#‘and if there actually is a school I assume it’s a cult of some sort’

[scary-senpai]

Like for real real this happened today

[lavandulawrites]

Devilish creatures

Yandere Gojo Satoru x female reader

Masterlist

Word count: 2576

Warnings: Implied stalking, Gojo being as unsettling as always

You were a complete normal woman if you ignored the way you could see them. Since you had been a little girl you had been able to see those hellish creatures. You told your parents, but they didn’t believe. No one did. It got to the point where your parents took you to see a psychiatrist, which told you that it was nothing more than childish fantasies. Fantasies for a young child was normal, but you knew very well that what you saw were real and not fantasies. The only person who did believe you were your mother’s mother. She had always been eccentric. She told you that she has been seeing those creatures since she was a child. That did make you feel relieved, but it didn’t help the whispers from those around you.

You moved to Tokyo as soon as you graduated high school. You started studying in a prestigious university. You didn’t speak to your family much, but that was probably for the best. Those creatures never disappeared. In fact it seemed that there were much more of them in Tokyo. Around the campus there were always a swarm of them. They didn’t harm you (most of them were in fact really small) but they made you feel a sense of dread. Almost like they were draining your energy. Maybe they were. One night when you were walking home from your shift the small but cozy café, you came across a huge monstrous creature. It had rows upon rows of teeth and two bulging eyes pointed in each direction. It’s tongue black and long. It didn’t notice you, so you ran as fast as you could. After that incident you were reluctant to walk home alone at night. You always took the early shifts, which resulted in having less time to study. You would chose your life over your grades at any day, so you didn’t feel too bad about it.

One cold January day you called your grandmother. It had been a long time since you last talked and you really missed her. You told her about the monster-incident and she advised you to go to some place called Jujutsu High. You really hoped it wasn’t a scam or worse a cult, but you really didn’t have a choice. When it came to the monsters, you would take any solution.

The school was in a traditional Japanese style with impressive gardens. It really was beautiful. You headed to the building where the kind lady on the phone told you to. Apparently someone there could help you with your little problem. Even though you had your suspicions, you had to give it a try. You didn’t know what you would do if you didn’t.

You stepped inside the building and took a seat in what may seem like a waiting area of some sort. After you sat in silence contemplating if it was a wise decision to come or not for what felt like hours (it had actually only been 15 minutes) a tall white haired man walked by. He stopped in his tracks and looked at you with a slight smile. His eyes were covered with a black cloth resembling a blindfold. You could feel his intense stare underneath his blindfold. “Are you waiting for someone?” he tilted his head.

You nodded, your voice failing you in the presence of the handsome man.

“Do you happen to be [Last Name] [Name]?” he bent slightly forward. You nodded “Yeah”.

“I am sorry to inform you, but the person you had an appointment with have some urgent matters to attend to” his smile gentle.

Your expression fell “Oh… I see. Thanks for telling me”. You was just about to get up and leave when he stopped you by clearing his throat.

“I can help you. I assume you have a problem you need help with since you are here?” his grinned. You looked at him with wide eyes “You can help me?”. You were so relived, finally these sights would stop.

His grin widened “Of course I can help you darling”. The pet name rolling of his tongue with ease causing you to blush slightly. You shifted uncomfortably in your seat.

“Follow me” he straightened his back. God he was tall. You followed after him unsure of what to expect. The corridors were dimly lit, giving of an eerie feeling. The tall man was walking with slow steps so you could keep up with his ridiculously long legs. He stopped in front of a room and ushered you inside. “You know, I am not really supposed to tell civilians this, but I will make an exception since you are so adorable” his grin similar to that of the Cheshire cat. It was slightly unsettling. You raised your brow slightly and took a seat in the chair he was gesturing to.

He slumped down on the chair opposite of you, stretching his legs out like a cat. “You are seeing things right? Seeing creatures that resemble those of hell” it wasn’t a question, but a statement. You nodded slowly.

He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees and popped his head in his hands. You could tell he was scanning your expression. “Awww… You poor thing. I am sure that must frighten you so very much” he cooed at you like one would with a scared animal. “Luckily you have me to protect you”.

You twisted in your seat. There was something of about him, but you couldn’t put your finger one what exactly. “Yeah… They are quite frightening.” you smiled sheepishly.

He leaned back in his seat toying with his the black cloth covering his eyes. “Those so called creatures are called “curses”. You are one of the few people with the ability to see them.”

You blinked. Curses? You swallowed. Surely this was a joke right…? Sweat stared to collect at your temples.

The man chuckled at your reaction. “Where are you seeing the curses?”

“My university, around my neighbourhood and nowadays I’m seeing them in my flat” your hands slightly shaking. He hummed “I see. I will accompany you home to get rid of the curses. If you don’t mind of course”. His lips were twisted in a slightly smile, which you were unable to read. “I don’t mind at all” you shook your head. You would do anything to get rid of those so called curses. Absolutely anything.

He slapped his thighs and stood up with a swift motion. “Good. Very good indeed!” his smile still present. He stopped before the door and turned his head over his shoulder “I forgot to introduce myself. I am Gojo Satoru”.

The drive to your flat had been in silence. You had felt Gojo’s gaze at you the whole ride. “Please excuse my mess” you sheepishly smiled as you dumped some dishes into the sink. Gojo laughed telling you that he didn’t mind. He glanced around your apartment before he turned to you.

“It will only take a moment” he flashed you a smile. You stepped back unsure of what to expect. He had explained you briefly what cursed techniques and the like were while you made your way up the many stairs to your flat. You understood it somewhat. With a gesture of his fingered the small curses that were sweeping up underneath your sofa and bookshelf disintegrated. Your jaw fell slack in shock. You didn’t know what you expected, but this was certainly not it.

Gojo chuckled amused. “Impressed? This was mere child’s play” he smiled cockily, clearly happy with your reaction. “Are they gone gone now?”. “They are completely gone now” he nodded.

“Thank you so much!” you bowed. He had told you earlier that it wouldn’t cost you anything. A special discount for a special girl as he said. He had however suggested going out for a coffee with him. Which you agreed to, much to his delight.

“Your flat is safe from curses, though I can’t exactly say the same for you neighbourhood” his voice laced with concern. You felt like you were deflating. You had nowhere to stay besides your flat.

He brought his fingers to his chin and was silent for a moment. “What if…” his voice absentminded. “What if you stay at my place for the time being? I remember you said you were tight on money and hotels are quite expensive nowadays. I have a spare bedroom and it’s not too far away from here, but far enough for it to be safe”. You thought for a moment. Was it okay for you to sleep at his place? He was a total stranger after all and besides you didn’t want to bother him, but he had been nothing but kind. As if noticing your hesitation, he spoke up “I can promise you it won’t be a bother” he smiled warmly. You thought for a second. You really didn’t have any other options. “Okay. Thank you. I really appreciate it”.

His smile twisted into a grin. “The pleasure is all mine” his words smooth like honey.

His flat was huge and well decorated in a elegant way, not like quite what you had expected. Long windows going down to the floor overlooked the bustling streets of Tokyo.

He laughed softly at your awe. “Feel yourself at home”. He had replaced his blindfold with black rimmed glasses that he pulled down his nose to wink at you. His eyes were the most beautiful eyes you had ever seen. They were of an ice blue colour mixed with turquoise. He pushed his glasses back up and hummed at your reaction.

The hours flew by as you talked about all and nothing over takeaway sushi from a high end restaurant. He really was easy to talk to. His witty remarks making you laugh. He was quite flirty too, but not overbearingly so.

Soon it was well over midnight and your eyelids getting heavy. “Ooo someone’s sleepy” he laughed. You nodded “Yeah. I had to wake up early”. He stood up “I will make your room ready. One moment please”.

You tried to fight the sleepiness when something poking out underneath one of the coffee table book. You leaned forward to get a better look at the somewhat familiar flyer. You pulled it out carefully and brought it underneath the light of the lamp standing by the sofa. It was a flyer of your university. Weird… From your impression of Gojo you didn’t think he was studying. He did tell you that he worked as a teacher at Jujutsu High. An eerie feeling crept over you. It was probably just a coincidence, right? It had to be, there were no other explanations… You went over your conversations. He was really observant with you, but maybe he was one of the more observant types.

Then it struck you. You never did mention which university you were attending. You only gave him your address when he drove you both to your flat to ride it off the curses.

You quickly put the flyer back in place and straightened your back.

“Your room is ready” Gojo’s head was peaking out of the hallway. With shaky hands you turned around to face him. Your hands gripping the cushions of the sofa to ground your racing mind. You had to come up with an excuse and that quick. A notification followed by a curse broke the uncomfortable silence. You snapped your head towards Gojo. He was staring at his phone with furrowed brows.

“You should see yourself lucky that you are staying here” he walked over to you still starting his phone. “Multiple curses have gotten out of control attacking civilians. It’s not safe out now”. His icy eyes meeting yours. His glasses nowhere to be found. His expression changed to worry as he scanned your face. “What is it?” he tilted his head slightly.

You swallowed as you fidgeted with your fingers. You couldn’t go back to your flat now, it would be to dangerous and besides you couldn’t confirm that it was something up with Gojo. You had always had the habit of being untrusting with people. After all he had been nothing but kind and welcoming. “Nothing” you shook your head with a slight smile. “I am just tired”.

The bed was really fit for a king. It was the most comfortable sleep you had ever gotten. Your eyes creaked open as rays of sunlight bathed the room in a soft yellow glow. The smell of pancakes filling your nose.

Gojo was standing by the oven flipping pancakes while humming a tune that was playing on the speakers. I Only Have Eyes for You by The Flamingos. He turned around with a smile. His eyes shining bright with an unreadable expression. “Good morning [Name]. Did you sleep well?” his voice melodic and his smile dashing. He really was beautiful, but you couldn’t help but be cautious.

“I did. Thank you for letting me spend the night here”. With a smile he told it was nothing and he was glad he could help you out. He served the pancakes with a hum and wiped his hands on a kitchen towel. His gaze tender.

He took a seat opposite of you and his expression changed. “I got a message from some of the other Jujutsu sorcerers” he lifted his fork and knife and cut into his pancake. “There were quite the casualties last night. They are still looking for those who went missing. They haven’t been able to locate all the bodies” his hand stilled and he looked at you, eyes unblinking.

“Do you understand the gravity of this situation? Do you understand why I suggested you to spend the night? One can never be too careful” his voice stern. You only nodded. You looked at your plate. Your appetite was lost. You were lucky for not being one of those poor people that were mauled by the curses. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just want you to be aware of the dangers of this world” his voice sincere.” You nodded understandingly. He was a good man after all and you were in his debt.

As you eat your breakfast after encouragement from Satoru, he watched you with a smile. You were really naive to be stepping right into the lion’s den.

He had “met”you at a café. You were hanging out with your friends seemingly oblivious to how they ignored your presence in favour of planning some kind of party. He had felt sorry for you as you stirred your tea while trying to get the attention of your “friends”.

He had become quickly smitten by you. It truly was love at first sight. You were such a stunning woman after all. No one could compare to your beauty. He felt the intense need to protect you so he decided to watch over you as a gentleman should do.

He spent weeks watching you as you left for your job, as you studied in the library at your university and watching you through the eyes of the teddy bear you thought were a present from your friend. You were like a little lost lamb in a world full of flesh eating monsters. You needed to be protected and who could be better at that than Satoru?

Unbeknownst to you he was the most dangerous of all the devilish creatures.

[mneiai]

Are we really going to rewrite history and pretend that the Harry Potter books weren't antisemitic, racist, and fatphobic the entire time?

Cho Chang. Kingsley Shacklebolt. The Irish kid blows stuff up. Most of the Black kids don't have fathers. The fat people are either evil, creepy, or fools. The goblins. Just. The entire thing with the goblins. The baddies all said bloodlines mattered which we the readers supposedly knew was false and then...bloodlines actually did very much matter. The entire fucking US Magical School anti-Indigenous bullshit.

There's a reason from very early on, even before the books were finished, fanworks were trying to establish better takes on a lot of these things.

It's one thing to not notice as a child, but there were people back in the day talking about these things. The fandom was purposefully trying to absolve some of these things. There were a massive amount of essays about this shit, the calendar didn't turn over to 2020 and suddenly people noticed or something. HP had 80s era bigotry in 90s/00s and the way we dealt with that changed: before JKR was blatantly supporting hate campaigns "death of the author" with her wasn't just relied on by bigots to excuse their fan activity but was actually, seriously considered a thing.

"But if we say JKR was always bad then people won't think they can get radicalized." I mean, only insofar as the average person doesn't go around assuming they'll join a cult, but knows that technically it's possible they could get tricked into joining a cult.

We shouldn't hide someone's failings in the past to pretend like they only started failing later on. That JKR was so casually racist/antisemitic/etc from the beginning probably is one of the reasons she could get so deep into terfism so quickly (and it's been years, this isn't some new thing for her, even if many people have only started discussing it in the last few years).

Average people can be (often are) racist, people who consider themselves "good people" can believe antisemitic stereotypes, your friends can be casually transphobic. It's not all or nothing. We are none of us perfect saintly creatures. Acknowledging faults in one person earlier than you saw them isn't the equivalent of saying "and that's why the average person would never be radicalized" because the average person isn't actually without faults.

And if a person sees others acknowledging faults in JKR/HP early on and goes "so that's why I can't be radicalized" they're probably not the sort of person one can prevent from being radicalized by generalized tumblr posts, anyway.

[thedroloisms]

just an essay bc it's been on my mind but the way that victimhood becomes a weapon on social media is so fucking stupid and counterintuitive to actual advocacy. people wielding "im a victim" as a defense not only in situations actually involving their specific case but also in basically every damn situation in the world is so ???? even in cases involving dream, for example, i will see people using his history as a means of defending him (it's really fucked up that you would accuse a victim of ___, he's an abuse victim i'm sure he won't defend ___ and that he'll ___) and while i understand where that sentiment comes from, the base assumption it's making is...nakedly untrue. and assuming its truthfulness can hurt victims moreso than it helps them.

being a victim isn't moralizing. being a victim doesn't make you a good person. suffering isn't absolution, and going through fucked up shit doesn't make someone "good." people equate abuser = bad person and victim = good person, and then assume that victims are incapable of abusive behavior or "problematic" internalized ideas. an abuser can't be neurodivergent, or mentally ill, or part of a marginalized group, and most importantly an abuser can't be a victim. the boxes of victim and abuser are strictly defined with no overlap. once you've been through something truly, verifiably, Fucked Up (tm), congrats! you get a certificate of eternal victimhood that prevents you from ever being a Real Bad Person ever for the rest of your life.

only that's not how real life works! it's just not! generational trauma leads to cycles of abuse that perpetuate themselves over whole generations of people! the kids that think that it's perfectly fine and a-okay for a parent to physically punish their children don't tend to be the ones with parents that don't lay a finger on them! and you know, it sucks. it sucks that you get nothing out of being hurt, that there's no fucking prize, that there are no suffering vouchers for you to cash in because of the abuse you suffered that can give you good-person-points. it sucks to endure all that shit for nothing. but the opposite idea of suffering making you a good person is the exact reason why some people preach about the miles they walked to school in the driving rain to excuse taking out their shitty temper on their small children.

being abused generally doesn't make one "better." if anything, trauma tends to fuck you up in ways that hurt you...and others. going through shit tends to make people worse. working to get better is something that requires actual conscious effort, not something that you are given as a side effect of going through hell. over and over again, traumatized individuals who are made to feel powerless and given little freedom and ability to change their circumstances, when in a situation where they are given power to some degree over some person, may choose to abuse that power while they're in their own abusive situation or after. part of being a victim of abuse often means having a distorted view of the abuse you've been through! it can mean normalizing fucked up behavior! looking at shit and treating it lightly because you've been taught that it's "not that bad," if you've been taught that it's bad at all! victims aren't granted perfect ideologies from god because they walked through flames--cult survivors usually have to unlearn all sorts of messed up beliefs that were drilled into them--beliefs that many people on twitter would then damn them for, because obviously if you've thought something like that in the past then you're a bigoted hateful individual.

i can only speak from my own experience, but i can't fucking count the number of people i've heard of or met or known personally who have been through some kind of trauma in the past, who are undoubtably victims of abuse, who then go on to act in toxic, manipulative, and abusive ways to others. oftentimes, these people are aware of the fact that they were in abusive situations in the past and make quite a big deal about the fact that they care about victims, as a victim, and want to advocate for them. they're the same people who react extremely negatively to anyone alluding to the idea that they could be abusive--they're not like that, they've been abused, how could anyone accuse them of abusing another person, don't they know how much that hurts with their history. and so on and so forth.

and...i have a lot of sympathy for these individuals, generally speaking. because as mentioned above, being abused in the past doesn't necessarily make it harder for you to be a perpetrator in the future. sometimes--oftentimes, even--it's the opposite. and i feel for them, because going through trauma and being hurt makes you scramble for ways to not be hurt again, and oftentimes the easiest answer for that (and the ways of solving problems as modeled to them in the past!) is control, and controlling another party can very easily slip into manipulative, abusive behavior. especially if you still have internalized ideas mixed in with the fear that surviving abuse entails, internalized ideas that are often left unexamined by people who believe that their victimhood absolves them from any further responsibility. i feel for people who are deathly afraid of ever being seen as terrible people, oftentimes because of the shit that they went through, who seek explanations for their abusers' behavior that make it so much easier to simplify the matter into "they're something separate from me, something that i can never become." i sympathize with the anger and fear and frustration and grief that might never had had a healthy outlet while in a past situation that ends up poured out into places where it shouldn't be in the present, i sympathize with the desire to find reason in being hurt where it doesn't exist, to want there to be something to make the whole damn thing worth it instead of having nothing to take with you but your pain.

but at the end of the day, that's not how life works. that's not how abuse works. yeah, there are abusers who are cruel for cruelty's sake, who are aware of the harm they do and desire to cause more--and there are just as many who genuinely believe that they're doing the right thing, that they're doing good, that they care for the one that they're hurting unselfishly and wholeheartedly. there are many, many people who hurt others because they have been hurt before, and this isn't an excuse--of course not--but refusing to acknowledge the ways that pain can perpetuate itself and blinding oneself to the possibility of their own actions ever being abusive can literally be how this pain continues. it's good to be self aware, it's good to want to do the right thing, but assuming that victims are good people because of the suffering they went through not only means that so-called "bad victims" (or anyone that's not yet Acceptably untangled the thought patterns and actions that have been normalized to them, or anyone who lashes out in quote-unquote appropriate ways as judged by whatever social media council is handing out social justice tickets for the week) get overlooked and ignored, but abusive patterns of behavior are allowed to continue to exist, just in a repackaged form with different language. it's not fair to victims to nail them to this standard of so-called righteousness that is also inextricably connected to their experiences, allowed to be revoked if they're too "abuser" to be "victim" anymore, or to overlook the victims of their behavior because their inherent suffering-borne righteousness keeps them from crossing the line into bad behavior.

at the end of the day, no one deserves abuse, victims deserve to be advocated for, and people who have been through horrific shit didn't deserve to go through horrific shit. but you don't get handed get-out-of-jail-free cards for being treated badly, you know?

[starsnores]

you said a while ago that ghb could be a retired televangelist, so i assume there's gonna be some conflict between him and gamzee dating karkat?

Maybe? idk televangelists was a fun idea for him but i can't really make up my mind . Generational wealth? maybe he just actually runs a cult. I don't think i'd want him to be virulently homophobic though, idk if that's the sort of conflict i'd want out of an au like this, but idk. i have some vague ideas about him sending gamzee to a military private school bc he's having Issues and that's the only way he can think to instill discipline into him.

[sunderwight]

loosely inspired by this excellent post.

human sex worker crowley s2 au where crowley has worked at mrs. sandwich's shop since before it was mrs. sandwich's shop (previously madam tracey's new age 'massage parlor'), having gotten into the biz back when he was in his 20's to help pay off some debts and never really gotten back out

it's not angsty, though. or at least not about the sex work part. crowley's been back to school and gotten a degree in engineering and he's picked up a handful of trades, worked other jobs here and there, he just generally doesn't like keeping to a strict schedule and enjoys the extra money on hand, so even when he's got another gig he usually keeps touch with the other workers and dips back in whenever the situation calls for it

the pandemic was harder than he let on though. between the drop in business and the rise in costs of living he lost his flat and has been living out of his car for a while (not that he's told anyone)

aziraphale has been his consistent client since he first started out and they were fresh-faced youths. crowley spotted a cute guy radiating gay vibes leaving a bookshop one evening and did a bit of (ordinary human) temptation, and the fussy young mr. fell tentatively ventured a couple steps out of his transparent closet and ended up buying the rogue dinner. paid for his time too, without even purchasing anything off crowley's own personal menu that night at all

(for clarity, aziraphale has known that crowley was a sex worker since they met but he has conflicted feelings about the purchasing of such 'wares' due to his strict religious upbringing and such, so it took a while before he bit the bullet. as it were)

anyway crowley is aziraphale's only paid-for companion and aziraphale is the only client who crowley has kept consistently for some 30 years (they've been off-and-on a few times, but never longer than a year), so they're definitely friends even though it can get awkward because actually they're in love because az is still in the closet to his distant-yet-scary family and church and crowley still sometimes gets organized crime contacts coming after him (it's a whole thing) plus he hasn't much of a mind to live in aziraphale's closet

matters come to a head when aziraphale's distant cousin gabriel flees the family and shows up at aziraphale's doorstep, naked and with amnesia and probably on drugs of some sort (so aziraphale assumes)

without having any idea of how to handle this situation, aziraphale calls crowley, because at least crowley knows how to tell if someone is at risk of dying from an overdose on weird amnesia shrooms and other useful things of that nature (and also because aziraphale doesn't know anyone else he'd call for an emergency of this magnitude and actually expect to get help from)

crowley recollects gabriel as aziraphale's asshole cousin who didn't help when the bookshop caught fire a few years ago, and even made a cruel joke to his buddies about how it was a shame that aziraphale hadn't gone up in flames along with his stupid books. so. crowley is not terribly sympathetic and thinks aziraphale should just drop him in a ditch somewhere

but aziraphale is determined to help, which means crowley gets roped in

crowley gets even more roped in when it then turns out that some of his old contacts are looking for gabriel too, for some reason (???) and are once again knocking on crowley's door (or at least turning up at his car) to insist that they know gabriel's probably hiding somewhere in the vicinity and if crowley finds him and turns him over, they'll finally let bygones be bygones and give him a big fat cash reward

an approximation of s2's plot ensues. I don't know how crowley and aziraphale get over-invested in the coffee/record shop lesbians without the miracle angle but it still happens somehow. they project a lot. amnesiac gabriel/jim is easy to hide only because they dress him like a nerd and muss up his hair so he doesn't look like any of his glossy cult headshot photos, and most of the people searching for him have never personally met him and aren't looking for an idiot in multilayered sweaters. muriel is from the cult but means no harm. turns out gabriel went on a really bad trip but his memory's starting to come back, he was trying drugs to impress crimelord beelzebub. who met him because of the above mentioned bookshop fire, and who still runs away with him at the end. aziraphale's manipulative family patriarch also turns up at the end to ruin everything. and aziraphale and crowley have a LOT of sex and feelings throughout.

does the divorce still happen? uncertain. on the one hand, aziraphale is still struggling with his baggage, but on the other hand, his family/cult is not quite so powerful or able to threaten him and crowley in this situation. love may win out.

[krimsonkatt]

Dodi, a boss that was is going to be in Chaos;Domain, though likely with a resprite. This character actually has a long and detailed story behind it. Basically, when I was in first grade, one indoor recess the teachers put on Disney's Aladdin. I really enjoyed the movie for what it was, that was until near the end of the movie where Jaffar took control of the Genie's lamp and ordered the genie to fling the tower that Aladdin was in to the North Pole.

That's when the teacher shut off the movie and said that's where the movie ended, to be continued in Aladdin 2. I ended up being super freaked out about this cliffhanger ending and thought Jaffar actually WON. I ended up skipping school on the day they showed Aladdin 2, but later they showed Aladdin 3 and everyone was fine so I assumed Jaffar lost in Aladdin 2, but I had no idea HOW he lost or what sort of damage was done to their world under the control of an all-powerful Jaffar. So, I made up MY OWN plot for Aladdin 2, as I was too scared to watch Aladdin 2 which I assumed to be this super dark scary movie and didn't even want to rewatch Aladdin 1, which I enjoyed, because I was afraid of being re-traumatized by the "cliffhanger." But I still watched Aladdin 3 all the time on this bootleg DVD that had every Disney and dream works movie (as of 2009) on it.

During this period of time (around 2009 to 2011) I came up with this bizarre fan fiction universe crossover between Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Ninjago, Webkinz, Animal Jam, and a bunch of other things that was like Kingdom Hearts if it was written by an autistic 8yo. And like Kingdom Hearts there were clones, artificial humans, ancient prophesies, relics of mass destruction, doomsday cults, multiple apocalypses and universe-shattering wars, not-deities, and tons of other stuff. Believe it or not, this series was the origin of the Chronicles of Chronicles series, albeit a very early form/incarnation of it.

The original big bad of this saga was a guy named "The Emperor" who was HEAVILY based off Palpatine from Star Wars and had two underlings, Dodi (pronounced "Do-die" like the city Dubai but with die instead of bai) the snake charmer and Flon (pronounced full-on like colon) the evil fairy. Dodi was pretty much 1-to-1 with Jaffar with just his name changed and little else, but Flon's backstory and origin is an even weirder example that I'll get to once we get to her sprite. The big bad of the later arcs was Lord Drakos, heavily based off the principal of Gaithersburg Elementary, who loved abusing and manipulating me for his own twisted amusement.

But anyway YEARS later, like around 2014 or so, I discovered that the teacher showing us Aladdin all those years ago completely lied, and there was a whole extra 15 minutes of Aladdin I didn't know existed where Jaffar was defeated in an epic battle and the world was saved. And how did I discover this? A freaking Watch Mojo video. Something about "top 10 most evil villains in Disney" and Jaffar was number 5. During Jaffar's section they showed footage from the last 15 minutes of Aladdin which absolutely blew my mind that there was a whole extra 15 minutes of runtime I completely missed.

After I spent a summer afternoon rewatching THE ENTIRETY OF Aladdin on some shady website, I did some research on Wikipedia and figured out that Aladdin 2 and 3 were actually just cheap cash-ins made in the early 2000s that also served as both the pilot and the series finale of the Aladdin TV show, which aired from 1999 to 2002. The first movie had a beginning, middle, and end and DIDN'T end on a cliffhanger like I was led to believe, and Aladdin 2 and 3 were unnecessary made for TV sequels given almost zero budget. (though I still have an affinity for Aladdin 3, even if the animation sucks ass) This is also where I learned that the overwhelming majority of "Disney sequels" that I grew up with on that bootleg DVD were low budget cash-grabs not even made by the main Disney studio. So yeah, my childhood was a lie and Jaffar never won in Aladdin 1. It's going to be a fun story to share with my future nieces and nephews, though.

In battle, Dodi primarily uses fire elemental arts along with his "hypnosis" and "wrap" arts. He's a lot easier of a boss than the first one, King Kookookaka, that's for sure. The Medusa to that game's Minotaur, to say the least. (SMT4 reference)

[i-think-i-fncked-up-my]

I feel like me and Idia shroud(&Ortho) would get along not because of us both being fandom trash but because we would both nerd out together about actual science shit(and because we're both chronically online hermits) like b!tch I WILL tell you exactly every theory I have because twst isnt just another world- no, its another universe, even dimesndion from our own because the existence of magic is completely incapable with the laws of our universse(technoclogy might be able to replicate the desired effect but magic is natural- not man-made) and image being FIRST-CONTACT with aliens!!!

cuz thats what we are- aliens- an extraterrestial being who came from another planet, no matter how both are humans and share the same biology and no matter how similar the humans of twst are they wouldnt be the same to that level because humans as we are would not be able to wield magic and assuming souls and magic are counted as a part of someones biology, our inherent lack of could possibly cause catastrophic differences- minor examples being treys green hair and yellow eyes

that being said I, personally, would have terrible anxiety because even if somehow there is absolutely no language barrier between us I would act as if there is once I find out that NRC isnt some cult but a school on another planet because what are the chances of another planet in an entirely different universe would devolope language the same way when not even people on the same planet devoloped it the same way? let alone the written language? Idia would f#cking love teachin that sh!t

....I think a good way to get money would be to sign up for (ethical)experiments, I mean in a world filled with magic thats known nothing but how can you differentiate the line between magic and cold, hard scinece? as well as being what is basically the diplomatic representitive of an entire WORLD that would be fire(as in I have no idea how to talk to people and it would be a trainwreck) and if you wanted to go more businessy you could start up some sort of attraction in ramshackle the displays the different cultures and histories of our world!

[courtney-deserved-better]

Emoji fanfic ask

❌🛒🥺⛔️

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

ohoho, so many. ive posted excerpts from a few on ao3, such as the gwourtney tdwt rewrite that i scrapped & the trent comes back to tdwt instead of duncan au that i only wrote one chapter for. the rest are locked away in my files and seldom looked at.

there's a fic for a new season back on the island that takes place a year or so after tdrr with all new challenges that i gave up on after like two and a half chapters (nemma was the main couple for that one to give you a sense of how long ago i wrote it lol).

there's a tdas fic from alejandro noah courtney and gwen's povs (guess what the main ships are...) that i planned out extensively and then started writing for that i haven't worked on in years, probably because the actual writing of it didn't seem nearly as good as the planning did.

there's a really old gwent & nemma fic that i think was an au of the black friday musical? idk what i was thinking. it was bad. it was nonsensical and it was bad.

and then there was this whole high school au that mostly focused on the theatre department and was absolutely based on my high school that was a hyperspecific flavor of weird (us students described it as a combination of a summer camp and a cult so uh... i guess that isn't too far off from tdi).

there was also a post tdrr season i planned out that took place on a cruise ship and contestants competed in trios? i read the one and only chapter i wrote for that and apparently alejandro had a younger sister named marcela who is honestly kind of an icon lol i should bring her back for a different fic or something.

and pretty much assume that for every season of total drama, i had at least one rewrite planned that i eventually abandoned. honestly it's sort of a long term goal of mine to write my own version of every season of td. i've got tdwt with slippery slopes, tdrr with amicus curiae, and eventually tdi with the courtney time travel au. we'll see how long that takes lmao it's already been over a year and i'm like 40% done at the most.

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

probably any kind of soulmate au. i just don't like the idea of a romance that's so predestined that there isn't any real development between the characters. i like to read and write feelings growing organically, and when the characters instantly lock eyes and have this automatic deep connection it just feels very artificial to me. that's not to say that all soulmate aus are like that, and there's actually one or two (non td) that i enjoy and regularly reread.

but i think to write a soulmate au i would need a very strong plot revolving around soulmarks and whatnot and i would rather just have the plot without the soulmates. i feel like the concept of soulmates implies that there's only one person a character can have a meaningful relationship with and once they find that person the relationship will be perfect.

i like reading/writing about the struggles that come with making the choice to be with someone you love without any certainty that they'll be your perfect person forever. the fact that you don't have that certainty but choose to stay and foster a relationship and have that hope for a bright future together makes it a lot more meaningful to me. i also feel like soulmate aus tend to prioritize romance much higher than friendship and those are two kinds of relationships that i like to place on equal ground in my writing.

im not trying to say that all soulmate aus are bad, or that ppl shouldn't enjoy them. they can absolutely be some people's jam and if it makes you happy then go for it! there are definitely tropes i like that other people don't for valid reasons and that's all okay.

thanks for the ask!

[churchkey]

i know webgott isn't exactly the ship you primarily write for but GOD i love the way you write modern david webster in maximum volume (and i love his raport with nix it reminds me so much of my own queer friend group in ways i've yet to articulate properly) and i was wondering if you have any headcanons about their coupling and/or their interactions with their friend group (as a couple or individually)?

Haha oh my god, thank you! That's so nice of you to say! I based them loosely on my cousin and his boyfriend, who used to have epic Halloween parties before they got old and decided it was too much work, and if everyone loved it so much, they could damn well volunteer to host it themselves. Alas, no one did.

But David and Joe are still young and fun so let's talk about them. I feel like you should win a prize or something because this is officially the FIRST Webgott ask I've ever received. I do have a few headcanons about them, which did not make it into the fic because I mean, for christ's sake, the thing is already way too long. Anyway, if you'll just follow me...

Even though they knew and liked each other in high school, I don't think they got together until later. Like one time in college they bumped into each other on campus and it was like "I always had a crush on you" - "same" and then they were inseparable. They got married kinda young, around 24 or 25 (I imagined them right around 30 in the fic) and their families were like "... are you SURE you don't want to wait a little longer?" But they don't listen to anyone else, naturally, because what the hell do they know?

I also envisioned them as having gone on some long bike-camping trip up the coast on a tandem bike just before they decided to get married, and something very profound happened on this trip, maybe it just challenged them in ways they'd never been tested before, and they met and overcame those obstacles together and it sort of cemented their bond as a couple. Because if you can successfully ride a tandem with your partner, you can probably weather any storm.

They used to have threesomes with George back in the day but they don't anymore. David and George are good buddies (I've always felt strongly about this, based solely on how George was kind of nice to Webster in that episode when he comes back from the hospital and is just being such a clueless dick). They go see bands together and to see midnight showings of cult movies and stuff like that. Joe actually thinks that if David weren't with him, he and George would be a good couple.

David still has a little teeny tiny crush on Mr. Winters. He wished he knew he was gay when he actually had him as a teacher, but he totally understands why he wasn't out at work.

As mentioned in Ch. 1, they're both journalists. Joe is a sports writer for the major metro daily, David writes for a local news/arts/culture blog. This means they're always out somewhere covering a game or event or whatever, which works for them because the true secret to their success as a couple is their own selfish pursuits of what makes them happy as individuals. They're good at giving each other space to do whatever the fuck they want, knowing that at the end of the day, they don't want anything else as much as they want each other.

Everyone assumes they're about one big blow up away from divorce, but they're actually surprisingly stable. They truly enjoy each other's company and are just as content tending to their flower beds together as they are going to a party or out to the bars with their friends. They worship their cats. They have a Sunday ritual (h/t @anthrobrat) of reading the entire Sunday paper, section by section, David reading the gossip page out loud and being appalled at the list prices of houses in the Real Estate section and saving the Food section because they might actually try one of the recipes this week (they never do). At their core, they're basically just a couple of old queens sliding comfortably into middle age, though their friends would be shocked to see this side of them.

Idk... this is honestly the most I've ever thought about them so I hope it fits with what you were thinking, or at least makes sense with their little cameos in the story. Thanks for the ask, it's always fun to explore and imagine. And thank you so much for reading my stuff! I appreciate you and everyone else who takes the time to read my work so very much. Take care 😍❤️

[hummus-birb]

Been obsessively working on an idea for a Splatoon and partially DnD based magic system, thought I’d share it! If anything is disorganized, contradicts, or repeats itself, it’s because most of it has been written at midnight throughout the past week

v Everything under the cut! v

Random Important Stuff

Music is canonically magical

Zap fish and Power eggs give power (magical in nature?)

Ink based magic

Since splatoon is post-apocalyptic, ancient humans had cool technologies or smth

Ancient sea gods (variants/take inspo off of splatoon bosses? King salmonids might be magic imbued/ just actual gods?)

Splatoon “demons” have something to do with story mode voices? Or ancient human ghosts?

“Plant” magic includes coral now

Training grounds and schools to connect with magic are sprinkled throughout

Monk abilities are now squid roll and super jump because yes

Fairies are like sea butterflies???

Global warming caused extreme weather conditions (maybe take inspo off of that Pokémon concept by lockstin & noggin?)

Music mind control definitely exists (maybe Octavio/-like uses it? Or Tartar?)

Sanitized and fuzzy ink is a little wackus bonkus (made from dead bits and aliens and stuff, so it interacts with world differently due to magical/ technological properties)

Ancient clans confirmed w/ examples being Shiver, Frye, and Big Man

Weapons help concentrate ink magic

Other races can have magic, but it’s off a different type (since no ink)

^^^ Music, Memories (mem cakes do be like that), coral and other plants, control of minor sea creatures, abilities directly based off of species, etc.

Main pillars of magic are rooted in Song, Ink, Color, and Memories. Based on Deep cut and other characters, we can assume most if not all species have ink

Ink color is important, not necessarily magic in and of itself, but a manifestation of it (slightly edited this fact later on, don't worry about it)

No fey realm :( but they do have a magic realm of sorts. It’s a realm manifested of pure color, ink, and music, as well as human memories mixed in there. Maybe also nuclear, who knows. (For simplicity I’m calling it a fey realm though)

Rain is dangerous, Rain World style

Transient water/ink pools to other dimensions?

Nuclear based hell circles?

Maybe nuclear power is the “demonic” side of magic? And Cephalo-etcs are semi-resistant to it, and learned to control it like a form of dark magic?

Poisonous/venomous species assassins are fairly common, there’s whole cults/underground schools dedicated to the art of it

Jellyfish hive mind do be like that???

Frying permanently “fries in” a food based magic (like Crusty Sean might have a now-permanent run speed up)

Zapfish are along the same lines as king salmonids, just more respected due to them acting as a big friendly traveling energy source

8 is seen as a “magic number” of sorts to Octarians

Magic Specific Details

Like I said before, main pillars/sources are Music, Colors, Memories, and Ink!

Nuclear magic, while “natural,” is looked down upon, and generally considered evil. Fairly dangerous for both users and target

Use weapons as focuses most of the time! Especially ink based weapons, while being useful physically also allow for ink based manipulation. Song based weapons work as well, and while memories don’t have a focus, they can be compressed into memcakes

Sanitized, Fuzzy, and [side order] ink is all modified technologically, magically, or nuclearly, and is all highly dangerous and illegal. The main reason why creatures get permanently affected by it (mind control, becoming furries, etc.) in the first place

Jellyfish can use telepathic sort of magic, it’s main source being Memories

Zapfish are a siphon of electrical energy and magic, helping spur technology and link the gap for many different races as a pseudo-magic. Also some sort of more powerful being, sort of like a dragon

Respawn anchors are a mix of Ink and Memory technology, powered by the Zapfish

Salmonids have different magic customs, using more nuclear magic, as well as different types of song and technology

Super Jump, squid roll, etc. are all movement spells, many species can use them

Temporary drink and food-based magic is their form of alchemy/potions. Temporarily enhances abilities

Salmonid excel in food magic due to their whole thing with being eaten after death

Color chips include technologically engineered magic [side order please give me lore]

Color is a type of magic usually coinciding with emotions. “Fey” use it regularly, and their realm is a pure collection of it and song

Ghosts are manifested and affected by Memories, and they live in a sort of ghost realm similar to the void with human tech and stuff. Bits and bobs of memories and artifacts floating around

Song music is really strong, and does a lot of mind related stuff. (Ex: Jellyfish get their telepathic power from song) (and color)

Species abilities includes: Bioluminescence, venom/poison, electricity, regeneration, spitting insides out at you, seeing more colors (giving stronger color magic), cold/ice magic, etc.

Booyah magic is real, and primarily based on sound (Music)

Splatfest law is actually somewhat true, sometimes things are manifested by the memories of it, as well as predicting future events

Power eggs give energy similar to the strength of a singular mini Zapfish. Golden power eggs are super strong magic conductors, and control and siphon energy as well.

Super sea snails have a sort of magic randomizer imbued in them

Kraken magic is gotten from colors, ink, and extreme emotions

While some creatures don’t have ink magic, some still do, such as eels, sharks, mantas,

Main Mythological Creatures

Great Zapfish - gives energy, lawful good, invested in Song slightly more. My man powers the entire three cities, I’m proud of him. Popular god among most city-dwellers

Huge fry - Reincarnated god, shows up only in Salmonids. Chaotic Good, fights for justice but will destroy a city (oops)

Horrorboros - Reincarnated nuclear empowered god of salmonids, most popular among them as a result. God of life, death, and reincarnation. Huge Fry is kind of like a child or champion of sorts

Cohozuna - Nuclear empowered king of salmonids, similar to Grizz in that he’s not exactly a god, though he didn’t cause his own nuclear shenanigans. Treated like a god though, and has special cool abilities

Grizz* - He basically made himself a “god” with his fuzzy ooze.

Goldy- Minor god/creature, controls glowfies. Kind of like pestilence or something? Very popular among salmonids, usually the leaders of the troops they are in

Minor gods based off of Deep Cut’s families (shark, eel, and manta)

Nessie - Canonically exists!

Space - Not a creature, but space is important to almost all creatures. Radio waves for the Splatfest come from there, Horrorboros is said to have come from there, Huge Fry is often depicted in outer space, etc. (Grizz is also related to space, but again, he’s a self-made god)

Kraken (creature) - Major god to many Octolings, the Kraken is somewhat of a magic common ancestor, and/or gifted it’s magic to cephalopods (color and ink)

Ink vampires - They exist. Not exactly dead, but a deficiency in ink or color can cause vampirism. Not to be confused with the vampire squid species

[eruanna1875]

Now I really want to know everything you assumed from the out-of-context songs.

Sorry this took so long to answer! I had to really sit down and think about this one, because of how ingrained the reality is now. (Fair warning - the non-reality was pretty ridiculous).

Generally, I assumed two things: A) that the tracks were in chronological order, and B) that the actual songs were all sung by characters in the episodes. So you see where I would easily go wrong.

Oh, and I also remember looking over all the titles beforehand, and getting my own expectations of what they would sound like, which only added to my confusion.

Now, on to the list! Which is a little long, so be ye forewarned!

Prelude - I believe I assumed that all preludes have snippets of the main themes of the album (when in fact it was just one song).

Into the Unknown - okay, I'm sure I wasn't expecting the other one, but it probably coloured my expectations in some way. I was a little concerned by "the loveliest lies of all". May have thought the singer was some stranger the boys met on their journey, possibly telling them stuff in a vague, riddling way, but possibly not entirely trustworthy.

You Have Beautiful Eyes - "the main boy is met with some old hag, possibly a witch, and he's trying to hurry and compliment her to get her off his back as quickly as possible, but he's being awkward and bad at it"

Pottsfield C.M. - "probably some pseudo-Christian cult, which is annoying and cliché if true"

Patient Is The Night - "some guy they meet in a cornfield who's singing about his girlfriend"

Adelaide Parade - "it's early in the show, and they're heading off to meet the bird, because the bird is Adelaide"

Money For School - "they want to go to some school, so this is a montage of them trying to earn money to attend (annoying plot, why do you want to go to school in the middle of a fantastic adventure)"

Miss Langtree's Lament - "annoying teacher who can't stop going on and on about some jerk (extremely tedious song)"

Potatoes and Molasses - "the younger boy being creative and disorderly to go against the no-fun rule of the school (the guy at the end is the headmaster)"

Off to Bed - "they've been punished for their funloving nature and now are being sent off to bed (except it's major key for some reason?)"

The Beast Is Out There - I think I did envision a tavern, to be honest, but I may have pictured the singer as younger and shorter (also, one of the ones I downloaded for the heck of it!)

The Highwayman - "some mysterious man they met on the road after they left the tavern reveals he was secretly a thief (though I expected an instrumental?)"

A Courting Song - "this is Endicott, who's being a pushy annoying nobleman in his mansion, trying to suck the main boy into an unwanted Pride and Prejudice type plot with a random girl"

Endicott Manor - "this is just continuing from the previous song in the same plot (evidence for the guy being Endicott)"

The Journey Begins - "how is this the beginning of a journey, this is not setting-forth music"

Half-Moon River - "were they setting out on a creepy river at night? is that the journey?"

McLaughlin Bros. Jug Band - "they're going undercover as a jug band for some reason in a new plot"

Over the Garden Wall - "wait, is this the theme song? why is it way in the middle?"

Send Me A Peach - "some sweet little Antebellum-style couple they run into in a town (the Southern emphasis is appreciated)"

Adelaide's Trap - "Adelaide the Bird is in a trap, and the boys have to sneak in and free her, but there's a fight with the villain who trapped her near the end"

Like Ships - "oh this is probably at the end of some plotline with the girl he likes and they're confessing their love (also Elijah Wood is singing, that's sweet)"

More Bones To Sort - "some kind of weird little underworld with a random goblin or skeleton merchant selling bones"

Old North Wind - "some guy singing about the wind (not a character) on a cold night, very frontier-cabin-at-night vibes"

Forward, Oneiroi - "okay, now there's opera, this is a confusing show"

The Fight Is Over - "apparent reversal, someone is trying to get them to give up (weird random country rock song)"

Tiny Star - "this annoying little comet who falls in love with the main boy while they're visiting some star kingdom (bewildering, very much spoiling the vibe)"

Old Black Train - "much too jaunty for that title, they're probably trying to avoid getting on this train and this guy is being helpful but also a little creepy"

The Old Mill - "they come across this place when they're wandering and it's very creepy, probably haunted or has some dark thing going on (most creepy track so far)"

Come Wayward Souls - I am trying so hard to remember what I thought about this one, I may have been trying to figure out if this was a good guy or a bad guy (like, is this a villain, or is it just a song in a hopeless situation?)

Potatus Et Molassus - look, I remember not having the slightest clue what was going on in this, but knowing that it held a lot of weight anyway, and getting chills even without context

One Is A Bird - "oh wait, maybe this is Adelaide the Bird, Shirley Jones gets to play one of the more central characters, cool"

Black Train/End Credits - "and THERE'S the vibe I expect from a black train song, thank you"

The Clouded Annals of History - "they went to a mysterious library and are looking for a book to give them clues about something"

Can't You See I'm Lonely - trying to remember what I thought about this guy (might've assumed he was the same guy who sang the peach song earlier, waiting for his girl to come back)

Shine On, Harvest Moon - "oh, I know this one! (much slower than I'm used to, though)"

Everything Is Nice And Fine - "a couple of suspiciously-perky twins in fun Munchkin land, which has this dark secret they're trying to cover up (but do I want to believe they're actually good?)"

Halloween Halftime - could not stand it, only just added it to my liked songs recently (it just seemed so random and boring!)

Two Old Cat - "they meet an old talking-cat couple living in a house and have tea with them"

The Jolly Woodsman - "oh he seems like a nice guy, some jolly old burly Paul Bunyan type, lamenting that youth is a fragile thing in his song (no connection of dots with the voice)"

Tome of the Unknown - "they made an accompanying-documentation-of-the-main-characters'-doings book, like Journal 3, and this was in the commercial for it"

~*~

SO YEAH

I tried to remember as much as I could, but it's been a long time since I first listened through. And again, a lot of the songs I have listed here as annoying are actually really fun now that I have the context! It's just really hilarious to look back on all my misconceptions.

[infiniteglitterfall]

First: Shame on both your heads for posting this on October 7 and tagging it that way.

As October 7 unfolded one year ago, I watched along with the rest of the world, devastated, as the terrorist cult that had brutally ruled my home for 17 years unleashed its savagery on Israel. Hamas claimed the atrocities of October 7 were part of their "resistance" against Israeli occupation and aggression. One year later, I hope it is clear for all to see that Hamas's attack was not an act of resistance but one of a nihilistic terrorism.

Shame on you for acting like Hamas torturing, mutilating, and burning its way across 21 towns was an act of resistance that should be commemorated by sharing Vintage Propaganda.

Since the start of the current war between Israel and Hamas, Hamas has committed countless atrocities against its own people in Gaza. This was true even before the war. Yet somehow, despite the fact that Hamas has effectively kidnapped the Gaza strip and all its inhabitants and routinely terrorizes them, these crimes are never reported by Arabic media or western media, nor by global human rights organizations, all of which tend to portray Hamas as a legitimate resistance group who are trying to "liberate" the Palestinians.

Shame on you and the entire rest of the movement for silencing and ignoring Gazan activists instead of centering and platforming them.

And fuck you for supporting the far-right fascist theocratic dictatorship that has held Gaza under intensely cruel control for 17 years.

I was held under arrest for 21 days [by Hamas] and subjected to various types of torture. I was beaten with batons and sprayed with cold water in the late winter night hours.

...After we were released, most of those who participated in the demonstrations emigrated away from Gaza. There was no hope for any change in the current situation. We suffered ongoing harassment by Hamas members. Some died trying to leave, like Tamer Al-Sultan, a pharmacist whose crime was asking for a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

Second: Edward Said may have been born in Palestine, but his Columbia University ass was a quintessentially American ivory tower academic.

He once called campus security because a Vietnam War protest interrupted the class he'd paid so much to take.

His gift to academia was giving it permission to copy-paste American racial dynamics onto a COMPLETELY different part of the world.

Clueless Westerners look at this shit and go, "Yes! This tallies with my understanding that Jews are privileged white people and Muslims are oppressed!"

We don't learn about 1,300 years of MENA colonization by a series of Islamic empires in school. Much less that the power dynamic there today is one where Iran tries to build its own empire by using terrorist groups as its own armies, brutally oppressing Syrians, Yemeni, Baha'is, Jews, Hindus, Christians, and the "wrong" kinds of Muslims. We just assume everywhere else works the way the United States does.

Everything he says in this clip is completely counterfactual, superficial disinformation.

Let's see how many lies there are in the above clip alone.

"Israel was constructed on the ruins of another society" - you do know that the Jews, Arabs, and Bedouins who became Israeli citizens were part of that society, right? Perhaps this dude is why so many people seem to think Jews invaded Palestine in 1948.

"Another people who remain unacknowledged" - the only ones who are unacknowledged are the ones who remained in Israel. Seriously, who on this earth does not know about Palestinians?

"as just sort of obscure natives in the background" - Anyone who reads history books with actual, genuine citations, as opposed to Ilan Pappé, knows that this is not the case. Not only are they an obvious and integral part of history. But in his context of "oh we'll just kick out the Palestinians?" Did he never hear about every surrounding country invading en masse in 1948? Does he somehow think that the UN's plan had been for Israel to declare independence and war in the same day?

"Back to the desert - let them go to one of the other Arab countries" - bruhhhh. 350,000 middle- and upper-class Arabs left before the war even started, because al-Husseini's volunteer armies were trying to take as much land as they could. I could write paragraphs about all the towns that weren't Kicked Out By The Jews, and the towns that attacked first because militias or Arab armies had taken them, etc.

"The British left us a road system, an electrical system, municipal buildings, etc etc etc, and we could build Israel" - If the leadership of Arab Palestine had accepted the UN's 1947 vote to give it a state, it would have had all of that too! The entire purpose of everything that Britain built, and everything that Jews and Arabs built under Britain, going all the way back to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, was that BOTH COMMUNITIES WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE SELF-DETERMINATION!!

"If we had done X and Y to create Palestine, Israel wouldn't exist" - see above. He is paraphrasing an unnamed source who, if his paraphrase is even accurate, was talking out of their ass.

It is not the Palestinians' fault that they had horrific fascist leadership, led by a literal Nazi war criminal, which would accept none of that so long as it involved Jews being there. But it also isn't Israel's fault.

"Israel bears no responsibility for pushing people out" - Israel has been clear since day 1 that it would be happy to negotiate returning any refugees' property or compensating refugees somehow, as the Arab League has demanded -- just exactly as soon as the Arab League, equally, negotiates the same for the 850,000 Jewish refugees that every Muslim-majority country, from Morocco to Afghanistan, began ethnic cleansing before Israel even declared independence.

Also... If the Oslo Accords say that Israel isn't liable for that, it means Palestine signed the Oslo Accords with that in there. This is Western paternalism: the same Western paternalism that runs through the entire movement. Westerners, including Edward Said, consistently deny Palestine and Palestinians any sort of agency at all.

"Gaza is the most criminal place on earth - because of Israel!" First of all, rude. Way to shit on Gaza. But also: Then why is he saying Gaza, and not Palestine? Why is Gaza the most criminal place on earth, and not the much larger West Bank? Could it perhaps be because the West Bank was occupied by Jordan, the only country that gave Palestinian refugees citizenship and human rights? And Gaza was occupied by Egypt, which kept them under harsh military rule... and the military was full of Muslim Brotherhood members who actively spread resentment and disinformation to encourage terrorism? No? The people of Gaza are inherently violent? And that's not an incredibly demeaning and dehumanizing characterization? Because he's taking away their own agency, and crediting it instead to Israel??

"Jews have been so oppressed but you can't keep oppressing people" - As everyone does, he's erasing the 20%+ of the population of Israel that's Arab, Druze, Bedouin, Circassian, etc.

"Just because you yourself were a victim once." I can see why this resonates with Westerners, who rarely know anything about antisemitism or Jewish history beyond "Holocaust bad." But seriously, once?? The Holocaust itself sits neatly between hundreds of thousands of Jews murdered in Russian/European pogroms on one side, and the ENTIRE Middle East and North Africa massacring and yeeting the Jews on the other.

"There has to be a limit!" Bro. Nobody is arguing that "the Jews" get to oppress people for unlimited years Because Holocaust. That reveals an incredibly disturbing void of knowledge about the actual dynamics and political events between the two countries. It's also a pretty weird and biased concept of Jews in the first place.

Lastly, fucking stop with the shitty slogans. When a movement makes it this obvious that you consider the entire thing to be "Occupied Palestine" - as do both your blogs - you can no longer hide behind, "we're not saying we want Hamas to massacre the Jews it couldn't get to a year ago!"

1998, Edward Said.

"Israel was constructed on the ruins of another society."

via conflictechoes on insta

[ksfoxwald]

Been trying for days to make a post about religion in Valdemar, but it's so bonkers and inconsistant and frankly half-assed that I'm not even sure where to start.

Exhibit A: Father Leren. The representation of homophobic religion as a strawman for Lackey to take down (and also maybe possessed by a demon or something, idk that part was kind of vague and came out of nowhere). But it's never stated what deity he is the priest of, and by extension what religion Vanyel grew up in. He doesn't seem to spend much time thinking about it as an adult, so it's probably fair to assume he's a lapsed follower of... whatever. Given Valdemar's plethora of "no one true way" policy, it could be that many citizens are less likely to adhere to a specific deity than they are to invoke whichever one is most convenient. This could be particularly true for the ruler and royal family; remaining politely agnostic in order to avoid favoritism. Which then begs the question of, say, if someone married into the royal family who had a religion, and what the political implications would be.

Exhibit B: Tarma and the Star-Eyed. The Valdemar/Velgarth term "priest" seems to mean someone who has a direct personal relationship with a deity and is able to invoke their power at will as a sort of limited dogmatic mage. It's unclear what priests actually do. Officiate weddings, run temple schools, capture demons. They aren't too concerned with saving souls, because there doesn't seem to be much debate over what happens to souls after death; they either go on to some nebulously conceived afterlife or get reincarnated, regardless of which deity they followed in life.

Exhibit C: The Book of One. The general cosmology seems to be that all the deities coexist on some kind of Other Plane more or less simultaneously and more or less peacefully; it's implied a few times that deities get strength from believers, but the mechanics of that aren't clear and the implications are rarely examined. But then there's what appears to be Lackey trying to be clever with monotheism being a funny little pacifist cult rather than a driving force for imperial conquest. But while the religion is referenced fairly frequently, we only see minor side characters as adherents and it's not really explained how their "One" is related to all the other gods that have frequent and tangible proof of existence. Sure, the gods probably hang out less with farmers than their chosen Heroes and adventurers, but there's got to be historical records. To disbelieve the gods makes about as much sense as not believing in magic.

I'm not going into Vkandis here because 1) I haven't gotten there in my re-read and 2) there's probably enough there to make it's own post.

Mostly though I'm thinking how all the Heroes, even the gods-chosen, are vaguely agnostic, even after hanging out with deities, and that part in The Tough Guide To Fantasyland that's something like "It should be noted that no Tourist will ever convert to a religion, no matter how persuasive its followers are."

(and also thinking that a good 50% of the Tough Guide is Valdemar and Derkholm is a straight up riff on Urtho. Jones may have been rather scornful of Valdemar, but she not only read a lot of them but wrote not-quite-fanfiction of them)

[cynicaldesire]

Handful of Book Reviews

I have the Summer off from school and a part-time job, so I have plenty of time to get into something. In the couple weeks after school let out and I had nothing to do, I started thinking about writing. It was beautiful, euphoric. I figured I would get back into reading as a way to research writing.

So far, I have read like five books. I was reading one over the end of year break between semesters, so I've read six books since the new year. Five of them were in the last like 6 weeks. (Geez, I haven't been keeping active track. That's a lot of reading.)

I started with Gallant by V.E. Schwab. It was okay. I was expecting something else. I started reading it because someone on Tiktok said it was a book about a girl following her mother's journal and I have a character that does something similar. Except his mother was a medic, a herbalist, that sort of thing, and she has loads of journals and almanacs and such.

The really unique thing about the journal in Gallant is that it has text and inksplotchy images. These texts and images are peppered throughout the book until they're all collected somewhere about 60% in, I'll guess. Since we've already seen them all in the book already, it's just a way to show the reader what the protagonist is reading.

Speaking of, the protagonist is a young girl that is hearing but has no voice. She has to sign or use writing to converse. The story follows her in an orphanage and then she gets a letter from her Uncle stating he wants her back home. But the place she goes back to is the one place her mother told her to stay away from: Gallant. It's a manor with a kind of greyish vibe to it, half-dead. And all the stuff that happens there. No spoilers.

The next book was A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark. I loved this. Well-written, well paced, protagonist is a power lesbian and so is her girlfriend. There's racism and sexism and it isn't rewarded by the narrative. It has a diverse group of people that seemed to have been well represented (I'm white and have never been to Egypt, so I don't know for certain.) It was set in Egypt, in a 1918-1920s era, I think before the first World War because it kept being mentioned as being on the horizon. In a world where Djinn and magic exist, how has the world been shaped? It seemed well-thought out.

Basically there's a murder of a cult by a guy thought to be long dead and our protagonist is the investigator assigned to the case. She's the youngest female investigator and very good at her job. It opens with an introduction scene and then some of the stuff that happens becomes important later. It's pretty tightly written. Ugh, I love it so much.

Next book was An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I was middling to positive on this. There were some… There were several questionable choices made, most of it to do with the weak worldbuilding, some of it to do with the weak characterizations, etc., but overall it was a nice brain-off read. If I thought too hard about it, it kinda sucked, but if I just turned off my brain and went along with the story that it was telling, it was fine.

We follow two protagonists, each on opposite sides of a conflict, they end up in the same place dealing with a lot of the same people from different vantage points. One is a Scholar who infiltrates the headmistress's servants to gather information for the Rebellion. The other is a student at the military academy that actually hates being there but he's the top of his class of ninja assassins. There's supposed to be magic, but no one believes it's real, even after it's totally real. There's a bunch of other stuff that goes on and it's all pretty weak overall, but I still had some fun.

Next was Jade City by Fonda Lee. This book was awful to read. It is compared to the Godfather, and I'm assuming that since I haven't seen the movie, I can't fully appreciate the book. It wasn't necessarily poorly written, though the more I think about it, it might've been, but it was like 500 pages of boring plot beats and time skips to more boring shit. Characters were mishandled or not handled to their full potential. So many characters spent their entire time navel-gazing and never making any meaningful progress. The characters start the story in the same place and end in the same place, emotionally and mentally, very much not physically. It seemed to punish compassion and mercy and reward greed, ambition, and ruthlessness.

The story takes place on the isle of Kekon, a place where a magic rock called Jade was found that provide those with sensitivity to it magical abilities. This Jade is a controlled substance by the clans that can weild it, the No Peak and the Mountain. It's very Asian, the clans fighting over territories and very concerned with honor, tradition, and power. We follow several characters that are the members of the No Peak Clan, three biological siblings and an adoptive one, and another guy that is a criminal introduced in Chapter 1.

It spent so much time telling me what was happening, how the characters interpreted these things, what they did, etc., and also gave me all the history needed for context about why they were doing it or feeling it, how we got to this point, why the rival gang leader was so fearsome (she was adopted by the previous gang leader and got mad that he didn't choose her to inherit a position so she killed all the people in charge and took leadership), that we hardly got to see anything actually happen.

Anyway, I hate that book. It made me realize what not to do and how Tristan's book may be suffering from this stuff and I need to go back over it and prune out some stuff.

Last book I read was Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo. Now, I love me the Grishaverse, especially Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom, and King of Scars. Rule of Wolves is the second book in the King of Scars duology. I feel like it was thrown together to continue churning out work, like a fanfic author trying to maintain a readership, or like Bardugo was trying to maintain a contract of churning out a book every couple years. It felt… I still love these characters and this world, but it felt like the author was tired of holding to the limitations of the magic system. Or maybe I had forgotten how it worked. The plot had so many moving parts and I was confused at some of it by virtue of having read the previous book several years ago. It felt like everything was going wrong, but the timeline of acting out solutions was too fast. There was a heist at some point and it moved very quickly through planning and execution and on the way out of the heist, Nikolai hears news of attacks and then the thing they stole was already processed into the things they needed it for and they were using it. Like… within a few pages/one chapter of acquiring it. Maybe Bardugo was getting tired of the book sitting in her WIPs and wanted to just get it done and printed so she could move on to something else. I don't know.

Still had a great time with it. I know the Grishaverse, the characters were consistent but had positive change, it just went a little too slapdash. Would still recommend.

I have been using my library to get access to these books, and the next holds I have, waiting for them to arrive, is Engines of Empire by Richard S. Ford and The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton. Engines of Empire was described as Final Fantasy 6-esque and I'm realizing it's not all the things I take from FF6 (romance, character drama, etc) but instead the Empire of Emperor Gestahl and politics and such. The Wisteria Society just seems like a cool romp akin to the Gail Carriger Finishing School books. I loved those. They really helped get me back into reading.

Oh, the book I read over the new year was The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon and it was pretty good too. Great fantasy, good use of magic and dragons and such.

Let me know if you enjoyed this, your thoughts if you read these books, etc. I'd be happy to hear from others.

[thesketchyheartist]

03/04

Akira (1988)

I thought this was a very mind-boggling film. Throughout the film, the mystery behind Akira still remains an elusive thought, but it had many obvious meanings behind.

Akira in the beginning seemed to be the name of a god, like an all-encompassing deity of creation, or the Universe as an entity. When Kei explains what Akira is to Kaneda, it sounds like Akira is Life, like qi, since Akira is supposed to be an energy everyone has, not just limited and given as a gift to the special. And it would make sense considering how Kiyoko can possess Kei so often, implying Kei may have some strong connection to Kiyoko. Overall, I assumed it meant that all life existing has Akira as a way to exist and to grow from their birth.

In the end, Akira is still a person, but we don't know who. I think there is more to the story, because if Akira used to be a person existing with the kids, then it would not make sense how the powers the kids had were awakened by him. Not to mention, Tetsuo's and the kids' death in the end implied they were still alive, but just not present.

From what I could grasp, this definitely focuses on science ethics. The government wanted to learn about Akira and dedicated its resources to learning about it. Yet, thirty years after WWIII, its country is still in ruins. Adolescents don't take schools seriously, and anti-government riots wreak havoc all over neo-Tokyo. The Parliament is all old men (not a woman, a young person, or a young woman in sight!) who are too busy arguing about getting their own issues solved to even solve one issue. They blame each other for the issues they want to solve, but no one actually seems to solve anything. Some already want to undermine the government, such as the Akira cults. In fact, the Colonel even said as he looked at some Akira cultist dance on a rooftop below, that people like them would be the ones to ruin things, which became partly true after Tetsuo started rampaging. In the end, when the colonel issued a marital law, the government leaders were slowly arrested and tried to run away with money to escape their responsibilities.

Given how it takes place in Japan post-WWIII (that's right it's the third one, which never went into what happened or why, just that Akira is again connected.). Another confusing thing: WWIII took place 31 years before the canon timeline, so it doesn't define the kids' origins. An obvious trademark of the kids' peculiarities are there wrinkled and weak bodies. The gray skin resembles that of a dying person, but their bodies are in the form of children. If Akira was the reason behind WWIII, these kids had to obviously be pretty old. If that was true, how did they awaken their powers? Tetsuo got it because the scientists already knew and awakened it in him.

Finally, why did they do what they did to Tetsuo? I'm guessing since he was injured and a nobody, it would be easy to abduct him, but still suspicious that they did it in front of his friends. Was he just prone to being awakened at any second?

The movie was not bad though. Sad to see that besides the modern technology, the "future" looks just as bad as the present. By the way, it takes place 30 years into the "future", or 2019, and a lot of elements still match what we see today in cities: dirty streets, biker gangs, and underground bars.

One final thing I noticed was the color red. I couldn't tell what it symbolized in the movie but it did pop up a lot. Tetsuo's red cape when his power was supposedly at its peak; Kaneda's red bike and red outfit; the color was very vivid, and I think it might not signify the livelihood of Kaneda's spirit or something because the pink from Tetsuo's bloody transformation was more grotesque.

The animation was pretty good, too. Like the end of the world scene during the explosion. The explosion at the beginning of the movie probably was some sort of foreshadowing to the end of the movie. Maybe Akira "died" and his mind left like Tetsuo's "death" at the end of the movie.

There were more movies after this?

-03/03/24

I only have one midterm and one exam. Yet my life is so chaotic. I somehow managed to sit for 2 hours calmly.