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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 16h

that makes complete sense tbh and sucks shit. mysore is cool as hell and it wasn't even just him, the royal family had been multi-generationally invested in weird cutting edge gunpowder tech

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 16h

several minor technical innovations functionally allowed for the use of bamboo lower stages in multi-stage explosive or terror weapons, remarkably effective as mobile artillery. it's primitive by modern standards but the next major innovation in the field would be liquid fuel 100+ years later

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 16h

Tipu Sultan was dramatically outnumbered and probably not all that interested in whatever the hell Napoleon was supposed to represent, but Mysore had a whole market dedicated to rockets & the "rockets red glare" in the US national anthem was basically the same models looted/recreated by the brits

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 16h

imo the final boss of "weird historical vicissitudes that defy pop history" is that the effective end of any indigenous rule in India on any scale independent of the BEIC/Raj & the princely system was an ally of Napoleon Bonaparte whose country had fairly mature military rocketry

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

he had no idea they were going to be there so it was a real spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. surreal

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

additional weird overlap: benjamin "bugsy" siegel, kingpin of Murder Inc and effective founder of modern vegas, had to be talked out of killing Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering at a party in Italy in 1939

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 19h

you ever think about those real weird overlaps. like tennessee williams might have listened to the ramones

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

if you really wanted to be a fly on the wall for any two people having a conversation i think you could do way worse

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

patron saint of weird overlaps: samuel beckett had the only car in a remote french region and would take village kids to school because it was a long, shitty walk. one of those kids was andre the giant. he shows up in beckett's diaries & beckett shows up in his own recollections later in life

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 19h

you ever think about those real weird overlaps. like tennessee williams might have listened to the ramones

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

we've gotten very adroit at treating fictional narratives as if they happen independently of the people spinning them, as if they emerge from thin air, while treating historical events as more or less vibes-based. this mentality normally consigns you to a world governed by zines

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

"why did [movement, politician, proposal] fail or succeed" is an answerable question. sometimes a definitive answer is impossible, sometimes it's impossible to even reach consensus. but answers can be reached. the answers to why shit happens on the west wing is the writers' room

axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

nearly everyone in the democratic mainstream got into politics from The West Wing rather than from living, breathing politicians, which is quietly a sign of rot in a democratic system more profound than anything on the other side of the aisle

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Reposted by axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️

Tony @shintonty.bsky.social · 1d

this post really lives in my head

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

if i met someone who told me one of their formative memories was watching the 2004 debates and looking up to John Kerry I'd want to figure out a way to drown them in a culvert before they accrued any power

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

nearly everyone in the democratic mainstream got into politics from The West Wing rather than from living, breathing politicians, which is quietly a sign of rot in a democratic system more profound than anything on the other side of the aisle

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

i don't agree with mamdani 100%, i'm unlikely to get to vote for him for office; i don't doubt the people idolizing him are bound for disappointment of some sort. but there's a transformative power to standing for literally anything. no amount of hanging out with marshmallo makes up for lacking that

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

mamdani's selling a set of politics & policies that he at least firmly believes he can get people on board with if he gets them in the door. if his campaign's been some kind of obtuse rugpull it's an extremely solid one. that's the reason newsom on fortnite and podcasts etc just rings so hollow

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

mamdani is 33 years old, he's exactly old enough that most of the people he sees on newsstand tabloids are strangers to him. he has the same disadvantages i'd have in getting 18-year-olds to register to vote. in their eyes he's basically a retiree by default

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

i think newsom and mamdani are genuinely the goofus and gallant of engaging young voters rn. it's not about age either bc most of the people who occupied the gallant role before mamdani were old enough to remember the vietnam war

rook lammer jemmy @rookjemmy.bsky.social · 18h

are you telling me this guy really went on fortnite to lie about transgender people????

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axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 18h

the fun thing about posting something like "object permanence is dead to me" is that no one has ever thought of that before you just now. so you should post it and rake in those sweet sweet notifications

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Reposted by axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️

axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 1d

Instant death. Of course, that's not the end of the agony. Hell awaits the cassiophagous man. In the second bolgia, they who flatter their meager aliments canelously must soak forever in piping-hot sewage, wrestling in stuporous fury with all souls fool enough to paint lilies and gild refined gold

pocket item: "what happens to your body when you eat cinnamon every day"

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Reposted by axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️

Kris Straub (كريس)📍PAX Aus @krisstraub.com · 18h

groundbreaking study determines things of yours, in fact, mine

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Reposted by axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️

axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 1d

if you have money to spare i could desperately use it; shit is stupid expensive & i'm more broke than even my kinda miserable usual. a roommate is lined up to take some of the pressure off but that's a month or two in future thing, not a right now thing

axolotl lovely ⚧️🏴‍☠️ @vaporlight.bsky.social · 2d

qr thing in case the link upstairs gets fucked for whatever reason