#* ✧ . meme response → now live with the trauma.

[skyeslittlecorner]

Guys, we're doing it!

Do you remember this survey? I didn't expect such a great response. If that many of you really want to participate, I guess I'll have to do more than one batch of the draw to choose as much of your MC's as I can.

More info under the cut!

Time for some rules, so we won't get lost

The concept is simple. You give me your precious OCs/MCs, I adopt them for a while, write fanfic (related to WHB, of course) and hand them over to your loving hands.

For now, I plan to choose 3-5 people to write for. This may change if more people apply. If one applies, I will write for one. If 96 apply, I will choose more. We'll figure it out.

You can apply in two ways. One is to reblog this post and describe everything in reply, the second is to create your own post with the hashtag #whbmcshuffle Preferably both at once. I don't want to accidentally lose any application. I also recommend following this tag for the time being because I will post further information under it.

The people I will write for will be drawn randomly. I want it to be fair, and I guess this is the only way I won't be biased when I see mutuals I like or Andrea my favorite demons.

You can apply for one week. Since we may all be in different time zones, submissions will close when this survey ends.

Feed me information. Since I want to write something good, I would like to ask you for some information. Here's the list:

Name and pronouns: Quite obvious. Short bio: Who are they? Any difficult past or traumas? What were they doing on earth? Did they get to hell like in canon? How do they feel in hell? Where they live? Character: What are their main character traits? How do they usually behave? How do they behave in crisis situations? Voice: (Not mandatory, although, very helpful.) What would the narrative look like? More calm or energetic? Confident or not at all? Funny or serious? Calm or nervous? Laid back or distrustful? You can even paste here a song or a link to some story that you think reflect your oc's voice well. Important facts: Free space, you can put whatever you want here and whatever you think is important. Demons to include in the fic: (from 1 to 3) Brief description of relationship with chosen demons: I guess that's obvious. The tone in which it should be written: (i.e. spicy, angst, fluff, funny or other) Narrative type: Second person (addressing as 'you') or third person (addressing with selected pronouns) The script you would like to see: (Not mandatory, although, very helpful) For example, a date on Earth, cooking together, whatever you come up with.

I know it's a lot to ask. This is a minimal list, but the more information you give me, the better I will be able to empathize with your MCs and hopefully imitate their character. If you have already written about them, for example in your other posts, feel free to include links, so I can take a better look at them. Of course, you can add photos, or a song, or memes, anything you want!

I didn't mention the length of the fic, but it depends on how I will feel writing it. But I'll want it to be at least 800 words.

Most important. Have fun! It's mainly about getting to know each other's OCs/MCs. Who knows, if there's a lot of interest, maybe we'll do more draws. 👀

I tried to include everything, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

[queersatanic]

is that post about you wanting to discriminate against immigrants a meme? or????

It sounds like you're referring to this post, which you're right, is pretty jarring without the context of the bitter but serious joke being made there.

In the wake of the psychic trauma of the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton's electoral loss to Donald Trump, a librarian named Kristin Garvey came up with the following sign:

In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter. Women’s rights are human rights. No human is illegal. Science is real. Love is love. Kindness is everything.

Basically saying, "Unlike those people who supported and support Trump, we are reasonable people who have basic human decency and right opinions," and presumably these people vote for the most progressive Democrat they can in every election.

But pretty quickly the sign was mocked and satirized by others, especially on the political Right. On the Left, though, this was often done by noticing how such people tended to also be wealthy white liberals who would suddenly grow very reactionary when an issue moved away from platitudes to something material like greater housing density near them, sending their own children to public schools, or non-carceral government responses to immigrants or visibly homeless people. Even the opening phrase "in this house" tells you that you're talking about a certain kind of person with a certain kind of wealth because to be able to plant a yard sign you both need a yard and have the authority to put something on it, which renters rarely have.

So let's go back to @papasmoke's post, riffing on that:

In this house we believe in Housing de-regulation A strong border wall Discriminatory immigration policies Infinite funding for the police Rhodesia 2's right to rape, murder, and conquer A maximally lethal military Loving who you love ❤️

This is a reference to the current state of the Democratic Party under presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and specifically her speech at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 22, 2024 (the day before papasmoke's post was made).

Now, we may be differing with @/papasmoke here in that "housing de-regulation" in the sense of ending shit like single-family zoning probably is actually a good thing. But the point we'd agree on is that Democrats aren't talking about using the federal government to step up dense, public housing projects like they did in the mid-20th century. It's just, "We're going to solve the problem!" as an applause line.

On the border, Harris is criticizing Trump for not being as strong on "border security" as she will be.

On police, since 2020, the Biden regime, and surely Harris as well, will continue to push for more federal resources for cops around the country. The spigot will be turned on for the publicly-funded thugs doing the attacks on unhoused people but not so much for the unhoused people.

In regards to "Rhodesia 2", of course we have Harris saying this about Israel:

And let me be clear. I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself — (applause) — and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7 — (applause) — including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.

Not only is there continued material support to proceed continuously bombing Gaza for what will soon be a year, there is not even the rhetorical condemnation of Israel raping, murdering, and starving two million people, all in the name of greater living space and manifest destiny of a brutal apartheid state.

For the USA's own military, Harris says:

As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. 

However, Harris does say that at stake is "the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride," which is one of the main clubs Democrats use to tell queer people in particular that if you aren't OK supporting genocide, cops, and imperialism, then you are not a serious or practical person and you deserve whatever the next Trump regime does to you.

All of this was wildly popular to that room full of people, who also chanted "U-S-A" in response to people trying to just get a Palestinian speaker on stage to have their suffering recognized.

There's an old joke about how if you ask a socialist to describe their problems with capitalism, the socialist tells you a long list of problems with capitalism. But if you ask a capitalist the problems with socialism, they just describe the status quo under capitalism.

U.S. politics is like that with progressive voters in particular. If you were to accurately describe the Biden regime's current immigration/border policy or the enabling of Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing to a liberal in 2017-2020, they would tell you, "That's why the next election is so important to get a Democrat in office."

Then when you look at what Democrats do while in office, yeah, you can argue that it could be worse. But it could be a hell of a lot better, too, and the fundamental problem is there are tens of millions of liberals and partisan Democrats who only seem capable of imagining and working toward a better world when the opposing party is in power. Meanwhile these same people call life under their own rule the best of all possible worlds and see anyone conceiving and working toward something better than that to be actively sabotaging them.

So, that's a much longer explanation than you presumably were asking for, but that's what that post is criticizing specifically and why it's in that format, and it's also why people left of Ronald Reagan are so antagonistic toward partisan Democrats and their political class when we recognize that, yes, Donald Trump and the GOP are horrible and want horrible things for everyone they can put under their power.

[armoredone]

I'M A POPULAR MONSTER. #ARMOREDONE / an independent low activity & selective portrayal of REINER BRAUN of ATTACK ON TITAN

Written by DJ ( they/them ) / 29 ( blog is under HEAVY construction. )

an exploration of mental illness, ptsd, childhood trauma, indoctrination, brainwashing, compulsive heterosexuality, sexual repression, redemption, forgiveness, learning to live again, never ending guilt, and a broken man. ( reiner's canon story is full of triggers and heavy themes, look under the cut for a more specific trigger warning regarding his canon and my own personal portrayal. )

**TRIGGER WARNING** Reiner's canon story involves s*icide attempts, child abuse, murder and all around a lot of trauma. I will not shy away from dark topics on this blog, Reiner is a character who has suffered a lot and has put suffering on others. When I write angsty meta or meme / thread responses they will be angsty and heavy, and I will try to tag everything appropriately.

Furthermore, my own personal portrayal will also include internalized homophobia ( for at least his time pretending to be a soldier ). I write Reiner as gay, his mental illness and multiple personalities along with some compulsive heterosexuality ( Marley comes off as a h*mophobic society to me ) made him repress this part of him, something he only explores with Bertolt whenever he allows himself, and more often than not he forgets about it after. My Reiner was absolutely in love with Bertolt and his crush on Christa was a figment he created for the persona he crafted to fit in with the rest of the scouts.

**RULES**

First and foremost, the mun is named DJ, I use they/them pronouns and I’m 28 years old. I have been roleplaying on this website for over a decade now and I have seen pretty much every drama known to man on here. I will NOT be getting involved in whatever drama is unfolding in the RPC these days. I’m here to write my muse and enjoy myself. Because of this you will never see me reblog a call out. I don’t want to see them, though I will block if the person in question is truly dreadful / a predator, but I will not involve myself. In turn, I will also unfollow if you continuously spread call outs, I personally am not here to get involved in petty drama.

...

I cannot stress this enough. Reiner is not that great of a person, he has committed some terrible acts, things he carries around on his shoulders constantly. It's very important to his character and I will not sugarcoat how much of a hypocrite he is. If you're a puritan who can't handle nuanced characters and character growth or need every character to not be PROBLEMATIC!!!! Then do not follow me, this blog is not for you.

...

When it comes to formatting I have grown past the need for fancy formatting, small text with a few bold and italic words here and there and maybe an icon, but that's it. You can format all you want, but I won't go all out and make anything crazily fancy.

…

As I am very much over the age of eighteen, I will not be following blogs that are written by anyone below the age of 20. It’s just a personal preference and I apologize in advance for it. That being said, this blog may be NS//FW at times whether it be more adult themes or plain smut.

I love shipping, I love writing romance, plotting is usually required for longstanding ships, but feel free to send in shippy prompts to test the waters. Usually chemistry with our writing is required though, so please don't assume!

…

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best at plotting. I have ideas here and there, but I’m actually way more better at continuing prompts or winging it. Please keep this in mind when you ask to plot.

...

My discord is open for plotting and chatting but I will not write on there.

[noideawhatshappenin]

I need to rant about a few things from Bad Batch so

SPOILERS AHEAD

I'm writing this based on memories right after my first watch because my emotions are overwhelming me and I need to rant about them to strangers on the Internet. They're also not in any chronological or logical order.

First off, Echo telling Emerie that he knew the Zillo was Omegas doing? Because he would have done the same?

Immaculate. Fives would be proud to see his brother still being up to dangerous shit. And even passing it along to his little sister/daughter.

On the same note, the Zillo breaks out and the boys outside immediately know it's not coincidence because of course it would be one of their genius madlads.

Crosshair: Was that Echo or Omega.

Wrecker and Hunter without missing a beat: Omega

Because of course it was her.

Then Crosshair saying Clone Force 99 died with Tech had me crying buckets. Baby really has lost all feeling of self worth and needs time to heal on Pabu. Poor boy. Probably feels hella responsible for his death, too, because he wasn't there to help them.

Next up, Hemlock's operatives? You cannot tell me that they're not reminiscent of the Clone Force 99 we saw in Clone Wars. Using debris as a shield, like the first plan we see them do? One fighting with knives, like Hunter? One having a rifle, like Crosshair? Hemlock saw the boys and said: damn I want that as well.

It also explains why many people (me included) hoped for the reveal of Tech being CX-2. They're meant to seem like the Batch.

Also I really hoped Scorch would somehow survive this, just because I'm currently replaying Commando and feel for my poor boy.

Then I think a lot of us remember the meme with the explosion? Absolutely adore, that it was Nala Se blowing the research and Rampart to pieces.

Don't get me wrong, Rampart was a great addition to the recent episodes and his screams had me dying with laughter, but he was an evil piece of shit till the end. He died as a selfish evil Empire guy instead of dying for redemption (like there is a tendency in Star Wars) or getting to live on without any change. He stayed an asshole, even if he was kinda funny in the end.

Now to get into some specifics about the ending and the fate for the boys.

The cut to black when one of the operatives threatened Crosshairs hand? I nearly shat myself, holy hell. What the actual fuck.

The constant pan to Wrecker being injured? I was fully expecting him to sacrifice himself in the end, very glad he didn't.

The scene in the rain on the bridge? Immaculate. The perfect climax to the show. Perfection.

Hemlock's threat being empty, because he needs Omega.

Crosshair still worried because, even if Hemlock won't shoot Omega, his trauma won't just go away and he cannot risk Omega getting hurt.

Omega realising Crosshairs struggle and helping out.

Hunter realising that Omega realised.

Crosshair getting the first hug.

And then we see them leave. Safely. Because it's over. Their fight is over. Bad Batch is over.

Seeing all the clones and children happy on Pabu was the kind of ending the show deserved.

I'd go so far as to call it the ending the show needed. Because the Bad Batch would never have stopped fighting, if there was still danger threatening one of their members. Omega wouldn't have stopped fighting if she had lost another one of her brothers or hadn't been able to free the other clones.

The only way for them to find peace in that world, was a happy end. And I think that's beautiful.

In fact, this leads right into my final thoughts on this. Omega leaving to fight for the rebellion is very on brand for her selfless nature. It's also why this has to happen in the future. The Bad Batch had done their duty. They had fought enough battles for their lifetime, which is why we don't see them joining the rebellion with her. Why it has to happen, when Omega is ready to leave on her own.

Then of course, I cried buckets for Tech's glasses on the dashboard. Because her following in his footsteps and becoming a pilot makes this story come full circle.

Sidenote, I'm pretty sure her hairstyle is, at the very least, inspired by Phee. And her flying is probably closer to Phee than Tech as well, because she is still a chaos child.

Perhaps we'll see more shows from this time. We're certainly still lacking important info.

How does Wolffe join his brothers?

Why are Gregor, Wolffe and Rex "retired" in Rebels?

What happens to Echo?

I imagine, Filoni will give us a Clone Rebellion show (possibly with a sadder ending than Bad Batch) to answer these questions.

Do I have a closing thought? Yes.

As nice as the final scene was, we were absolutely robbed of older Crosshair and Wrecker. ROBBED I SAY.

[iravaid]

🎮🩹🩸💯🎄---for Mr Tommy Riley (yes, I consider him your oc) (yes, I picked the Christmas tree on purpose mwah 🫰)

(from this meme)

Heehee hii womby!! Snatching Thomas E. Riley from Lapham's cold, dead hands after Szilvi's oviraptor attack squad is done with him. I'm so happy you asked heehee

(and oh, so you're evil? You're evil, now? you're sick and twisted and evil?)

🎮 VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER — what are three of your oc's favorite hobbies?

Being a munch Although it was initially going to be his career (tattoo artist Tommy-truthers make some noise), I can see Tommy enjoying art as a hobby and way to relax/clear his head. He never used to draw a lot of people before, focusing instead on other popular subjects for tattoo designs such as ships and snakes and tigers. But his newer sketchbooks feature a lot more of Beth and Joseph, with a few of Simon and his mum interspersed between his studies of household items and appliances.

Tommy is a Man U fan, as is family tradition. I count football fanaticism as a hobby because have you seen these people. Do you understand the dedication to know so much about all those balls and points and such? Dear god. Tommy, Simon, and Beth on footie nights out were terrifying concepts, many Chelsea fans mauled. Sad!

It mightn't be strictly a hobby, but I can see Tommy redirecting any pent up energy towards making small renovations in his home/his mum's home, or even woodworking and making things like a jewellery box for Beth, or little carved nativity scene for Joseph's nursery class. Man works with his hands and his thoughts can get a bit much at times, so may as well redirect towards something productive, as he's been taught (even if this does encroach into dysfunction territor when he's working to exhaustion so he doesn't dream when he finally sleeps).

🩹 ADHESIVE BANDAGE — does your oc have any physical and/or mental disabilities?

I can see Tommy having chronic pain from his back injury and the resultant muscle strain and poor healing that came of it. Nothing a couple heat pads and, uh, working a labour intensive job can't fix...

Between drug addiction and childhood trauma, it's not out of the picture for Tommy to also have developed PTSD/CPTSD from his experiences. For a myriad of reasons (potential access to counselling, access to familial support, not being autistic, not being in the military) it's not as extreme as Simon's, and so his emotional intelligence isn't as stunted, but he's still very much living with the effects of being physically and verbally abused as a child, as well as being addicted to opiates in the past, far into adulthood. Again, has better tools to cope with it, but Tommy isn't perfect, and I can see most of his symptoms manifesting in fawning responses than Simon's fight.

Tommy also has leanings towards depression, and there are times when his mental health declines to the point of it being disabling. I don't see him being diagnosed with depression, nor complex PTSD, as the NHS mental health services are in fucking shambles and some doctors mightn't even recognise the latter in his time.

🩸 DROP OF BLOOD — what is your oc's blood type?

So. I don't have a clear answer to this, because I need to know what Simon's blood type is, and it's not listed anywhere. I think there is a fun off-stage/underlying tragedy in Simon and Tommy having incompatible blood types, in that even if Simon had gotten to the flat in time, he wouldn't have been able to 'save' Tommy via donating blood. Something something, the nature of tragedy so deeply set in Ghost's being that it's biological.

Perhaps it's campy, perhaps it's too much, but whatever‼️my oc now.

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

TOMMY IS THE YOUNGER BROTHER! The wiki is LYING the comics confirm so here:

Tommy is 6'2" and lanky as anything, and unless his brother is on leave, he tends to be the tallest person in the room, bless. Additionally, I can see Tommy having insane forearm and grip strength just from being a tradesman for the better guts of a decade.

Some people have noticed, but Tommy doesn't drink alcohol at all in 'I Wait For You', which is on purpose. He's chosen not to drink, in spite of Britain's heavy drinking culture, as a means of preventing any reliance/gateways, as well as the fact that he doesn't like getting drunk, anyways, primarily because of bad memories of his father after one too many drinks.

🎄 CHRISTMAS TREE — what is your oc's favorite holiday?

Of course it's christmghjgkfgwlisfhdn-

(jokes aside I can see Tommy not having a favourite holiday until he's an adult and meets Beth and falls in love with her, and they eventually have a family together. Then his favourite holiday becomes Mother's Day.)

Augh thank you for the ask :'D It reminded me i have very big feelings about Tommy Riley and his everything, and now my chest hurts heehee

[evilasiangenius]

For the Ask meme...

6. What’s one fact about the universe of the Sleeping Crowley fic that you didn’t get a chance to mention in the fic itself?

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

OMG @thelaithlyworm, thank you so much for your patience in waiting for a response. I have had A YEAR and probably MORE THAN A YEAR if I'm to be honest and it feels like just now my brain is clearing up and I'm feeling healthier. I just uploaded a chapter of something that should also help answer #6.

What’s one fact about the universe of the Sleeping Crowley fic that you didn’t get a chance to mention in the fic itself?

The wattle-daub shelter in Chapter 1 is a shelter from Crowley's memories, and a painful memory at that. Unconsciously, he's built for himself a replica of the shelter that he lived in briefly with his Nephilim children, back in very ancient times. I wrote about it in the Alexander Romance story, and have finally sat down to properly break it out into its own short story that you can read if you like: A Daughter of Eve. Warnings though, this story is SAD.

I think in Sleeping Crowley, something about the forest, the pain and isolation and betrayal that Crowley feels, has prompted him to put himself in this sad little shelter from his memories. This particular shelter gets destroyed entirely and unintentionally by Aziraphale saving Crowley, but the other one, the real one from Crowley's past, still exists out there somewhere with a fire miraculously burning with no smoke. I like to think that Aziraphale helps overwrite/put behind some of the trauma, by that motion of collapsing/destroying the shelter behind him as he flies away.

What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

Besides the history and the worldbuilding details? Contrasting emotions, contrasting characters. A funky mix of emotionally moving with occasional dashes of comedy. I like to try for stories that have all sorts of different emotions involved.

Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

I'm kind of not super fond of Childhood Friends, notably the kind where the kids are extremely young when they meet (single digit ages) and fall in love forever. There's quite a bit of research I read a long time ago about marriage customs in imperial China that suggest that this is very much not a thing. IIRC it's because prior to a certain age, if children are raised together, they don't become sexually compatible in the future as adults because they think of each other more like siblings. I find that I'm less squicked by Childhood Friends if they meet later as adolescents (like high schoolers).

As an extension of Childhood Friends, I'm also not fond of the trope where the one person our protagonist meets first/sleeps with first/falls in love with first turns out to be The Only Possible One True Love to the Exclusion of Anyone Else. I find myself especially uneasy about this trope given the statistics regarding nonconsensual first times in women. Not that fiction needs to be like real life, but as a trope, this sort of first time as the first and only true love often intersects with lack of consent too. Not that that sort of romance can't exist at all, but one wonders, is there a moment years later when a protagonist wakes up and realizes, wait, this relationship is founded upon trauma…

However, I have been playing with the Childhood Friends trope in my current story Fell, possibly because in part that protagonist wakes up someday in the future to recognize the failings of that first love. So maybe it's grown on me but in a way that is not necessarily the way it was originally designed?

[naeldeus]

jjk 251

Megumi is a background character to his own tragedy

Chapter 251 dropped, and a certain character is not coming out unscathed. Our cast is trying to seperate Sukuna and Megumi, and after a few tries, Yuuji finally reaches Megumi. But Megumi denies Yuuji's help, having lost the will to live, allowing Sukuna to launch a counter-attack once more. For this, Megumi is called a bum and slandered all over the internet. Yuuji and Megumi's suffering is pitted against each other by the fandom. Part of it is memes, sure, but it's clearly more than that.

Realistically, Megumi and Yuuji are going through very similar events. Megumi lost his sister and teacher while under Sukuna's possession. Yuuji lost his friend, his mentor right in front of him in the span of minutes. Sukuna killed an untold amount of people in their bodies. Both went fetal after it happened. So why is the response so contrasting?

Yuuji's trauma in Shibuya is front, right, and center. His relationships were developed on-page, the reader is just as shocked by the loss of his loved ones, we're grieving right along with him.

Meanwhile, the events Megumi goes through aren't given the same care. Ever since he got fed the Finger Special, at no point does the narrative slow down so the reader can digest what's happening. Megumi's plot and struggles gets glossed over, skipped, or is a complete tonal disconnect to what's actually happening.

Tsumiki wakes up: the only on-page interaction is Megumi telling Tsumiki to go back to sleep, even though she woke up from a nearly two-year coma. She doesn't show up the entire Culling Games arc even though Megumi's participation was to save his sister

Tsumiki turns out to be an incarnated sorcerer: Megumi's reaction to his sister being dead and possessed is practically non-existent because Sukuna takes over Megumi right after

Tsumiki gets killed by Megumi's own technique: This is the worst one, imho. Yorozu is completely in control during this fight, we learn nothing about Tsumiki. There is almost no acknowledgment on how horrifying this situation really is. The narrative focuses more on Sukuna trying to kill Yorozu, creating this disconnect where Tsumiki is seemingly already dead but she has to die again for Megumi's angst. Does it really matter that Tsumiki's body needs to be killed by the 10 Shadows? Isn't the fact that Megumi will forever remember her dying by his own hand not enough? There is accidental pseudo-incest in this arc and it's completely unacknowledged. The tone is just all over the place.

Megumi takes the damage of 5 Domain Expansions: Is he brain dead? Was his soul damaged? Is he fine? What are birds? We just don't know

Gojo, Megumi's guardian, gets killed while possessed: Megumi and Gojo's relationship is a hotly debated topic amongst fans. Is Gojo Megumi's father figure? Are they even close? Did Gojo hold back from trying to kill Megumi or did he think Megumi was a lost cause? Is Megumi even aware of what's going on?

And the ultimate kicker to all of this: Megumi has shown up for a handful of panels for most of the events described. His story is absolutely horrifying and would cripple any man, but it's all off-screened or shrouded in vagueness.

But to large parts of the fandom none of that matters. If Megumi's friends put aside all their pain, why can't Megumi? Setting aside that Yuuji very definitely did not when it was him, I believe this is a direct consequence of the lack of character work. For months now, character after character dies, and no one reacts to it. Gojo, the biggest hope to most of the current cast, died and the story moves on to the next contender in the same chapter he kicks it. They all just jump into the fight like they're swapping party members in an RPG. It's no wonder Megumi gets disrespected for being the one guy who breaks down to the shit he goes through like a real human being. Why should the fandom care when the story itself does the same thing?

There's a lot of parellels Gege could have drawn between Yuuji and Megumi, and while that might still happen, the way Megumi has been treated as a plot device makes the entire experience incredibly unsatisfying.

[wisteria-lodge]

A question for you: would you sort a living person with whom you are not in communication, and without her express consent, but whose words and deeds are very much on public display? Specifically: J.K. Rowling sure thinks of herself as a heroic Lion Primary; what’s your call?

I have spent a long time thinking about this lady. Possibly too long. But here's what I've got.

She's a Bird. She *likes* Lion primaries, and she likes them in that way a lot of Birds do - Lions feel magical and moral and easy and good. That's why Gryffindor is her good-guy house, and that's why Gryffindors always get a pass when they do shady things. They were always doing it for good reasons, because that's just how Lion primaries are. They know what's good, just by kind of feeling it.

(obviously this isn't at all how it feels to be a Lion primary, but it can SEEM that way, if you're outside looking in.)

And so she likes Lion primaries, and surrounds herself with Lion primaries. And over time, seems to have filtered for the most fiery, if-you're-not-with-me-you're-my-enemy Exploded Lions imaginable. This could also be why she's not interrogating emotional pings when she really should. Like it's heartbreaking to read some of her essays - like, no JKR, that's not a reason, that's a trauma response you ought to be getting help for. But she thinks there's inherent goodness with going with your heart over your head.

Which is also probably why, for the last two decades, she's been slowly surrounding herself only with people who agree with her - effectively Exploding her own Bird primary. She is notoriously stubborn and difficult to work with, and I have that from first hand accounts... but just think how much better an editor could have made books 4-7. Or the Fantastic Beasts films. Or the Cursed Child (we all sort of collectively forgot about the Cursed Child.)

But I see the Bird! I see the Idealism, I see the mind that likes puzzles, and systems, and mysteries. And then I see her just kinda... be lazy about it. Not think though the implications. Be happy with only a very surface-level understanding. Not edit, or update, or interrogate her system. (We know that her worldbuilding is sloppy. We know she grabs existing problematic tropes and then kind of uses them as-is.)

The more I dig into to her, the more I'll come across bits of her system that just seem very... young. They'll be things like 'Good people have kids, or if they can't, then they take care of kids.' Or 'People with mobility aids are good.' That's one's so weird I just have to bring it up. It's very consistent, and comes with the reverse - 'People who use mobility aids they don't need are evil.' Barty Crouch jr. is the HP example, but that situation comes up like - a weird amount in her mystery novels.

(also, I can't prove it, but I think Lucius Malfoy got a much more sympathetic edit after Jason Isaacs started playing him with a cane. Of course that could also be just because... he has a kid... so he can't be BAD.)

Harry Potter, the character, is also very much a Bird Primary. When he acts on really strong emotions it's because they're - yep, trauma responses. Mostly he's trying to figure out his world, synthesize everything Dumbledore and the Weasleys and Hagrid and Sirius tell him, in order to build his own system.

And he's a really loud Lion secondary, the way I suspect JKR is too. Her response to all of this has just been to double down, do MORE, be LOUDER. If her royalties, or the reputation of her IP take a hit, she honestly does not seem to care.

She's not stupid and she's not evil. Hermione was a complicated, fascinating female lead. JKR has an incredible knack for side characters. The books have good stuff to stay about grief, and depression, and I know it gets memed now, but it was a big deal (for me) when she said Dumbledore was gay. But this is how I think you can get someone who starts out in a reasonable place, and gets more and more out of touch, and harmful and wrong and dangerous - when locked into one way of seeing the world, and no one with the ability to contradict you.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Trigun Book Club Masterpost

With the book club having finished up this week, I thought I'd compile all my posts here, separated by category, in chronological order. @versaphile is doing amazing work compiling all the posts made during the book club - I hope this makes everything easier to find!

I will likely be making a few more posts on a couple observations I made and update accordingly, but for now, here's the complete list!

Stream of consciousness thoughts:

Trigun Volume 2

Trimax Volume 1

Trimax Volume 2

Trimax Volume 3

Trimax Volume 4

Trimax Volume 5

Trimax Volume 6

Trimax Volume 7

Trimax Volume 8

Trimax Volume 9

Trimax Volume 10

Trimax Volume 11

Trimax Volume 12 Pt. 1

Trimax Volume 12 Pt. 2

Trimax Volume 13 Pt. 1

Trimax Volume 13 Pt. 2

Trimax Volume 14 Pt. 1

Trimax Volume 14 Pt. 2

Analyses and other thoughts:

Vash's Wanted Poster

The Chapter 11 cover

Vash and Avoidant Behaviours

Vash, Meryl, Milly, and Personal Responsibility

Vash Hyping Himself Up (this was a joke post initially but there's actual thoughts in the tags)

Vash's Grief and its Portrayal

Eriks and Lina over the Two Year Gap

Wolfwood is a Terrible Liar (aka that huge Wolfwood analysis I did)

Wolfwood Keeps Asking Questions

Analysis of Wolfwood's Mixed Expression

Wolfwood Probably Lugged Vash Like a Sack of Potatoes to get away from Keele (yes this is a full analysis yes there's something wrong with me)

Every single volume of this godforsaken manga...

Early Knives and Legato Thoughts

Vash, Anger, and Suicidality

Poor Meryl (that foreshadowing...)

Knives Treats Vash Like an Extension of Himself

Vash's No Good, Very Bad Mental Health

Vash, Hunger, and Wanting

The Bird and Tombi's Bridge

I Hate It Here (extra thoughts in the tags)

Death by Heart Failure over Injuries (nothing coherent)

Names - Vash and Knives' Difficulties in Letting People In

Meryl and Luida Similarities

Milly Character Analysis and Appreciation (coming soon!)

Knives, Vash, and the Importance of Lived Experience - A Dive into Knives' Trauma (coming soon!)

Why Vash and Wolfwood Gave Terrible Advice to Lina and Maylene (coming soon!)

Why Wolfwood Actually Died (coming soon!)

Why we Never See Elendira's Story

Legato, Meryl, and True Devotion

The Power Struggle between Vash and Knives (coming soon!)

Rem's Last Words

Meryl and Her Profession (Insurance Agent vs Reporter) (coming soon!)

What It Is to "See" in Trigun

Sillies:

Introductory Book Club Vash doodle!

Little guy :)

Unfazed Meryl

Nightow Background and Action Scene Appreciation!

Vash gets a Normal Day Chapter

Bro, Personal Space?

Give him Money

He's Super-Niceys...

(￣▽￣)

Vash Doesn't Know What an Insurance Agent Is...

Milly is Going to Get You

Another Small Vash Doodle Because He Was Suffering and It Made Me Sad

Wolfwood Noodle Saga

Baby Knives Meme (I'm so sorry little buddy)

Found the Tri-guns

The Volume 10 Mood

Another Silly Vash Doodle to Lighten the Mood

Once again, thank you @revenantghost for organizing the book club in the first place. This really was a lot of fun. :)

[ronmanmob]

(a very late meme submission - for the fix-it verse) 

Therapy hadn’t been going well. The shrink was nice enough, the bills being picked up by various charities established to fund those who had survived the attack. There was just only so often Tabby could hear about having to take care of emotional scars as well as the physical ones. She didn’t want to talk about how half of the mirror in her bathroom was now covered with painters tape, ensuring no matter the angle, she could only see herself from the ribs up.

“I think you're probably the only one who understands me.” Tabby sprawled over Ron’s couch, staring up at the ceiling. She hadn’t even clocked how she was in a proper Freudian patient pose. “Or, y’know, gets it since you were there.” Ron was truly the sole person she could be normal around. Or, at least, her new normal. He didn’t keep asking if she was okay, impatient for her sunshine demeanor to return in full force. Ron understood why she was now nervous in crowded spaces. Why men of a certain build and height made her twitchy. And most of all, he never every judged. 

--you were there-

Standing at his kitchen-island, their preferred drinks to hand and just waiting to be conveyed to She of the Settee, Ron tensed against a wince so sharply his shoulders shifted for the effort. He wasn't facing Tabs just now, and while usually he'd not even consider the need to hide his expressions from anyone, in this moment he was glad she had his back. No part of the flat affect that blunted his ways and means could've touched the fixed, thousand yard glare that'd come storm-cloud-like at her mention of there - that packed out plaza where, through some accident of fate, his pixie-dressed-best-girl had wound up dying in his arms.

Twice.

They'd bought her back of course, the paramedics; they'd fought like lions for her and won but that didn't stop the truth of things being that. He'd watched life leave her eyes while he pressed his whole weight through his hands onto the wound in her guts to try and keep her together. He'd watched that twice and had still barely processed it; still lurched awake in a cold sweat, diving for his phone to double check. Triple check. That she was still with him.

His therapist told him it was as natural a trauma response as ever you'd see, not least in someone with his very specific set'a wiring. But that was all she saw of its effect on him. She'd never met the demon that lived behind his staring eyes; the one that'd ruled London and knew, to avoid a trace off bullets, to use ice in place of buckshot when hunting one very specific sort'a game.

"--I do undastand-"

The words sounded strained round their edges, like they'd been dredging up from somewhere deep and needed sound forced on them to make them hearable. Inch by inch, second by second, Ron wrenched himself back into the room. The drinks in his hands came back into his awareness, likewise the low light, the quiet music, the young lass on his couch and everything that she meant to him and as it did, as she did, the demon receded. And her Ron came back.

Like a clockwork toy coming back to life, Ron deserted the kitchen-island and made his way over to Tabby. He set their drinks on the coffee table by the settee and then settled beside it, his shoulder within easy reach of Tab's nearest hand should she want the contact. Nothing in him made the comparison in the moment, but this was a Claude the Mastiff move he was making; giving his person space and nearness at once; support and presence without the overwhelm-potential touch could bring on in delicate times.

There was a debt owed him by the cunt who'd gutted her, and that'd be collected on. It'd be paid. But Tabs didn't need the demon in him now. He had better for her, truth for her, and he spoke it plain and with much more ease than he had when first his voice had come back to him.

"-N I luv yah girl."

[clonerightsagenda]

Author's notes for Sick aka I ramble about my complex Disability Feelings

When you're sick, especially given the dominance of the medical model of disability, it's easy to view your body as a separate adversary, and this scenario takes it to the extreme of completely removing yourself from your body. I've talked before on this blog about my complicated feelings on magic disability cures - I don't like them in fiction; I'd like one myself in real life - and this is me contemplating 'what if'?

I do not like being sick. It is painful, time-consuming, expensive, and frequently embarrassing. I wish it had not happened to me. But being disabled is now a major part of my identity and experience - it's probably the first label I would list when thinking about the different facets that impact my life. Being disabled has made me more aware of disability justice issues and changed the way I relate to and rely on other people. In some ways that sucks - it's progressively taken over what I eat, where I work, where I live (which I also take to the extreme in this story with ambiguously literal possession) - but in other ways, I think the disability community often has a much better worldview than mainstream America. I'm glad I've become more aware of some of those perspectives and issues. And because disability has shaped so much of my life for the past... six? years, for good and for ill, it's hard for me to conceive of what my life would be like without it. How would I think about myself? What would I do? This is my new normal, like it or not. I don't remember what it's like to make a fist painlessly.

An added wrinkle is that autoimmunity is my body Trying Its Best. I make a lot of jokes about my body trying to kill me because that's how it shakes out (please, little guys in my blood, stop eating my bones) but autoimmunity is a trauma response. My body got clobbered by so many outside poisons that it can't recognize what a real threat is anymore. It's trying to protect me and doing a terrible job. It's another place where you can look at your body as an external adversary versus a system that your mind is also a part of. But also no matter how you look at it, I am still sick.

There's also some stuff in the piece about the helplessness that comes from being sick which (surprise!) I also have mixed feelings about. Because it sucks not having control over your body! I want to be supervising that shit. But also... I don't know how common this is, but there is a weird kind of comfort in being tucked in bed with someone else taking care of me. I even find going into surgery oddly relaxing because for a while my life will be someone else's problem.

At the same time I also worry that I'm using disability as an excuse. Am I begging off attending something because I really am tired or worried about exposure/overwork or do I just not want to go?

Finally we have Aro Angst because that's always on my mind. And it's extra on my mind in the context of disability because what if I get to the point where I can't take care of myself anymore? I don't have a romantic partner to help me or to provide health insurance if I can't work. I live near my parents and have passed up job opportunities that would take me further away. Most specifically for this story, even I find myself sometimes falling into the trap of assuming the ultimate endstate of closeness/intimacy would be romantic/sexual bc of cultural conditioning. It's annoying! So the character (Dani, I named her Danielle in a reference to the Daniel/the cooler Daniel meme) is still seeking the community, care, and closeness she experienced as part of the disabled community, and the messier weirder intimacy of feeling connected to her own body, but she's struggling with interpreting that through cultural norms of amatonormativity. Sometimes 'I want to be inside you/I want you inside me' is, shockingly, not a sex thing. Hence, toxic nonhorny clone makeouts. I guess???

Side note: I've mentioned this wrt pieces I've written with aromanticism that follow a similar pattern of taking something I am at least not too consciously dramatic about and making the MC a pathetic wet cat about it. I guess they are serving the purpose of Everyman in a medieval morality play here. They are crash test dummies I am flinging at walls to count the cracks. Not great character writing but that's not what this is about rn.

[bee-a-ts]

I've not made a secret of having an absolutely awful week. I've tried not to trauma dump unprompted, either, so I've kept it vague, but in addition to the occasional tumblr post I've reached out to irl friends with statements on the theme. Some friends, and statements, repeatedly. Which isn't like me - I'm normally forthcoming with my stress when it's relatively minor. Or I'll say it once and leave it be. But I'm drowning right now and so I keep reaching out.

And no one. Not a single one of these good friends. Has done so much as said, "I'm sorry, I'm here for you," or asked more questions, or checked in, or, hell, sent a silly picture to try and cheer me up. It's like pulling teeth to get a response at all. It's always me reaching out first - how was your birthday, how was your move, how are you feeling, how was so and sos visit? Here, have a meme that made me think of you, here's a song that made me think of you, here's a picture of the sky in Seattle today, and on and on.

Is it unrealistic to expect a base level of reciprocal caring from close friends?? I know I can always be direct - "I need you to talk first, check in, think of me when I'm having a hard time" - but a, it takes the value out of it for me to have the only times I'm cared for be in response to a direct ask; and b, I have done that before. It's clearly not stuck.

I'm just - gods, I'm frustrated and angry and so goddamn sad. This is my life. I live alone. I do not have a partner, and probably never will. I need my friends, because I literally do not have a different support option. And it's been like this all month, sending message after message to the void for all the response I'm liable to get.

All that to say, I forgot to add kale to my Jamba Juice smoothie delivery this morning and had a fucking breakdown about it when I realized, because it was too sweet and without a vegetable I can't justify eating it so the whole thing will go in the trash. Thankfully, I found some spinach in the freezer and salvaged the situation. But it's so clear to me I'm taking out the stress of this month on my body.

Yesterday the only food I ate and kept down was a pastry and some carrots and seaweed during DnD. I had a banana and donut that morning, but I made myself throw it up.

I've been taking too hot showers trying to burn myself, and too cold showers when that doesn't work to try and make myself cry it out. I am constantly thinking about all the destructive habits I've used in the past and trying to redirect them, but a rubber band on the wrist only goes so far.

I'm exhausted and while this week really took the cake in terms of Extra Bullshit, the intense stress has been going on for two months now and it's looking like another two months of this at least. I don't know what I'm going to do. Probably keep hating myself and my body and coping poorly, if I'm honest. It's not like I'm actively suicidal - I'm not going anywhere. I'm just-

Fuck it, I don't know. Who cares anyway. Clearly. I'll be fine eventually, I always am. I'm used to being the only person taking care of myself.

I'll probably delete this later anyway.

[bossbutch]

Umineko ch4 first half

take a look, it's in a book, reading rainbow

i think misinformation about kyrie and rudolf's relationship was revealed to me in a dream last night.

i was a little down on the fantasy action sequences but ange's whole Bit of traveling back from a possible 1999 is Compelling. ange to battler: "umineko is too long please fix the pacing." ok now let me tell you about my school life and have Level 2 Flashbacks with maria yay for maria stories :D "anti-rosa: i can't forgive the me of yesterday" is awesome. "rokkenjimagate" oh boy time to introduce a new family with a million new characters. 90s ange land is Also a fantasy land just a different genre just like a james bond jr sorta fantasy. umineko: true crime is fail ughhhh bernie directly says "you gotta pay attention to the fantasy sequences if you wanna solve the mystery"

[back to battler] yay i was ahead of battler on the replacement person concept BUT i definitely should've considered grandpa. battler's never seen him. if he's dead then doc and shannon and natsuhi are complicit in Something. weird scene with rosa and maria on rokkenjima where apparently dying together last loop made her so much chiller? she'll even uu-uu with maria. [back to ange] maria "autism is my superpower" ushiromiya dear reddit my tulpa is giving me more tulpas please advise lambdadelta says: "you need to stalemate them so we get unlimited umineko" [back to maria] i'm definitely closer to the anje side of the childhood trauma spectrum than maria but i'm Feeling It. was crying a little at work reading the maria segments with the welfare officer showing up.

[back to battler] ugggghhhhhh not the rabbits again. genji dies like gus breaking bad lol on one hand summoning a demon (gaap) who is like "i'm a WOMAN demon and men are from mars lololol" is Incredibly Lame but on the other hand this is Abusive Grandpa's fantasy land. same with the whole furniture house elf "oh we live for serving people" thing. i'm now convinced grandpa died before the loop started and a scene where he summons demons makes me More convinced. but he's still "Responsible" for what happens because of how he abused everyone else. Long as hell book in two parts? Rich old man has unrequited crush, reads some books, makes his fantasies Everyone Else's Problem? fantasy vs. reality genre deconstruction with an idiot protagonist and comically absurd action scenes? sometimes goes on really long tangents? mostly known for the memes but they only scratch the surface? Umineko is the proper successor to Don Quixote :P

[throughtrialbyfire]

A (Cycle of the Serpent), G, K, and Q for the ask meme!

hi lex!!!!!!!!!! <33

A: How did you come up with the title to Cycle of the Serpent?

its part of this song, specifically this section:

Oh ouroboros The cycle of the serpent Look close It's something like a spring Pull out It looks like it's a helix Push in And wear it like a ring

it's always read to me as a contemplation on fate, on repetition and on bad habits/past traumas which never quite end. actually, i'll paste something from discord to do some of the explaining in how it relates to the fic CotS, since i think i typed up a similar question response recently!!

essentially, alchemical imagery and cycles that persist, in spite of what may be wanted. and observing those cycles from an outside view, looking close to see the details, pulling it out to see its shape, and wearing it on your hand as an acceptance. or thats my reading of it specifically applied to the fic, anyways. and the title is "pillar of Na", which can be taken as a "pillar of null/nothingness", or "pillar of salt", something which crumbles away.

also the different verses, ive tied back to them. the first/opening verse is emeros, the middle "shall i lay awake" is athenath, and "call in 'i will always love you' to the radio" is ironically wyndrelis, but any time "love" comes up for him, its a love for his friends, for his work, and for the family members he used to be close with who are now gone and to tie back to the song, i always see the "turn all eternal" part at the end as being the aedra, daedra, the people whose lives they've touched, a sort of thing saying they're not the only ones stuck in cycles. and of course the part before it is just the trio, hgjkdhfgjk. yes i grew up on amvs and songfics how can you tell-

G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

a mix of both! right now, i've been trying to write CotS in chronological order, but i do have scattered scenes that i've pre-written and am building up to, plus planned concepts for things to happen later!

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

i've got dozens lol, but one of them takes place several years after CotS, where athenath gets poisoned and only has enough strength left to collapse at emeros' door. athenath nearly dies, and emeros wrote for wyndrelis to come soon bc he didnt know if he could cure whatever poison it was in time. :3

Q: How do you feel about collaborations?

i like them! i havent done any in a while - mostly bc i'm very focused on my own ideas rn - but i've done collab fics in the past and greatly enjoyed it!!

thank you so much for the asks!!!!! <333333333

fanfic asks

[shastafirecracker]

Heyo! Sorry for coming into ur ask box randomly but I was thinking about one of ur responses to the last ask meme about how you have some ideas stewing on the backburner that, if you wrote them, would probably be huge and maybe more work than you could have time/energy for. if the universe was the perfect place that we deserve where we could just. beam our thoughts into a blank doc perfectly somehow, what are a couple of the things that you'd write?

aw man... well, in no particular order, I've done very rough idea-sketching for the following trigun AUs:

basically Stephen King's The Mist except a bunch of people are stuck in a diner were Vash (vagrant with mysterious past) is working as a dishwasher and Wolfwood (priest who manages the orphanage attached to a megachurch with deep corruption) is taking about a dozen kids out for lunch so that Miss Melanie can get some shut-eye. the mist happens and all sorts of dramas afflict the diner and then when a select bunch end up running for it (led by the newly-bonded-in-fire V&W) they need to traverse a town full of fog and nightmares to find Melanie, the rest of the kids, and a way to escape

seafaring AU wherein Knives and Vash are selkies and Knives stole his own twin's skin and keeps Vash imprisoned in the belly of his infamous Flying Dutchman-style ghost ship called the Ark. Wolfwood died at sea and was offered a soul-indenture deal as crew for the Ark and now he's the assistant ships' cook and has all sorts of religious trauma. he finds a mysterious naked, scarred man in the bilge and slowly unfolds the truth and vows to steal back Vash's skin, even knowing that he himself can never leave the Ark.

beauty and the beast AU with uncanny monster Vash in a thorned-in castle... parts of this ended up in my big bang fic

fae court AU where Vash and Knives are the summer & winter, seelie & unseelie double faces of the same entity, who maybe split themselves in half during (or in reaction to) a past trauma? (some of the aesthetic of this made it to the BB fic)

a fantasy prince!Vash & knight!Wolfwood AU in which the twins are supposedly the children of the late princess Rem and her husband Alex but actually they were secretly foundlings of unknown origin and it's a scandal for them to be claimed as royalty. meanwhile the king's master alchemist is doing some human experimentation bullshit on the downlow and is stealing scullery kids and orphans who muck the stables for pennies or whatever, and doing Eye of Michael nonsense to them. Wolfwood is such a success that he's quietly slipped back into palace life as a page, to act as a closed mouth and open ears to the affairs of nobles etc. He and Vash are age peers and end up running into each other and becoming fast friends over years; meanwhile Knives is uncovering the corruption in the castle and instead of reporting it, he's taking it over. this one would for real for real be way too long for me to ever write, because I was daydreaming that it would go on for like, multiple action set pieces and changes of status quo, and several decades of Vash & WW's lives, and eventually Knives would kill the king and take over, and V & WW would be the outlaw & his rogue knight, and yadda yadda yadda it's a 450K fanfic that I want to read but not write

music scene AU in which WW is stage crew and Vash is the reclusive identical twin of famous punk/glam rocker Knives (stage name), and WW finds the person he thinks is the talent wandering lost backstage and is like these goddamn stars always so goddamn high, ugh, until he chases Vash down and Vash is like ohhh no I'm just back here because my brother invited me ahaha... hi you're cute... IDK, this could be long or it could just be a short PWP of vashwood hooking up in the green room, lol

direct Green Knight AU in which Wolfwood is the fledgling knight starved for praise who doesn't actually like violence and prefers softness and comfort, but when he perceives his masculinity as being tested he goes all-in on violence and does the classic thing of beheading the Green Knight in the contest of blows. and then he goes on his journey etc etc and encounters Lord Bertilak, who would be Vash, and they play the game of exchanges of gifts, except in this version when the lady of the house gives WW a sexual favor he doesn't cheap out like the movie did and not have Dev Patel give Joel Edgerton a handjob! it was right there! come on, we were robbed! ahem. uh. yeah. a lot of this ended up in my BB fic also. XD

like a Mr & Mrs Smith comedy AU in which Vash and Wolfwood both are either criminals or one is a criminal and one is an undercover operative and they're both trying to blow the whistle on Knives' crime ring without letting each other get wind of what they're doing and it plays out for way too long before they finally realize they were doing the same thing the whole time

I did the research for this whole fuckin thing set in 1814 England of Vash having just come home from losing an arm in the Napoleonic Wars and becoming friends with the local Anglican priest who takes his confessions i.e. is just the only person he can talk to through his PTSD and also both of them agonizingly realizing that they're queer and into each other... and after doing all this research I was like, what the fuck am I doing, I don't even really like historical dramas.

Great Fall happens on a water planet??? (I mean everyone's gotta wish they could do an alternate-biome-Trigun, right? I've seen the ice planet AU art out there which is PHENOMENAL)

Vash is a high school chemistry teacher who pranks his students at least once a semester by pretending to blow up his arm, Wolfwood is a special education teacher, Milly's the coach (of everything), Meryl's the haggard and perpetually harassed economics teacher, the climax of the plot is prom and V&W goofily act out the proms of their own they never got to go to, and they fuck in a limo, idk. this one's a comedy

I think about AU ideas a normal amount

[sortanonymous]

As somewhat of a sports blogger, I wanted to wake up talking about a great Super Bowl and all the congrats and memes and everything. But I'm sorry, if that post does come, it's gonna have to take a while. I can barely focus on it considering the latest in Israel's long line of abhorrent war crimes in Palestine, specifically a deadly bombing in Rafah and hinting at a ground invasion after months of herding Gazans over there as a "safe zone". All the while they fund Super Bowl ad propaganda again painting opposition to their evil as antisemitism (Big difference) asking to "bring the hostages home" after months of them turning down hostage exchange deals. Just as it's clear that this was timed to distract the U.S. from it with the Super Bowl, it's revoltingly clear the hostages are totally expendable to them for the sake of prolonging this genocide. (Not a war, a genocide.) And all the while, the Western world, especially the U.S. government and the Biden administration, are funding and supporting it. Funding a generational display of evil with billions of dollars while acting like there's no money to fix a sagging economy where just about all everyday Americans are getting suffocated by the jaws of late-stage capitalism. No way to fix that apparently, but tens of billions of ways to help Israel deal with the aftermath of an attack they had telegraphed a year in advance. (Gee, it's almost as if Israel put their own people in the crosshairs as fodder to excuse more oppression of Palestine like the past 75+ years since they stole it.) Not to mention them being the one vote in the UN to reject a ceasefire. And also how the vast majority of American corporations are backing Israel in all sorts of heinous ways. Now fast forward four months and the outcome? Tens of thousands of innocents dead, over a third of them children who likely never knew what they were being slaughtered for and never got to live out their lives. Millions displaced and traumatized. A beautiful culture battered. No justice or ceasefire in sight. I know that it's wrong to lose hope, and I definitely do hope that Palestine will be free soon enough, Zionism loses, and that at least a shred of justice hits everyone responsible for this. But man, I'll be honest, it just feels beyond hopeless to do anything. Besides, even if complete witchcraft took over and justice was served and the ceasefire was granted, nothing's going to bring back the people martyred, cure the trauma of the survivors, or reassemble all the rumble. And certainly, nobody should ever forget or forgive Israel and all its allies for participating in these atrocities. It absolutely should haunt all of them forever, and that 100% includes this country's government.

If it helps at all though, still don't forget to give your daily clicks to arab.org to fund UNRWA (which everyone cut funding to because of course they did). (In fact, assuming Incognito mode still gives out ad revenue, which the site uses, you could totally close and re-open arab.org to keep it going. I mean, it hopefully works for me! It's about time we found a great cause to use all those bots on! (maybe)

Maybe soon enough I'll have the somewhat normal posting again, but now doesn't feel like the time. And I know I expressed my pessimism earlier, but then again, history has constantly shown that bigotry and hate can only reign for so long, and hopefully...

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!