Amen

Colour Painting Tips by slawekfedorczuk

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

It's not about being tough on crime, because the absolute toughest most brutal measure you could take against "crime" as a social problem is to alleviate poverty, and increase access to education, healthcare and social mobility.

It's about performing "tough on crime" as an aesthetic by enacting violence against a prop, i.e. minorities and the impoverished, who are fetishized and objectified to represent "crime." They are brutalized as punishment for crime, but never with the purpose of alleviating the problem of crime.

June 21, 2026 - Hundreds of protesters broke through fences and stormed Kakomë beach, in the south of Albania, protesting against the privatisation of public coastal areas and a controversial luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner and the Trump family.

According to Albanian media reports, hundreds of residents from Nivice, Shen Vasil and other nearby settlements protested today on Kakome beach and dismantled parts of fences, guard huts and barbed wire, and entering the restricted coastal area, expressing public opposition to plans that involve closing off part of the protected coastline for a private tourist complex.

The protesters said that beaches belong to the people, not oligarchs, chanting slogans such as “Albania is not for sale” and “Flamingo Revolution”.

When Fio starts disrobing so she can swim, the movie still has her stay completely covered. She's in a tank top and underwear, we never linger on her body, her clothing is lose. She's a teenager and she acts like one. The reason Marco gets embarassed and quickly looks away is because Fio is undressing right in front of him. He does not leer at her. Notably Marco never once makes an advance on Fio. Fio is the one who gains a crush on him but he never reciprocates her advances.

"He comments on her butt" He says that she needs to remove one of the guns in the seat section she's making otherwise she won't fit even with "your tiny butt" as he says. Not a sexual comment. To which she excitedly responds thanks for letting her tag along and tacks on "My butt is bigger than it looks" once more, she isn't flirting with him either. Just making a side comment. Fio is a weird kid and so often the things she says and does take Marco aback at how Brazen she can be. The last comment we get is when they're taking off, either right before they run or right before they leave after refilling, essentially to "sit your butt that's bigger than it looks back in your seat."

"She has weird moments with a grown man" I mean, again, she's a teenager who has a crush. But Marco never reciprocates. He's trying to keep her safe because she's a kid and the granddaughter of a friend, but he isn't pursuing her. He lets her take the sleeping bag while he busies himself with bullets. He does everything he can to win the fight against curtis because Curtis is the one who is trying to Pursue the 17 year old. The only outright romantic indications we get from Marco are towards Gina with an open end being left on whether those two ever managed to work it out and finally become something. And even with this long standing love of Gina that Marco has had, he doesn't reduce her to an object. He sees Gina as a close friend. When his plane crashes the only call he makes is to her so that she can know he's alive.

"Well Marco turns human at the end because of the kiss doesn't he" Marco turns human because Fio helps him believe in humanity again. The implication in the movie is that his state is due to his own self-imposed Isolation and hatred of what humanity has done when it comes to the war. Facism. Fio is almost a mirror to his younger self and she's the one who helps him reconnect with the world. People forget that Hayao Miyazaki also puts important emphasis on platonic relationships. Nothing implies Marco and Fio ever get into a romantic relationship.

Private Equity: Pestilence (they are parasites that voraciously strip the value out of a healthy business until it withers and dies)

Workforce Optimization: Famine (cutting hours and employees until the business is starved of staff, barely functioning)