#and more importantly PARROT?

[sympathytea]

So this is a sequel to this post mainly because there was some crucial details in the finale that I missed, but this is specifically going to be focusing on Parrot rather than Evbo, although Evbo is still going to be part of this whole theory. Lets start.

[Transcript Start] Evbo: -My iron sword, so their swords will never break. Thats why I have to get out of here, so that I can prove to people that there is a way out! Obviously, to do that, I need to make it to level 4. But its a bit tough to do that, since theres no way to rank up apparently. Parrot: ...Wait, what do you mean theres no way to rank up? Evbo: Oh yeah! I probably should've mentioned that every time I try to rank up to a golden sword- Woah, getting up close and personal. But..yeah, theres no water at the bottom, I've died-

[End of transcript.]

This exchange to me, at first, read as rather inconspicuous. Other players have killed Evbo before, or straight up hit him. So it didn't particularly click with me that this was something to pay attention to, but it was a bit weird considering how Parrot is first characterized. His whole introduction with Evbo and Tabi, and him talking about the iron sword layer being peaceful, and trying to protect Evbo's immortal identity, being depressed and isolating himself in a mansion.. It seems odd that this would suddenly shift when the situation becomes "Theres no way out" and him almost getting violent here, like every other character in the series. But he shows restraint in his anger rather than lashing out. Good right? Well... Next time we "meet" Parrot the implications are less than ideal. We learn he is a bow, and that he attempted to tell Evbo this, but the message about Tabi's betrayal got through to him too late. Then something else happens. Evbo, post betrayal and probably wanting to let off some of the stress that has most definitely been bubbling under the surface, Kills the entire iron sword layer. Or atleast very heavily implied that he did, along with Parrot's help. In Evbo's words, he "Killed all the people that were against me." which could either mean like, two people or the entire layer, and I don't think Evbo was particularly keeping track of the "bad" iron swords that came into his cell depending on how populated that layer actually is. The way someone would typically twist this, is that Parrot is willing to do terrible things for his friend's safety and comfort. Which is fine, but hear me out. Considering that Parrot got very close to snapping at Evbo back in episode 4, and was pretty absent throughout the arc where Evbo trains until he gets to the diamond sword layer, and then out of nowhere, helps with a murder spree despite him being one of the more peaceful residents? One that doesn't appear to get into fights, nor is seen going into Evbo's cell for kills? Evbo lets something slip near the end right after describing the massacre that he and Parrot did together. Parrot says:

"I will do my best to make a difference in this world."

Now, this sounds good in theory. Great, even! But consider the stuff we learned from him up until this point, the tiny details that you could easily miss or disregard entirely. Now, what does that phrase imply? Especially with the surrounding context being Evbo and Parrot killing a layer together?

What difference does he intend to make in this world? We don't get more than what Evbo tells us in the narration, but he does mention that he isn't willing to see Parrot just yet, and needs to piece his feelings towards him. What went down between these two that went unseen that left Evbo not wanting to talk to him let alone see him? Fishy, fishy, fishy.

[eggtrolls]

STOP putting me in the position of having to defend Elon ‘He Is An American Citizen’ Musk from your lazy, xenophobic rhetoric by referring to him as the South African or the foreigner or the whatever term you want to use to indicate he is not a Real American. Because a) you are wrong and much more importantly b) I sound unhinged by having to point out to your nuance-allergic ass (and any nearby listeners) that he is an American citizen. You cannot claim to be progressive about immigration but then use xenophobic rhetoric on the grounds that it’s fine because it’s against people who suck. The problem with Elon Musk and DOGE and its miscellaneous bullshit is not that he’s a ~foreign~ unelected billionaire running a shadow government — it’s that he’s an unelected billionaire running a shadow government, point blank period. The situation would not be improved if he had been born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, you nativist talk points-parroting twit

[rook-apologist]

On Veilguard Negativity (short rant)

If you enjoyed your time with Veilguard, don't let people ruin your positivity surrounding this game. While there is always room for civil discourse in any medium, a very outspoken group seems hellbent on pushing the narrative that this is an objectively "bad" product, and that something is personally/intellectually wrong with anyone who thinks otherwise. Please remember that their perspectives are entirely subjective to their own shitty point of view. You are absolutely allowed to like whatever the hell you want, and DO NOT need validation from people whose sole purpose seems to be parroting some sort of weird "anti-woke" talking point that they got off of Twitter. This game resonated with me on an emotional level that I didn't think was possible in the modern triple AAA gaming scene. I fell in love with it's cast of characters and found myself heavily invested in each of their own respective arcs. More importantly, I loved everything about being "Rook" and the connection you have with them as your avatar. The themes of found family and leadership that were included in your own personal journey helped me overcome some serious trauma in my own life as my character struggled against overwhelming odds at every corner. That alone justifies my enjoyment for it. And if you have a different take, that is perfectly okay! Not everyone likes the same things, and might have been expecting a different experience than what they got. Just please recognize that there is an incredibly passionate audience that wants to openly communicate their love and joy to others, and kindly respect that space.

[derww]

the thing that bugged me the most after watching the wormhole video is actually that we never got the proper ending for the main plot line that was in it: parrot and spoke's personal relationship.

even though spoke showed that conversation from the end of wormhole, where parrot stood in front of spoke, clutching the handle of the hyperion, and said that he refuses to let people down even if it means he has to sacrifice something very important to him, this does not answer the question hanging in the air. from the point of view of the narrator, after losing op, parrot seems to lose his autonomy, both as an antagonist and, more importantly, as spoke's best friend, after spoke himself talked almost exclusively about their friendship for an hour, both as characters and, first of all, as real people.

"i didnt just exploit a game, i exploited a friendship i had built over the years.". speaking about both parrot and mapicc, spoke mentions several separate times how much it went beyond just playing on the server, that he abused their real, actual relationship in order to achieve his goal. at the same time, spoke does not tell what happened between them – both characters and people – after him receiving an op. in the jungle part, parrot literally has almost no lines – he just stares and stares and stares and stares. until the very end of the story, he follows the path that spoke paved for him, living in the conditions created by spoke.

we see only glimpses that everything is actually – at least relatively – fine. not only because parrot continues to play within the game, but also how he complains to spoke about the unfairness of using teleportation and that after the season ending he even suggests for spoke to become the new lifesteal owner. grains that do not reflect full image. was parrot horrified and shocked, was he angry, at least for a moment, when he realized how far spoke's manipulation extended, did they have to somehow solve and discuss it, or was he immediately like, "wow, you made a lot of awesome moves, there will be cool content!" and everything was fine? sure, parrot loves risk moves and adrenalin, but wasnt it too far?

can it even be "okay" if your best friend has been manipulating you for months for a personal goal? does this cross the line of what is truly acceptable, even in a lifesteal setting? even if it's all for the sake of shared content, even if the community has the right mentality, even if no real harm has been done, even if you're willing to trust a friend that he won't cross the line, does all this change the fact that it's, in general morality, just plain cruel?

although this is undoubtedly too personal to just insert into the video, it should be noted when the whole story is about abusing irl friendship. although i absolutely understand this decision, this is by no means a critical review, from the point of view of storytelling it is strikingly incorrect, as if in the middle of writing a book the writer threw out all rules.

of course, this is an important conversation to be had on the whole – with the rules never mentioned out loud, with an unspoken agreement that everyone understands what's going on here and how, and what everyone is signing up for, when the price is friendship and connection, how far is it too far? lsers are friends, to a greater or lesser extent, but it's almost inappropriate to answer "everyone has their limits" when a relationship is at stake. everyone, including spoke himself, agrees that what he did in s4 was too much, but there were many, many other moments where everything was not so clear, and, moreover, there was no discussion, even in private, which never solves the essence of the problem.

lifesteal is not unique, but it is a very rare system in how far people can be willing to go in a war against others, despite the fact that everyone is friends: most of the pre–lifesteal stories of this approach took place on public servers and against strangers, and friends' servers either remained frivolous to one degree or another, or were scripted. post-lifesteal, many servers of a similar kind have appeared, but only a small part of them are comparable in terms of the proximity of the players and the rigidity of the approach, because it is incredibly difficult to simultaneously allow yourself to get involved as deeply as possible and, at the same time, having received a knife in the back, not want to bury the traitor underground. It's about trust, and it's about content, and it's so strikingly different for different people, and there's obviously no right answer here.

when playing league of legends, one of the important skills that every player needs to develop is not to tilt. at the same time, take the game seriously, but be ready to let go of defeat, no matter how much effort you put into the game. don't go crazy when you lose a line and die ten times, and jungler yells at you as the worst possible being. it took me a few years to stop tilting, and it carried over to minecraft too – where my friends got upset, angry, and gave up, i learned to just shrug my shoulders and try again. but that didn't teach me how to deal with betrayal, even in-game, because the worst thing about betrayal is that it always comes from someone close to you. not from an accidental co-player in a match, and not as a simple accident, but as an intention to harm, even if only in the game. it is a lot to take, and the cost is too high. and, while parrot and spoke are still good friends, parrot left owner role because of the distress it gave him, so doesn't it show the presence of a real impact.

i like that we got only half-truth tho. because it is who spoke is. when he needs you to believe him, he says something actually truthful, and then – his lie and manipulation, and you eat it because believe everything to be true. even now, spoke continues to metagame. he's fine with showing that he was a dick, and he's using that to cover a part he never wants to explain. and he wouldn't.

spoke tells the truth saying he liked to do the impossible, but it is not a full answer. while s4 ending was supposed to be a relief for him, an opportunity to stop lying and being a villain, there remains something else – not only the showdown, but the guilt, the realization that you were so wrong that you hide huge chunks and you refuse to get them for another year and a half. when everything ends, when there is nowhere else to run, reflection and awareness remain. a year and a half later, from the season 6, spoke can end the video on a positive note, but for that long-time spoke, who had just released the god from his body, covered with lightning scars everywhere, absolutely not feeling like a winner, it was a bad end, and perhaps for his character, it couldn't be good.

how old was spokeishere when he did all this, 16? there is an irony that he is the worldender, the trickster, the manipulator, and he's the youngest of them all. sometimes i want to call him dumb for not being careful enough or anything else but then i do remember how he played everyone in s4. not in a big picture, but in smalltalks, toying people while they thought him to be completely harmless. spokeishere being smart is like lifesteal having its unspoken rules – you need to be too attentive to see it. often it is like a... circles on the water. you can't see a fallen pebble, but you can see the waves radiating from it. and, in the end, he is the one who did it, who succeeded, and who am i to judge him?

minecraft roleplay can do something very wrong with you, how any acting sometimes can break you apart and turn inside out. because while you are letting yourself feel like it's real, it is, at some capacity, can be real. and while it is a known factor of being an actor, it's not something you do think about when you go to play a game with your friends. sometimes it changes something very, very important in you, and sometimes you look back on that experience and realize that it hurt you. or not. everyone has their unique experiences, as always.

also, we finally found out the reason the fishing spot was so important. not only a place of friendship but also a place of the exploiting! yay!

[ko-existing]

"Ego"

(initial Draft: 08.04., context: multiple Asks about Ego with misunderstandings)

There’s something deeply fascinating about the mental split people create when they talk about “the ego” like it’s this separate being they have to manage, tame, or silence. It’s a habit — one that becomes so normalized, people don’t even notice they’re doing it.

I unironically love this topic.

But if you actually stop and examine it, really look, it collapses. The idea of “having” an ego starts falling apart the moment you question who is supposedly having it. Who is the one speaking about it? Who is trying to fix it? Suddenly there’s no second entity — just a bunch of thoughts floating in what is labeled as "awareness", being labeled as “ego.”

You don’t need to believe me — please don’t, beliefs have no place here really. I always say: look for yourself. Don’t parrot words. Don’t adopt terms just because they’re popular in spiritual circles. See clearly, and it’ll be obvious — nothing needs fixing, and there’s nothing there to fix. The whole concept dissolves when you see through it on your own.

I’ve seen this so many times — people talking about “the ego” like it’s their desk neighbor in school. Like it’s some separate entity sitting next to them, actively making decisions, causing problems, sabotaging things.

If I — Bhasu — say something like “My ego is too loud today” or “I need to fix my ego because she’s too attached”, doesn’t that already sound odd if you actually stop and think about it? Who is this “ego” I’m referring to? And more importantly… who am I that’s talking about it?

There’s something really interesting that happens here. People speak of “ego” in the third person — not because it’s actually separate, but because it helps them feel like it is. It creates this illusion of distance. And in doing that, they place the blame “over there” — on the ego — as if that’s what’s causing suffering, and they are just the victim of it.

But this is exactly the trap: just because you speak about something like it’s “not you” doesn’t mean it’s real, or separate. If I said “My thoughts are attacking me,” would that make sense? Who is having the thoughts? Who’s observing them? And how are there two of me now?

What I’m pointing to is this: when people say “my ego,” they rarely stop to ask what that even means. They use the phrase because they’ve read it online, they’ve picked it up from someone else, and now they repeat it — without examining it.

But if you sat with the question — who am I actually talking about when I say “my ego” — you’d start to see: there’s nothing there. No separate entity. Just a string of thoughts appearing. And then another thought claiming it needs to fix the first one.

So what are you trying to fix? A mirage?

You end up running in circles trying to cure something that was never there to begin with.

[utilitycaster]

But wouldn't you say that at least the fandom experience during c3 was a lot nicer than during c2? I mean, the characters all got along immediately so no room for unnecessary drama and no ship wars, I heard it was really toxic during c2 so I'm glad that c3 had none of it.

Anon, the polite answer to this that assumes you are very new to this fandom and blog and also, if I'm being honest, reality, is "No." Drama in a fandom is largely decoupled from whether the characters actually get along on screen (much like "I wish these characters would talk" is often decoupled from them actually talking and much more about whether they're talking about the thing OP wants them to talk about). More importantly, Campaign 3 had something far stupider and more unkind and insidious than ship wars, which is people harassing you for saying a ship simply wasn't very interesting. I would also say that one of the loudest voices in the area of fans who defend Campaign 3 claiming it's more toxic is specifically speaking about their very individual Twitter experience which I do not think is indicative of the larger fandom. I do think that C2 had more fans harassing the cast on Twitter, which on the one hand is far worse behavior; but it also kind of meant that the fandom on Tumblr, while not without ship warring, was somewhat quieter. I will also acknowledge that my own personal experience is heavily colored by the fact that I was new to the fandom in C2 and so did not have a significant following until late in the game, but Campaign 3 was rife with people who, as best as I can tell, serially show up to fandoms and attack whoever they perceive as popular, sometimes genuinely popular people and sometimes it's just someone who can eloquently string together meta they disagree with, and then when you hit back go "I'm just a little guy just a little birthday boy you're so MEAN." On Tumblr, at least, toxic C2 fans were easy to stop and frankly only turned post-hiatus and many of them prided themselves on not posting hate in the main tag (and quit the fandom altogether); toxic C3 fans have the tenacity and intellect of the average cockroach.

The real answer is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what PRIMORDIAL ROCK have you been under. Even if you believe everything the serial liar I suspect you are listening to said about C2 drama how did you miss ALL of C3 drama, especially on like, my blog specifically, as an initially unwilling participant who eventually, as discussed below, decided that if these wretched stochastic parrot morons wouldn't leave me alone I may as well pull out the metaphorical shotgun and make starting shit with me as unpleasant an experience as possible.

Look, I'm not going to pull up my posts in which I've called people by name since I don't think you will care and/or will consider those unnecessary drama, despite the genuine erosion I believe they have committed towards the quality of discourse through their bigotry, and lack of intellectual rigor, empathy, or ability to criticize things through any lens other than false accusations of the Leftist Epithet Du Jour (eg: calling Delilah Briarwood a colonizer, which is simply untrue). But also, starting from barely 6 months into Campaign 3 and continuing through the end, ie, this is three years now.

I personally got hate for saying "It is valid for Imogen to be mad at Laudna for breaking the gnarlrock, and moreover, I feel like Laudna is given more leeway for her behavior than almost any other past character" to the point that someone joined Tumblr only to block me and then stalk me and post about me in the discourse tag.

That eventually came to a head when they called me out by name for replying to a response on a post I had originally made in which I said "Imogen's powers aren't a good metaphor for queerness in that her lack of control actually causes real problems for other people," a statement that a lot of Imogen and Laudna shippers and fans are still to this day throwing fits about despite it being over two years ago.

Multiple people, including people who had lost friends or relatives young and at least one cancer survivor, were sent outright death threats for saying nothing harsher "I think the story is interesting if Laudna remains dead." Now, I was only a lurker when Molly died, and I know people quit or were mad and harassed the cast on Twitter, but the worst I saw on Tumblr were people either quitting, or being weird and annoying about prioritizing Molly over the captured party members and later being kind of dismissive of Caduceus as "temporary".

I was repeatedly harassed to the point of at least two individuals making multiple alternate accounts to reblog my posts or send hate to me and just random people who had interacted with said posts for saying "I don't think Imogen and Laudna is a very good ship"; while we're at it, ship wars are something I dislike but expect in fandom, but I cannot stress how fucking wretched a subset of Im/odna shippers were to the point that to this day they look at people who created genuine content and meta for a competing ship that was always tiny in comparison and have decided it was done purely out of bitterness.

In general, there was just an utter incapacity among many C3 fans to accept "I don't care for your blorbo/ship/campaign" as a post on one's own blog. I was talking with some like-minded friends yesterday and to this day, over a month and a half after the campaign ended, actually a decent amount of people who liked Campaign 3 have almost identical criticisms (pacing, not following on a number of character centric-threads, lack of inter-character interactions, a resolution that is intriguing but was poorly set up, cutaways to other parties at inopportune times, and generally the campaign feeling like they put out all the ingredients on the table and said "here's a finished cake.") but it's fine if they say it, because they preface it with "I loved Campaign 3 and Bells Hells, but." In the end a lot of C3 fans will just attack if you don't think Bells Hells are great and the best. Again I am not naming names but there are even multiple people who openly prefer Campaign 2 by a margin but avoid this criticism simply by being like "Campaign 3 is also really really good, although [same list of criticisms I have]"; see lack of intellectual rigor and analysis. I think it's actually a very simple split: C2 is my favorite because the campaign allowed the characters so much leeway to interact and change and grow that they became my blorbos, whereas I would have liked to have liked BH more but the campaign was ill-suited for them and they didn't really talk.

At least Campaign 2 people wanted their stuff to be canon, and threw fits because it wasn't. Campaign 3 people are like BUT THE 20 HOUR SUPERCUT?????? and cannot accept that they have a canon ship that some people find dull or a blorbo some people think isn't a great person. If someone is mad about not getting something in the story, that's fandom as usual, it's irritating but it's life. Many campaign 3 fans cannot tolerate a whisper of dissent with their opinions without shitting themselves and making it everyone's problem. I know multiple people whom I followed during Campaign 2 for their meta who straight up stopped writing it because if you said anything even mildly critical of Campaign 3 you'd get hate. Campaign 2 harassment on Tumblr was something that largely ended shortly after story beats that proved one person right; Campaign 3 harassment was unending unless you either bow to the people sending it and say "I'm sorry for saying anything other than that your blorbo and ship is perfect," stop posting, or, and I'm really the only person who took this route, make it clear that you can and will hit back ten times harder.

So no: I found the Campaign 3 fandom on Tumblr specifically uniquely toxic because it fell outside of normal fandom toxicity. I think Campaign 2 toxic fans were deeply shitty, but they largely left and I think their unpleasantness is mostly confined to a fandom space and did not degrade the conversation; I think at least some Campaign 3 toxic fans are both genuinely stupid and genuinely bad people who are a negative influence on the fandom at large and I hope we recover during a hypothetical C4; I am cautiously optimistic if only because I think on the basis of mutual blocking they have largely self-selected out and will exist in their own weird echo chamber.

I will also note at this point my criticism of Campaign 3 is almost entirely untagged both as discourse and main and almost entirely either reblogs, or in response to asks such as this one. To be transparent, while I'm sure some critiques will arise as I work through my C2 rewatch I plan on keeping them again, untagged such that only followers, people who follow people who reblog such critiques (not many, I usually get mostly likes on those), and people looking at my blog specifically. I think it will taper off, particularly since a lot of C3 fans had little interest in anything else CR has done.

And finally: again speaking only for myself I'd rather have a brilliant campaign with a toxic fandom, where I can minimally participate in the fandom by reblogging posts I like and enjoy myself with a great show and a handful of likeminded fans in a discord (indeed this is kind of what I do for Veilguard), than a mediocre campaign with a delightful fandom. As demonstrated "it's eh but the people are nice" is not, for me, a defense of Campaign 3 but further condemnation of its quality, and then the people weren't even nice and were in fact in my estimation far worse than those from Campaign 2.

Anyway: I just want to put this out there but I am vanishingly unlikely to be swayed on anything by an anonymous ask. If you want to actually have a chance you better be saying what you say with your whole chest. But also, this is just. Extremely wrong, and you have a very incorrect read on what I personally value in addition to having a poor understanding of the CR fandom history on Tumblr but another problem about the C3 fandom? I got a lot of asks like this one where I cannot tell if the person is just naive to the point of not even realizing how little they know, or if they're trying to be manipulative but are exceedingly bad at it.

[xandertheundead]

José umbrella isn’t actually magicand doesn’t have the ability to be several instruments in one object.

José is a parrot.

Parrots use their tongues for all sorts of fun things, but most importantly for mimicking.

He can mimic all of those instruments perfectly with ease. It was only when he started playing around with the umbrella that someone thought he was magically playing the ukulele on it and boy, did he get a kick out of that!

He kept the ruse going, loving how confused Panchito and Donald would get when they tried to strum on his umbrella and got nothing in return. He even offered lessons to Panchito one time, entertained for being the only one to understand his dirty innuendo.

Year later, he broke the news to his friends, smiling when Donald took it in stride and Panchito looked crestfallen.

“Ah, Paco. Don’t be too sad.” He would coo, moving to nuzzle under the Rooster’s jaw. “I can still teach you, if you’d like, but maybe somewhere more private, não?”

He always knew the best ways to cheer his friends up.

[big-mean-trans-dyke]

I want to see TERFrape on TV, every channel, every genre.

I want it played for Comedy: Some poor TERF screaming as she's bounced on a thick, veiny girldick, maybe reading off a prompter and parroting all her old rhetoric, maybe proclaiming how she'd never submit to a trans woman just in time to squirt all over the girl's lap, and warning a laugh track either way.

A Mystery movie hinging on a TERF who was violently raped in an alley, beaten and left bleeding and leaking cum from every hole in a dumpster, found the next day by some sympathetic cuntgirl on her way to work. She goes to the police, and the second act of the movie follows the detectives taking DNA samples, investigating the crime scene, and tracking down the cruel rapist. At the end of the second act, she's brought into the police station so she can spend the entirety of the third retraumatizing her victim, with the help of the kind officers.

A Historical piece, laid out almost as a reality show. We follow a transfem who lives out a month in the life most transfems did years earlier, toiling away at a 9-5 working for cissies for a barely liveable wage. The cis actors are told it's a legitimate workplace, of course, a new initiative to start bringing transfems down again. Our transfem is, of course, paid a huge sum of money for her month of sacrifice, and there's an hour and a half at the end of the documentary in which they portray the revolution with our transfem character marching up to her bosses office, forcing her to her knees, and then spending the rest of the movie raping, humiliating, and dominating her coworkers. She gets to keep them after the movie too, of course. Can't have them forgetting their place ever again.

Maybe there's a War drama, much more traditional and focused on a transfem duo making their way through the horrors of war, with the extra little bonus of gratuitous scenes of their claiming the prizes of conquest, raping enemy soldiers, pissing on POWs, hiring cuntgirl prostitutes only to beat them afterwards and take their money back.

And of course, most importantly of all, Romance. A TERF, clad in a gorgeous, pristine white veil, a beautiful white collar around her neck. Makeup running down her face, clearly once as beautiful as the scraps of clothing she's allowed to wear, now totally ruined. She kneels, naked aside from her veil and collar, at the altar, across from her transfem wife-to-be. She'd been reluctant at first, they always are at the beginning of these movies. But after a beautiful, brutal, ruthless, three day long dating period, she's grown fond of her new partner. "You may now kiss the bride", comes the priest's voice, and the broken TERF leans in, breathless, to make out with her new Goddess's asshole.

Truly, it's subject matter that belongs in any and every genre, and it's just the kind of thing that would help cissies remember their place.

[nitpick7]

some questions/thoughts i have about pvpciv right now. because i need to put them somewhere in the world. (spoilers ahead. lol)

we know the swords and shields can rank up, and it's implied the axes can. (seawatt says that the ppl who killed the bows were diamond axes, not just axes.) can bows and tridents rank up? if so, how?

do all the shields live in the sword civ? is there a shield civ? the map only shows 4 civs and the center. is there no specific shield civilization? they can move between civs when they reach gold level. do they just? spawn in a random civ? and then get to move around once they rank up enough?

why couldn't that girl's sword do any damage to evbo in part 2 is it because he's the chosen one and the chosen one is apparently unable to be hit by a sword what does this MEAN EVBO????

did all the bows die before or after parrot left. he said he was kicked out so probably before. he also told evbo to go to bow civ, and it sounded like he thought the civilization still existed. but then why does zam know parrot's the only one left (besides seawatt)?? and why does zam think parrot knows? "why are you the only one left?" WHY DO YOU THINK HE KNOWS ABOUT THAT WHEN WERE THE BOWS WIPED OUT

more importantly, were the bows wiped out before or after tabi got the eternal sword. what's the timeline here.

(i ramble a lot more about less important things under the cut)

will enchantments ever be relevant. or exist. is that how bows/tridents rank up? is that how the netherite sword has infinite durability? does it just have mending? the bows work like they have infinity but they aren't enchanted. what does this mean.

video journal machines are only available in sword civ. but you need secondary items to steal people's weapons. so you have to be able to buy things in other civs. what can you buy in the other civs.

i really want a prequel series about ferre and the other diamond swords

it's called "ranking up" even though they go down a level. if evbo was a linguistics nerd he'd have called it "ranking down". that would probably get confusing but i need to mention this.

are newborn swords farmed for their durability before they get to sword civ? if so, how did evbo (and that other guy from ep 1) (and that girl from part 2) make it to sword civ?

if they aren't farmed for durability until they get to sword civ, that makes sense.

How did the entire civilization Get there.

why does the battle simulator exist. who put it there. does every civilization have one? are they even set up the same way??

i've never seen a hostile mob (or any mobs tbh) in pvpciv which implies it's on peaceful difficulty and that's really funny

wait if no mobs then how is there food. i'm confused again.

these are literally just minecraft mechanics but how did evbo do the hidden block to get to gold sword level. and how did he do the thing with the water. there's usually cuts when he loses his items but i think the water stopping is real. how did he do that i want the behind the scenes

[crazyintheeast]

Chappell Roan is the epitome of why liberals keep failing in USA . She is the most stereotypical internet liberal . Someone who doesn’t understand politics and more importantly someone who absolutely refuses to learn and correct themselves ever . We see people like her all the time online . Liberals who live for the drama , who shout and rage but don’t actually do anything in real life . Sure they might go to a protest because again drama but actually becoming part of their local political landscape ? Run for office ? Volunteer ? Nope . They almost never do. In fact you can barley get them to vote

They see politics through the lenses of movies , where you if you shout long and hard enough and do some frantic gestures the opticians bow down and the good guys win . And as soon as their scenario doesn’t happen they immediately quit and refuse to do anything because in their kinds this will “teach the politicians a lesson . It will hold them accountable “ . We saw it with Obama as they handed control to the senate when he magically didn’t solve their problems , we saw in 2016 when they handed the country and the Supreme Court to Trump because their idol Bernie didn’t get elected . And no we see it again with people like Roan and her kind who think it’s more important to criticise dmeocrsts then then sheer horrifying evil and threat of Trump and Vance

And when you point this fact they always parrot the exact same type of strawmen “OMG YOU WANT US TO WORSHIP THE DEMOCRATS AND BLINDLY FOLLOW THEM ? “ or “I AM HOLDING THE POLITICIANS ACCOUNTABLE. THEY NEED TO EARN MY VOTE “ and then they tend to have a meltdown and get very self righteous .

This is bullshit of course . If they lived in a normal country you could do it. You could vote for a third or fourth partu and then on the second tour of elections the President would be force to make alliance with this party and incorporate them into the government. But USA is not a normal country . Here you have ONLY TWO CHOICES when it comes to President . Horrifying evil or a typical politicians .

And I can practically feel some of your exploding to parrot the accountability line again. . You can hold them accountable . You can do it by writing to your representative, by voting in primaries , by supporting candidates who represent your views . Chappell Roan could have easily done that . She could have supported pro Palestinian candidates who got ahnilated by the Zionist lobbies , she could have constantly told people to write their representatives, she could have hosted benefits for pro Palestinian candidates . Hell she is rich enough she could have hired her own lobby firm to lobby for Palestine . But that would mean actually getting involved into the cruel and deeply boring and dirty world of politics . So instead jsut like all those internet armchair liberals she just complained online , gave some symbolic donations that might help individual Palestinians but do nothing about the political situation and called it a day

And most of you who support her are like this . You want solution to the problems but instead demanding specific actions and doing the hard , very slow and ungrateful job of doing the step by step work you about into the void some vague demands about change , stol genocide etc and act like you are above politics . Yeah that’s not how it works . If you want to be vague and bullshit your way through politics you vote blindly for the lesser evil ( yes evil in the only option in politics . There is not good ) like the sheep you claim to hate or if you want real change you get detailed and world hard

Yes I know the vast majority of tik tok / Twitter liberals and Roan fans won’t actually bother even finishing what I wrote and would just write some dismissive nonsense or parrot some random line they think it’s wittty . And the rest would ignore the entire point and go on about how Roan is a good person who cares missing the entire point . It doesn’t matter if you are a good person or how much you care about the issue . The only thing that matters is whether you help or not . Right now the ONLY way you can help and is to vote like your life depends on it and insist that everyone you know votes as well and about how dangerous Vance and Trump are . The biggest piece of shit who votes and takes a stand against Trump and Vance is doing more to help the world then the most saintly caring liberal who goes on about both sides and does random tik tok world salsa where they threat voting like some annoying chore

And lastly remember. EVRY VOTES MATTERS even if you are in a red state . Bush won by 500 votes

[non-stick-pansexual]

ugh. one of my friends today told me that they were upset that Neal Shusterman, a Jewish and Ukrainian YA dystopian author (who I happen to quite like due to the themes explored in his work), supports Israel, and that they stopped reading a book halfway through and would donate all their books by him. Which just makes me so upset and angry for multiple reasons.

First and most importantly, Neal has NOT expressly stated his support for Israel!! From everything I can find, all he’s guilty of is saying that people are too quick to have a simple mindset for a complex issue (which I agree with) and that everyone, Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish and Muslim, deserves empathy (which I also agree with). And he said this IN A PRIVATE NEWSLETTER!! They’re acting like he’s some Kahanist, genocidal colonizer, or whatever. At MOST, he doesn’t think that Israel should be destroyed. Apparently a controversial opinion for a public figure to have, I guess.

Second— if I were to guess, they probably got their ‘Neal Shusterman is a Zionist’ idea from one of those idiotic “Zionist authors/artists list”, which tend to be lists of almost just Jewish artists, most of whom have done little to nothing to outwardly display their zionist beliefs, if they even have them! This makes me even more upset, because if they don’t consume media from Neal Shusterman, I can only imagine that they’re also blocking out a bunch of other Jewish authors and artists, which just makes me sad and angry.

It’s SO easy to find out Neal’s stated beliefs on Israel and Palestine because it’s the FIRST THING that comes up when you google it, and he’s only ever said 1 thing about it. I’m so mad at my friend for their gullibility, their blind parroting of antisemitic notions. I expected better, but I guess I probably shouldn’t have. They’re one of my closest friends, and I haven’t talked to them about this but I hardly think I can change their opinion.

I don’t know how to describe how I feel. Idk if I’m allowed to be as upset as I am. I don’t want to be this upset at someone this close to me over a passing comment, but it’s so FRUSTRATING.

Sorry, all— I know this isn’t a big deal for most of you~ this happens all the time, but I just weirdly thought I was immune, or something. Just hit a little too close to home is all.

[lokideservesahug]

Worthy

-°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°--°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°-

Pairing: Sergio "Checo" Pérez x reader

Warnings: One innuendo? Reader doesn't have a gender but Checo and reader are married!

Notes: Tried to force myself to write this (during a writer's block with no motivation...yay!!!) Also I wrote this quite a while ago but changed it sligjtly so it took place more recently But it is based on this request :)

Summary: The second Red Bull seat had been a hot topic of conversation for "Silly Season" but when Checo resigns, what do the public think? Or more importantly what does Checo think to the response?

-°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°--°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°-

You stir slightly feeling much colder than usual. How unusual. You try and nuzzle into the figure to you side only to find him in an odd position. You crack open an eye. Checo is sat next to you, features illuminated by his phone screen. You glance to the side to see the time projected on the wall. 2:34 AM. You huff I frustration. Sergio said he'd get to sleep at a usual time yet here he was, yet again, scrolling through the entered at unreasonable times.

You grumble at your husband, catching his attention. He pulls his eyes away from the screen for what looks to be, the first time in a while. "Morning mi amor." You groan, reminded of just how unreasonable the time is. You sit up slightly in order to adress him. "What are you doing this early?" You stare at him, scrutinising his response. You're fairly certain you already know the awnser but you want to see if he'll admit it to you and himself.

"I was just- uh.... Just looking at some things online." You raise an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? What kinds of things?" He gulps and his eyes flicker down to his phone once again. "You know just fantom things, I fell down a rabbit hole earlier and am now watching parrot videos." You slowly move towards him, speaking in a sickeningly sweet tone to try and put him at ease. "Oh really? How interesting!" You move ever closer, tapping the bedside lamp so it's on its lowest setting, until you are left face to face with your husband. You halt, left hovering over his hips and you remain there, drinking in his state below you (that if it was an other situation, you'd do something completely different with him).

Until you pounce, grabbing his phone our of his hands, desperate to see what exactly he was looking at. You bolt up and out of the bed, squinting your eyes at the bright screen, trying to make out what it says. You ignore the distant pained crys if your husband and scroll, looking at more tweets. You turn to him and tilt yoir head.

Now with what many would call sub-par performances by Checo recently, people were starting to become more rowdy and opinionated online. There was a sudden cacophony of disbelief that Checo's contract was resigned especially after the most recent race in Austria. The criticism of your husband's contract renewal ran rampant when I was first announced but even now, hate had tenfold. Many believing that any other driver would be better fit or better deserving for the seat. You sigh in both disbelief and worry.

"Mi vida, it isn't isn't it looks like." You nearly laugh at his obvious lie. "Is it not? Because it looks like you're going against what we agreed and surrounding yourself with all of the hate people are giving you about driving. But please, tell me what it actually is." He looks down, unable to meet your eyes. That tells you all you need to know as you delete the tab on the phone and close it with a soft click.

"Darling, I am worried for you. You'll too early let all of those words get to your head and the last thing you need or deserve is you thinking that everyone thinks poorly of you." You cup the side of Checo's face and he nuzzled into your hand. "I know. But... Just what if they are right." You scoff. "Don't you dare say that. Most of those people have never even touched a go-kart in their life, let alone been behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car. You shouldn't let them project their own insecurities onto you. I mean look, not even Max has won every race this season, people need to realise that this is a completely different season from last yer and your still on hell of a driver."

Checo smiles. But it wavers as he goes to speak. "But Christian-" You cut across him. "Christian said something that was to encourage you, not criticise you. And team principals should learn how to hold their mouth anyways. Goodness knows speaking isn't doing Williams any good. But Checo it doesn't matter what anyone says, at the end of the day, you are giving stellar performances and most people are just jealous of you. You are the driver that they decided to resign for the red bull seat. Not Daniel, not Yuki, not Carlos, You. That was for a reason. You are truly amazing as a driver and as a man."

Checi formally meets your eyes once more and you see in the small illumination of the bedside table, them grow glassy. He smiles at you and leans forward, capturing your lips in a tender kiss. He speaks quietly, bouce breaking in the middle. "Thank you mi vida, I love you so much." You just smile softly at him and bring him into a tender embrace.

And the two of you know that no matter matter happens or what people say, you have each other. And that's good enough for Checo.

-°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°--°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°-

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

As always, likes, reblogs and especially feedback is always welcome!

Taglist: @nikfigueiredo @mysoulispainted @leclercings @d3kstar @hiireadstuff @a-beaverhausen @nichmeddar @lozzamez3 @stinkyjax @marymustdie @littlesatanicassholebitch @mehrmonga @insanedeathwish @ems-alexandra @a-disturbing-self-reflection @cherry-piee

[acapelladitty]

wesker x sub reader tentacle bondage 😔👍

writhing, writhing

Summary: With his new mutation appearing to be under control, you ask Wesker to show you just how much control he actually has.

(warnings for: dom/sub dynamics, tentacle sex, orgasm control, clit torment, possessiveness, overstimulation)

Wesker was a careful man and he was vigilant in the things he would allow and, more importantly, not allow you to see. So, having seen the full extent of his mutation purely on accident, it had taken three solid days of requests, begging, and downright seduction to get him to agree on a little 'private' experiment.

Nude with the exception of the tight, dark boxers which curved around his ass like a second skin, the only hints to how carefully Wesker was maintaining his control were the furrow which sat comfortably on his brow and the thick tent of his boxers, his cock visibly strained beneath the thin fabric.

Already warmed up by both the sheer arousal which cascaded through your skin at the prospect of being fucked by his tentacles plus the time had already taken to open you up with the fingers on his unaffected hand, your cunt ached with its need to be filled.

The blunted head of the tentacle presses against your soaked hole for only a moment before pushing through and with it comes a languid groan as the thick appendage forces its way inside. The skin of your entrance burns with the insertion and your moan fizzles into a pained grunt as you roll your hips and try to adjust to it.

A very thin tendril snakes its way around your clit hood, dipping beneath the protective skin to brush against your sensitive clit; arousal making the little nub more pronounced. It's an electric feeling and you jerk in place as a shuddering cry breaks free of your chest.

The movement catching his attention, Wesker's eyes narrow as his gaze slips from your face to his tentacles, analysing what exactly they were doing that sparked such a reaction. Sourcing the little tendril, your breath catches in your chest as he manipulates it, curling the tip of it around your clit with enough pressure to make you stunningly aware of every miniscule movement.

Fingers tearing into the sheets beneath your hands, every slight jerk of the tendril is intense in a terrible yet delicious way as you can feel how alive it is; every flex and pulse making your clit feel as though it were being suckled with a steady rhythm. Writhing in place, your jerking is halted by the rest of his tentacles as they increase their pressure to hold you in place.

"Responsive little thing." Wesker mutters with a smirk, his tented slacks doing nothing to hide how hard he was as he used your body as he saw fit. "So accepting of something many would find repulsive. Maybe we could make a habit of this."

"Yes. Yes-ah." Parroting the word as your thoughts turned to mush, your back arches off the bed as his free hand closes around your neck. His skin is calloused and rough, hot to the touch due to the virus careening through his veins, and you swallow around his fingers.

Wesker seems content to simply test the skin there. The pressure of his fingers ebbs and flows in rhythm with his tentacles; the one within your cunt writhing and expanding in such a way that your walls are constantly under assault while the tendril wrapped around your clit maintains a steady, maddening pulse that makes your limbs ache with the constant tension of how tight they are.

Your release catches you by surprise, the tight band of arousal that tightens your limbs snapping in an instant as hot pleasure rolls across your skin – your cunt clenching and milking the tendril which stretches it out like it was a lifeline. Eyes closed, a firm clamp of fingers around your jaw forces them open again as keening whines and grunts slip free of your lips and you meet Wesker’s blazing gaze.

“Eyes open.” He warns with a smirk. “Now, that’s one. Let’s see how far this little game can be stretched.”

[edenfenixblogs]

Well, tuned into the Drawfee stream...

I promised I'd check it out before determining if I'd ever be able to give Drawfee another chance after this...

Verdict TL;DR: Maybe one day, but not in the foreseeable future, especially not streams. Certainly never through my financial support ever again, unless they are fundraising for a particularly worthy charity (like in the Trans Rigs stream). But luckily, I don't think they give a shit if I watch or not, which is totally fair.

Overall: The Drawfee YouTubers didn't do anything wrong. However, their lack of acknowledgement of any Jewish pain or concerns served to further digital ghettoization and social isolation of diaspora Jews in a way that many (but definitely not all) Jews will probably find painful. Between that and the really bad faith link-sharing from the mods, I'm personally too fragile to imagine engaging with the channel again.

This conclusion is geared toward fellow Jews seeking escapist content or content that doesn't make them feel erased during this time. This is not a prescriptive recommendation for anyone else. It is simply my reasoning, should anyone else be on the fence and need insight.

The Good (There was a lot of it!):

I didn't see any Drawfee folks parroting antisemitic conspiracy theories, which is good. An extremely low bar, but one that many, many people fail to clear.

They kept their tone fun and light and didn't turn anything into a diatribe

They kept their focus on humanitarian aid and an end to violence.

I think they made a few statements generally about keeping chat civil.

They kept chat limited to people who already subscribed to the channel, which was SO smart. It kept bots and bad actors from making the chat hostile.

While they all joked about silly stuff, they never jokes about real issues or the pain of anyone involved in the conflict. This is very important!!!

Chat in general was a very good place to hang out. Most people were just happy to be there and commenting about funny and fun art and it had the (mostly) typical Drawfee vibes, which I miss.

There was nothing performative or disingenuous about the team's intent: They wanted an end to violence. They wanted aid to reach Palestinian refugees. They wanted to encourage voter turnout in upcoming elections, and they wanted people to pressure their representatives to call for a ceasefire. These are all unambiguously good things.

Most importantly: They raised WELL over $100,000 for PCRF, which (despite not being totally perfect) is a very well-rated charity that has no history of its funds falling into Hamas' hands and is geared toward helping children. This matters much more overall than the stream's impact on me personally.

Ultimately, I believe the stream did more good than harm by a large margin.

The Iffy (Neither good nor bad; just things that I noticed):

Basically, none of the actual Drawfee crew did anything antisemitic that I saw. But they had a lot of missed opportunities -- to affirm solidarity and support with Jewish viewership, to acknowledge Jewish pain in any way, to advocate for a peaceful solution that left room for any negotiated peace between Jews in Israel and Palestinians in any capacity (whether that meant as Israel or as a newly formed state of some kind), or to be specific and directed in how they wanted people to approach a ceasefire.

I didn't hear any call to specifically keep the chat free of antisemitism. I tuned in a few minutes late, so maybe I missed it.

No substantial knowledge of the conflict demonstrated. Just that the current situation is unacceptable and should stop. I don't know anyone who disagrees with that (who I consider to be acting in good faith), but no language from the team about how to bring about that end to violence other than demanding a ceasefire.

Mods had a chance to add links to AllMEP charities, A Land for All, and some other Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli and Muslim-Jewish charities that support either inter-faith healing OR even just solely pro-Palestine charities that have inter-faith or inter-cultural backing. They did not add these to the shared links that I saw. (This would have been fine if they had a rigorous evaluation process and couldn't moderate and evaluate quality at the same time. But based on the links that WERE shared, I severely doubt that was the case)

Someone in the chat was repeatedly giving the very good advice that when writing your representatives to demand a ceasefire, you should demand that the US offer to facilitate a negotiated peace and permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Again, my feed crashed a couple times, so I may have missed it. But I personally did not see any of the mods or the Drawfee crew acknowledge this or mention Israeli suffering or Hamas violence once.

A least one of the mods should have been assigned fact-checking duty. Not many falsehoods were posted, but some were and community-members had to address them.

As expected there were lots of people posting watermelons, flags, and FtRttS. But, surprisingly, nobody was spamming it. I've written before about why the phrase FtRttS is upsetting to me personally, but I'll probably do a larger breakdown about i in the coming week. I appreciate that in general, people did seem to use it respectfully, in good faith, and without clear aggression toward Jewish people. There was some clear aggression toward Israelis (as in citizens not politicians), in general, but not too much or from too many people.

The Bad and Pretty Ugly (This is why I ultimately have to step away and other Jews might have to as well. At least for awhile):

Honestly, for all the care that people put into this stream, there was a general apathy toward and invisibility of Jewish people suffering in this crisis. Like I said, nobody on the on-screen Drawfee team did anything antisemitic. That was nice. Unfortunately, it didn't really seem like any actual effort was put in to determine what links were worth sharing. It was more of a "the mods like this one so it's allowed" sort of thing. Even cursory research on most of the links shared involved blatant instances of antisemitism, historical revisionism, or that just in general fell apart on any inspection whatsoever.

They could have made a lot of Jews feel seen and heard by mentioning the hostages even once, acknowledging 10/7 even once, acknowledged even once that Israel continues to be bombed from Hamas and Hezbollah daily, acknowledging that this is a war with two sides that both require an end to violence...literally any ONE of those things would have made a difference. But it was all just ignored, which is far too common when dealing with this conflict. This is especially painful for Jews who, like me, have experienced social isolation and digital ghettoization during this time. I think a lot of Jewish viewers will struggle to reconcile how this echoes a lot of the erasure that we all feel in our daily lives and in our digital spaces and in our hybrid digital and in-person communities. (<- Reblog 2 contains the accounts of The Jewish Experience of antisemitic erasure and ghettoization)Like, I do understand the argument that this is about providing humanitarian relief, but I also don't know why so many creators (and this is NOT unique to Drawfee) pretend like Jewish suffering is not relevent to ongoing discussions.

The mods posted links that supported UNRWA and some chatters spoke up in support of the UNRWA without any consequence. (All links here are verified as highly credible with high factual reporting standards via Media Bias/Fact Check and represent analysis from left-leaning, right-leaning, and least-biased sources)

One mod also posted a link to decolonizepalestine(.)com (not including the link because i don't want to support blatant propaganda). I have shared information about this terrible, bad-faith website before but there's so much more to pick apart here that I will reserve an evaluation of it as a source for a whole post of its own, unrelated to Drawfee. This website does cite its sources, but it provides no mechanism for readers to evaluate those sources. They are not hyperlinked and each individual citation must be looked up individually. I don't even have remotely enough time to do that right now. But if any of my bookwormish allies wish to tear apart those sources or the website in general, be my guest. Tagging y'all for visibility, but do not feel like I am actually asking you to do this work. It is simply something to add to the list of bad sources that we'll have to tackle at some point. cc: @comradevo @the-road-betwixt @faggotry-enjoyer @arandomshotinthedark et. al.

The mods also shared arab.org a few times. It is weird to me that they could have recommended AllMEP, which routinely emphasizes interfaith and intercultural and international cooperation and peace, but instead chose this much less evaluate-able source that excludes any efforts to find cooperative peace between Israel and Palestine. I had not heard of Arab.org before this stream and when I started to look into it, I fell into a bit of a rabbit hole:

So, first of all, Arab.org is a charity? organization? network? based in Beirut, Lebanon. I can't find them on Charity Navigator. The homepage didn't have a clear mission statement, so I navigated to the About Us tab. That gave me a little more information.

There, they state that their vision is to, "Empower people & organizations to do good." - Vague, but inoffensive. OK.

They state that they have three objectives:

Raising awareness, which they define as, "Civil society’s active role and through active collaboration." -- Vague but inoffensive.

Raising hope, which they define as, "Enabling the use of technology to innovate ways of contributing to the wellness and welfare of society." -- Vague but inoffensive.

Raising standards, which they define as, "Education, Reporting, Communication to & from civil society in the Arab World." -- Unclear, but inoffensive. Are they trying to raise the standards of these listed items within the Arab world or are they trying to raise international standards to be more inclusive of these listed items that originate from within the Arab world. And how do they define increased standards? Whose standards? IDK. This doesn't tell me anything really, but it also doesn't tell me anything bad, necessarily?

So what about their principles? Well, they list 5:

"Collaboration: Only together as a collective, can we bring about real change and betterment to society." -- OK, fine, but this still tells me nothing.

"Transparency: We conduct our business with a high level of transparency and a simple development model and we publish our impact publicly." -- Great! Excited to explore that!

"Innovation: We use our skills and creativity to make the world a better place. We want to make it possible to both inform and take action to solve the problems we discover." -- Intriguing, but how?

"Inclusion: We champion the inclusion of everyone in society, whether it is part of civic inclusion or charitable inclusion." -- This sounds really promising!!!! I'm excited to learn more!

"Leadership: We believe in taking the lead whenever wherever required by empowering individuals and organizations to influence others towards common goals." -- Gonna be honest, this just sound like vague buzzwords to me, but if they actually accomplish what they set out to do, great.

Luckily, each of these principles was clickable.

Let's start with "Collaboration"!

This takes me to a weirdly vague page with a gif of various men helping each other climb out of frame. The text below it says "We are currently on the look out for the following technology/platforms/businesses relevant to civil society" and then a list of pretty random things, some of which have checkmarks near them. Why is the formatting so strange? Why don't they all have checkmarks? Why is only the indicated section clickable but none of the other things? Where is more info about any of these items?

But fine, lets click that one clickable link about online marketplaces.

It doesn't actually take you to a marketplace but a page where artisans in the Arab world can submit their information. Submit heir information for what? Well, this is what the website says:

We understand how difficult life is for craftsmen & craftswomen to compete with mass-producing giants. We’re here to change all that. We are creating a win-win-win relationship whereby all sides benefit from our new platform “Shop to Help"

The "Shop to Help" is not clickable. I have no further information on what this is.

Fine, there's one more thing to click on this page: a list of Arab.org's partners.

First up: The Arab Institute for Women at Lebanese American University. Clicking on the info there takes me to the AIW:LAU website. Arab.org says the organization used to be called "Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World," but I couldn't find anything on Charity navigator for them either. Cursory research on them shows they've been around for 50 years. Fine. I'm not doing an evaluation on them right now (anyone who knows anything about them feel free to comment. I just don't have time) I was just investigating how they partner with Arab.org. I didn't find anything about that aside from a list of AIW's partners, which lists Arab.org amongst them. Clicking the link to Arab.org just takes me back to the homepage. I've learned nothing.

Next: They list Bayt.com, which is a job search site. Clicking that link takes me to the Bayt homepage. I couldn't find that addressed partnerships of any kind was their affiliate links page? But becoming an affiliate helps the affiliate make money, not Bayt. So I'm unsure what's going on or if this is even related.

Third: Building Markets. As far as I can tell, this is a real organization. I also cannot find them on Charity navigator, nor can I find any information about how they partner with Arab.org from their website. They do clearly share their financial information, though, which is great. I neither endorse nor condemn this organization. I'm not investigating them right now.

Fourth: Takreem Foundation. I CAN FIND THEM ON CHARITY NAVIGATOR! But they aren't rated. A search of the Takreem website shows no affiliation with Arab.org or accessible financial information.

Fifth: #GivingTuesday Woohoo! They are on Charity Navigator and have a pretty high rating! However, there's no evidence of a link between them and Arab.org, and the organization claims to have no list of official partners or participating organizations. Odd. Did Arab.org run a #GivingTuesday campaign and highlight #GivingTuesday instead of the organization they were giving to? Idk. And I don't have time to figure it out.

Sixth: CSR Engine. It's just a website with nothing on it except the statement "World’s first business for good solution to assign & align CSR activities seamlessly using AI and blockchain technology," which is the same text available about it from the Arab.org partners page. It does show it's affiliation with Arab.org...by listing Arab.org as a customer and then linking back to the Arab.org homepage. WHAT IS GOING ON.

Finally, and buckle up for this one cuz its a doozy, Greenpeace: I'd actually heard of this one, but I don't really know anything about it. Clicking Greenpeace doesn't even take you to the real Greenpeace MENA site. It just takes you to Arab.org's really weird write up page about Greenpeace. So, instead, I searched for Greenpeace on Charity navigator, where it got a 100% rating. Awesome! I clicked the charity navigator link, which took me to the Greenpeace Fund website. But wait a second. What's their connection to Arab.org? Well, there was no search function on the GreenpeaceFund website. So, I typed Greenpeace into google and uh?????

What?

That was surprising. I clicked the link and...

It showed me a totally different website...

Than the one I was just on...

Mods and the Drawfee crew stopped people from sharing links unless those people were mods. That was a super good choice which I fully support. But why did the mods share THESE links?

Well, I had the websites both open in side-by-side tabs.

That's...odd... So I studied the URLs more closely...

The lighter green G that's less pixelated? THAT ONE is the Greenpeace Fund. That is the one with penguins and a 100% charity navigator score.

The one with the lime green, pixelated G? That's Greenpeace International, a conspiracy/pseudoscience website with low crediblity.

But hey, the Greenpeace International website says there's a MENA-based branch. And, upon closer inspection, the Greenpeace International MENA website is the one that was linked on the Arab.org page. Maybe that one was better?

Clicking it took me to the Greenpeace MENA site...

which gave me another blinking Conspiracy Alert Icon from Media Bias Fact Check.

Just to be safe, I typed Greenpeace MENA into google, and fam... it is not better.

PS: searching ANY Greenpeace website for Arab.org showed no results.

In one last-ditch effort, I checked the Transparency page, where Arab.org claims to be "leading by example" in sharing all their documentation for charitable donations. And y'all it's fucking weird.

Let's stick with Greenpeace cuz they're already open tabs on my computer.

First of all, Arab.org's "leading by example" financial disclosures...

...are literally just the "Thank you for donating" receipts that you get whenever you donate to any cause. It's fucking weird.

And yeah, you read that right. For all of the 4th financial quarter of 2023, Arab.org donated just $109 TO THE ORGANIZATION WHICH THEY CALL A FEATURED PARTNER.

"OK," you say. "Well, there was a fucking lot going on in the fourth quarter of 2023. They were probably more focused on Palestine." Sure, lets check out their donation history to UNRWA (which, btw, is still a not great charity)

In case you don't want to click another link--Spoiler alert, they only donated $380. For the whole quarter.

And before you say, "But Eden! You must have missed it Arab.org is another organization called The Olive Tree (The Olive Tree SAL). That must be where the REAL work takes place!" Look at the mission statement of that one! The call themselves, "A mission-driven social enterprise startup making an impact for the common good.''

No.

The Olive Tree SAL is not on Charity Navigator. It's just another nothingburger website that links back to Arab.org and has no search function or further information.

This is the entirety of the website:

And a weird little LinkedIn logo that takes you to the organization's business page on LinkedIn.

From what I can tell, Arab.org just uses Ad revenue to generate minimal donations for charities and organizations of varying credibility that mostly don't even seem to know that Arab.org is even doing anything related to them. And that are designed to make people who are basically uninformed on the whole topic feel good for clicking on a link.

IDK, color me unimpressed. But I'm frankly a little mad that I spend so much fucking time trying to promote charities and organizations that promote peace between Palestine and Israel with actual detailed financial reports and disclosures that seeing this really makes me upset. Maybe if people actually listened to Jewish people with a lifetime of experience dealing with this conflict and trying to help solve or even Palestinian people on the ground who are affected by all this, they might instead focus their energies on one of the many organizations that are actually doing something to help alleviate suffering, increase empathy, encourage education and interfaith dialogue, learn to use language that is respectful of everyone undergoing and who has survived trauma, or build a peaceful future.

Whatever.

Donate to an AllMEP Charity:

And the craziest thing is that I'm gonna be the one who gets hate for this--even tthough I've been so driven out of most fandom spaces and discourse spaces that I can't even tag Drawfee here, let alone I/P, Palestine, or (G-d-forbid) Israel and get this to reach people who this could actually hep.

Because every time I try to engage, I'm inundated with messages like this:

[cleolinda]

Weekend links, March 30, 2025

My posts

Over on the Silent Hill 2 masterpost, I have the third video and its text writeups finished. There's even a bonus extra video where we take a field trip for the corrections. I'm currently writing up the fourth video, the mood of which swings between "whiny about a head cold" and "most aggressive mom at the Little League game." 

(Wait. That is the mood of the fourth video. The third video is chill. I am unstuck in time.)

Ian's next stream (Blue Creek Apartments and Pyramid Head) is next Wednesday; I ought to be in the chat, but I doubt I'll be able to get my fourth video (same area) up beforehand. 

Also, I am still whiny about a head cold.

Reblogs of interest

PSA: 23&Me has filed for bankruptcy. Here's how to get onto the app and delete your data.

"Here’s the thing about JUPITER ASCENDING, literally the greatest movie ever made"

A necklace uncovered by archaeologists near Northamptonshire, England, dated to the 7th century AD

Tumblr therapy: "About ten years ago I decided that the next step I needed to take in my life was to accept and explore what it meant to be a failure and to have failed"

Seventeen magazine of the early 1990s indelibly shaped my idea of 

what prom dresses are supposed to look like, and I was very surprised when people started wearing, like, normal floor-length garments by the end of the decade. 

"i want to be part of a vampire’s herd. and i want him to pet me like a cow"

“Babel” by Cildo Meireles (2001) — and a description of the sounds it makes

"Young Writer" by Svetlana Tartakovska (1979): an important depiction of a Black woman as "soft, delicate and vulnerable" (I have noticed how often Black women discuss this lack of portrayal, so it always strikes me when it comes up) 

I love a good zine: "Some Thoughts About Being Aromantic"

A very long post of strange thrift/antique store experiences

Art: Caer Ibormeith

"Foxes disguised as monks. On the left from Japan and on the right from Denmark." "It was a global problem"

The Earl of Cattenborough will be Pleased to Partake of a Potato

For the bit: "I only gave [my baby] Dr. Pepper since it's from a real doctor"

"From filmmaker Brad Twigg (Crackcoon) and Fuzzy Monkey Films comes T-Rexorcist - now funding at Indiegogo"

Video

"Can lyrebirds also mimic human speech like parrots or just ambient noises and other birdcalls?" I did not enjoy learning the answer to this question.

"At NO POINT in this video did I know what was going to happen next"

Listen: this dance adaptation of "Mere Dholna" is TERRIFYING

Pure Moods: You could mute this video and I would still be able to hear it

Costumes from Carnival in Venice

Robert Irwin rescues a chameleon

"if you hear a royalty free song on youtube, there’s approximately an 80% chance Kevin Macleod wrote it." To which I would add, if you love the visual novel/game The Arcana, you know his music. 

Personal tag of the week

Libraries. "As a former librarian" (OP is, not me) "I’m actually required to remind you that many libraries that subscribe to Libby are opted into a program that lets you subscribe and access magazines for free with no wait."

Even more importantly, "hey hi hello so as the US goes through this ~ hostile government takeover ~ Trump signed an executive order last week to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). [...] If you’re so inclined and live in the US, the ALA put together a portal that makes it easy to email your reps with a script."

[sealixirfairytales]

So… He's from our world, around the victorian area… or so it seems.

Bram is around 16 or 19, nobody is sure of his age. He's actually born in twisted Wonderland and more importantly, in the Island of Woe, as his parents are both STYX's scientists.

But as a baby, only a month old, his parents remarked he seemed to absorb blot around him, like if he was a human magistone. Scared, they sealed any magic in him through some experiment for some time before throwing him into a random experimental portal because even with sealed magic, he was absorbing blot, just slower. Bram appeared in our world, right into the sea. (reason why he absorbe blot at the very end of this post)

But Bram actually is blessed with an incredible luck so as a little baby of barely 6 months, he survived by miracle and ended up on a flourished jungle island, untouched by humans.

He have been found by a female tiger. The "ruler" of the island, kind off. Thanks to his luck blessing, she decided to adopt him instead of eating him. So she raised him.

Bram is then totally wild and never saw another human. The closest were the monkeys… but as "a tiger" he just ate them. Bram's "father" didn't wanted him and tried to eat him, but his mother killed him to protect her cub. The large scar on his torso is due to his "father" attack.

Of course lots of other accidents. The bite on his thigh is from a crocodile. The large scar on his calf is because he felt and got this place pierced by a branche. He have cuts, bites and scratches kind of everywhere.

He also have a dark "scar" in his back, but it's actually the seal of his magic.

Bram love pretty colors and since he have seen parrots decorating their plumage with leaves or other feathers, he's doing the same by putting pretty flowers in his hairs. He loves flowers. DO NOT touch his flowers. He will bite.

Also, of course, he live completely naked and walking on all four

When he was around 11, his mom died. She wasn't killed. She was just already 17 (tigers lives usually between 10 and 15 years old, some rare case have been observed where they lived up to 26) So Bram lived alone since.

And suddenly… the mirror summoned him in another world…or more like back to his original world…

here come the day he's summoned to Twisted wonderland.

No need to say, he was shocked.

Need to know, in his head, he is a tiger. His mother just said he's "a little different" but he's "still a tiger".

So, I base it more like the manga for his arrival. He get out of the coffin when everyone is already here. And by himself. And without the ceremonial robe. So in his case, he's still naked.

I think you can imagine, when he woke up locked in a box, he panicked, and hit and struggled until he managed to open the lid of the coffin. When he see all the students and staff around him -human- he step back and hiss… yep, he will just act like a cat… more dangerous.

The staff try to calm him but nothing work. Until, recognizing how he act, Trein have the good idea to send Lucius. Bram can talk to animal. Howver, the animal language the mages use to talk to animal too don't work with Bram.

So thanks to Lucius, they learn that the naked kid in front of them think he's a tiger because he have been raised by one. After some tribulation, seing all the scars and how he act, the staff refuse to just send him back (and the mirror say he can't, anyway). Crewel decide to adopt him. And since I ship crewel and Crowley, Crowley adopt him too.

With Lucius help they slowly makes him understand they're not going to hurt him and Crewel manage to get him and carry him. Bram snuggle into his coat, reminding him of his mother fur, and purr. Lucius translate, saying the purr correspond to "mom" and Crewel just accept his fate XD

When he sees Grim, Bram try to hunt him, even catch him in his mouth XD Thanks the seven, the staff manage to makes him let go. Sam's little shadow friend bring a whole ham for Bram instead.

So they try to dress him… have you tried to dress a cat? No need to say, they can't. They just managed to pass him a boxer and a shirt barely buttoned. (the image)

Of course he also can't talk, he growl and hiss. First thing he will try to say will be his name, like "brrrr…. rraa… bbrrmmm… nrrr…. bbraaam".

Slowly, he start saying some words and even try to walk on two legs. then, you know the story… with some changes, of course. Crowley is "Da" and Crewel is "Ma"

About the overblots…. well he just jump on the phantom and bite it. And that's what he do in every fight, tiger style XD

Another thing… he will keep picking flower and put it im his hair but also try to put it in others hair. It's his love language.

~~~~

Now, about the fact he absorbe blot. It's due to his signature spell. I got that idea with a dream about another MC (Xia, from my horror short story "The orphanage) but it fit Bram too.

So here is his signature spell :

"From the shadows to my call, gather and empower my rise; Abyssal Maw!"

"Abyssal Maw" makes him enter into a controlled overblot, where he still have his mind clear and can command the phantom (see the phantom as the Horned king). Due to that, instead of creating blot when he use magic, he is using blot. He absorbe blot around him because for him blot is like a fuel, not a waste. Since it was way too OP (I mean… most of signature spell are kind of OP, did you see Malleus'??) I had to makes some adjustement compared to the original dream.

So, when he don't get enough blot, he will feel weak and tired. Like if you haven't eat or sleep for days. And there is also a problem if he absorb too much.

Nope, he won't enter into a real overblot if he absorbe too much blot… but he will end up in a drunken-like stat. Will be really cuddle and completely out. Not able to think or react, dizzy and will totally faint after a while. That can be really dangerous if he's into a battle.

Of course he will be able later to control his blot absorption, but that will take time. And obviously, he absorbe a lot of blot during the other's overblot. Slowly, because his magic is sealed.

But all this is only if they find a way to break the seal.