a thin beam of light

~ was diana-maria ~ diana || 24 || bi || she/they || romania ~ sideblog: rosandguilaredead ~

[rosandguilaredead]

I’ve made a ros and guil are dead side blog because I cannot stop thinking about it

[sunsbleeding]

[what-even-is-thiss]

I feel like the power scaling of fictional villains has warped our perception of what big irl empires actually want.

There’s been maybe two guys in history who maybe seriously would’ve wanted to take over the entire world if given the chance and they straight up wouldn’t have been able to do it.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You don’t want to take over the entire world outright and be directly responsible for its administration. This is not a desirable outcome. It’s a lot of work and it’s not worth it and pretty much everyone knows this.

That’s at least partially why a lot of “empires” both ancient and modern have been empires of influence or tribute. Why would you want to take over the entire continent? Then you’d have to spread your logistics across the entire continent. It’s more efficient to just scare people into paying you.

[what-even-is-thiss]

This is why one world government scenarios are fun in fiction but stupid in terms of realism. Nobody wants to manage all that. Nobody wants to put all of those different conflicting interests in one bucket and expect them to play nice. Countries the size of China, India, the US, or Russia already have enough issues on their hands with their giant diverse populations and land masses. Do you think they want to add more to that? No. Like I said, it’s easier to just scare people into paying you (or being your ally)

[what-even-is-thiss]

A lot of people also seem to fundamentally misunderstand what the actual goals were of certain conquerors of history.

“What if Japan took over the US during WW2?”

Japan didn’t want to take over the US. They wanted to eat the Pacific Ocean. They had a very specific plan in mind and were mostly just mad at the US for cutting off their oil supply.

“What if Hitler had taken over the world?”

As crazy and evil as he was, Hitler didn’t want to take over the world. He also had a very specific plan involving what he wanted. And taking over the world would be a lot of work. Likely impossible, actually.

“What if Alexander the Great had taken over Europe?”

Alexander the Great didn’t want to take over Europe. He was aiming for Arabia next and didn’t think that the Europeans would be a fun challenge. Besides, his administration was already stretched incredibly thin.

[what-even-is-thiss]

“What if the Aztecs had taken over Europe?”

Even if they had the technology to make the trip the Aztecs wouldn’t have wanted to take over Europe. The Aztec empire was more of an empire of influence and fear than an empire of direct control. Traveling that far to collect tribute and capture people for state sacrifice wouldn’t have been worth the trip when there’s neighboring city states and tribes right there next door.

“What if the Spanish caliphate had taken over all of Europe? Or even what if the eastern Muslims had taken over China?”

Why would they want that? Why would they want to deal with the logistics of moving supplies and information across multiple mountain ranges and deal with Christian or Confucian/buddhist guerrilla fighters using their own heavily forested or rocky home terf against them? North Africa and Western Asia have a lot more flatlands and/or bodies of water connecting things and are closer to home than most of Europe or East Asia. In fact they tried to invade France but failed because of the pyrenees mountains and big forests. Then they gave up because giving up in that scenario was a smart move. 

[what-even-is-thiss]

“Napoleon wanted to take over the world”

Napoleon sold France’s last major North American territory so I think he might not have been too worried about holding onto the entire globe.

[reasonablywittyatbest]

This is also why when people come out all 'we need to demolish countries!' i roll my eyes because like, oh, ok we demolish countries now what? Oh we have to break the world into manageable administrative areas? Oh? Almost like, uh, countries?

[what-even-is-thiss]

Yeah man you’ve reinvented the city state

[depsidase]

[anarchistmemedistro]

Nestlé President: Water is not a human right, it should be privatized

Nestlé President: Water is not a human right, it should be privatized

[apoemaday]

Bees

by Norman Rowland Gale

You voluble, Velvety Vehement fellows That play on your Flying and Musical cellos, All goldenly Girdled you Serenade clover, Each artist in Bass but a Bibulous rover!

You passionate, Powdery Pastoral bandits, Who gave you your Roaming and Rollicking mandates? Come out of my Foxglove; come Out of my roses You bees with the Plushy and Plausible noses!

[kaijuno]

[vytamins]

silly silly brashies doodle based on yinsu’s latest substack post

[buzzfeedreader]

[injuries-in-dust]

[terryfphanatics]

@caitallolovesyou

[seveneightmine]

Some pictures of Flame w/ her chicks❤️

[errorschacha]

"Do it scared" is out. "Do it in a fugue so dense as to barely be penetrable by uncertainty" is in.

[swarnpert]

*right clicks on you*

[swarnpert]

*views your properties*

[classicalcanvas]

A boating party (1889) by John Singer Sargent

[writerlyn]

The idea of “but everyone knows that” needs to stop.

I saw a post about someone chiding Millennials for not knowing about JKRowlings transphobia, and asking how it is at all possible that people can exist in the world and the internet and, you know, not know.

Which I mean, I get. It is so present in so many of my online spaces that it seems astounding that someone could simply be ignorant! It feels impossible!

But let me tell you a story:

I went on a girls trip with a bunch of friends. All of us are rather incredibly liberal and all of us are incredibly online.

One girl would not stop talking about Harry Potter.

At one point, another girl asked her why she was ok with supporting it, and she had no real clue that JK Rowling was at all transphobic. She had heard that she likes to support Lesbian causes and thought “oh ok cool!” And that was it. She was AGOG with the news and rather horrified.

I must once again emphasize that she was an incredibly online person. She’s a foodie and a restaurant blogger.

Later in the trip we were picking restaurants and I suggested one I found on Google, and she gasped at me. Actually gasped, asking how I could ever be okay picking that one.

The shock must’ve been on my face, because she then told me all of the shitty things that restaurateur does. He abuses staff. Underpays them. Fires them on a whim. Is known for being one of the worst people to his employees in the entire restaurant business on this coast.

And she was so shocked I had never heard of this. Because in her mind, I was just as online as her. And in her online world, EVERYONE knew about this guy.

So I think the moral of this story is: always approach the other person with some empathy. Even online people, even people you think MUST know about how bad people are, may not have heard. It may truly be just them being on a different sphere of the internet than you.

So be gentle, be kind when letting people know they might not have heard about the cancellation of XYZ person. Don’t assume that everyone knows all the same info as you.

By all means, let them know so they can make informed decisions, but being kind will go a lot further than attacking them for some info they might not know yet.

[molluskmagus]

[natalieironside]

nopilled notcore ain'tmaxxing won'tcel

[cryptotheism]

[jennplanet]

[vibraph0ny]

Everyone's all "ohhh 2026 bring back physical media" until I start talking illuminated manuscripts and then suddenly we're not on the same page anymore

[somewhere-south-of-neutral]

Actually we are on the same page. We've been on the same page for a week because these things take forever to make

[marinella-ela]

[vytamins]

masterpost of (most of) my fnatic valorant fanart from this season