#ameli - arabic: meaning “my hope”

[skitskatdacat63]

Lmfao my mom was getting on me abt not having enough to do this upcoming semester so I decided ah okay I'll add another class. And that's perfectly fine. But the one I picked results in the majority of my schedule being generally unaffected and still lax, but my Thursday being absolutely fucked.

For reference, on every other day I'd spend like less than four hours in class/commuting(anywhere from zero hours to almost four), but Thursday, its almost 9 hours combined 😭 which is like fine with me, but I think ill despise thursdays after this, AND MY BIRTHDAY IS ON A THURSDAY :(

[mukuharakazui]

remembered why the no-fly list thing struck a chord with me: a couple of years ago the whole dhs debacle with anming hu. that random ass canadian scientist in the u.s. who was falsely accused of espionage, whose family was spied on by the fbi (who then failed an attempt to blackmail him) for nearly 2 years, and whose trial revealed that the fbi had used false information to place him on the no-fly list and had no legitimate evidence of him being any sort of chinese spy. and even after that, they declared a mistrial and tried to prosecute him AGAIN, where he was acquitted once more by jury.

while islamophobia in the post-9/11 united states definitely prevails as backing to the no-fly list, i can’t help but wonder what exactly changed in those lists from mid-2018 to mid-2021. the sinophobic effects of the china initiative and fearmongering around covid-19 continue to hurt people with racial, ethnic, and familial ties to china.* i happen to have a plenty white enough name on my u.s. documentation to get by without trouble. this is a privilege which my mother extended to me knowing that it was one she would never have.

it would be paranoia-inducing if it weren’t so exhausting. i’m not self-centered enough that i would assume an fbi agent is watching my every move, but the fact that this very scenario has happened to plenty of people including doctors, teachers, and researchers who were in the u.s. simply to live their lives and/or do their jobs pisses me off to an extent i can’t verbalize. and the fact that it could just as easily happen to any family member or friend of mine (particularly close persian and arab friends, but chinese family travelling to the u.s. as well) is terrifying.

*this is a personal tumblr post, i’m not bothered with showing stats, just take it as a biased anecdote as someone who falls under all 3 if you so decide to

this has been me getting personal on the internet over united states homeland security because i didn’t want to dump this all to a friend out of nowhere or a group chat where a lot of people are feeling pretty shitty already.

[thehotshit789]

"Now, just a moment---! Your..." And the door is already slammed at your face. "....name."

Great. So you are serving a master without a name. Great.

Traces of the energy spent summoning you still linger as fragments of the woman's nervous energy buzz in the air. You are a demon, you can Feel discomfort when it's around --- and you aren't particularly powerful or special enough to truly flesh it out, so to Feel it this well means that your Master feels it even worse.

You shudder. You chalk it up to the leftover energy of the Summoning Circle.

Beneath you, the child coos. In the past, you would have wrinkled your nose in disdain. You aren't particularly powerful, or special, and that's why you get stuck doing measly jobs like these. You aren't particularly powerful, or special, but damn it, you're a demon, and these summoners need to learn to put some decorum in their assignments!

But the millenium spent sitting idly by, waiting for the next wannabe-villain sap to say your name yet never being called, has certainly tempered some of that irritation. You are...well, not un-glad to be remembered.

Then the child begins to wail, and you feel that derision coming back. There is something you can smell, taste, a sensation beginning to spread, you can Feel the hint of it on your tongue. Boredom, its stench beginning to lace the atmosphere.

You think that you should probably pick it up.

You're not quite sure how to handle this thing. You think that it's probably safe to lift it from the foot, and you definitely try---but the nasty little creature's head is huge and heavy and does not know how to balance itself whatsoever---so in a panic, you stumble, and it nearly falls. Its' rump lands squarely on your hands, secure. It ceases wailing and begins to laugh. You breathe a sigh of relief. Good.

It seems to agree, clapping its hands and gurgling spit. Or maybe it just liked the adrenaline. It is human, after all.

Thankfully for you, the tunic wrapped around its' backside is not soft nor squelching, so really, you suppose that all you need to do for now is keep it appeased. Simple enough.

You take a step out of the summoning circle, toddler in tow, and take a seat. The seat suddenly crunches down beneath you, wobbling its' legs dangerously, the jerking movement catching you off-guard. A surprised hiss bubbles out of you, when you take a good look around the place.

It seems that the disrepair does not stop at the chair.

The entire lair looks shabby and neglected---no, that's not right. It is clean and organized, but old, decaying. The one chair she has matches its' table, paint chipping off, its' four stable legs down to three and a peg. You look at the walls, cracks, a dent shaped so strangely like a fist at about five feet tall or so --- and far below it, the remnants of pigment (a distant tongue reminds you, craie). If you look closer, you can see that it is smeared as though someone had tried (and failed) at furiously trying to clean it off.

You look at what you assume to be its' culprit, and it is making bubbles of saliva in your hand.

The lair is neat. Orderly.

But another word you are thinking, a word you are thinking very hard, is empty.

The lair is empty.

Your Master is a master of little possession, but you don't think that it is a choice.

Well. You aren't particularly powerful, or special, but you set the squirming mass of your Master's tyke-spawn on the rickety table, and you begin to work.

An hour into your carpentry --- you can hear the taunts of the other demons again, about the irony of that phrase, a demon, carpentry! --- when the familiar Feel of Boredom starts to hum, and you let out a deeply annoyed sigh.

"What is it now, you insatiable little pest?" You murmur, as it fusses from the table. It starts to move, writhing little thing, like a little maggot, then it gets up --- it stands.

Now, you are a demon, a being unaffected by the human constraint of time or millennia, and you are very acquainted with the idea of standing, you've been doing it yourself for ages. And frankly, you don't see what the fuss is about, these humans, but you at the very least know that there is a Fuss about it. For some reason, it is important to the human race that babies learn to stand.

So, "Oh," you say eloquently. Very eloquently.

It even begins to walk.

Oh.

And your traitorous, abhorable, demonic senses, warp into something eerily similar to a feeling of delight --- feh! You are a demon! This human matter has absolutely no effect on you, of all things.

So, you remember yourself, you realize that the maggot is learning how to walk, and its' very first steps are on the shaky foundation of a rotting, rickety table.

"Oh."

Before the entire table gives, you pluck the baby into your arms, and then all the wood collapses (quite comically, too) into rubble and dust.

Your eyes twitch. Well. You did start it.

Beneath you, the little worm cackles at the havoc it has heralded. You think that it has a bright future in Overlord-ing.

(And you furiously ignore the fondness that is beginning to take you.)

To avoid any more incidents, you allow the child to walk wildly on the floor until it is hopefully exhausted, and you feel less like a demon, but more like a timid animal waiting out a rabid beast, and you want to kick yourself for how pathetic you are.

"Could you please just be still for one moment."

You're trying your hardest not to harness anymore occult than necessary for this woodworking project, because Hell would know, and it would be very pathetic on your report, but your patience is wearing thin, just as this toddler is getting increasingly bored.

It does not show even a sign that it heard you, and as young things often do, it runs around doing what it wants, governed by no one.

If not for the report that's being drafted for you on this very moment, you would turn this child into an actual maggot. Only Pledged Demons with Permanent Masters do not need to have reports, and of course, you do not want to be tied down to any Master.

Not even this one, though...she could use the help.

What are you thinking? You're a demon. You don't care.

Grumbling, you turn back to your work. Humans...and their moving about. The toddler squirms.

You would think that a freakish toddler attaining the capacity to walk on its own would be a stressful development for any parent but no, this weird species looks forward to the event and even celebrates it. You cannot for the damn life of you understand why ---

--- and for the 5th time, this chair that you've been working upon for 3 hours, completely crumbles.

You are so beside yourself with frustration that you do not realize the Boredom in the air dissipating --- you do not realize the tyke toddles to you, on its two newly discovered feet, holding a wrench in its hand, reaching out to you with a toothless smile.

You stare at it for a long while,

When it turns its head to the side with a puzzled stare and shakes it for you, as if to say, what are you looking at? It's right here, take it!

Begrudgingly, (that's what you are choosing to call this feeling blooming Rooting in your chest because you are a Demon, though not particularly powerful or special) you take the wrench, and you get back to work.

The wrench does wonders to your efficiency. Modern technology is beyond you.

You are getting better at this, so much better in fact, that you don't even realize that you've not only finished the chair, but you're on your way to finish the table too.

The toddler is reaching random tools at you, fishing out materials from the toolbox senselessly, laying them all down at your side in no discernible order, but once you figure out how all of them are used, it makes the job so much easier.

There is a note for each tool in the box, in curls of characters your ancient eyes are not made to understand, but the sentiment of each guides you --- another ability you have not felt yourself use in a long time. The letters have some similarities, the taller letters look Latin, those parts you know, but the rest, you are simply relying on feeling.

And what a strange feeling.

All these notes seem tired, but meticulous, dedicated, and they are so evident of your Master's worksmanship that you can't help but. Well. Appreciate her, you suppose. Without these notes, you would be senseless, with only an infant's gurgles to go by as you do your job.

The little maggot burbles something, while dancing along with what you know now to be something called a screwdriver, waving it in the air while singing a song.

It does not grate on you as you think it should. But you currently don't have the mind to be bothered, because you find yourself humming along to it too.

The toddler is reaching for something on the top of a weary drawer, and it is causing such a ruckus that the noise distracts you from completing your task. You can feel yourself snapping at it, some curse or hex rising up your throat like a flame ---

Then whatever it was reaching for topples, and breaks.

You are about to scold the little maggot, when you actually take a good look at the picture.

It is your Master, the tyke, and a man. She stands at what you assume is maybe five-or-so feet tall (you cannot help the way that your eyes flicker to the dent in the wall from earlier), and the man stands at her side so close that their arms are pressed together, despite the distant expression on his face.

His hand, you can see, is reaching for her face, but her frame is trying to pull back, and you notice a hidden bruise on her jaw under her scarf.

But the worst part, you think, as wrath (your least favorite vice) simmers --- boils --- beneath your scales, is that they are smiling for the picture.

The toddler stands up, as it has just learned, and promptly stomps on the man's face. It lets out a satisfied squeal with what it has done, and for a moment, the rage in you is quelled.

Strangely, it's as though the glass of the frame shattered on the ground did not allow itself to break through the child's skin. You are surprised, because you have never known the occult to prevent harm. And what surprises you even more is that you are not displeased by it.

You will say that you had nothing to do with it, if anyone asked, because you may not be particularly powerful, or special, but you are a good liar.

You finish the table; you start the walls. The chipped paint makes way for a new, deep hue, not quite red because maybe that's too on the nose and you remember that your Master is a human after all --- no, instead you choose a warm purple, and dark like wine.

...maybe it's still over the top. Very royal, compared to the Master you saw before. But you think that it's...

...not...un-nice.

The maggot wiggles in approval, streaked in the paint, flailing the brush around. You do not groan about having to clean up another mess because Strangely It Seems That No Mess Can Be Made. No smears of pigment that not even the most painstaking brush can erase. No more cracks or dents on the walls. No messes, not while you are around.

(And...if you start to use your occult stamina to give this newly-fixed lair a bit of a flourish...who's to say you aren't just defacing property?

Though, the toddler doesn't seem to think that the...vandalism is too bad. It's quite tasteful, actually. They like the decor.)

And by the end of the day, the tyke is clothed, fed, still clean, and appeased. And the lair is refurbished, redecorated, and repaired. The messes made always get cleaned up eventually.

"So, maggot," you are smirking...no, grinning to yourself, allowing that pride to swell in you, allowing the vice to swallow you whole. You think, you want to be so proud that it is sickening. "How do we feel about the new lair?"

It babbles. You take this as approval, as per usual.

"Excellent. All that is left for me to do now, is to see how the Master takes it---" Then the pungent, intense taste of nervousness begins to ambush all your senses, Satan below, this taste does not come easy to a demon like you, and you Feel the immense stress of your master is pressing into every bone beneath your flesh.

She opens the door slowly, and the worm in your arms begins to giggle, unable to notice the change in the atmosphere.

But in fairness, the master is good at hiding this feeling well, you don't even see it in her eyes.

"See how I take what?" She asks, eyes still downcast as she yanks the key out of her doorknob---then she Sees.

Though the nervousness in the room fades, it turns into something you have no name for --- and in a way, it is as if you soaked up all of the anxiety yourself.

"...so, Master..." Your mouth dries, as her face turns unreadable. "How do you like the lair---"

She throws herself at you, pulling you into a tight embrace. She sniffs, and the toddler, pressed against her chest, cheers.

She smiles, her eyes are warm, as she looks around her home anew.

"Purple," She grins. "That's my favorite color."

Something blooms in your chest and you let it.

She sees the newest additions separate from the table and the chair and the walls, some padding alongside a nice furnish (flair, every abode needs flair), a few shelves lined with books (because any Master should have a few of the dark tomes), new sets of utensils and platter (and cutlery! Any dark artist should have cutlery), but the one you can see her eye the most, a nice armchair (for all Masters must have thrones), dark oak with curling legs.

She takes a seat, the chair does not crunch nor wobble, but it shifts under her, like an embrace. She sinks in it, and her eyes close as you See her, for the first time, at rest.

She peeks, one eye opening slightly, with a tired smile on her face.

"Thank you," she says, stretching out her arm for her child.

You decide to put them down, let them walk to their mother themself.

Her eyes well with proud tears, and she looks at you with adoration in her eyes,

"Maggie! You clever little girl," she exclaims;

Delight pooling within you --- devotee to your harbringer, there is something new you are tasting, stronger than discomfort and nervous and anxious ---

You find the name as you reach within the crevice that feels it.

Love.

"Master," you begin, the words spilling out of your tongue as you hunger. This is a new, different feeling, this is an entity that your occult belongs with, scales and bone that need, need, need.

"I am the Badaqeth, Demon of Recreation and Rebirth, and from ashes and shadows I weave the foundations of new things," Your tongue has shifted into sounds she can recognize, it has been so long since you have said your name.

"Is there a name to the subject of my reverence?"

The statement is new on your lips.

You are not particularly powerful, or special, but the Demon's Pledge is binding, and you will serve her and her kin forever, be unbound from the constraints of Hell and its' contracts, be tied to the woman who makes you feel you---Recreation, Rebirth, Repair.

She is looking at the toddler in her arms, Maggie reaches out for you, arms open, open, open ---

"Ameli," she answers, and meets your eyes. "My name is Ameli."

You’re a demon. One day, you’re summoned into a living room, and an exhausted woman quickly rambles about needing to get to work and being unable to find a sitter before flying out the door. Now, you stand in your summoning circle, a toddler staring wide eyed at you.

[falesten-iw]

To Those Who Still Hold Onto a Shred of Morality and Humanity - Stand with Us and Don’t Forget Us.

Over 40,000 lives have been lost, with 70% of them being children and women. Among these numbers are my own family members—many of whom I’ve already lost.

My family, my cousin, aunt, their children, and grandchildren were all directly targeted by Israeli airstrikes. I’m sharing a video of my aunt and cousin to reveal the harsh reality we are facing in Gaza. In this video, my aunt bravely shares her story about how the Israeli army airstruck them along with their children and grandchildren. Even if you don’t understand Arabic, just watching her speak will help you grasp the immense suffering we are enduring in Gaza. You can see the vedeo in this post.

The few family members who remain are in grave danger, and I’m terrified of losing them too. We have a chance to make a real difference and give my 24 surviving family members a chance to live.

In Gaza, jobs are non-existent, and nonprofit organizations like the UN have drastically reduced their work on the ground. Basic necessities such as milk, food, and medicine are almost as expensive as gold. My family is struggling to afford even the essentials, and my mother urgently needs medication that we simply cannot afford.

I’m also sharing another video that shows the daily struggle people face just to get clean water. The suffering here extends far beyond my family; it’s a genocide affecting every aspect of life in Gaza.

Thanks to the generosity of those who have already donated, we’ve raised $535 toward our goal of $190,363- august 17th. I’m deeply grateful to each of you, but we still have a long way to go, and I need your help more than ever. Imagine if it were your family—how would you feel if they were in this situation?

For those who have created special posts or reblogged to amplify my voice, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support means everything to me and to my family. If you haven’t yet shared our story, please take just one minute to do so. Your voice could be the lifeline my family desperately needs.

You cannot continue to treat human lives as mere numbers. This is a genocide that demands immediate action. How many more should be killed before you all wake up? Will 40,000 lives be enough to stir us to action? 50,000? 100,000? 150,000?

Asking for donations and charity is something we never imagined having to do in Gaza before the war, and it’s heartbreaking that it has come to this. But if everyone who saw my last post donated just $10 or $20, we could reach our goal in no time. If you’re looking for a way to contribute, consider giving up your coffee, tea, or other “cup” for one day, one week, one month, or anything in between. Then, donate what you would have spent to help me. Please help us and donate now!

This is about more than just donations—it’s about preserving human lives and upholding our shared moral values. Your contribution can make a world of difference in our survival and ensure I don’t lose more of the people I love.

Demanding an end to this suffering is a matter of basic humanity. You cannot remain neutral in the face of such genocide. Please, let’s stand together. Enough is enough.

Every donation, no matter how small, brings us closer to hope and healing. Thank you again for your kindness and support. I will never forget it.

Vetted and shared by @90-ghost: Link.

Verified and shared by @el-shab-hussein: Link

Listed even as number 282 in "The Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser Spreadsheet" compiled by @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi : Link

Additionally, Al Jazeera News has documented apart of my family's case: Link

Important note: ** 105 Swedish kr is just 10$ ** 1050 Swedish kr is just 100$ ** 10500 Swedish kr is just 1000$

Please share !

@humansofnewyork@intersectional-feminist @intersectional-feminists@intersectional-feminism @intersectional-feminist-killjoy

@thepeoplesrecord@socialjusticekitten-blog @socialgoodmoms @nowthisnews @socialgoofy

@theblogofawesome@fightforhumanity-rpg-blog @fightforhumanity-rp@queerandpresentdanger @progressive-pride

@radicalsocialworker @activistminds @mybelovedworld @hopeandresist @solidarityisimportant-blog

@solidarityissbliss @solidarityisnotaslogan-blog-blog @unified-multiversal-theory @feministacansada

@feministactionsupportnetwork @globalvoices @save-the-world-but-lose-her @save-the-world-one-day-at-a-time

@save-the-world-tonight @wip-wednesday @daily-writing-prompts @allthingswordy @writerscorner-blog

@fictionfood @wordsthat-speak @writerscunts-blog @storyshots-blog @wordsnstories-blog

@writeblr @thewritingcaddy @fictionwriting2 @inkstay @creativepromptsforwriting @interact-if

[edenfenixblogs]

How do you know if you’re antisemitic?

Well, if a Jew telling you you’re antisemitic won’t make you believe it, here is a guide to help you figure it out yourself.

1. Do you think Jews, en masse, are ACTIVELY REPLACING/ATTEMPTING TO REPLACE some other group — especially a somehow more deserving group? (For example, White people, Black people, African people, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, indigenous people, etc.) Do you feel there are JUST TOO MANY JEWS IN A GIVEN LOCATION?

2. Do you think Jews are PRETENDING TO BE SOMETHING THAT THEY ARE NOT? (For example, White, PoC, “Real” Jews, Indigenous/Native, an Ethnic Minority, Devoted Citizens of [YOUR COUNTRY] etc.)?

3. Do you think Jews are CONTROLLING OR ATTEMPTING TO CONTROL SOME INTEGRAL ASPECT OF SOCIETY? (For example, the government, media, banks, business, medicine, etc.)

4. Do you think Jews that you criticize are UNIQUELY BLOODTHIRSTY OR GENOCIDAL — especially when hoping for personal achievement or cultural supremacy? (For example, trying to stage a global war so they can control the world; using/consuming blood of Christians and babies to do satanic rituals; sexually seducing non-Jews in order to contaminate bloodlines and erase other pre-existing identities; immigrating to a new location with the intention of murdering those who already exist there; desiring to murder Arabs, Muslims, or Palestinians in their homelands by means of genocide in order to control a region at the exclusion of other ethnicities, etc.)

5. Do you think Jews are APPROPRIATING A PRIVILEGE THAT THEY DO NOT DESERVE AND THAT DOES NOT BELONG TO THEM? (For example, freedom, wealth, power, whiteness, G-d’s favor, a safe home in the Levant, Arab land, colonial power, representation as a minority group, etc.)

6. Do you think Jews at large or the specific Jews you disagree with and who wield power in a way you disapprove of CAN BE COLLECTIVELY LABELED? (For example, might you call them slaves, vermin, insects, dirty, scheming, communists, fascists, Nazis, satanic, Zionists, scum, etc.)

IF YOU ANSWERED YES TO ANY OF THESE QUESTIONS YOU ARE AN ANTISEMITE. This is literally textbook antisemitism. If you answered, well yeah but only “the Jews in Israel” or “the ones who vote for Bibi” or the “ones who moved to my town/country/region” or if you saw something on one of the lists and think “well no fair! That one is actually true,” your exception isn’t exceptional. You haven’t found the one true bad thing that Jews ACTUALLY are. It’s not some conspiratorial propaganda to equate reasonable beliefs with hate. You’re just hateful. Some part of you hates Jews. And you have to confront what that part of you is and you have to destroy it if you want to engage in any conversations that impact Jewish welfare anywhere in the world.

One way to start deconstructing is to ask yourself “Why do I feel this way?” “From whom did I learn to think this way?” “Who in my life approves and supports me thinking this way?” “Am I comfortable telling a Jewish person I feel this way in person?” “How do I think a Jewish person will feel/What do I think a Jewish person will think if I tell them this?” “Do I care what they feel or think? Why or why not?” “How would I feel/what would I think if someone felt this way or thought this way about me or an identity I value deeply?”

[zorciarkrildrush]

I think the essence of what drives me crazy about current Enlightened Online Leftist Discourse Regarding My Life Personally And Whether This Time Killing Me Is Morally Correct (as in, commentary about the latest episode in i/p violence) is this:

I want a free Palestine.

I don't personally know a lot of people that don't! They might bristle at the tagline, because it's co-opted by people who do in fact want them dead, but as soon as I lay out why it's in literally everyone's best interest, how a non-free Palestine is horrific both to the people of Israel and to the people of Palestine, how pragmatically ridiculous the occupation of the west bank and the siege upon Gaza are (and I am a very pragmatic person), they get it. And I don't mean I debate people online about it - this, too, is a ridiculous concept - I mean having, time and time again, the deradicalization conversation with my friends, and colleagues, and my family. Obviously not only now - I've always been a very principled and argumentative Jew, ever since I became an adult - and I've been alive for, I don't know, a dozen flashpoints and operations and wars at this point, and I don't stop being argumentative and loud in peacetime either, but especially now.

But that's not what "from the river to the sea" means.

When you, gentle soul from across the sea, echo this slogan, you are either:

By apathy or will, ignoring that the sentiment cheers for the mass expulsion and killing of Jews. Indeed, any non-Muslim present from the river to the sea. This doesn't even begin to cover how even Muslim arabs still will not be safe under Hamas rule - and trust me, I don't care if a Hamas apologist told you different. A victory for Hamas (And we're ignoring the fact they do not have the military capacity for it - I hope you are aware of the privilege inherent to not understanding military conflicts) means exactly that. No "rule by the people". No socialistic, Palestinian utopia to be had, which is a fantasy I'm seeing alluded to a lot recently. Just an extension of the horrific power structure in Lebanon and Syria, where Hezbollah - friends and allies to Hamas - have been playing a tango for decades of both refusing to participate in actual government and betterment of civilian lives, while still draining their resources and controlling them with no real contest. "From the river to the sea" is not a sentiment for freedom fighting - it's a sentiment for a final solution to the people living here who are either Jewish, or for some Very Strange And Weird Reason would rather not submit to Hamas rule. You know - Israeli Arabs, secular and Muslim and Christian, Druze, Circassians, Bahai, take your pick. Their suffering, and my suffering - you know, a person who made the strategic error of being born in Israel while Jewish, which is inherently problematic and not okay of me - don't matter to you. Just the fantasy of an easy, morally correct cleanse of the land.

Are well aware of all of the above! You just don't care. You either smugly chuckle that I, and anybody else who will die, deserve it - or that it's an acceptable loss for the aforementioned fantasy. "Decolonization is an inherently violent process", you'll say to me, chillingly, before implying I have a summer home in Brooklyn I can just retreat to when things get tough. Israel is basically Rhodesia, a very popular blog here mentioned flippantly, so what's the issue with all of those lily-white Jews fucking off back home before the righteous freedom fighters strike them down? Well. This might be the part I urge you to open a book, or even Wikipedia or any god damn thing that will explain to you these upsetting, dense things you clearly struggle with.

It's easy for me to discount islamophobes. Like, very easy. It's very easy for me to discount insane evangelistics who "advocate for me" simply because I'm a pawn in their religious rapture. It's easy for me to fight against Israeli and Jewish fascists - I have been long before this news item came across your feed, as did the insinuations that some civilian deaths are okay, actually.

It's easy for me for me to see promotions for donations to non-political aid in Gaza. It's easy for me to see the sentiment that hey! Palestinians deserve safe, healthy lives. That they have deserved an independent state, and were unfairly denied one, for decades. It's easy for me to see people saying "You know, the Israeli government is shit, actually, and their actions endanger and promote to the misery of innocents". Because that's right! I wouldn't be voting and protesting and donating for all of these sentiments otherwise!

It's not easy for me to see people, who I honestly held in high regard and saw having well thought out opinions on important matters, inadvertently echo the sentiment that my death is acceptable. That a terrorist organization, who rule over their own territory with fear and violence, are righteous freedom fighters, vox populi, only out to establish a free state. Like hey, their manifesto said otherwise, so it must be all there is - right? That Jews are just hysterical, they can easily live elsewhere - ever since that nasty holocaust business everything's fine abroad. Besides, it was just so long ago who even cares stop talking about it. Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Ayatollahs in Iran, the fucking Islamic Jihad - are not interested in freedom. They aren't, and echoing their slogan tells me you are either ignoring that, or support them anyway. If antisemitic rhetoric, half truths and lies by omission work on you today, they would have in any period of time. I'm sorry this makes you uncomfortable. I'm not, not really.

So finally:

Know what your fucking words mean. Have a cursory glance at the history of the MENA and why it's so fucked, one that doesn't boil down to "The Jews, with American help, rolled into where they don't belong". This isn't even a joke. I've seen this braindead, history-revising sentiment repeated so many times, both online and in actual textbooks, that I feel I'm going insane. So many well-meaning people handwringing and assuring each other that repeating genocidal slogans is fine, that calling the i/p conflict "a simple problem" (which means it has a simple solution, right? Just kill the Jews.) is a well-adjusted and intellectual take. That "only the Zionists should die! The rest will be fine :)" I dare you to say that and also give me a correct definition of what Zionism is. Why I, a Jew that advocates for Palestinian statehood and rights and safety and always have, won't also face the wall in your little fantasy.

Freedom to Palestine. Peace in the middle east, fucking yesterday.

A curse and a plague on those who don't want either of those, and just want to cheer on the death of "the other side".

A curse and a plague upon you, when you tell me, smugly, from somewhere safe and far away, "from the river to the sea".

[jewelleria]

to be clear, people have absolutely not forgotten context is a thing—in fact, they remembered it exists so hard they ended up using it wrong. (see the entire shitshow that was the ivy league congressional hearings, during which former president magill of upenn refused to say that calling for the genocide of jewish students was against the university’s code of conduct because, to her, it was a “context-dependent decision.”)

the very basis of pro-hamas and october 7th defending rhetoric—poorly “disguised” as advocating for palestinian rights—is that “the october 7th attacks didn’t happen in a vacuum.”

it all depends on the context, they insist, because pointing out the past struggles of palestinians somehow reframes barbaric, animalistic acts of terrorism “freedom fighting.” it all depends on the context, because a jew (read: most jews) being a zionist is apparently enough “context” to chant for their death.

so, in short, context is absolutely essential, but it’s being used wrong. it’s constantly weaponized to excuse antisemitism when in reality it’s the true context that they’re ignoring.

(disclaimer: i’m going to be discussing the american laws and constitution specifically.)

i also believe that disagreeing with someone’s political opinion is never an excuse to “take away their rights.” meaning, a person should be able to believe & say whatever they want without being legally prosecuted, convicted of a crime, and yes, without being verbally abused. that includes hate speech; the entire point of permitting free speech is that while we are granted the right to express ourselves however we want, the assumption and expectation is that we will do so without causing others emotional distress and without making them fear for their safety.

same goes for free will. in judaism, we don’t believe that god is responsible for/in control of the actions taken by the people he created, for the simple reason that he created them with the ability to choose. the holocaust was not divine punishment, it was a crime committed by humans. in giving us free will, god made it clear that he believed in us to make the right choices. whether that belief was justified is a different matter.

so yes, hate speech is legally protected in america, but is has to be. outlawing hate speech also outlaws every other type of speech, including all forms of self-expression, except the type the lawmakers decide is allowed. so yes, hate speech is legal—but just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. hate speech absolutely must be legal. the issue that needs to be addressed is not the laws allowing people to speak this way. it’s the fact that people think it’s morally acceptable to speak this way in the first place, regardless of whether the law permits it or not.

however, going so far as to apply the same logic to people’s actions is where the line must be drawn. that sentiment contributes to the mob mentality attitude of “someone’s actions does not suddenly take away their rights.” when someone takes an action that is illegal (such as physically attacking jewish students), their ability to act freely is, simply put, taken away (they get arrested and prosecuted for assault).

let me rephrase that. when someone IN THE WESTERN WORLD takes an action that is illegal, they are penalized by no longer being able to take those actions. murderers go to prison. rapists go to prison. kidnappers go to prison. in the western world, in democratic society, terrorists are prosecuted.

but in the middle east (excluding israel), society is the opposite of democratic. governments are authoritarian dictatorships (example: iran) built on colonialist and genocidal values with the goal of conquering land. conquests, which by definition use ethnic cleansing, sexual violence, forced conversions, and oppression to actually do the conquering, are an ideal. organizations like hamas, the houthis, hezbollah, ISIS, al-qaeda, the taliban, and the bazillion other terrorist regimes in the region are existentially dependent on islamic fundamentalist imperialism. that, if you didn’t know, is not islam—it’s the belief that islamic sharia law should be implemented via the conquest and reform of the world into a unified and entirely muslim country, or a caliphate.

in other words, colonization. in other other words, freedom of absolutely nothing.

in a world like that, you are allowed to do whatever you want, but you’re only allowed to do it if the government says it’s okay. in a world like that, islam is not just a religion, it’s the only religion. in a world like that, women have no education and are owned by their husbands. in a world like that, being queer isn’t just forbidden, it’s a crime almost always punished by the death penalty. in a world like that, there is no “woman, life, freedom.” there is no autonomy or free will, there is no self-expression, and the government makes sure that there’s no escape, either. (unless, of course, you do the bidding of said murderous authoritarian dictatorship “government.”)

that’s what it means when we say that openly queer, trans, jewish, and all-non muslims would inevitably end up murdered if they stepped foot in gaza. it’s never okay to wish that upon someone, but simply saying that if the average self-proclaimed “pro palestinian” were to hypothetically find themselves

that’s what it means to say freedom of belief is always allowed without specifying that it’s actually only allowed in the western world. and by pointing that out, i’m not saying that i think that’s how it should be, because i don’t. i’m saying that’s how it is. i’m saying that in an ideal world, no one should be able to follow a belief system that leads to and advocates for violence and oppression. ever.

context matters. in the real context of what’s happening, israel is the only democracy in the middle east. it’s surrounded by countries that are all built on a desire to bring about its destruction. in israel, women are political leaders, pride month is celebrated, half the population are vegan hippies (lmao), anti-war protests happen every five minutes, and churches, synagogues, and mosques stand next to each other. and it’s all allowed.

yeah, the israeli government as it is now is the most right-wing it has ever been. but that does not mean it shouldn’t exist. slogans and chants like “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” are literally just a death wish to israel, and to democracy in the middle east as a whole.

hate speech needs to be allowed, because hate speech is free speech. but so is love speech, and peace speech, and life speech. you cannot have one without the other. you can’t have good without the bad, and accepting the good means accepting the bad, too. it’s a package deal kinda thing. democracy comes with its limits and downfalls, but it needs to have flaws in order to be a democracy. that’s what “for the people” means. a democracy that tries to be perfect is just a dictatorship.

I feel like people forget context is a thing which is important.

I have been seeing posts saying that zionists don't get to celebrate pesach/passover because zionists bad. These posts are mainly from goy.

Firstly, pesach is literally about jews returning to our homeland after being freed from slavery in Egypt to give the briefest history on the holiday. Whilst it's not a holiday about zionism as zionism is about having a modern day state and it's celebrating our return historically, it still is ignorant as fuck.

Secondly and more importantly; goy, you do realize that you are going "jews i dont like have lost the right to participate in their religion in my eyes".

Like you do realize that someone's political opinions or even their actions do not suddenly remove their religious rights.

You are literally going "I don't like your political view so you deserve less rights"

Pesach is a holiday which all jews have the right to observe.

And that's all jews. Zionist jews, antizionist jews and non zionist jews. All jews are equally valid in their jewness and can celebrate whatever Jewish holidays they want to.

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

A brief History of Mizrahi Jews in Arabic countries and Their expulsion

A\N: While I am an Ashkenazi Jew, I have done A LOT of research, and have both Iraqi friends and relatives to corroborate this with. Also, I'm petty - an Iraqi user who comments regularly on my posts seems to forget about his own country's Jewish history... Well, I hope he forgot instead of the more likely reality: It seems like Arabic people nowadays aren't aware of Jewish history in their countries since they either killed to expelled them all. Thus is born the constant argument that all Jews originated in Europe and are merely settlers in the Middle East.

I realized that what may be obvious to me won't be obvious to others since I'm a history nerd who grew up in Israel with plenty of rich archeological evidence and resources surrounding me. I'm happy to make these posts in hopes of educating others and contributing my part to ending antisemitism and prejudice. ___________________

You might have seen the following picture in one of my previous posts:

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, in this case, it concludes hundreds of years of discrimination, violence, and exile for Mizrahi Jews. * It is important to note that numbers are slightly varied between sources, but the meaning is clear.

In a nutshell- all throughout history, the fate of Jewish people in countries where they weren't the religious majority was the same:

Discriminatory laws, blood libels, being blamed for disasters > violence & murder > Pogroms * > and eventually- exile or mass murder AKA ethnic cleansing \ genocide.

Pogrom-  the term refers to violent attacks by local non-Jewish populations on Jews in the Russian Empire and in other countries.

Every Jewish community has its own Pogrom. While my side of the family might immediately think of the Kristallnacht or persecution & pogroms in Hungary, it is different for Jews from different backgrounds. You can read about a few cases of forced conversion to Islam here.

A brief History of the land of Israel

The land of Israel has always been considered a strategic passageway, and so many empires throughout history have conquered it:

* I simply cannot accurately write 3000+ years of Jewish history in the land of Israel. I found that this video summarizes it perfectly.

Exile from the land of Israel

Jews were exiled from the land of Israel numerous times since the Assyrian empire conquered Israel in 732 BCE, to what we call "the diaspora" גולה. It was not by choice and we were persecuted everywhere we went.

Jews were not allowed to legally return to Israel until 1948 when the British mandate over the land of Israel ended and Israel was formed. Yes, even during the Holocaust.

The Jewish answer to exile - Aliyah עליה There have been 5 waves of illegal immigration from all over the world to the land of Israel before 1948, recorded in modern times.

Chart taken from Wikipedia (their chart was the best I could find in English)

Forced Conversion

Whether in conquered Israel or in exile, Jews were often forced to convert to either Christianity or Islam. The choice was between conversion or death.

*You can read more about some of the forced conversion of Jews during history here and here.

First Case study- The last jew of Peki'in, Margalit Zinati

Peki'in is an ancient village in the upper Galilee, Northern Israel. Nowadays, its population is mostly Druze.

Peki'in has had a Jewish presence since the Second Temple period, until Arab riots in the 1930s*. Meet the remaining member of the Zinatis, the only family who returned. (aish.com)

*Read more on the Arab riots of the 1930s here and here. Margalit is currently the last Jew living in the village of Peki'in . She is the last direct descendent of the Zinati Cohen family. The Zinati family's origins are dated back to the Second Temple era. The former Jewish community of Peki'in maintained a presence there since the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). That is when the polytheistic Persian Empire conquered the land of Israel. For reference- that was approximately 500 years before Jesus was even born! "During which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Roman siege of Jerusalem." (Wikipedia)

As an adult, Margalit chose to not marry so she could stay in Peki'in and continue her family's Jewish legacy in Peki'in. She later became in charge of the ancient synagogue in the village and turned her basement into a visiting center \ museum of Jewish history in Peki'in- "House of Zinati". in 2018, she lit up a torch as part of Israel's 70th Independence Day Torch lighting ceremony (which is considered an honor given to influential and trailblazing people).

-Margalit Zinati pictured in the Peki'in Synagogue yard, 2016 Picture taken from Wikipedia, uploaded by Deror Avi.

Second Case study - Iraqi Jews (Babylonian Jews \ יְהוּדִים בָּבְלִים)

Iraqi Jews are one of the oldest documented Jewish communities living in the Middle East. It is estimated that they originated around 600 BC.ת

The Farhud الفرهود הפרהוד

Unfortunately, Iraqi Jewish history ended in the same pattern I've described earlier. The Farhud was the violent mass dispossession against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq between 1-2 June 1941. was the pogrom or the "violent dispossession" that was carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on 1–2 June 1941, It immediately followed the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War.

Background for the Farhud:

WW2- At the time, many Arabic countries in the Middle East agreed with Nazi ideology.

History of violence towards Jews.

The Anglo-Iraqi War (2–31 May 1941) - caused rising tension, and as usual, it was turned on the Jews.

personal family ties to the Farhud My relative was born in 1939 in Iraq, to a big upper-class Jewish family. Unfortunately, the mass exile of Jews in the 1950s didn't skip her family: she was stripped of her belongings and exiled to Israel along with her family. In the 1950s there were approximately 140,000 Iraqi Jews. As of 2021, there are only 4 left.

----------------- Please feel free to add anything I missed in the notes. And as usual - remember I am a human being. If you cuss or harass me, I will block and report you.

______________

Online Sources: * https://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/865383 - Hebrew article, Title means "Sad ending to a magnificent history: Only 4 Jews left in Iraq".

What was the Farhud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud

History of the Jewish community in Baghdad https://cojs.org/the_jewish_community_in_baghdad_in_the_eighteenth_century-_zvi_yehuda-_nehardea-_babylonian_jewry_heritage_center-_2003/

What are Pogroms?https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/pogroms?gclid=Cj0KCQiAkeSsBhDUARIsAK3tiedM7DuwIaSQX-kRxvXTgCDxN6-zqeo_DNNFgyanSYGyGOhwu_0vfrkaAg6REALw_wcB

The last Jew of Peki'in, Margalit Zinati https://aish.com/the-last-jew-of-pekiin/

Arab riots of 1930s- https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/ben_zvi_30 https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-1936-arab-riots

Israel's history from ancient times & timeline : https://www.travelingisrael.com/timeline-land-israel/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=iiUIWnU-Ofk

Second Temple era - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple_period

Forced conversion of Jews across history- https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18mvnct.7?seq=4

https://academic.oup.com/book/32113/chapter-abstract/268043723?redirectedFrom=fulltext

[matan4il]

what do you, as an Israeli, think of Standing Together? asking entirely in good faith because I see things supporting them a lot, but it's always from American Jews and (no offense to us), I don't totally trust that we're informed enough to know what we're talking about and what their perspective and usefulness truly is in the way that someone who actually lives there would. so many orgs are untrustworthy or covertly antisemitic and it made me curious for your perspective. thank you for everything. <3

Hi Nonnie!

Sorry it took me a moment to reply, but I hope my answer can still help you!

As an idea, Standing Together is a movement that I should have been all for. They are pro-coexistence, and so am I. There's no doubt in my mind that Jews aren't going anywhere, and neither are Arabs, and we are all better off working together for a good future for all. Supposedly, that's ST's message, so they absolutely should be an organization that I would be all for.

BUT from everything I've experienced, the narrative that they adopted is way more one-sided than their official stance, they're closer to being anti-Israel than balanced, which makes them problematic for me. Especially when you look at the individual actions and statements of many of this movement's leaders, it's evident that coexistence to them comes at the expense of historical facts, as well as certain Jewish rights. Obviously, the leaders' personal positions influence the movement's stance and actions.

For example, in this interview from Nov 2023, a Jewish leader of the movement falsely calls Israel's 2014 operation in Gaza against Hamas, "a war against Gaza and its people" (brief summary: Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Jewish teenagers in Judea and Samaria, Israel launched Operation Brother's Keeper during which it arrested some of Hamas' terrorists in that area looking for intel on where those 3 kids were and what happened to them, Hamas fired rockets from Gaza at Israel to get its terrorists released and used terror tunnels, including ones that crossed the border from Gaza into Israel, to kill and kidnap our people. That's what Israel ended up fighting against in Operation Protective Edge), while an Arab leader of ST defines their way as one which rejects "maintaining violent military control over millions of people," but says nothing against the terrorism that's used against millions of Israelis and Jews.

In terms of the recent war, since Oct 7 they have come out calling for a ceasefire now very early on in the war (I can't remember when they started it, but I know by Dec 7, 2023 they'd already put out a vid calling to stop the war, when really the ground operation only started about a month earlier, before it could possibly achieve anything), meaning this call was undermining Israel's right (and duty!) to defend its citizens, and asking us to surrender our goals of returning all the hostages and destroying Hamas' rule (only the latter can prevent Hamas from fulfilling its promise to carry out more massacres of the type that started this war, and has claimed so many lives on both sides). Another thing you can see in that vid is ST participating in spreading the false narrative that Israel is intentionally starving the Gazans (you can see the same thing in this poster, which says in Hebrew, "Thou shalt not starve." It's a poster for humanitarian aid they were supposedly bringing into Gaza, as if the IDF would ever let anyone bring anything they want unchecked into a war zone, or as if the amount of aid a few Israeli cars could bring is more than the hundreds of trucks Israel has been allowing in, checked. ST's just posturing and spreading an anti-Israel libel). Helping to spread a libel against one side is NOT being pro-coexistence. Imagine if they were spreading a libel that all Gazans are Hamas terrorists, and took part in the massacre! I think it's clear that, even if it's not simple to tell them apart, there are people in Gaza who are complicit, and people who are uninvolved and innocent. So if ST were spreading such a libel against Gazans, I'd oppose them. I am not going to do less when ST is spreading a libel against my own people.

I hope one day they correct course, but I can't currently support them. Give me REAL solidarity between Jews and Arabs, which sees and recognizes the humanity of both, not a repeat of the de-humanization of Jews, and a surrender of Jewish rights to an anti-Jewish narrative. That's not real peace, it's not real coexistence, it's a return to the way that we Jews have had to live for centuries in exile: always dependent on the good will (or lack of it) of the majority under whose will we lived, forced to bend ourselves, our rights, our dignity, too often even our very lives, to our subjugators, in the hope (and without any guarantees) that they will show us some kindness.

Many of the movement's leaders have not only expressed themselves in a way that reflects an acceptance of the anti-Israeli narrative, and took one-sided positions I can't agree with, they also acted in ways that have left me feeling quite unsafe.

For example, one of ST's founders, Yeela Raanan, joined and supported the violent Palestinian riots on Israel's border with Gaza, organized by Hamas, meant to breach the border fence, which started in 2018. Today we know these riots were a part of Hamas' preparations for the Oct 7, 2023 massacre, as they were getting the IDF used to them coming closer and closer to the fence. TBH, those of us listening to the statements of Hamas' leaders, we didn't need to wait for the border to be breached in order to know that it would be a bloodbath if they succeed. Sinwar's promise that they will reap out the hearts of Israelis with spoons from our chests was enough. Also, the repeated use during these riots of flags and kites with swastikas was pretty telling. So yeah, I can't trust anyone who supported that.

The movement is also financially supported in part by funds, such as the New Israel Fund, which finances a lot of good causes, but also many anti-Israel ones, and the German fund Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which supports the antisemitic BDS movement (it's antisemitic first of all because one of its stated goals is to put an end to Israel as a Jewish state, another reason is their use of antisemitic tropes in characterizing the Jewish state).

The ironic thing is that, despite how imbalanced against Israel ST is, it was still the so-called pro-Palestinians who actually started a campaign to boycott the organization. Not because of anything specific ST said or did. It was simply for being an Israeli organization, showing the diversity of Israeli society, which is apparently bad 'coz it "normalizes" Israel's existence. That shows you the anti-Israel nature of this opposition, that no amount of willingness to cooperate with the de-humanization of Jews and erasure of our rights will ever be enough for people whose real motivation is antisemitism, that wishes to see an end to the Jewish state.

I hope this helps, Nonnie! Once more, my apologies for how long it's taken me to reply. Be well!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[budbuddnbuddy]

Little obey me headcanons (pt3)

(Pt4)

A/n: uhhh not really sure what to say here, but I’m glad my posts are getting the attention similar to what I had when I first picked up writing fanfics and headcaons. Thank all of you so much hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas.

As MC spends more time in the Devildom and makes more pacts with the brothers, they’ll start to have a slightly more evil look to them. Get what I mean? Like how Megan Fox has “evil beauty.” However its not as visible, they’ll still look like your normal boring human first glance.

“The celestials know every language in the human wor-“ *LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER* Sorry but I respectfully hate this headcaon with all my heart, it doesn’t make sense. Sure these guys are immortal powerful beings that have lived for millions and billions of years, but they don’t even keep up with the human world like that and that’s CANON. Also if we’re looking at it through their perspective where as a hundred years is literally just a couple of blinks, humans would be making new languages every second.

They probably know 2-6 MAX, and that’s not me underestimating them that’s me saying that they either don’t have the time or will to care about 7,139 OFFICIAL languages there are in the human world. But enough of that let’s dive into the languages that they can speak.

Lucifer: English, French, Italian. and a little bit of Japanese due to Levi but not enough to be fluent. Mammon: English, Spanish. Levi: English, Korean, Japanese, and sign language. (idk if that counts) Satan: English, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, Arabic. Asmodeus: English, French (mainly because he thinks it sounds hot 💀) Beelzebub: English and German. Belphie: English, Spanish, German (because of Beel), Japanese. Diavolo: English,Italian, a bit of Spanish but not enough to be fluent. Barbatos: Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, English, French. Simeon+Luke: English right now but Luke wants to learn Spanish.

Solomon is probably the type of person to wake up at 12:30 in the afternoon whenever possible. Mf probably has an alarm set for that exact time too, and when you ask where he’s been for like half of the day he’ll tilt his head to the side and be like “I was sleeping????”

I feel like we can all come to a sort of mutual understanding of this, but the brothers fan clubs and MC do not mix well together like at all.

“Asmo, get your crazy ass fans under control! They’re fucking insane!”

“Oh they can’t possibly be that bad dear! They’re MY fans after all!”

“I let it slip that we had a date planned for this Saturday and one of them threatened to cut me before calling me a warm toilet seat!”

“Oh.”

Asmodeus, Barbatos, and Simeon call you Hon/Honey sometimes.

For all of your RAD classes, every brother except Lucifer shares at least ONE class with you. Also all of the exchange students are in the same Main classes.

Everyone is a tad bit insane about you, just a little bit, a sprinkle if you will. No I am not explaining this.

[valorantmenheadcanons]

Innocent and shy masc reader has an incredibly dirty search history and an even worse taste in porn, has a large collection of order receipts from bad dragon. Cypher goes snooping and finds this all out? They have a little "chat" about network security -🐩

this is like my biggest fear except with my parents accidentally opening one of my packages. its either shampoo or a toy gnmsfgns

cw: suggestive, mentions of Corn, technically kind of cyberstalking? it's cypher what do u expect

wc: 718

It's late when you hear a soft knock at your door. You put your phone down on the bed, wondering who's on the other side of the door, especially at this hour. You hope it isn't a call for a last minute mission- the last thing you want right now is to be in a plane in a matter of minutes, geared up to fight.

When you open the door, you're greeted to the sight of a familiar beige figure, standing just a little too close. Cypher never seemed to mind getting in other people's space as long as he was the one doing it; invade his and he'd scamper off in seconds. His blue mechanical eyes scan over you quickly, though in a way that reminds you of someone checking for weapons rather than looking appreciatively.

"I need to talk to you about something," the man chirps, inviting himself inside your room before you can say anything. He slides by you with a careful hand on your shoulder, the leathery material of his gloves cool against your skin. You flush a little at the contact, fleeting but strangely electrifying. You shut your door behind him, folding your arms over your chest as you turn around to face him. You assume he's going to ask for a favour of some kind, or he wants to steal a piece of machinery from you, again, but you're really not in the mood to humour his requests, tired, and a little cranky because of it. Cypher pauses for a moment, hand half-raised in the air like he's trying to figure out exactly what he wants to say. "You know that I am very technology proficient, yes?"

You nod, frowning at the opening. He's usually pretty straightforward when he's asking for something.

"Come on, everyone knows to delete it afterwards. Are you trying to tease me?" Cypher's voice is smooth, peppy and cheerful but calculated, any hint of hesitancy gone. He's talking to you the same way he chides his opponents in a fight he's already won. The realisation sends a shiver up your spine- he knows something that either you don't know or don't want him to know. But you have an inkling, a gut feeling, that it's something you didn't want him to know. Not yet, anyways.

"What are you talking about?" You try, a little too quick to appear genuinely confused. Cypher's head only tilts minutely.

"You're too smart to be playing dumb. I mean, really?" Cypher scoffs, taking a few steps forwards, forcing you to take one back to maintain a semblance of distance between you two. "Looking up Moroccan models?" Another step forward, and your back brushes against the wall next to the door. "Picturing me as any one of them, hm?" Another step, and there's barely any space between you, and you want to die.

You hadn't intended for him to see any of that- although that meant he was snooping around your private search history, a whole other issue to tackle- but you also hadn't not intended for him to see any of that. It was a blurred line, your attraction to Cypher.

"'dirty talk in arabic'?" He has the decency to stifle a laugh, which only makes your face flush deeper, embarrassment, shame, and something else washing over you. "Mm, not to mention your purchasing history. Dirty, dirty, dirty boy," he clicks his tongue. "I thought you were all sweet, not so perverted."

You finally find your voice, the tips of your ears burning at this point. "I'm not the one snooping around in other people's stuff!" You tout back, a weak deflection.

"I'm not the one imagining their coworker is fucking them."

"Shut up!" You groan, really wishing with all your heart that you could be anywhere but here.

Cypher's beady blue eyes lift with a mirth you can sense through his mask. "Ohhh... but you like it. You're so red," and this time he does chuckle, mean and condescending, and damn if it doesn't send a little jolt of warmth through you, the idea that that little laugh is just for you to hear. "How about this: You show me which videos you like, and I'll give you a... personal lesson in how to delete your search history. How does that sound?"

[thevoidstaredback]

Tales of Conquest, Warnings of Fools: Letters Between Brothers

Still no letter from Damian. He’d been checking the mailbox every day for a year, but he understood why. Kind of. He gets that Damian and his family were under a lot of stress after Mr. Wayne was kidnapped, and they're probably celebrating now that he’s back, but that still didn’t stop the tiny bit of hurt Danny felt whenever he noticed the lack of responses from his brother.

A bigger part of him was wondering why it was taking so long for Damian to respond. Sure, his father had gone missing, and that was a lot of stress, but now he was back and it’d been nearly four months, but there was still no letter.

Maybe Damian really did hate him. Or maybe he’d forgotten about him? He hoped neither was the case, but he knew both were possibilities.

“Tot nicio scrisoare, nu?” Jazz asked. She was fluent in Romanian now, having taken to the language like a fish to water. Part of that was probably because Danny refused to teach her Arabic unless she learned three other languages, all of which had to be derived from different alphabets.

“Nu.” his shoulders slumped after he closed the mailbox, letters for his parents in his hand.

Jazz nudged his shoulder with hers. “Curaj! Măcar știi că e bine? El și familia sa au postat în mod regulat pe rețelele lor de socializare.”

Danny huffed. “ابتهج، كما تقول. لو كان الأمر بهذه السهولة، لكنت أسعد شخص في العالم.”

“Ce a fost asta?” she glared playfully at him from the corner of her eye.

“Nimic!” he stated. “De unde știi că postează în mod regulat? Îi urmărești pe Waynes?”

“Bineînțeles că îi urmăresc pe Waynes! La început a fost pentru că toată lumea îi urmărește, dar apoi mi-ai spus că Damian Wayne este fratele tău? Nu puteam să nu-i urmăresc.”

“Eu nu... Cum ai aflat că Damian e fratele meu? Nu ți-am spus niciodată asta.”

“Pentru că sunt chiar atât de grozav!” She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she said this, the wind making it go all over. “Nu a fost așa de greu, Danny. Voi doi arătați aproape la fel.”

He sighed. “I mean, I guess we look sorta alike.”

“‘Sorta’?” she scoffed, “Have you seen a picture of him recently? If people see you two side-by-side, they’re gonna find out your twins. I’m surprised no one’s mistaken you for him yet.”

“I’m not in a high enough circle to be mistaken for him. Sure, maybe Sam’s parents would make the mistake if they didn’t hate me enough to recognise me on vibes alone.” He opened the front door. “Seriously, how do they do that? If I hadn’t already made sure, I’d think they were tracking me.”

“You checked for trackers?”

“You would not believe the kind of shit that my Mother taught me about. And if you thought that was bad, father is so much more paranoid.”

“Really?” she raised an eyebrow, closing the door behind her. “Brucie Wayne, the man who once went viral for getting so drunk that he kissed a reporter because he thought he looked like Superman?”

“Yep.”

“We are talking about the same man, yeah?”

Danny just shrugged. “Paranoia’s hereditary.”

“It’s really not.” Jazz said.

Danny led the way up the stairs, leaving the door to his room open after he walked in, changing the conversation as Jazz did the same. “Your Romanian is sounding pretty good!”

“‘Pretty good’?” she called back, “I’m fluent!”

“Yeah, but you still have an accent.”

“So do you!”

“Yes, but mine is purposeful.”

“Why?”

“Do make you look better.”

Because their rooms are diagonal from each other, the ball that Jazz threw landed in Danny’s room, bouncing off the wall and hitting his arm. “Jerk!”

He laughed, rubbing his arm. “You love me.”

“A moral obligation.”

He feigned hurt. “Is that all I am to you? A moral obligation?”

“Yes!”

“Ouch, Jazzy, that hurts. Truly.”

“I’m sure.” She leaned against the doorframe to his room, her arms crossed. “Will you teach me Arabic now? I learned A Latin-derived language like you told me to.”

He shook his head. “Three languages, remember? Three languages and then I would teach you Arabic.”

She groaned, rolling her head back and then to the left to glare at him. “Fine! Which one are you gonna teach me now?”

Danny thought for a moment, mentally rifling through the languages he knew. “Russian,” he decided, “it’s based off of Old East Salvic.”

“But that’s gonna take forever!” Jazz whined.

“No it’s not,” Danny shot back, “It only took me a few months to learn.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re like, a super-genius.”

“What does that make you? You’re smarter than me.”

“Evidently not,” she huffed. “Where do I start?”

He grabbed a book off his shelf, one he’d bought two years into his stay with the Fentons. “The Cyrillic Alphabet. It’s what Russian uses.”

Jazz flipped through the Russian dictionary. “These are just straighter versions of the English Alphabet.”

“Not quite,” Danny said, “But, yeah.”

Jazz sighed, closing the book. “Great. Another year of studying before you make me learn another language before Arabic. What’s it gonna be that time, huh? Korean?”

“I was actually thinking Japanese.”

She groaned again, walking away to her room. “That was a joke, D!”

“No it wasn’t!” Her door closed in response. Danny huffed a laugh before closing his own door and settling at his desk.

He sighed, looking at the homework page. It was all stuff he already knew, stuff he’d been taught when he was a kid. When were they going to get to stuff he didn’t know?

It probably didn’t help that he got so bored doing his homework that he took college courses instead. At least those had material he’d not gotten the chance to learn in Nanda Parbat! If he got his Bachelor's early, would Jack and Maddie let him drop out, or would they make him get a GED? He already had one, but that wasn’t the point. Maybe, if he got his Masters? Though, that would mean he’d have to actually choose something to major in, and Danny wasn’t sure he was ready for that kind of commitment.

A lie. He was stuck between majoring in linguistics and astronomy. A problem for later Danny, he decided.

In the past year, he’d taken very quickly to astrology. It was fun, learning new things and beliefs about the stars and planets. He’d tried to get Sam and Tucker interested, but neither took to it very much. They’d tried, like good friends, but it didn’t click with them. However, Sam did start looking into magic and stuff, which then got him into magic and stuff. Tucker wasn’t into it, but they’d managed to combine all of their interests into one.

The computer code Tucker and Danny had started was coming along well, for them being barely in eighth grade. It was designed to look like a star chart, but the code itself had runes mixed in. None of them were really sure if the runes would do anything, but they thought they looked cool, so the runes were left in.

They were nowhere near a final product, but they were making good progress. Probably due to the fact that they were spending as much time as they could on it. It was hard to keep it a secret from everyone, though. They’d originally wanted to tell Jazz, but she hadn’t shown any interest in any of their hobbies, so they didn’t. Maybe in the future?

That’s what Danny opted to work on instead of his homework. He had designed the star chart based off of what he’d had access to at the time, but now more stars were being discovered and more planets were being introduced. It wasn’t going to be officially part of their coding project, but he figured it’d be nice to have anyway.

The problem with making a new star chart was that he had nowhere to hang it. His walls all had posters on them, and furniture blocked what space there was. The door was too small, either. Sure, he could move stuff around, but that was a lot of work he really didn’t want to do. However, he looked up, his ceiling was looking mighty plain.

However, after staring at it for nearly twenty minutes, he found it hard to focus on the star chart, too. His thoughts kept wandering back to his brother. Was Damian alright? Why hadn’t he replied? Even a small, one-sentence scrap of paper would’ve been a nice reprieve from his anxiety!

He toyed with the idea of sending another letter, despite that he’d told his brother he’d wait, but he didn’t. He very nearly did several times, but he managed to pull himself away from doing so. He didn’t think it’d be appreciated at all.

He groaned in frustration and harshly shoved his chair away from his desk, standing up and shoving it back into place. Then, he left his room. He needed a distraction that wouldn’t make him focus.

He grabbed his phone and opened the chat he had with Sam and Tucker and told them his problem. They both agreed to come over to hang out. Danny didn’t think he’d ever get tired of being around his friends, no matter what. He hoped they felt the same way, too.

Impatiently, he waited by the front door for his friends to arrive. When they did, they found themselves haphazardly sprawled over the couch and chairs on the main floor. They weren’t really doing anything other than sitting together, the TV turned on with a low volume for white noise.

Eventually, though, Sam asked, “So, what’re your parents working on in the basement?”

Danny shrugged as best he could from how he was laying, his legs over the back of the chair and his head hanging upside down. “The same thing as always; the Ghost Portal.” He was heavy on the sarcasm of the title. It was completely inane and unoriginal.

Sam perked up. “They’ve actually been working on a portal?”

“Yeah,” he answered, “Since they were in college, I think.”

“Really?” Tucker asked, his interest peaked.

A nod. “Yep.”

“Can we go see it?” the other boy asked again.

Danny hesitated. “Um, I’m not sure. My parents aren’t home right now, I don’t know if the lab’s messy…or safe.”

“It can’t be that bad!” Sam jumped up from her own chair, “C’mon! Just a quick look!”

Tucker, too, stood, “Yeah, man. We won’t touch anything. Scout’s Honor!”

“You’re not a scout,” Danny said, though he stood with them.

“Please?” Sam said, “You know we’ll just go down there anyway, with or without you.”

Tucker was the one to hesitate this time. “I don’t know about that. I mean, it’s a science lab. I don’t think I’d wanna go down there without someone who knows it well.”

“And you think that’s me?” Danny asked. Another look at his friends’ faces had him caving. “Alright, fine, but none of us are touching anything. Got it?”

“Loud and clear, man!” The two agreed.

He took the lead, stopping just before the entrance to the basement, the caution sign on the door not doing anything to dissuade either of his friends.”For the record: I don’t like this at all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam waved him off, “Tell it to the judge.”

With another heavy sigh, Danny opened the basement door and started down the steps, the other two following closely behind him, not closing the door behind them. The carpet on the stairs had been torn up and badly replaced with uneven linoleum tiles. The walls were also covered in the same sheet metal as the lab itself, cut and applied much more neatly than the stairs. The wall at the bottom of the stairs had been carved into shelves for cleaning supplies, a small vertical pocket having been cut out for a broom and a mop. To the right was another door, this one reinforced metal, that led into the lab. The doorframe was covered over in caution tape as a final warning.

Trudging on, Danny opened the vertically sliding door and walked into his parent’s lab. As he expected, it was messy. Papers were scattered around, half built somethings ended up where there wasn’t paper, blueprints were taped haphazardly to the walls, and there were tools scattered all over the floor. Garage shelves lined one wall, holding completed inventions. Whatever tools weren’t on the floor, and empty jars of all sizes.

The architect’s desk was against the wall with the door, filing cabinets stood on the other side of the desk, all the drawers open. The wall next to the door - not the same wall because of the corner turning in - was where the garage shelves were pushed, four of them taking up the entire wall. Directly across from the door and dest was the newest addition to the lab. A sliding door of reinforced glass led into the “weapons room” where the completed weaponry and safety equipment was all stored. Directly across from the garage shelves, set into the furthermost wall of the lab, was the pièce de résistance: The Ghost Portal.

The trio carefully stepped their way into the room, Danny picking up some tools from the floor so they had a spot to stand. As promised, they didn’t touch anything except for the tools which they piled in a corner.

“Whoa.” Tucker admired, “That’s so cool!”

“Not really,” Danny scrunched his nose up. It had been completed, but his parents hadn’t turned it on yet, saying that they were making sure they had everything ready before they did. Personally, he thought that they’d tried and failed to open it. The inside of it was still messy, but not nearly as bad as the lab floor was. He still didn’t like going near it; it gave him a bad feeling, and he’d been taught to trust his gut when logic was useless. Logic, when dealing with anything having to do with his parents, was use;ess, so he listened to his gut. His gut said to stay away, so he always did his best.

“You should go in it.” Sam suggested.

It took Danny a second to clock that she’d been talking to him. “What?”

“Go stand in it,” she elaborated, pulling her phone out of the pocket of her skirt, “I want a picture.”

“Then you go stand in it and I’ll take the picture!”

“You told us not to touch anything! Standing inside whatever that thing is is considered as touching it.”

Tucker shrugged when Danny looked to him for help. “Don’t look at me, man, she’s right. Besides, I think it’d make a pretty cool picture.”

“Not helpful.” he glared. A few seconds later, he groaned. “Alright, you guys win.” While they cheered, he marched himself over to the Armory, as his parents called it, and put on his HAZMAT suit. He hated the feel of the thing, but any form of safety was appreciated at the moment.

He subconsciously noted that the suit no longer felt completely like rubber, as though it had been remade with some kind of cloth that had rubber mixed in with it. Still, changed into it behind the curtain in the Armory. He would’ve much preferred to keep his clothes on under it, but it was too tight for that to be an option. Pulling the black gloves on, he rejoined his friends in the lab proper.

Sam cat-whistled at him. “You look miserable.”

“Like a wet cat.” Tucker agreed.

Danny scowled at them. “Yeah? Why don’t you put this thing on and stand in the portal?”

They both shook their heads. “Your own rules, D,” Sam reminded with a smirk. She held up her flip-phone, ready to take her picture. “Now, hurry up. I want to get outta here before your parents or Jazz comes down.”

Like Jazz would be caught dead coming down here willingly. “Why’d you ask to come down here if you didn’t wanna be caught down here?” Regardless, Danny relented, picking his way across the floor and to the empty mass of the portal lodged into the wall.

It was still as foreboding as the first - and only other - time it’d gone near it. It looked bright from this side, the combination of the bright lab lights and the LEDs lining the space behind it gave the illusion of brightness. Danny knew, however, that it was much darker on the inside.

He stepped over the threshold of the octagonal archway and into the dark, ten-foot void behind it. Again, as he’d observed the first time stepping into the thing, the glowing blue circuitry that was embedded into the metal sheeting on the walls seemed to make the hallway dimmer, the white LED work lights lining the floor doing nothing to brighten it. He knew there were cables on the floor, but he could no longer see them; his parents had covered them in black that matched the floor.

Not bringing a flashlight was probably a mistake.

The sound in the lab seemed nearly gone, too, taken over by the humming of electricity running through the ten-foot hallway he now stood in. He could hear faint murmurs of Tucker and Sam talking, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He had a really, really bad feeling about this.

Just before he turned around, he heard the distinct sound of a phone’s camera shutter. It cut through the electrical hum surrounding him like a hot knife through butter. It startled him, and he jumped. His foot caught on a cable, tripping him up. He flailed for a second,disappointing his Mother’s training, before catching himself on the wall. There was a soft click as his hand sunk into the wall. Behind him, there were two screams.

Danny’s final thought before the pain of the situation registered in his head was, “Now I’ll never get to touch the stars.”

Some think that when you die, it’s peaceful. Brain activity doesn’t stop for another five minutes after the body dies, so most people think that those five minutes is your life replaying for you as one final dream, lulling you into either your afterlife or into your next life or into non-existence.

The body dies, so sensation must stop, too, right? The brain stops sending signals to the body because it stops responding.

Danny would like to say that, in his humble opinion, as well as basing it off his own experience, those people are full of shit.

He died, but he didn’t stop feeling. Even when he’d been sure he’d gone numb from dying and reviving and dying and reviving over and over again, he still felt every signal that had been sent through his body.

Five minutes after the body dies, the brain dies. Danny’s didn’t, not even after ten minutes. It kept sending signals to his pain receptors, telling them that he was being ripped apart and pieced back together so fast that the actions were near simultaneous!

He wasn’t sure if it was just a rift into another dimension/world that had opened up on top and through him, or if another dimension/world had been dragged to and through him. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to know. He just knew that it was painful and that he wanted it to stop.

Overall, it wasn’t an experience he’d wish upon even his worst enemy.

“Danny!” He heard the sob over the ringing in his ears, though it was quiet and far away.

“Wha’?” he groaned, his hand moving to his head. “Wha’ t’e ‘ell?”

Two pairs of arms wrapped around him, sending a jolt of pain through his sensitive nerves. “Danny!”

He weakly pushed at them, trying to get them off because contact hurts! “‘et offa me!”

The two pulled back, fussing over him without touching him.

“Danny!” Tucker sobbed, “Are you okay? Obviously not; that was a stupid question. Can you see? Can you hear? Can you feel anything?”

Danny nodded. “I can feel that everything hurts,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. He opened his eyes, closing them right after, then he tried again slowly. He blinked slowly a few more times before blinking normally. “My sight’s good…mostly.”

“‘Mostly’?” Sam demanded, “What do you mean ‘mostly’?”

He closed his left eye, opened it, then closed his right eye. “That’s not good.”

“What?” Tucker asked, “What’s not good? You can’t just say that-!”

“My left eye. I can’t see.”

“What?!”

He ignored them, focusing on his hearing. He covered his left ear, uncovered it, and covered his right. “Do me a favor and say something?” He recovered his left ear.

“Like- like what?” Tuck asked nervously. Both he and Sam were watching Danny’s hands.

Dany nodded, covering his right ear and uncovering his left. “Again?”

Sam spoke this time, “What do you want us to say?”

Danny froze for a second, scrambling to stand up. The two followed after, steadying him when he almost fell back down. His eyes widened and he forced Tucker onto his left side, keeping Sam on his right. “Say something, both of you.”

The two shared a look over his head before Sam said, “You’re scaring us, jerk, what’s wrong?” and Tucker said, “What’s going on, man?”

He stumbled again, his full weight dropping onto his friends as they caught him, sending all three of them to the floor in a heap. “...I can’t hear.”

It was quiet. “...what?”

“My-my left ear-! I- It’s ringing and I can’t hear-!”This would mess everything up! It couldn’t be permanent, right? It was just the aftershocks of whatever the hell just appended to him! He’d be fine in a few hours, a few day’s tops. He’d be able to hear again and see again. It’d be fine.

He forced his breathing to slow, focusing back on what Sam and Tuck were saying to him.

“Are-are you back with us, D?” He hated that her voice sounded so small. It didn’t suit her in the slightest.

He nodded. “Y-yeah. Let’s…let’s get outta here, yeah?”

The two nodded, each grabbing an arm to help him up. When he was standing again, an arm over either of his friends’ shoulders, he finally saw the portal.

It was toxic green, the colour of radiation in cartoons. The room seemed to be darker, near pitch closest to the portal, but it staved it off with its green glow. Was it absorbing the light? The overhead lights were all working perfectly fine. The green was moving, swirling with darker green lines mixed in with it. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.

They left the lab.

*

Sam’s parents paid for Danny’s hospital trip a week later. For as much as they hated him, they weren’t about to let him pay for a hospital trip with his own allowance because his parents were neglectful and didn’t even know he’d been hurt.

And Sam promised to wear pink at the next party she’d attend.

So, Danny sat on the hospital bed, waiting for the doctor or nurse or someone to come tell him that his hearing and sight were going to come back. They asked a lot of questions that he didn’t like, but he answered them anyway.

“How did this happen?”

“There was an accident in my parents’ lab.”

“Where were your parents?”

“Gone. They left the lab unlocked and I wanted to see what they were working on.”

This was his fault. Under no circumstances were Tucker or Sam to take any of the blame. He got hurt because of his own stupidity.

The doctor had told him and Sam’s father - because he wasn’t allowed to go alone - that they’d have to call Jack and Maddie and explain the situation. He begged them not to; they had enough on their plates! Besides, it’s not like they’d care. He didn’t let them call Jazz, either. She had enough to worry about. He can take care of himself. He did, however, compromise with them. Until he turned eighteen, his legal guardian changed, or he became emancipated, Jeremy Manson was to be alerted wherever he had to go to the hospital. Jeremy was slightly upset by this, but he allowed it. He didn’t like Dany, but he hated the Fenton parents even more. Besides, it would look good socially if it was found out by the public.

“Thank you for being here, Mr. Manson.” Danny said. They were still waiting for the doctor to come back.

Mr. Manson gave a tight smile. “It’s okay. I don’t like you, but I don’t want to see you hurt.” He sighed in frustration. “It’s no secret that me and Pamala don’t like your parents, but this only puts them in an even worse light. What are they thinking? Leaving their lab unlocked-! No, even having a lab in the first place!”

“Mr. Manson!” Danny called, “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not, Daniel. You got seriously hurt. Your friend Tuker or my darling Samantha could’ve been seriously hurt! That’s not anywhere near okay!”

“‘Danyal’.” he corrected lightly, “My name is pronounced ‘Danyal’. And it’s okay because it was my fault.”

Mr. Manson shook his head again, locking eyes with Danny. “Listen to me, Danyal-” Danny smiled slightly at the pronunciation correction. “-This is not your fault. Your parents allowed access to their lab by leaving the door unlocked. Anything that happened in that lab was their fault, okay?”

Danny shook his head. “But-”

“No,” the man cut off. He took a breath and sat down. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

He hesitated for a moment, weighing his options in his head. On one hand, he could totally handle keeping it a secret. On the other hand, what did he have to keep secret? It would probably be good for an adult to know what happened, especially on the off chance that he doesn’t actually fully heal from it.

Danny took a deep breath. “Promise you won’t be mad at anyone?”

Confused, Mr. Manson nodded, “No more than I already am.”

“Okay,” he nodded to himself, “Okay. So, We were at my place, watching TV. I mentioned what my parents were working on, and Sam said she wanted to see it. I told them it was a bad idea, but Tucker wanted to, too, and I wasn’t about to let them go down there on their own and potentially get hurt!” He breathed deep again. “Sam said she wanted a picture of the portal - that’s what my parents have been working on - and she told me to go stand in it. I told her to go stand in it because I’ve been in it before - last year about - and I didn’t like it because it gave off a weird vibe. Anyway, she and Tuck ganged up on me because I told them not to touch anything in the lab and they made me go stand in the portal. I changed, and stepped into the thing.” Another deep breath. “But, it’s really weird in there because it’s so dark, no matter how much light there was in the tunnel or in the lab itself - and it was really quiet, too. I didn’t know that Sam was gonna take the picture, so when she did, the sound startled me- It just sounded so loud…” He slowed down a bit with a smaller inhale. “I tripped and caught myself on the wall, but I guess my parents put the ‘on’ switch on the inside…I hit it when I tripped.” He felt tears running down his cheeks. His voice got quieter. He was aware that there was another person in the room now, probably the doctor. “It hurt. It hurt so bad!It felt like I was being ripped apart and put back together again over and over and- I think I died…” He felt himself paling. “I died Mr. Manson! I-!” Sobs cut him off, heavy and body shaking. He felt himself get pulled into a hug.

Mr. Manson had his arms around Danny, holding him to his chest. Why? Mr. Manson didn’t like Danny, so why..? He leaned into the embrace, tears soaking the man’s shirt.

“And now I can’t see and hear and my arm and hand keep spasming-!”

He continued to cry for nearly an hour. When he was calm enough, he pulled away and wiped his face with his hand. Look at him. Being a civilian for so long has made him soft. He’s crying over such a trivial thing.

The doctor’s voice was soft as she spoke, telling him what was wrong. There was no way to fix what was done, not until he was an adult, at least, because he refused to tell his parents. She recommended hearing aids and glasses because his hearing and sight weren’t gone, but they may as well have been. She also explained, after he’d told them about hitting the button, that because the point of contact had been his hand, he was going to have issues with touch and muscle spasms. She said it was nerve damage and that compression cuffs would help him. The chronic pain, however, would follow him for the rest of his life. She had also noted the lichtenberg scars trailing from his hand, up his arm, down his chest and back, up his neck, and up to his eye, over his ear. They were faint enough to not be seen at first, but they were noticeable upon further inspection.

At the end of the visit, Mr. Manson paid and drove him home. Before he could get out of the car, Mr. Manson said, “Thank you for telling me. And, thank you for keeping Samantha safe.”

Danny smiled smally at him. “It’s alright, Mr. Manson. I don’t ever plan on letting her or Tucker get hurt if I can help it. Besides, I didn’t do much of anything.”

“That’s not true,” Mr. Manson shook his head. “And, please, call me Jeremy.”

“But you don’t like me, Mr. Manson,” he tilted his head slightly.

Mr. Manson laughed. “Call it an olive branch, okay?”

Danny chuckled. “Okay, Mr. Jeremy.”

The man shook his head. “I’m glad you told me. I’ll talk to Pamala; You’re welcome in our home if you ever need to leave this place, okay?”

“Okay, Mr. Jeremy.” He nodded and got out of the car. “Thank you, again.”

“Anytime.”

He closed the door and watched as Mr. Jeremy drove off. Then, he checked the mailbox. Still no letter. With a sigh, he adjusted the strap of the bag he was holding - supplies the hospital had given him to help that Mr. Jeremy paid for - and went into his house.

Jack and Maddie weren’t home again, likely getting more supplies and stuff to stock the lab. After he’d opened the portal, he’d sent Sam and Tucker home; he didn’t want them there when his parents saw the activated portal. They’d celebrated when they saw it, taking him and Jazz to dinner. Then, they’d locked themselves down in the lab with the portal, studying it and making stuff to use on whatever came through. If anything ever came through. During the day, they’d spend a few hours out of the house, gathering things to study whatever they caught coming through. Honestly, Danny didn’t know when they had time to sleep or eat.

He hoped that nothing ever came through. He hoped that the portal would destabilize and shut down. He hoped a lot of things.

Sitting at the desk in his room, the door closed, Danny picked up a pencil. He was ambidextrous, though he mostly used his left hand. Until recently, that is. The handwriting was horrible compared to writing with his left, but he had to let Damian know what had happened.

***

Damian Wayne,       Sept. 8th, 2013

I don’t know if you got my last letters, nor do I know if you want to hear from me, but there’s something I have to tell you. I don’t want to keep secrets from you anymore.

I was in an accident a few days ago. My foster parents have been working on a portal into another dimension since they were in college. Recently, they got the final product done and built in our basement. Sam and Tucker wanted a picture of me in it, so I went in and I tripped-

***

The pencil fell through his fingers and clattered on the desk, rolling off before falling to the floor, stopping a few inches away. Danny stared at his hand. He didn’t finish the letter.

Translation 1 - Romanian: Stoll no letter, huh? Translation 2 - Romanian: Nope Translation 3 - Romanian: Cheer up! At least you know he's alright? He and his family have been posting on their socials regularly. Translation 4 - Arabic: Cheer up, she says. If it were that easy, I'd be the happiest person in the world. Translation 5 - Romanian: What was that? Translation 6 - Romanian: Nothing! … How do you know that they're posting regularly? Do you follow the Waynes? Translation 7 - Romanian: Of course I follow the Waynes! At first it was because everyone followed them, but then you told me that Damian Wyane is your brother? I couldn’t not check in on them. Translation 8 - Romanian: I didn't- How did you find out Damian's my brother? I never told you that. Translation 9 - Romanian: Because I’m just that awesome! … It wasn’t that hard, Danny. You two look almost exactly alike.

Part 6 Part 8

[locamotivednp]

thank you phandom <3

I havent talked about it too much on here because i use tumblr as my escape, but i am arab american and my family is from the lebanese-israel border. I grew up very much impacted by the conflict.

it is so so meaningful to see people talking about and raising support for palestine because for years i felt so alone in my anger and grief. But so many people in the phandom have been doing so much (espcially @energeticwarrior <3) and it means more then i could even say. 80k+ is so incredible. I spent the stream crying and laughing and it was everything i needed. THANK YOU.

Hope is one of the strongest things we have in the face of genocide, thank you for giving that to me today.

[the-broken-truth]

Al'akh Al'ashghar - Jamil Viper [Platonic Yandere] [Male Yuu][Part 1 of 3]

Summary: During a dinner at Scarabia Dorm, something goes terribly wrong as you suddenly become poisoned, leaving you in critical condition. Fortunately, Jamil steps up to the task of ensuring that you make a full recovery. However, something about Jamil's demeanor seems off, but you can't quite identify what it is from your position of being bedridden.

Notes:

Al'akh Al'ashghar means 'Little Brother' in Arabic; considering Jamil's Name means 'Handsome/Beautiful' in Arabic, I thought this would be fitting to use. (I don't speak Arabic - I used Google Translate)

This story will be told in the Second POV.

Jamil will refer to the reader as 'Yuu' - if you so choose, replace Yuu with your own name.

You are hereby invited to Scarabia Dorm for a Grand Feast hosted by the Dorm Warden, Kalim Al-Asim, as my personal guest. Please, arrive at 6:00 P.M. or earlier if possible. I am hoping you will attend & I am looking forward to seeing you, Prefect. ~ Signed, Jamil Viper - Scarabia's Vice Dorm Warden

It all started with that invitation.

An Invitation from the Vice Dorm Warden of Scarabia, Jamil Viper, for you to come to Scarabia for one of Kalim's Parties and join them for the Grand Feast that would come after the party; Jamil always made amazing food and Grim was insistent that the two of you attended the party so the chimera could stuff his face with the delicatable delicates from the Land of Scalding Sands.

You took time to actually make yourself presentable for the party, wearing a crimson dress shirt with black pants and completed with black shoes before you tended to your hair and brushed any dust or loose hair off your shirt before grabbing your fully charged phone and placed it on your pocket before Grim jumped on your shoulder and the two of you walked out of Ramshackle, making sure to lock the door behind you and placing the key inside of a fake rock before heading to the Hall of Mirrors before walking into Scarabia's Mirror, the fainted warmth of the setting sun hitting your face a bit harder than it was in your own territory.

"Prefect." A very familiar voice called out to you, causing you to turn your head in the direction of Scara'bias Dorm, seeing the Vice Dorm Warden walking over to you wearing Scarabia's Uniform with his hood over his head.

"Jamil-senpai, it's good to see you. Thank you for the invitation." You smiled at the Viper Dorm Warden as he looked at you up and down, taking in your visage before he remained silent for a while, "Senpai, is something wrong?"

"Scarabia's Colors look good on you, Prefect." Jamil said before he returned the smile - a rare sight that Jamil only showed you ever since you foiled his attempted coup of Scarabia and saved him from his Overblot Episode; ever since that day, he found himself attached to you.

He was comfortable being himself around you, and you didn't judge him nor blame him for his past mistakes. In fact, you helped him regain his reputation among the student body and also made sure he took time for self-care. There were times when you even looked after Kalim, realizing that Jamil was overworking himself and needed a break. He knew better than to argue with you, given your impressive record of defeating four Overblots despite being magicless.

"Thank you, Jamil-senpai; I thought it would be fitting to wear Scarabia Colors to a Scarabian Event." You smiled at him.

"Have you ever considered wearing those colors permanently?" Jamil asked.

"Huh?" You questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"Surely you haven't forgotten about that conversation we had a few days ago, Yuu. Have you ever considered my offer?" Jamil asked with a raised eyebrow.

You recalled the conversation you had with Jamil during one of your late-night Mancala matches a few nights ago when you stayed over at Scarabia Dorm after a study session that lasted too long.

The night was young but the inhabitants of Scarabia Dorm were tucked away in their dorms, resting up for the sun to rise in a few hours for them to start their days over again; well, one inhabitant and a visitor were still wide away. Grim was sleeping on the softest pillow he could find in Scarabia's Lounge while The Vice Dorm Warden of Scarabia & Prefect of Ramshackle were sitting on soft pillows with the Mancala game before them; the two of them had completed their weekly study session but it got so late into the night & Grim ended up falling asleep. You didn't have the heart to wake up the sleeping chimera and Jamil offered you a room in Scarabia's Dorm - the same room you stayed in during Scarabia's 'Training Camp'. Ironic, isn't it?

"I'm honestly surprised that you decided to remain in Scarabia after our study session, Yuu." Jamil said while making his move on the game board.

"It's not that big of a deal - I'm mostly at Scarabia when I am not at Ramshackle, in class, or tending to Crowley's Tasks." You exhaled before making your move on the Mancala Board, "Honestly, Scarabia is almost like a 2nd Home to me."

"Second Home? Why not a 3rd Home?" Jamil asked.

"Home is where the heart is, Jamil. It's a place where you feel appreciated and loved. I never really felt 'loved' in my Original World. It was more like I was being tolerated and my efforts were never really appreciated. Ramshackle is the first place I consider home because it belongs to me and Grim. It's a place of my own where I can have my own peace. Scarabia, on the other hand, feels like 'coming home.' You, Kalim, and the other students of Scarabia are kind of like the family I never had but always wanted." You explained while waiting for Jamil to make a move, but he continued to gaze upon you with wide eyes.

"If that is truly how you feel... If coming to Scarabia Dorm is like coming home for you... Why don't you stay?" Jamil asked, causing you to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

'What do you mean??" You asked him.

"I wanted to talk to you about something important. Have you considered becoming an official member of Scarabia Dorm? Kalim and the other members have spoken about it and we would all love to have you here permanently. I have the paperwork ready for a Dorm Transfer, with Kalim's and Headmage Crowley's signatures. All it needs is yours. Please sign it and become a part of Scarabia Dorm. We would welcome you with open arms, Yuu." Jamil looked into your eyes with a smile on his face; his works were genuine.

You looked down at the Mancala Board - Jamil's Words echoing in your head.

"Jamil-senpai, we talked about this: If I was meant to be in Scarabia, the Dark Mirror would have placed me in Scarabia." You explained but that caused Jamil to frown.

"The Dark Mirror was unable to assign you to one of the seven Dorms because it detects magic, and you don't possess any magical abilities, Yuu. Had you been from Wonderland or possessed magical powers, the mirror would have placed you in Scarabia. However, your exceptional intelligence and performance in dealing with the Overblots, despite being from a different world, indicates that you would excel in the Sorcerer of the Sands' Domain. You are meant to be here with us, Yuu."Jamil held out his hand to you, "Come home to us, Al'akh Al'ashghar."

'Al'akh Al'ashghar? What does that...?' You thought before another voice called out to Jamil and you.

"Yuu! Grim! You guys made it here!" Kalim walked out of the dorm and waved over to the Prefect of Ramshackle, causing you to walk around Jamil and walk over to the Walking Ball of Sunshine of Scarabia and give him a hug. Kalim grabbed you by your hand and pulled you away from Jamil who just stood there for a while to be alone with his thoughts before a smile crept along his face as he turned and started walking towards the dorm building.

'I have a very important feast to create.'

Grim rested on your shoulder as everyone sat in the Lounge Room while waiting for Jamil to finish making the food for the feast; Kalim was telling them about how Jamil helped him with his studying and he was able to get a high grade on his most recent test thanks to the Vice Dorm Warden. You sat there while Grim was talking to Kalim about the food Jamil was making but your mind kept going back to what Jamil said before you came into the dorm - his words gave you one message but the tone of his voice, was as if it was hiding another message.

And that name he called you: Al'akh Al'ashghar

You opened your mouth to ask Kalim the meaning of that name, certain that it was found in the Land of Scalding Sands, but before the words could leave your lips - Jamil and several Scarabia Students walked into the Lounge Roo. with serving platters of food and drinks, but Jamil was carrying two smaller platters in his hands: one for Kalim and the other for you. Grim leaped off your head and joined the other Scarabia Students in their feasting while Jamil placed the personal platters in front of you and Kalim; Jamil smiled at you before placing a drink next to your food and another for Kalin - your couple was made of pure silver rather than the gold and it had your name engraved in the side.

"A Gift. For everything you have done for Scarabia." Jamil said before taking his seat next to Kalim to start eating his own food.

You looked at the dish Jamil set in front of you and picked up your spoon before starting to eat; it was divine in texture and taste, just like everything else Jamil made. You continued to eat before you felt your throat getting dry from the spices used in the meat reached to grab your silver cup and took a drink of the tea before swallowing it to soothe your throat; the relief soon came and you continued to eat.

*COUGH*

*COUGH*

*COUGH*

"Prefect, that is a rather violent cough. Are you okay?" Jamil asked as he look up from his meal with concern on his face.

"I'm fine. It's just some spices got caught in my throat and..." You were cut off by another round of violent coughing, you covered your mouth and removed it to get some air in your lungs when your air seemed to get thinner.

"PREFECT! YOUR HAND!" One of the Scarabia Students called out in panic, causing you to look at your hand and your eyes got wide with the same horror - Blood stained your palm and fingers.

Soon enough, your air supply was completely cut off; you grabbed your throat as you tried to breathe but nothing was going in and nothing was coming out - it was as if you were drowning as you threw yourself back and landed on the pillows behind you as you scratched at your throat.

"POISON! HE'S BEEN POISONED!"

"HOLD ON, I HAVE AN ANTIDOTE!"

Your vision was getting blurry but you could barely make out Jamil's face as he pulled a vial of amber liquid from somewhere on his person and held it to your lips.

"Come on, drink this for me, Al'akh Al'ashghar; I'm here for you. I'm going to help you. Drink for me." Jamil's voice seemed to echo but your body seemed to obey his plead without you thinking about it as your mouth opened and the liquid from the vial went down your throat and slowly opened the blocked passage, allowing the air to flow into your aching burning lungs.

However, the air to your brain was low and you were slowly losing consciousness, but you could make out the last words Jamil said before your world faded into darkness.

"I have you now, Al'akh Al'ashghar"

'What does... that mean?' You thought before you closed your eyes.

And then, you knew no more as you floated in the void of your subconsciousness.

[TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO]

[xclowniex]

Ok I have a lot to say and no way to say it so first off hi, anyways I would like to say a few things. Firstly, I’m a Palestinian, currently in Lebanon but raised my whole life in Jordan. over 60% of Jordanians are Palestinian but Israel is at peace with Jordan. I mean I think Jordan and Israel’s relationship is a kind of window into what I think a Palestinian and Israeli relationship could look like if both governments were torn down. Now I ideally my wet dream is for the land to just be called the holy land and everyone to have equal rights and be treated equally. But I know that’s a delusional way of thinking. Secondly, I wanna say that as Muslims, as in the religion, we respect Jews and their religion. You are known as اهل الكتاب (people of the book) because Judaism is an abrahamic religion. This means that we must extend respect to you. It’s not always done (frankly it’s never done) but it’s the way things should be done and I am personally trying to improve myself because I grew up in a very secular and religious and intolerant household. And I think that if I am able to do it with the family I grew up with, a lot of people should be able to too especially non-Arabs, non-Muslims who have genuinely no connection to this conflict. It is still a work in progress because I do still feel like I have hate programmed into me but that’s why I like to start random conversations with people. I hope I’m not in anyway intruding or making you uncomfortable with this and honestly if I am you can just block me. But I do genuinely love having convos with people and it’s my own way of proving that even if we don’t agree on certain points peace can still be found and respect can still stand.Anyways I’m rambling at this point, have a good day.

Hi! Sorry this has been sitting in my inbox for a day or two. I've wanted to properly answer this but have been tired from work.

You are not bothering me at all!

We need more jewish/Palestinian solidarity.

I'm in a similar thought track to you. My ideal is a land for all, where there is one land where jews and Palestinians coexist and both have self determination. However realistically a two state solution needs to happen first and likely won't move to a land for all solution at least within my lifetime.

I too grew up in an intolerant household. The shit my father as said, is very bad. I usually don't talk about his internalized anti arab comments much as A) I would get blasted with asks about why I call myself an arab jew (not directed at you, but anyone else reading his and is curious, I have answered this question before, you can use the search function on my blog), B) antisemites use it as an excuse to say that all jews hate arabs, which yes, some do and it's bad that some do, but it's not like the majority of jews hate arabs, and vice versa. And lastly C) it's a lot to unpack as a lot of his internalized anti arab sentiment is due to being radicalized by antisemites. When he first moved to NZ, he was very left wing, then he was betrayed by the left here and ended up going far right, to finally settling on centre right.

Shit now I'm rambling lol

[hero-israel]

Hi. I want to preface this by mentioning I am a non Jewish supporter of Israel and of the Jewish people, but I have some serious questions that really bother me and make me rethink my position.

Reading up on the beginning of the Zionist movement and its leaders, I cannot help but think, how can they simply ignore that there are already people there, or that said people would be alright with becoming a minority? Did they really think Arabs and arabised people living there would just be alright with it?

I do believe that Jews are indigenous to the land and that it’s only just that they have their homeland back, but I think the way they went about it was wrong. It’s not the fault of the people living there that Romans exiled them after all. Some Zionists leaders admitted that the only way to establish a state was against the will of the native population and that some ethnic cleansing is necessary to achieve it.

I want to support Israel but I’m very uncomfortable with the idea that many innocent people who lived there for generations were kicked out after the lands were bought by Zionists, or ended up ethnically cleansed in the civil war even if they didn’t participate in the hostilities. It feels morally inconsistent to me to just ignore this or brush it aside.

What is your view on all of this?

My view is that it's fine to believe exactly what you said - "the Jews are indigenous, it's only just that they have their homeland back, but the way they went about it was wrong." Nothing in that construction justifies hatred or violence against Jews or Israelis, nor does it prevent building a better future for Palestinians.

Israel exists. It houses half the world's Jewish population and a majority of all Jewish children, mostly descendants of refugees from obliterated communities in the MENA or Europe (more the former). Those political realities matter far more than an essay debate published in 1928. You may have already encountered people who try to relitigate the Civil War by pointing out that Abraham Lincoln unlawfully suspended habeas corpus and didn't even really like black people anyway, so instead of a gruesome and devastating war led by a morally compromised man it would have been better to allow the South to gradually phase out slavery on its own, that it should have happened some other way. Well, it DIDN'T happen some other way, it happened and people well into the 21st century need to move on with life. If anyone in the world had an excuse to cling to bitterness forever, it would be the Jews of Israel vis-a-vis Jordan and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Poland and Russia and Germany. So why are the Jews of Israel able to move on with having relationships with all those countries that persecuted and destroyed them? And if they can do it, shouldn't casual observers half a world away do it?

By all means, read up on early Zionist history, see what the ideas were and how they had to change when exposed to real events (and also see how they were specifically opposed to population removal). Some, like Martin Buber, urged a binational state formed cooperatively with Arabs. Ze'ev Jabotinsky warned that Arabs would never accept large numbers of Jews as their equals and that promises of shared wealth were a fantasy, therefore Jews would need to demonstrate military power and win respect and negotiations that way. Albert Einstein had initially hoped for a binational state, but once history happened the way it did, he accepted - and loved - the Israel that he got.

I also think you should look a bit more deeply into just why so many people departed Palestine in 1948, and just how many generations had passed since their own ancestors had in turn immigrated there.

Whatever you may read about the 1920s, or 1940s, you will find nothing that justifies hatred, harassment, violence, or genocide against Jewish people at any place or time, including Israel today. If you truly are a supporter of the Jewish people as you claim to be - and we would be happy to have you - by all means look at the true toll of history and keep speaking up for our protection and our lives.