The Command Structure Of The GAR Suffers So Badly From We Havent Had A Standing Galactic Army For 1000

the command structure of the GAR suffers so badly from “we haven’t had a standing galactic army for 1000 years, we had to invent all of this yesterday” syndrome it is so fucking funny. the jedi high council had no idea what they were doing and were like, okay, the jedi are all generals now. what general do you answer to if two generals give you conflicting orders? the general. which of the generals is in charge? the general. which of the generals is the general over all the other generals? also the general. anakin is both the general of just the 501st and also the commander of gold squadron, apparently, how does he manage to be so annoying that he’s in a position of command in two separate branches of service? i cannot emphasize enough that the idea of rex explaining that their general is locked in a dogfight with separatist ships, so they have to hold off on such things as “orders” is just a thing that does not happen to people, ever. this makes absolutely no sense but given that the republic handed a military to the local superpowered wizard monk order that coordinates battles at most in small groups, i guess that’s kind of a fair way to take it. you win this round, rave baloney

Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

imagine you are fifteen years old taking your little sister to the grocery store because your dad is busy and your grandmother is old and you need food. as you turn a corner you accidentally ram your shopping cart into God with a capital G and he promises to show you the world you’ve never seen from inside the ten square miles of your hometown in exchange for your company. you hate the risk but your demigod sister has untapped potential and an unrelenting determination to get ghost, so you follow God with a capital G through heaven and hell and back. God with a capital G is twelve and wiser than even your grandmother and treats everything like a game and he’s your brother now and suddenly you would (and have and will) kill and die for him. your first love becomes a different god and you add her name to the list of things (your childhood, your vulnerability, your parents, your safety) you don’t have the time to grieve right now (or ever) and you become a man on foreign soil and your dad isn’t there to see it. you are fifteen and God with a capital G’s best friend and your little sister– sisters, now– are the most powerful demigods on the planet and you are the only one keeping three divine tweens focused on saving the world and you are still not allowed to say fuck.

People keep searching for ways to argue that JK Rowling has always been a horrible person deep down as a way of explaining her recent behaviour.

But here’s the thing: that’s probably not true at all.

Pretending it is discounts the harsher, scarier truth: that even decent, well-meaning people can be radicalised by dangerous, hateful, predatory groups, and given enough time they can become truly hideous versions of their former selves.

It can happen to me. It can happen to you. It can happen to any of us, given the right mix of circumstances. And over the past few years, we’ve seen it happen to one of the most famous children’s authors of our age.

Nobody is immune.

seriously wondering if we can call the uk a democracy anymore. we have a prime minister that less than 0.3% of the population voted for, we have a new king that we have no say on, people are getting arrested for protesting against the monarchy under the excuse of ‘offending someone’ and we are effectively having a day of mourning forced upon us for the funeral with important hospital appointments cancelled and people even getting kicked out of holiday lettings for the day. this reads like a dystopian world where a dictator has died, not something happening now in a supposed democratic country

Hawks, Spinner, Their Heteromorphic Influence and How Society Views Mutants (featuring Quirk Exception theory)

Something I’ve realized about the heteromorphs of BNHA is that there’s a distinct difference in reaction to our very own Heteromorph Representation - that being Hawks and Spinner

See, when Hawks was introduced, we see instantly that he’s a mutant. He has wings (and maybe some kind of eye thing going on but idrk what that is)

But he’s never actually seen as some kind of inspiration for heteromorphs, is he? Like as far as I can remember, he’s never had some mutant come up to him and say he’s an inspiration for representing heteromorphs by becoming the Number 2 Hero

In fact, nobody really seems to talk about him in a Representation For Mutants way. Every time we see him with fans, he’s mostly regarded for his looks rather than what he is. The fans are even petting his feathers as he addresses others about autographs

And there’s that one heteromorph girl in the crowd with the phone scene, but apart from that, we can’t see any other mutants in the crowd

And while Hori could have just not shown us Hawks’ effect on people his kind yet, it makes me think about the difference between his influence and Spinner’s influence

Hawks is a heteromorph. Ideally, he should be seen as a step-up for the mutant race, right?

But here’s the thing, the thing that is so important between both of these characters

See, Hawks doesn’t look “ugly”. Lets think about the possibilities that Hawks could have had for a wing quirk related to birds; He could have had a beak, clawed feet, he could have had feathers sprouting around his body, he could have even squawked and chirped like a bird. But he doesn’t do any of that at all, and he has none of those features

Hawks isn’t “ugly”, because he doesn’t look like the standard heteromorph, the kind that have extra limbs pointing out, the kind that look the wrong side of odd, or, say, even the kind with scales over his skin

But you know who does? Spinner

Spinner is “ugly”. His heteromorph body is covered in scales and there’s no escaping that. As much as he wants to, he can’t hide those scales unless he does a full body cover-up like Compress, and I doubt that he’d even want to

And, see, that’s the difference - Hawks isn’t “ugly” so he gets away with fame, popularity, shrieking fans (and murder). Spinner is “ugly” and he’s been discriminated against since he was a child

Spinner KNOWS what it’s like to be abused over who he is, to be discriminated against, to be scorned from the world so much so that he didn’t even want to go outside anymore

Hawks, as far as we know, hasn’t had any kind of discrimination over him, and I suspect that’s because he “passes” as a human being

Hawks only has wings on his back, and eye thingies that make him look stylish. Apart from that, he’s literally a human man. And thats pleasing to the eye, right? Hori created him as someone who is “nice to look at”

Spinner though? Spinner has scales covering the whole of his body. Spinner has a beak. Spinner has claws. He’s been discriminated against for the way he looks. He’s not “nice to look at”.

 And the thing is, nobody has said anything about Hawks’ placement in the ranks as a representation for heteromorphs because of this I think. At least, it isn’t shown to us that mutants look to him for inspiration. Hawks looks “normal” so he’s basically a human, right?

But Spinner? Spinner created a movement. He has inspired fellow heteromorphs, just like him who don’t have “conventionally attractive” features, to rise up and start rebelling. They even dress like him!

There’s a big big difference in how Spinner and Hawks influence mutants, and it’s incredibly important to acknowledge this difference, because its an example for how heteromorphs are treated

Miruko for example! Miruko is a mutant with a rabbit’s kick. She has bunny ears and a tail. It’s assumed, as well, that she has bunny feet. But she “passes” as human

The ears and bunny tail could be seen as sexy (Hori draws her as a part of fanservice but you think I haven’t seen you people thirst for her and her bunny rabbit look? I see you fandom. Don’t think I don’t), the feet are just feet (as in they aren’t important and can be ignored), and apart from those, she’s literally a human person. She covers up her feet as well, obviously for armor, but it’s one way that it doesn’t seem that much of a problem and adds to her “sexy image”

And when we think about it, a lot of the heteromorph Hero kids are quite “conventionally attractive” too. Tokoyami does have a bird head, but he mostly has a human body. Mina is just pink with black eyes and cute lil horns. Ojiro is a whole ass human with a tail. Tsuyu has more human attributes than frog. Kouda doesn’t have any features sticking out and he just looks like a shy lil boy. Shouji does have his multiple arms, but he’s been seen to keep them down and make them look more like one arm, and apparently, his face is the scariest. And what does he do? He covers his face up

All of these kids “pass”. They look mostly human. Does it matter if they actually are human? No, but does it matter that they look mostly human? Yes. Definitely

And this is why Hawks really isn’t that much of a “representation” of mutants, because he only has his wings, he’s mostly human, and because of that, he looks attractive

One example I want to bring up is Ryukyu as well. While she isn’t a heteromorph, her quirk allows her to turn into a big dragon, and I think that could also tie in with how she is viewed

Because it makes me wonder if a quirk that turns you INTO something is an exception in the publics eyes. I could definitely see that being something they would let slip, because outside of her quirk, she’s “attractive” and human

But I want to briefly touch on how she covers her eye with a big mask. Because it’s not just a hero costume thing, it’s a civilian thing for her too

And it makes me wonder if, like Shouji, she’s covering a mutant part of herself to “pass”. I have no evidence for this, and it could easily just be simple character design, but it’s something to think about. Focusing more on her quirk though, the dragon could be seen as “ugly”, and if in another universe where she was a dragon heteromorph, I can see her being not as popular as she is now

Because look at this

She says “I’m honestly not sure I deserve this…” and you know what? That makes me think about how, without her human form, she would be a heteromorph. She would be seen as “ugly”. But because of her human form, she’s “normal” and “attractive”, and circling back to the eye-covering thing, she’s possibly covering a part of her body to pass

She even fell a rank. It makes me think, why? When she’s so useful, when she becomes so big but doesn’t do any damage to the surrounding area she’s in? (And when she took a role in the War Arc with trying to stop Shiggy but that happened later. It does show how useful and incredible she is though). There’s a lot in this scene that makes me think about why she fell a rank, and her reaction to being in the top 10. That scene has always been quite interesting to me

(This Ryukyu part is mostly just speculation, so don’t take it too seriously as solid evidence for this analysis. Who knows, Hori could reveal something about her or focus on other things, but it does make me think a lot about her character)

The same thing could be said for Amajiki, who is human but can acquire all sorts of features to defeat an opponent (cows hoof, squid tentacles, chicken feet etc etc). His quirk could have an effect on the public similar to how Ryukyu is seen; as an exception. This is only speculation though, based off the Quirk Exception theory.

Fully circling back tho to Hawks and Spinner, I focus on these two more because they are both people who have had a great impact on the story. They are also very opposite sides of heteromorphic features.

And it makes me think about how someone like Hawks got into the HC so easily and was given his own agency at such a young age possibly because of that privilege. While Spinner is someone who hit the bottom of the barrel and was hated by everyone, to the point where he couldn’t stand it any longer and left

He became part of the League Of Villains and became friends with people who appreciate him for who he is. While Hawks doesn’t even have a “who he is”, because he has an entire persona, and mostly acts as someone popular and on duty, never seeming to relax

Actually, the only time he relaxes, as in puts the persona down, is when he’s threatening Twice. And maybe when he was smiling at Nagant (I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how that was a Real Smile, and I think they are right to an extent) but apart from that, he never puts everything down. In his job, he can’t do. He always has to be on duty and working

One last thing to note as well is that this

is Hawks beta design. I think I remember Hori said that he asked for advice about this design and the response wasn’t exactly negative but it wasn’t that positive either. But when he introduced the Hawks design we have today, his staff loved it and so Hori decided to go for that one. I think I also remember him saying something along the lines of “I chose this design over the beta design to make him nicer to look at.” (Please take this with a pinch of salt because I’m not sure if thats exactly what he said or not)

I wonder how differently things would have been if this was the final design for him

Regardless, Spinner and Hawks have a lot of influence over people, and yet have two very separate reactions from citizens and other heteromorphs. It’s very interesting to think about, and it makes me wonder if Hori will focus on this at some point

It’s certainly relevant, and it’s definitely something to think on

Thank you for reading!

This analysis is dedicated to @villainsandvictimsalliance because they made this post and it got my brain gears working lol. Idk if this is what you were talking about in your post, but regardless, you inspired me to write about this, so thank you for that!

I don’t know if Hawks has made any actual dent in heteromorph representation or anything, or if he ever will, but from what I remember, he’s hasn’t really elicited any reaction within the mutant world, so I thought I’d talk about it

There is the possibility of such a thing as Mutant Solidarity I think, similar to Quirk Solidarity, but maybe its just reserved for those who are on the same level as mutant i.e. a squid person seeing an octopus person hero or smthg

There is the slight possibility of him and Miruko having had an impact, which I would love, but when I saw your post, I mostly thought about Spinner and Hawks and how they conflict each other in terms of who they are and as mutants. So I hope you don’t mind that lol

EDIT: okay so apparently I have to actually say this, but I don’t think Spinner is actually ugly. This wasn’t about me saying my opinion on their looks. From what I’ve gathered, a lot of mutants seem to be judged on how they look and I’m under the impression that maybe this has to do with how much discrimination some characters may get. I mean Twice wasn’t mutant but he still got judged on his looks and ended up in a really bad position, so who’s to say those with mutant features don’t get the same or even worse treatment? Again, this hasn’t been shown to us, but sometimes I do look at the Hero kids with heteromorphic features and see a pretty stark contrast between those like Spinner and other heteromorphs and the Hero kids who got into UA of all places. It just makes me think about how the world of BNHA works, and I think its something to consider when looking at new characters or even characters we already know. Thats also why I used quotations for ugly and attractive, because its not about if they actually ARE ugly or attractive, its how I think society could view them. Same with how I used quotations for the word Pass because I don’t like thinking about how some characters are more accepted than others, but its the way that I can see Hero society operating in that shallow kind of way, y'know? Anyway. Little disclaimer at the end here because I just wanted to make it clear why I wrote it the way I did, and not cause any confusion

IMPORTANT UPDATE!

@sanssa​ had some great comments about stuff that I didn’t get to go in depth about or just straight up didn’t mention in the analysis, and imo explained it better than I ever could!👏👏👏