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@SThaveto Though thinking about it Eternity Larva being some random attempt by the Lunarians to influence 600s Japan is funny.

@SThaveto I forgot to mention the Makai is also a place which exists, whatever that is supposed to mean (could just be a PC-98 reference but that'd be a bit boring)

I really should read more on the matter, but Larva as outright being Tokoyo no Kami has never sat well with me. It's always struck me more as any relation being that of an unaware avatar at most due to the ties of what they represent, going with the themes of syncretism in HSiFS.

@SThaveto Tenshi's heaven has Chinese characteristics and is not the Moon. We already have 2 'purelands' in touhou with the Moon and Netherworld so we could easily be dealing with another competing one, multiple competing 'heavens' fits in with some Buddhist stuff as well.

@Coolingtower50 I'd hazard any aspects of Toyoko would be assimilated in the Moon far as Touhou is concerned if it ever is to be referenced more, given how much it draws from Chinese aesthetics and assigned myth. This keeping in mind that Toyoko can easily be read as a mythologized mainland.

@nabulionee2 When the alternative is Russian and German occupation and attempted destruction of their culture this can easily look pretty good.

I've never understood the Polish love for Napoleon. He used them as cannon fodder in his wars across Europe and the Duchy of Warsaw was a glorified French Colony.

@SThaveto Though I guess this asks the question of what Tokoyo would even be in Touhou relative to the other afterlives and 'heavenly places' like the netherworld, the Hells, the Moon ect.

@SThaveto its probably there as a reference to the narrative of the Tokoyo caterpillar cult being dealt with by Hata no Kawakatsu and their connection to Matarajin, with how maligned said Tokoyo cult was its hard to tell whether in Touhou it has any meaningful link to Tokoyo

@notragedit @Enter_Foxchad @vodkalover52 no problem, I can see why you read it that way

@Coolingtower50 @Enter_Foxchad @vodkalover52 Sorry for being confrontational, I was in a long tiring day yesterday and seeing I may have misread your post.

It bothers me a little how everyone treat Haru Urara as this super wholesome inspirational story and nothing else when that horse was like, SUPER abused

@notragedit @Enter_Foxchad @vodkalover52 I only brought up horses what regardless of the reason did not have a great time. Though looking at a lot of Wada related horses there seems to be tons of dispute over what happened (like whether or not what Sirius' jockey wrote was true) and its hard to get a clear picture.

@notragedit @Enter_Foxchad @vodkalover52 I was comparing how much the horses 'enjoyed' their racing career compared to Haru. And how some people assume that the fact Haru raced a lot meant it was harsh while not factoring the lack of training or dirt racetrack ect.

@Enter_Foxchad @vodkalover52 its a funny 'what if' to think if she was trained well with her father being a good miler, but compared to horses like Material, Dantsu flame (if those rumours are true) ect. Haru Urara asides from the 'disappearance years' probably had it better then the many other horses.

@Coolingtower50 @vodkalover52 Yup, she was also unsuitable for other "jobs" due to that lack of facilities and her stature. Racing was her only out since who the hell would buy a throughbred with no training past its first year

@Enter_Foxchad @vodkalover52 that being said until the whole fiasco of her being kidnapped and abandoned on some ranch she was was taken care of fairly well and her trainer was someone who cared about her well being.

@Enter_Foxchad @vodkalover52 compared to other races horses she barely was trained to compensate for her frequent races. She was kinda trained wrong on purpose so that Kochi had horses to fill the gates and for her health. Smaller racetracks often have these 'journeyman horses' so there is a race to watch.

@David_Jamieson7 NI has been a hotbed of militant groups for a longtime, inter communal violence there has been ignored for a longtime because it was easy to and local politicians on both sides are in bed with these kinds of people.

Summer pogroms are becoming a tradition in the UK, and are clearly planned. Reports from Belfast say the homes of known non-whites were systematically visited and attacked - which suggests information was gathered in advance. This is not just spontaneous anger.

@Punished_4AGE At least its making EoSD easy to attain legally and run on modern hardware it has that merit.

I have zero respect for ZUN because he decided to do a full remake slop and offshore it to someone else. Too bad 90% of touhou fans will eat it up

@AyoCaesar just like George Floyd was more an expression of accumulated grievances rather than the case itself, this is what these recent cases are expressions off. NI has been a hotspot of collective punishment long before these cases.

Crime is now being viewed through an entirely racialised lens – but only when the perpetrators aren't white. When Chas Corrigan stabbed a Saudi student to death, or Paul Doyle mowed down Liverpool fans, white people didn't have to fear being a target of collective retaliation.

@gerrylynch To effectively counter racism and communalism we need the re-establishment of some kind on universalist idea, we kinda have this problem with the Novak case, you can't counter racists while having your own preferentialist or essentialist views of race/culture/identity yourself

@gerrylynch It is not very encouraging to hear politicians call for calm when most of the politicians in NI benefit and encourage sectarianism of their own for decades. I have no trust in any major politician in NI to solve these problems and the central government is blaming social media.

The North Belfast attack happened in a Republican area, about 400 metres from an interface with a Loyalist area. Last year, when Catholics/Nationalists moved into newly built houses on former waste ground at that interface, Loyalists attacked their homes with masonry (see QT). Two factors have long defined demographics in North Belfast: Protestant/Loyalist decline and the paranoia this engenders, and acute housing shortage and overcrowding among Catholics/Nationalists. North Belfast, a checkerboard of single-identity and a few mixed neighbourhoods, had the Troubles' highest body count, and the most dangerous spot of all, the corner of the Antrim Road and the New Lodge Road is even closer to Kinnaird Avenue than the interface. Sectarian boundaries were fixed in the early 1970s, and while people from both communities were intimidated from areas where they were in the local minority, Catholics were the bigger losers. Over the decades since, the mixed areas, generally the better off ones, have gradually became predominantly Catholic. But only one area understood as Loyalist from the early 1970s has ever shifted to being Republican, Torrens, in a second extensive round of mutual intimidation in the late 1990s which also saw settled local minorities from both sides of the community intimidated from areas around the Whitewell and Shore Roads. Catholics/Nationalists are still routinely intimidated out of Loyalist areas if the shortage of housing in Republican areas drives them to take the risk. It is into this site of chronic long-term sectarian territorial conflict that the level of immigration has increased, very obviously and very rapidly, since about the mid-2010s, but especially since the pandemic. Some of this has been into streets that have been sites of territorial conflict since the 1800s (for obvious reasons, rents are often a little lower there). Locals unable to secure housing locally are moving out of Belfast altogether. Similar things are seen all over Western Europe. But this isn't all over Western Europe - this is Ground Zero for what was its worst outbreak of violence in the last 80 years. It didn't take you to be a political genius to see several ways in which this situation could explode, but it take you to be able to speak honestly about those scenarios. That is impossible on the liberal-left and in officialdom, as Officialese has no vocabulary to describe localised ethnic conflict in any terms other than the idea that if beastly White bigots weren't so beastly, then everything would be alright. Nationalist, Alliance, and Green politicians who can discuss conflict between Republicans and Loyalists in frank and adult terms in both public and private suddenly retreat behind slogans once anyone from outside NI is involved. What happens next? I have no idea. As this happened in a Republican area, there is some prospect that it won't get out of hand. These are places where people are acutely aware that the hard right figures expressing concern this morning don't give a tinker's damn on the many occasions when the people attacking them are British Whites. But I would also stop assuming that social media is more important in forming people's opinions than what they can see happening in their own district, and I wouldn't underestimate the shock this will engender. If this had happened in a Loyalist area the racist pogrom would already be starting this morning, and if more incidents like this occur in Republican areas, I wouldn't assume that attitudes to migrants couldn't sour rapidly. I tweeted on 11 May that Belfast could be a right little powder-keg. And so it became 28 days later.