#tw massacre

[grid-daisies]

Next chapter of “Keep On Living” from the “Survivor” series is out! We’re getting back to the main plot!

Also, heads up, the rating for this one has been moved up to Mature due to some of the content in this chapter. 

[antisemitism-eu]

The Hamas soldiers did not succeed in their plans this time: After several hours of fighting, the people of Saad managed to repel the attackers.

[felucians]

watching the newest captain america which is our FIRST movie with Sam Wilson as Captain America, be titled with a very loud antisemetic dogwhistle (New World Order / like who greenlighted that?) and have a Jewish man cast as the villain.

And have a zionist Israeli superhero who in the comics doesn't see arab people and children as real people and is actively named after a massacre committed that Israel has been OFFICIALLY NAMED indirectly responsible for (Sabra / see Sabra and Shantila massacre in Lebanon, with majority Lebanese and Palestinian victims. Occurred in late 1982). This massacre happened during my parents lifetime, even if the character was kept, a name change should happen as a bare minimum.

For a movie that I had hoped would strive for leaps in representation after the groundwork of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier series did in addressing racism and setting up plotlines and plotpoints to take the next captain america series into several directions - the one this movie is going in is incredibly disappointing.

The message of criticism to Israel and it's corrupt government will be lost, along with anti-arab and antisemetic sentiments taking the forefront. This movie seems to be a cluster of anti-MENA/anti-SWANA motives, which is absolutely horrific considering yesterday was one of the dates of the year with the highest anti-MENA/anti-SWANA and islamophobic sentiments, alongside growing islamophobia in the western world with ISIS at the forefront of everyone's memories - as in the UK especially with the recent uncovering of Canadian forces grooming and smuggling young girls like Shamima Begum out of the country and into supremacist groups.

I can almost guarantee this movie will cement anti-MENA/anti-SWANA sentiments in the Western world and media, with repercussions to our diasporas. We can only hope they have the conscience to fix some of the highlighted problems receiving backlash or that they have enough Jewish and Arab people on the team that this movie won't be regurgitated propaganda.

(The only reason I'm even considering seeing the movie on my family's already paid for disney+ is because I want Anthony Mackie's first protagonist movie to be successful so he can continue to be positive representation within marvel and I don't wish for this movie to be his last as an active protagonist).

[meadowlarksabove]

Tales from Arizona 1/??

(Memories from Arizona, this one featuring a child Gabban. !!!!!!!PLEASE READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS IN THE TAGS!!!!)

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Near the Northeastern border of Arizona, miles North of the sacred Window Rock, sat a settlement no more than ten houses long. They’d been a tight knit community from the start, a circle of used-to-be raiders whose cache of caravaners and traders ran dry a long time ago. With no other choice for them but to settle down and till the soil, it only took these raiders two generations to become a simple town on the border. Chells, as they called the place, had garnered a bit of luck in those early years, having established a trade route with a village built on the ruins of old Shiprock. The trade road led them straight across the border and far into New Mexico proper. If things had been left to flourish between them, Chells might have grown to a considerable size, with families from both towns having come together by the roots. Yet Arizona had stopped being a place of new beginnings. 

It’d been a little over two decades since the Legion had sprung out of the earth and spread out like a sickness across the Southwestern states. Tribes of all names had fallen around them, but Chells had managed to stave off that kind of violence through deals and monthly offerings. Though as Flagstaff became a hub of its own accord, with great farmlands producing at tireless speeds, the usefulness of stray settlements only waned with each passing quarter. 

The people on Old Shiprock weren’t faring any better, as all other contacts were cut off by the fires of the red bull. It seemed, untouched as they were in all the strife, they too would have a turn with the Legion’s ire. Many of the settlers began to pack their belongings hoping to flee before the soldiers were sent their way. Friends and family in Old Shiprock advised them not to venture any deeper into New Mexico, yet the road northward into Utah seemed like an even bigger gamble. Before they could decide on their next course of action, however, they would have to first hand over their monthly offerings so as to not rouse suspicion from the taxmen who came to collect. Afterwards they’d have about three weeks of free movement. 

On the day they were due for inspection, strange plumes of smoke appeared over the horizon, followed by a smell they could only describe as sinister in nature. The few elderly in their midst spent the morning cloistered inside their homes, while the younger folk covered their faces with rags and gathered their shipments in the middle of town. Another few hours passed and the smoke plumes trailed closer without any sounds of horses or brahmin-led caravans. They had always known the taxmen to travel in sizable parties for their own protection, but as they looked south they saw that two other fires were lit from different directions. 

They knew, right down to the soles of their anxious feet, they had to start running and fast. The Legion hadn’t come to collect this month, but to siege the town and its people. A community of only a dozen families would’ve been no match against the bull’s smallest squadrons. Everything aside from clothes and rations were thrown over the wayside then. They even saddled the load bearing animals in the hopes of hastening their escape. But as the first handful of settlers began to move out of the bounds of their farms, they found that smoke had billowed over the surrounding hillocks, blinding them entirely. 

Masked soldiers came out of the poisonous stench in neat files, first pushing back with their weapons then firing at will. It was common for the men-folk to be killed, but they’d half expected that women and children would be spared. None of them had ever imagined this level of brutality. When would simple people, with kind hearts, ever think it possible to attack with absolute disregard for human life? How could they have imagined the brutal, but efficient apathy that pervades the Legion’s military tactics? These were hardly the actions of men, but beasts trained for the sole purpose of tearing flesh apart. Chells fell against the Legion in a single sweep, and none were saved but the smallest of their boys. 

Once they put down the fires and let the smoke clear, they began to drag the bodies towards the farms for quick disposal. There wouldn’t be any piked heads or crucifixions on that day, barely any of the men under Decanus Hortensius even knew the name of this town. This was only a blip on the war map, something of a future lookout camp on the perimeter of the state. Whoever these people were, whatever these houses meant to them, were dust kicked up on the battlefield. 

Several soldiers were tasked with stripping the houses of any and all metal that could potentially be smelted for weapons or construction material. Which meant that hinges, paneling, and all manner of fixtures were to be removed. Smaller hands were needed for this kind of work, so the child legionnaires currently active in the field were sent to squeeze through the walls once they had helped gather the dead in a pile. 

“This is what I’m looking for, okay? It looks and shines like this.” A teen, only sixteen years of age, waved a scrap of iron in front of the kids. All of them immediately huddled close to him like birds by a fistful of corn. “Does everyone understand? Hey, Gabban, you listening?” 

The small boy straightened as he was called and nodded. “Yes sir.” 

“Alright, go get to it! If you find anything, big or small, yell out and we’ll break the wall!” The children spread out in a flurry of shouts and hurried footfalls. This wasn’t their first time stripping homes down to the marrow, or their first time on the battlefield either. These ones had been hardened to violence by about two years. So as they passed the hallways full of gore and burst shrapnel, they barely ever flinched or looked away from the objective.

Gabban, a blonde, wiry looking boy of about twelve summers, went to search the second story of the easternmost house. There didn’t seem to be anything of value around the first floor, but the second story did have something of a quirk to it. The usual way to go about searching the walls would be to kick the wood in and make a hole to enter through. But all the rooms seemed to already have a sliver, a kind of opening that served as his way through. Maybe the house had never been finished and the walls were never closed to begin with. This little town, whatever its name was, looked very different to Flagstaff anyway. Perhaps they were purposely left open like a kind of storage space. 

His eyes lit up, maybe he’d find something valuable after all! That’d for sure make his decanus happy, even get him excused from his duty of feeding the dogs. They’d already mauled him once before and he knew they’d do it again if they were hungry enough! When they gnawed on his flesh it was like savoring a meal! And they wanted to eat him still, he knew. He slapped the side of his head a few times to keep him from thinking too long and too hard in that direction. If he wanted to be rid of the evil mongrels he’d have to find something good. 

The walls weren’t too narrow for his frame and he was able to walk on his side at a good pace. After a few seconds of pawing in the dark, he seemed to round a corner and continue inside the connecting wall. He kept feeling his way like that until something stopped him dead in his tracks. Gabban’s voice was caught in his throat and his breath hitched. There was someone’s face in front of him, a girl who couldn’t be two years older than himself, with an expression that mirrored his own terror. 

At first he’d thought she was a corpse, stuck, someway somehow, inside the walls. Yet she blinked as she gaped at him in horror and drew up tears with each second that passed. He quickly smashed a hand against her mouth just as the first sputters of her voice began to slip through the shock. 

The both of them remained stock still in that awkward position for what seemed like hours. Their infantry had taken no adults or teens this time, only a couple of infant boys to be made into future soldiers. If she’d been spotted beforehand she would have been killed with the rest of the young girls. That meant she must have been hiding in the wall throughout the whole attack. She was, like the others, a target waiting to be neutralized. An enemy? 

“Shh!” Gabban tightened his grip around her mouth. “Stay quiet, please stay quiet!” This wasn’t right. He should have already shouted for the others to come find the girl and dispose of her. 

“You have to stay quiet and you have to stay still. If they find you they’ll kill you.” Her eyes widened, but she knew not to cry or scream then. Every part of her was stiff like an animal under a knife. The fear in her eyes gave him a terrible sense of vertigo, he wanted to throw up everything in his body, even his stomach if he could. “You have to stay in the wall until it’s dark. No matter what happens, you have to stay here until it’s dark, okay? Do you understand what I’m saying?” 

Another lapse of eternity passed before she nodded against the force of his arm. “Don’t make a sound, just don’t make a sound.” Again, he waited until she nodded and released her from his grip. This was insane, he had to go and tell someone immediately. “I’ll come back when it’s dark. Please, just don’t make a sound.” 

If he looked into her eyes any longer he’d scream, so he turned his head and scrambled his way out of the wall as if his life depended on it. How had nobody heard her in the walls? Insane, he had to tell someone, he had to tell his superior, he had to- His legs came to a stop in front of the teen from before, now busy with scraps of metal pulled from the other houses. 

“Anything?” 

“No, nothing in that house. All wood.” 

“Damn. Well, it’s not like the wood’s going to waste either. We’ll be stripping that tomorrow, for now though, we’re setting up camp. Decanus wants us to pitch the tents in the center of’ town.” 

“Yes sir.” Gabban blinked a few times before making off for the center of the thoroughfare. Why hadn’t he said anything? He was sweating profusely and his eyes shot in every direction. There were hounds about to bite his ankles, he just knew they were there. No matter how many times he’d hit the side of his head, he couldn’t stop thinking, and he couldn’t stop thinking of running back to her. It was hard to focus on anything else and he got slapped for messing up his orders a few times. Decanus Hortensius wasn’t pleased with the slip ups and he was assigned to feeding the dogs again that night. But even that couldn’t center him. 

Night came on like a shroud over the barren town, whose empty houses stood like shadowed monoliths along the road. Gabban, for his part, picked up the buckets of guts and fat for the mongrels, and watched as mother moon, Juno’s moon, came out of the dark clouds. “She has to come out too.” His heart thudded hard against its cage. In all this time he hadn’t told another soul that she was up there in the house. This was a kind of betrayal, right? If they found out about her and that he’d lied about there not being anything in the walls he’d be killed too. Gabban hoisted both buckets forward and moved towards the mongrel cages. His arms were trembling, but he managed to dump everything just far enough into the cage to keep them away from his person. The sound of their jaws snapping and the sound of men breaking bread by the tents sent electricity through his legs. Almost as quickly as he’d turned, he bolted straight for the shadow of the houses, having fortunately gone unnoticed in the bustle of soldiers making camp. 

He ran straight east, through the door and up the steps. Gabban’s vision was reeling all the while, but he wouldn’t stop until he sped right into the room and peered through the sliver in the wall. “Are you still here?! Quickly are you here?!” It was quiet for a moment, until he heard the soft shuffling of feet beyond the corner of the wall. “Come on! Quickly! They’re all distracted and slow with food! Quickly!” 

The girl came into view and her eyes, to his relief, weren’t as filled with that visceral horror from before. She held out her hand to him and he pulled her gently out of the wall.

“Ah.” She was taller than him, he noticed, and that made him smile for some reason. “Have you ever left town before?” 

“Yeah…twice with dad he- he sells skins.” 

“So you know where to run?” 

She furrowed her brow in thought, he knew there had to be so much whirring inside her, too many thoughts to sift through to possibly remember how to even breathe. But she nodded eventually. “Yeah. I know where to run.” 

“Okay. Well, you’re gonna need this.” Gabban undid his scabbard and strapped it onto her pants. She’d tried to lean back from him the second he'd moved, but froze again as she saw him tie his knife to her hip. “Just in case there’s a gecko or something. You’ve killed animals right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Then you’ll be alright.” 

The hilt of his knife felt comfortable in her hand, it was a good fit for youths like themselves. It was actually the first weapon he had ever learned to wield. 

“How old are you?” 

Gabban looked up to meet her eyes again. “Twelve, I think. I don’t know my birthday, but I think I’m twelve now.” A lot of expressions crossed her face, though it seemed to him she’d just heard something she’d never wanted to learn. Something vile, and he was sorry for being the vile thing. He might have told her as much, but there wasn’t a lot of time left. 

“Whatever you see outside you have to remain calm. You can’t make any noise or they’ll find you. Just run.” 

“Okay.” 

“Now, follow me.” 

He took her gently by the hand and led her down the stairs. The light from the campfires twinkled through the first story windows, smothered at times by soldiers marching around the street . The blood splattered across the walls made the girl shake, of course, though he kept reminding her of what he’d said with a mere squeeze of her hand. You can’t scream, or cry, or breathe too hard, you can only run.

Gabban then opened the back door, away from the lights and into the northern expanse of the wasteland. They took a few cautious steps under the bare moonlight before they figured whoever was patrolling the perimeter had already passed this side of town. 

The further they walked towards the wilderness, the less he could hear the men and the dogs, and the less his heart pounded. Then, as if coming to a threshold, he let go of her hand. “This is as far as I can go. There won’t be any more soldiers from this point on, but you have to be careful.” 

“You’re not gonna run away?” 

It was his turn to give her a strange look. “I can’t leave. I have to see my brothers.” 

She looked at him sternly for a long moment. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of his knife as if considering a million ways to attack him, though relaxed after a minute of pure tension. 

 “I hate you. Every one of you. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you with your own knife! I swear it on my life.” 

In all this time, he’d found it hard to look her in the eyes, overwhelmed by the animal fear he saw in them. Though now, as if thoroughly steeled by her threat, he faced her without any hesitation.

“You have to be quick now.” “I’m serious.” “Be swift and be careful.” 

She looked as if she were about to say something else, but her legs betrayed her in that instance. Hours of wanting to run had finally caught up to her, and she made off to the hillocks in a whir. Just as he’d directed, she didn’t scream and she didn’t cry. She just ran. 

Gabban watched her go until he couldn’t see the blur of her silhouette anymore. Mother moon, Juno’s moon, was still high in the sky, but that wasn’t who he was thinking about then. Nor did he think about the girl when he laid shaking in the cot all throughout the night thereafter. Instead, he thought about the men around him and that he’d done such a vile thing to them. He thought of how he'd betrayed them without a moment’s hesitation to save an outsider. 

I’m a monster. I’m a monster.

[hoe-zeus]

I'm gonna give you some Patrochilles asks instead:

Had Achilles chosen a long live instead of glory, do you think he ever could have been content with his decision?

We all know Achilles wished to take Troy with just Patroclus by his side, everyone else be damned. Do you think that if the chance had presented itself, Patroclus would have agreed to it, or would his empathy have held him back?

Damn.... you pulled the golden uno reverse card and skewered me apart with these questions.... I shall try my best to answer with my honest opinion!

Had Achilles chosen a long live instead of glory, do you think he ever could have been content with his decision?

If we take into account of what Achilles had said in the Odyssey, when his ghost came to Odysseus and he complained about death being dull, I'd think either way he would have been regretful. Achilles from how I see it is, he's doomed to regret both situations cause if he didn't go, no one would remember him. It would be like death to a demigod.

so no... I don't think Achilles would have been content with his decision to remain on Scyros.

We all know Achilles wished to take Troy with just Patroclus by his side, everyone else be damned. Do you think that if the chance had presented itself, Patroclus would have agreed to it, or would his empathy have held him back?

I don't think Achilles would have been able to do it since it was just wishful thinking. The only one who ever came close to conquering Troy by oneself was Patroclus and that was because he "wore Achilles armor and in doing so, harnessed the spirit of Achilles' warriorhood". Which massively deducts points from Patroclus' own valor.

Now take this with a grain of salt but.... I don't think Patroclus had that much empathy the fandom likes to grace him with. I mean, if Apollo wasn't there and he actually managed to hop over the wall of Troy, what do you think was going to come next?

What did the Greeks do to the entire population of Troy(minus Aeneas) that was so catastrophically terrible that the queen of Troy flung herself off the cliff for?

He would have slaughtered everyone both women and children alike. It wasn't Paris keeping Helen, it was Troy keeping Helen.... She wanted to go back but didn't.

So... YES! I think Patroclus would have agreed to taking Troy with just himself and Achilles if that meant getting Achilles off his ass and everyone finally going home. Even if that means slaughtering an entire city. Do I think they would have succeeded? No.

[trans-advice]

Pulse Survivor ‘At a Loss’ Over Texas Elementary School Massacre

Pulse Survivor ‘At a Loss’ Over Texas Elementary School Massacre

A survivor of the Pulse nightclub massacre on Wednesday said he is “at a loss” over the massacre at a Texas elementary school that left 21 p

[koolkat9]

Any headcannons with the F.A.C.E family with Thanksgiving? (Please do something with food comas as well cause I get them every Thanksgiving)

I haven't celebrate Thanksgiving for awhile and I'm Canadian so we would celebrate at different times, but I'll do my best.

- They have a get together both on Canadian and American Thanksgiving

- Michelle, Australia, New Zealand (not sure about their human names), Monaco and the UK bros will occasionally join in one of the gatherings

- Arthur (and sometimes Francis) is (are) in charge of the desserts with Francis, Matthew and Alfred handling the main courses and side dishes

- If Savino comes over, he'll also help with the meal prep despite Alfred saying he's a guest and doesn't have (but deep down, Al really likes his food so he isn't full-heartly arguing)

- Alfred makes them all watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

- One of the few times they get together for personal reasons

- They play boardgames (sometimes it turns hostile and Matthew has to break them all up), videogames, eat and just enjoy each other’s company

[redvelvetwishtree]

Trigger warning for death/murder, shooting, cruelty to the elderly and whatever shit Israel does. Though Israeli supporters don't deserve any trigger warnings.

I'm assuming this was part of the Balad al-Shaykh massacre. People keep questioning why Israel's existence is criticised yeah because they did shit like this. And now they have taught everyone, including big media houses, the robotic retort of their r1gHt to LiVe or dEfEnSe or whatever. Anyone who throws bare, uncomfortable facts as them is labelled some anti-politically correct term that again they have weaponised and politicised very well.