Shv2 - S (it/its)

evil little alien men

One ticket to the Met Gala costs 75k imagine how many families that could have been saved with that.

Fuck the Met Gala, eat the rich always

PLEASE WATCH AND REBLOG - DON'T JUST LIKE - THANK YOU

BISAN IS AFRAID THIS MAY BE HER LAST VIDEO. THE OCCUPATION IS PLANNING TO INVADE NASSER HOSPITAL IN KHAN YUNIS, THE LAST FUNCTIONING HOSPITAL IN THE GAZA STRIP.

SHE WANTS PEOPLE TO SHARE THIS. PLEASE, PLEASE REBLOG.

All entertainment value aside, Commander Peepers’ whole relationship with Sylvia is a major step in his character development. I say this because until the writers started to pair them up, he hadn’t seriously engaged with any character other than Lord Hater, not even in a negative way. 

A friendship with another Watchdog is out of the question; he’s effectively rejected his own species. The only episode focusing on his relationship with Wander, Season 1’s “The Prisoner,” provides some helpful insight within itself as to why it doesn’t have a sequel; unlike Hater, who regards Wander as an enemy and a threat, Peepers just can’t take the scruffy space hobo seriously. Their dynamic is nicely summed up when he takes advantage of Wander’s catlike distractibility by luring him into a cell with a laser pointer. To Peepers, Wander is a literal pest, a furry nuisance barely worthy of the time it takes to call an exterminator. Despite several episodes in which his all-important relationship with Hater is threatened by Wander’s presence, he never regards Wander himself (“a happy-go-lucky do-gooder who just wants to be your friend”) with any real anger or concern, preferring to concentrate in his singleminded way on Hater and his flaws. (The end of “The Buddies” has him angrily destroying a collection of his Lord Hater memorabilia, putting the blame squarely on Hater for what he sees as a personal betrayal; in “The Big Day” he crashes the pseudo-wedding on the Skullship but doesn’t have a word to say to Wander, instead confronting Hater about his failure to deliver on their planet-destroying plans.) And so despite the fact that the essential conflict of the show is rooted in their clashing visions for Lord Hater’s future, Wander and Peepers have barely interacted in two seasons; a promising enmity is cut off by sheer lack of interest.

He’s nearly, if not quite, as dispassionate about other rivals; he has plenty of reason to hate Emperor Awesome–who’s beaten up on him and mocked him personally in the sort of way that would make Hater blow a fuse–but in the long run he doesn’t pay him much mind unless he’s posing a possible threat, otherwise regarding him as a washup who “hasn’t been a contender in ages.” Hater always cares intensely about Awesome, whether as a bitter foe or as a potential asset to his popularity; Peepers measures him strictly in terms of his leaderboard standing at a given moment and is equally inconvenienced whether Hater attempts to embrace him (“The Cool Guy”) or wring his neck (“The Bad Neighbors”). It’s all part of a pattern which Peepers consistently exhibits: a tendency to refuse any kind of emotional contact with anyone around him, except for Hater, in whom he is entirely wrapped up. Asked if Peepers has ever privately wished for an intellectual equal on the Skullship, Dave Thomas summed it up pretty accurately: “He only has eyes for Hater. Or um.. Eye.”

So, while the moment of understanding between Sylvia and Peepers in “The Battle Royale” is important for Sylvia–changing the way she interacts with both Peepers and Hater–for Peepers it’s groundbreaking. 

It’s the first time he’s found, or admitted to, any commonality whatsoever with anyone other than Hater, with whom he mostly shares a burning need to blow stuff up. Even here, the thought process is necessarily about Hater–what he’s realizing is that he’s not the only one in the predicament of having “a fool for a friend.” The minute it sinks in for him that somebody else has her own Hater, he goes right beyond just understanding her and starts to empathize. 

The moment becomes a reference point for their interactions from thereon in: he’s easily able to take it for granted that when it comes to “your idiot and my idiot,” she’ll understand him as he does her (“Look, you know as well as I do that…this will never end”). He puts her on his mental level–something he doesn’t even do for Hater, with good reason–treating her as not only an equal but a rough equivalent for himself. By “My Fair Hatey,” he’s letting her in on an elaborate plan he’s constructed to take down Dominator, his own army being somewhat wrapped up in staging a musical number elsewhere. He frequently acknowledges the fact that their goal at a given moment is the same, taking it from the basic shared endgame of keeping their friends out of danger (“For their–and our!–own good, we have to stop them!”) all the way to eliminating the source of the danger itself (“Dominator will bother us no more”–note the us).

And this in itself would be a remarkable progression, but it goes a step further: he has fun with her.

The fact that their alliance in “My Fair Hatey” is a practical one doesn’t prevent them from spending most of their subplot having a brilliant time. Like Hater, Sylvia is a great channel for Peepers’ fundamental need to knock things senseless, yet she’s not just a strategic tool but a responsive mind: he likes having her around to clobber some bots with.

In a way, “My Fair Hatey” shows Hater and Peepers overcoming the same fundamental problem: they’re both singlemindedly obsessed with Hater. For Peepers to be out on a (tactical) joyride, enjoying the company of someone who isn’t Hater, is just as definite a break in character as Hater’s soaring declaration that someone other than himself is “the greatest in the galaxy.” 

Slight book of Bill spoilers!

Him being a pathetic ex was not on my 2024 bingo card....

been unable to take my mind off Him … commander BEEPers…

gofundme.com

Urgent: Help my family evacuate from Gaza, organized by Farah Baker

Israel abducted my dad (Dr. Basil Baker) and forced him to strip down to his und… Farah Baker needs your support for Urgent: Help my family

Help evacuate her father from Gaza

    A short reminder that Russia is imperialist, has been imperialist for a long time, and there’s no way around that fact.

Sections of the Western left have developed a narrative according to which Russia has been gradually surrounded by NATO and that supposedly “provoked” Putin. It’s increasingly difficult to sustain the notion that Russia is simply “defending itself” after 24 February 2022, but the thing is - the invasion did not come out of the blue. One needs a different narrative to understand what Russia actually is: an aggressive imperialist power alongside other imperialisms.

So, a different narrative:

- 1994: Russia, with US support, acquires Ukrainian nuclear arsenal in exchange for the assurances to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity

- 1997: Russia acquires the Sevastopol naval base and almost all of the ships (82%, to be exact)… in exchange for the assurances to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity!

- 2004: Russia meddles in Ukrainian presidential elections, fighting hard to force an undemocratic fraudulent outcome, but fails

- Mid-to-late 2000s: As punishment for Ukraine electing Yushchenko, Russia uses energy blackmail, a form of economic coercion not very different from the IMF and World Bank lending and conditionality

- 2008: NATO refuses to adopt a roadmap towards Ukraine’s membership and in effect postpones the decision indefinitely. Ukraine’s security is in no way guaranteed, while Russia has already demonstrated the propensity to use coercion to force Ukraine to do its bidding

- 2009: Dmitry Medvedev, then president, writes to Yushchenko that “Russia does not pose and cannot pose any kind of threat to Ukraine”, so seeking NATO membership is stupid. Yea, sure

- 2014: Russia, which “does not pose and cannot pose a threat to Ukraine”… annexes Crimea. Really, Dima?? I thought you were for real??

Of course, by annexing Crimea Russia not only makes all the previous statements that it “can never pose a threat to Ukraine” a ridiculous lie, but also breaks the 1994 memorandum and 1997 treaty. “We are the Kremlin. Our word is worth nothing”

- Crimea’s annexation provokes armed separatism in Donbas that Russia supports and coordinates, including direct military command and control, and then completely subordinates Donbas “authorities”, in effect occupying the region

- Ukraine’s still not in NATO, its security is still in no way guaranteed, and the supplies of US weapons only begin in 2018. They are kept to a minimum… out of fear of provoking Russia!

- Nevertheless, on 24 February 2022 Russia launches a full-scale invasion to establish 100% control over all of Ukraine in one way or another. There is literally no military development on the ground that could have provoked the invasion. On Russia’s part, it’s a war of choice in exactly the same way the invasion of Iraq was a war of choice for the US in 2003.

Now, this is only the general outline. One should add Russia’s drowning of Ukraine with spies and agents of influence, money to corrupt Ukrainian politicians and massive acquisition of Ukrainian assets to impose economic and political dependency.

These are well-known facts, but so many on the left refuse to see the story behind them. It’s a story of decades of imperialist aggression, culminating in a war that cost 150,000 lives in 2022 alone. Any discussion of left-wing internationalism should begin with recognizing the reality of what Russia is and what it did.