Mischief Managed

the west: and the evil mozlem jeehadis in yeahmen seized a poor israeli billionaire’s ship, likely for their nefarious terror plots that tHrEaTen oUr fReEdOms-

the yemeni:

jokes aside, it’s estimated that the financial losses are already immense, as israel’s imports and exports are reliant on sea shipping. the cost of rerouting their ships around yemeni territorial waters is HUGE

for those rusty with geography, i made a little map. the red circle is the bab al-mandab strait, which yemen has almost complete control over. the yellow arrows are the trade route that israel previously took. the blue is how they’re having to route their ships now:

yemen is singlehandedly forcing an economy dependent on trade to reroute their ships all the way around the entire continent of africa

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- Peeta and I grow back together -

No but YOU don't understand. Peeta, who's never been anyone's priority being Katniss’ first choice in all three books is something very important to me.

In The Hunger Games, when Peeta's name was called in the reaping, no one volunteered for him including his older brother who is not only old enough to participate but also a better wrestler than him. Even in the arena, Haymitch chose to keep Katniss alive over him. And the only person who prioritised him was Katniss herself. She chose to keep him alive when he was dying. She chose to die with him by eating the poisonous berries. She chose to go as far as defying the Capitol and President Snow to protect him.

In Catching Fire, once again, we heard his family would mourn if he died but they'll eventually move on. Other victors only keep him alive to form an alliance with Katniss. And Peeta still got captured by the Capitol in the end. But Katniss’ first priority was keeping Peeta alive. She made a pact with Haymitch to protect him. She was ready to kill Finnick or anyone on the spot if they dared to hurt him. She clawed Haymitch for not rescuing him over her. She became suicidal when he was captured.

In Mockingjay, Peeta lost his family. Then President Coin and other rebels didn't want to keep him (and other captured tributes) alive. And the only person who was visibly devastated over his capturing and hijacking was Katniss, again. And in the end, she finally chose him over Gale. And ultimately chose to be with him for the rest of her life. She gave him the family he lost and he became the family she lost.

Peeta Mellark is the type of person to follow a grieving girl to her broken home and plant a garden. But people forget Katniss is also the type to sing a lullaby to a dying girl and lay her in a bed of flowers. Despite being subjected to the cruellest games, they’re two kids who continue to be kind and choose love. Not everyone could find light and love atop a graveyard in a meadow, and that is why Katniss and Peeta have always deserved each other. 

#katniss is a victim of the sassy men apocalypse

I love that in Catching fire Katniss comes to the conclusion the other tributes are trying to keep Peeta alive because they must see how amazingly perfectly wonderful he is. When in actuality that’s just her having a crush and everyone else recognizing that if Peeta gets hurt Katniss will go fully feral and unhinged and probably try to kill everyone and then herself.

Here’s the thing for me: the prequel does not make Katniss “the chosen one” (and believe me, I had such hatred for this book when it came out for thinking it did make her this fated hero). Snow himself may perceive her as “the chosen one” because he’s self-absorbed, and that is something the prequel shines light on: why Snow is so myopic about hurting Katniss specifically, instead of being effective in crushing the rebellion. He sees the narrative as revolving around him exclusively.

In reality, however, Katniss is still just a good and brave oppressed young woman who said “enough” — what is “fated” comes from the folkloric, interconnected nature of Appalachian culture, a culture rich with music, story, and supernatural goings on, a place that stands as the antithesis of elite society. Once Lucy Gray’s music and memory were in the wind and water, they weren’t going away, no matter who picked them up.

Also, I think we sometimes forget that these books have a lot of very subtly supernatural elements: off the top of my head, we have the birds stopping singing to listen to little Katniss, the fact that OF ALL PEOPLE the boy who loves her is reaped alongside her (I mean, that’s the plot, but still, and it kind of proves my point), all the eerily prescient connections to The Hanging Tree (“midnight”), Katniss inhabiting Finnick’s mind in his last moments, kissing Peeta to break the “spell” Snow has on him, Prim’s spirit seemingly trying to stop Katniss dying after the parachute bombs go off, not to mention the parade of “ghosts” Katniss sees in her rehab. That’s not all realism. No, the reaping wasn’t rigged. No, no one planned for Katniss to lead the rebellion because she maybe possibly was related to the Covey. It’s just one of those strange things that did happen here.

A ghost girl left some songs echoing in the coal-dusted streets, and one day a little girl sang one in a Kindergarten classroom, and a little boy heard her, and Snow’s days were numbered from that moment on. That, to me, is the most fated moment of the whole series: Katniss and Peeta, and the Valley Song: a real song, an American folk song, once sung by Lucy Gray. From that point on, the chips fall where they will.

Gadis Kretek / Cigarette Girl (2023)

Dir. Kamila Andini, Ifa Isfansyah

Link

Middle East Eye, 27th of October.

I was asked why there's a zionist claim that the Palestininian identity is not legitimate. And I think it's important to understand why Palestinians as a whole are seen as a threat by Israel. To understand why it's not about Hamas.

The claim is that the Palestininian identity was made up in order to push us out. Palestinian existence is a threat to the legitimacy of Israel as a country.

I was taught in school that Palestine was empty when we got here. They used a Mark Twain quote. It was a barren land full of swamps and some nomadic people (Beduins) but as soon as we wanted to come here, the awful antisemitic Arabs sent people to settle here before we could to take up the space. I was in school in the settlements though. I was taught the most extreme version of this.

Another version of this is that Palestine was never its own thing, they're just Arabs the same as all Arabs from the surrounding countries. So they could just... scooch over and give us the space, please and thank you. In Israel no one uses the term Palestinian. If I do, people roll their eyes and dismissively go "Arab." An Arab is an Arab. It's a way to strip away their unique identity and blend them in with the rest to say they could always move to Jordan, or Syria, or Lebanon, and it's all the same to them.

It's a way to make Palestinian existence by itself into a malicious plot to deny us a homeland.

Because if Palestinians exist as a distinct group of people, we aren't the only ones with a connection to this land. And you don't create an ethnostate by sharing.

I see other forms of this mentality. Why won't all these Muslim countries take the people of Gaza as refugees? That's asking why they won't help Israel make its ethnic cleansing more neat and convenient. Yes, refugees should be taken in and given shelter. But this question shifts responsibility away from Israel. Palestinians shouldn't be forced suffer either ethnic cleansing that leaves them as refugees, or a genocide.

and let the history books name joe biden, rishi sunak, justin trudeau, emmanuel macron, ursula von der leyen and every other world leader who did not step in to prevent the genocide of palestine as cold-blooded murderers. may they face a shred of the immeasurable pain and suffering they allowed to be committed against 2.2. million innocent lives.

this is a virtual hug for Taylor Swift wherever she is