’s been left to care for. a kid who is somehow a reflection of all these people he loves but not someone he knows at all.
idk i think this tension comes out in the a lot of the comments phil makes of and to sunny. he doesn't know them well enough to distinguish them from his relationships with other people. and as long as no one challenges him on that, we'll continue to hear these misplaced comments from him, that come across so insensitively, even as he tries his best to genuinely help them and their dad.
If Tubbo really is some kind of robot or cyborg that makes the whole thing with Pierre a little more interesting.
tbh I don't know enough about Pierre's robot lore to say how it'll interact! I haven't seen much of it since that first animation reveal of ayrobot and idk much about the backstory! I usually see Pierre through other people's streams. If you know more, please share! I am very interested in comparisons of Creation, Tubbo, Pierre and Arin though!! All the robot-esque guys.
romaincrisis
gummygunk
stormborns
titsay
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
