#anyways please go to the quoted replies of most of the posts in that thread cause they're all *chefs kiss*

[brandinotbroke]

Okay, take two, because tumblr decided to delete the whole post after accidentally posting it from my drafts 🤡 My response to your replies were going to be way too long, so that's why I'm doing it as a seperate post. This is going to be novel-length and I want to give some background info before I proceed:

Okay, let's talk about #FF00FF (the hex code for the colour we all hate to see)

First of all, I want to make VERY CLEAR that I do not have a tech background. Half the time I have no clue what the actual f*ck my brother is talking about, I am trying my best to summarize his points but please don't quote me on it.

Second, to introduce my brother, he has a degree in computer science and I sometimes talk to him about the whole pink flashing fiasco. He is not in game development, but he does show personal interest in it. He is also not a simmer, but he has been hearing my woes about pink flashing for years and I've been keeping him in the loop about discussions within the community every now and then. Once again, do not take anything he says as absolute gospel. This post is simply the result of us two bouncing around ideas and him giving me input based on his knowledge on coding and how soft- and hardware interact (biggest problem being that he isn't entirely sure about graphics cards because he's not a game dev). He is approaching all of this with the question: "What is the game's code instructing the game to do, under which circumstances, and why?"

That said, I want to quickly summarize how I've personally been understanding the "commonly accepted explanation" for pink flashing within the community so far, because this is the basis for my post: The idea is basically that the game loads textures and puts them into memory for quick access during gameplay. However, once the memory is "full" (which happens fast because the game is old and doesn't realize there's actually way more), the game starts deleting previously rendered textures to free up memory. But if it then tries to access textures from memory that have been deleted, it cannot find them and starts flashing pink instead. I believe this is what most people are referring to when they say that pink flashing is a "memory issue".

My brother said that this explanation seems very oversimplified and it doesn't adequately explain all the different phenomena we've been seeing in relation to pink flashing. After several days of back and forth, he made a proposition: What if the Sims community accepted "memory issues" as fact and ran with it (as we've admittedly done with "corruption" for years) when it is not a memory issue after all? Or at least not solely. He told me a whole tale of how something similar once happened in the xbox community, but I'll spare you the details (it wasn't about texture issues anyway). He made the following arguments to illustrate his point:

The first thing we talked about was the fact that blue flashing also exists and it usually happens if the game cannot access textures (think repo'd objects or missing CEP). This caused us to wonder how the game determines whether to flash pink or blue if both have to do with unaccessible textures. @lowedeus explained (thank you!) that Eaxis developed their own colour code for the Sims 2 engine and that blue flashing indicates missing TXMTs (= the game is searching for a particular file but it doesn't exist), whereas pink flashing indicates a shader issue (= the data is there, but it's failing to render, I guess?). I did a little bit of research on that, and I couldn't find anything that actually confirms that EA "came up" with pink flashing, but it's entirely possible that blue flashing, red flashing and the squiggly texture are Sims-specific. What I did find are these two threads (1, 2) discussing pink textures in unity engine games and according to those, pink stand-in textures for shader issues have been a thing in video game history for a long, long time.

That being said, my brother pointed out that the Sims 2 isn't the only still-popular-and-heavily-modded game that came out over 20 years ago, yet you barely see these problems in any of the other games of that era. Seriously, if you google "pink flashing" or similar terms, all you get are threads on Sims related sites. If you add a "-sims" parameter to filter out all the sims content, you get... basically nothing. And the few threads you do find rarely mention "memory issues" as the definitive culprit. From what I've seen, pink flashing in games like Garry's Mod or Doom is practically always fixable. If we take the "commonly accepted explanation" for pink flashing in The Sims 2 as fact, that would mean that EA went about it in a, frankly, stupid way even for those times.

Speaking of going about it in a stupid way: From the game's perspective, what is the goal of freeing up clogged memory? My hunch would be that it's being done to keep the game somewhat stable and playable (esp. for testers to trouble shoot). After all, it could also simply be instructed to crash and throw an error like "Failed to render textures" or something along those lines. However, this:

... can hardly be described as "stable and playable". So the next question would be: If the memory is clogged up and the game deletes textures to free up memory, then why does it sometimes delete practically EVERYTHING at once? Wouldn't it be more sensible to delete only a portion, just enough to free up memory, and keep some of the smaller textures in? Plus, how does the game determine how many textures to delete? Because the intensity of pink flashing also varies, even on the same computer with the same CC and the same amount of memory allocated. You can see this in these two screenshots I took three days ago, taken back to back after restarting the game each time (please excuse the photos from my phone, these weren't meant to go online lol):

Alternatively, we could also ask: Why doesn't the game USE the memory it has supposedly freed up? The whole game flashing pink just doesn't really make sense.

4. Now onto crashes: We still haven't really figured out what the difference is. What causes the game to flash, and what causes the game to crash? During personal tests, we've fiddled around with my Graphics Rules.sgr a bit and allocated different amounts of memory to the game. These tests have been done on the same day, same computer, in the same neighborhood with the same CC/mods installed. All common fixes, including DXVK, were also installed. The result? If I allocate more memory, the game loads but flashes, supposedly meaning it ran out of memory. If I allocate less memory (1900), it straight up crashes on the neighborhood loading screen - because it...also ran out of memory? Why does the game handle these two instances differently? After all, there is already supposedly a "memory issue" in the first case. If I allocate less memory, the game could simply load and also pink flash if it's just a measly texture memory issue. So there might be a treshhold somewhere - but why? Alternatively, crashing is telling us "memory issue", whereas pink flashing might not be memory related after all.

*takes deep breath*

Now that I think I summarized everything, I once again want to point out that my brother is NOT claiming that this definitively isn't a memory problem. All he is saying is that there is a possibility that it could be something else or an additional problem that we are overlooking. He wants us to keep an open mind about it because "as soon as people accept an explanation for something, they stop looking for actual solutions". He also said "It could of course still just be a memory issue, but it would be pretty stupid on EA's part if they handled it like this, unless I am overlooking something".

That being said, he had the idea to use a graphics debugging tool and make use of the fact that pink flashing isn't 100% reproduceable. Remember above how I had different amounts of pink flashing in the same hood? He said we could record two frames of the same hood, one with lots of pink flashing and one with little/no pink flashing, and then compare the differences. The graphics debugging tool would apparently allow us to read the draw calls and pinpoint where "pink flashing" happens, possibly figuring out what exactly the game is struggling with.

I read this morning that @lazyduchess had the same idea a few years ago and attempted to do that with the in-game debugging tools, but it didn't really produce any useful info because the game throws errors even during normal gameplay. Perhaps a third party graphics debugging tool would be more useful? If a compatible one even exists. I haven't talked to my brother about that yet, at least not in detail (admittedly, my head has been SPINNING from all this lol).

And regarding my brother's stance on Graphics Rules Maker @rockethorse: I asked him again about that and it turns out that he was just being smug about it, saying: "Why would I download a third party program for that if I can just quickly do it myself?". He also does not see any benefit in using the other program over GRM, so yeah, if people don't know how to do that manually or don't want to, they should use GRM. You're both on the same page on that :)

That pink soup post is well-intentioned but loudly wrong. fwiw

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of OT and someone created this twitter thread with the worst (and hilarious tbh) moments of the editions since OT 2017 and holy shit it's been a RIDE.

Like, here's like a written version of some of the stuff the thread says:

When in OT 2018 África was the second expulsed because everyone thought she was bullying Damion and they started dating when the program ended (they're still together) sjdsjd

When in OT 2020 they showed Gèrard and Anne a video of them kissing (nobody knew they were together at this point) RIGHT BEFORE they had to sing together 💀

When in OT 2018 María refused to say "mariconez" (means "stupid thing" but it literally translates to "f*ggot thing") in a song and every stupid celebrity started to shit on her

THE OT 2018 REPRIMAND where Noemí fucking read them tweets and made them cry cause they decided to camp outside the bedroom.

Anne sleeping in class 💕

Noemí calling Alfred "a brat" when she thought they couldn't hear her in OT 2017

Samantha in a wheelchair during a gala in OT 2020

In OT 2017 when Manu and Noemí reprimanded Aitana and Ana cause they didn't want to sing reggaeton lol

BRUNO'S NOTEBOOK IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW

Estrella Morente singing some random pro-bullfighting verses unpromted on live television when she had to sing another song with Nia in OT 2020

Tiptoe by Carlos Right aka whatever the fuck was this

When almost no one in OT 2018 wanted to go to Eurovision cause it was hosted on Israel but then Eurofans started shitting on them

Cepeda's Christmas present sjdsjdjsjdjsd

Julia singing Sober by Demi Lovato with a bar full of bottles as the background 💀

When all OT 2020 contestants tattooed themselves BEFORE THE CONTEST HAD EVEN STARTED

Aitana's Gala 0 "Bang Bang" performance

LUIS MAS

When Hugo went live on Instagram to tell everyone he had indeed cheated on his girlfriend with Eva during quarantine (after which the program resumed)

When some fans convinced Ana that her cover of La Bikina was the third most streamed song in Spotify in the whole world 💀💀

Alfonso's bilingual performance of All Of Me 🧍‍♂️

Cepeda saying "yo te cUERO Más" trying to be romantic or something

When one of the judges said that Mimi - who was in a dancing contest and worked as a dancer in China before OT - wasn't a dancer, "but she looks like one"

When Ana was almost crying saying how she was heartbroken that a judge told her she was inferior to all of the other contestants and Amaia said "only vocally" sjdjsdjs

The iconic moment of Thalía saying "a mí... me gusta" (I... like it) while Miriam was giving her THOSE LOOKS

THALÍA BEING HACKED BY A TURKISH MAN ON TWITTER FOR WEEKS I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED

When someone shouted "Cepeda calvo" (Cepeda baldie) in a Skam España clip

When in OT 2020 Eva had some kidney problem but all the fans thought that Rafa had gotten her pregnant because of the secrecy and the fact that Noemí only spoke both with her and with Rafa about it

When in the final of OT 2018 during Somos only Marta's mic was on and we could hear EVERYTHING SHE DID

Thalía just not paying attention to the gala's host and passing by him instead

It looks like the thread is gonna be updated more tho so feel free to go through it in a couple hours to see more of it

[dangerously-human]

So. . .

"I Hate My Autistic Son" - Know Your Meme

Came across this article while browsing KYM at six in the morning. Apparently this became a bit of an audio meme on tiktok for a while.

The quote comes from a reddit confession posted back in 2014; luckily they left a link so I was able to find it pretty quickly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/2ff4sx/i_hate_my_autistic_son/

If it's okay, I mean, if it doesn't make you too uncomfortable, can you please look at this? (You can just read the post & the first few replies, you don't need to go through the entire thread.) Please let it be known that I'm *not* bringing this to your attention to spread hate to anyone or start a fight. I just find this thing a bit interesting and would really like to hear an opinion on this perspective not only from a Christian, but from a Christian who actually has this condition and knows what it's like to live with it, as opposed to just being someone who has to live with someone who has it. (I really hope this makes my intentions more clear.)

Once again, it is completely up to you if want to talk about this. If the subject is too touchy for you then do not feel pressured to answer this ask, and.. sorry for bringing it up. You can just ignore it.

Putting a MASSIVE trigger warning for ableism on this post, pals.

I'm happy to talk about this, but I'm not sure what you're looking for, and it's difficult to ask or have a back-and-forth conversation about it because you asked on anon. (For what it's worth, I'm a little uncomfortable with people trying to have an intense conversation on anon.) The first thing I have to say in response is that a non-autistic child is not trapped in an autistic child; that's just not how it works, and while I guess I understand why that thought might be comforting to a family member, it's a lie anyway. What we know about autism so far is that it's mostly genetic, so your autistic child was autistic from the time they were conceived. Autism isn't something separate that "happens to" a person; it's an in-built part of who they are.

Now. There are some parts of autism that are disabling, and parts that suck for individual people. I would give up my sensory issues in a heartbeat. I know some people would like very much to not have the social communication difficulties they do. Some of these things are inherent traits of autism; some (most) are disabling because the world around us does not accommodate for or understand us well (the social model of disability). That said, it is fair for parents or siblings to struggle. They should have a space to process without judgment, but also have supportive people around then who can help them develop a more loving attitude toward their kid and develop coping strategies that work for their family. You can grieve your expectations while recognizing that's not the child you have, it's one you constructed in your imagination, and there's nothing wrong with them for not meeting those expectations. You are not owed a "healthy" or "easy" child (nor, in fact, are you owed a child at all, but that's a different post). Children are complete and individual people, every bit as much as adults. Our society has such a messed up, egocentric, product-oriented, convenience mindset about having children, and a huge part of that is the attempted divorce of sex from babies, but again, that's a rant for another post. If you are not willing to raise a disabled child, do not have a child - in that way, props to the one commenter - but vomit at the person talking about "adopt an older one who's proven functional," because EWW, but also anyone can become disabled at any time.

I know that some aspects of my disabilities will be gone when I have my heavenly body. But some probably will remain, because they're not all bad. If I'm guessing, I think I'll understand people better in heaven, but I'll still communicate differently than the majority; I'll happy stim but won't bite myself because I won't be so overwhelmingly anxious; and so on. The way I look at it, at least right now (my perspective may change over time), is that God made me autistic but he did not make me disabled (looking at disability in the social model sense). I have some more in-depth thoughts about the way he has used autism to highlight his power and spiritual gifting in my life, but I'm not sure I'm ready to share all of that in this context.

[recurring-polynya]

Oh boy!!! Polynya I have a sudden ferocious hankering for Byakuya and Aizen being viciously passive aggressive to each other. Most of the time you write B he is in the company of his family or his loved ones. So clearly the ultimate way to bring out the knives is an AU in which all the captains are in the same Homeowner's Association. I have no preference for ships; I crave only drama, the pettier the better.

Alopex. Alopex. Why. Why u do this 2 me. You’re my favorite, tho, I cannot refuse you. I hope this is petty enough. I almost made this whole thing an epistolary fanfic that took place over NextDoor, the worst “social media”, but I think it worked better with everyone in person.

Read on ao3 or ff.net

🏠     🏠     🏠

“Gosh darnit, the only K-cups left are apple cider and pumpkin spice!”

“Oh, that can’t be right, I know I filled up the carousel just before the meeting! Retsu! Retsu, honey, we’re out of K-cups, and I bought a whole carton at Costco and I just don’t understand--”

Kuchiki Byakuya glanced up from the presentation materials he was reviewing for the six hundredth time. For starters, Byakuya wasn’t really sure anyone should be letting Hitsugaya Toushirou have coffee in the first place. It was 8p.m., and the child couldn’t be more than twelve. Byakuya had never been very clear on a) why the Seireitei Estates Homeowners’ Association let the child attend the meetings in lieu of his father (or possibly step-father?), a doctor who worked late hours, and b) why a young child would want to attend a Homeowners’ Association meeting anyway, but he had more sense than most of the other board members, so Byakuya didn’t ask questions.

Byakuya also wasn’t sure why they had to have “refreshment breaks.” Breaks were for quitters, in Byakuya’s opinion. Granted, the meeting was being held at Unohana’s house this month, which meant that the baked goods were impeccable, but Unohana’s high-strung wife tended to radiate so much nervous energy that Byakuya worried the woman was going to spontaneously combust.

“Oh, sunflower, I’m sure they just got pushed behind the croquembouche,” Unohana purred reassuringly. “I’ll help you look-- oh, excuse me, Mr. Ichimaru.”

As Unohana pushed past that weaselly shyster Ichimaru Gin, she swung her hips, knocking into him. Approximately thirty K-cups tumbled out of the pockets of Gin’s couture tracksuit.

“Oh, there they are!” Unohana sang innocently.

“How did those get in there?” Gin gasped, as though he were genuinely puzzled.

Byakuya shuddered. Ichimaru worked for the second biggest law firm in town, after, of course, Kuchiki and Sons. Byakuya dreaded the day he might find himself across a negotiation table from the man. Not that harbored any doubts about annihilating that idiot in a contest of the law, he just didn’t like being in the same room with him.

“Here you go, dear,” Unohana said, popping a K-cup into the machine and patting little Toushirou on the head. Toushirou was too busy glaring at Gin to notice.

“That looks like some presentation you’re givin' after the break, eh, Kuchiki?” Ichimaru drawled, selecting a bearclaw from the pastry tray. “Or didja bring home the paperwork from the Tsunayashiro merger?”

Byakuya sniffed and shuffled his papers back into their portfolio. “I approach all areas of my life with the same diligence as I do my professional work.”

“What a coinky-dink! I do, too-- I don’t work hard at anything.”

Byakuya had no interest in frittering away his preparation time to small talk with a moron. “I am going to set up,” he said coolly.

“Good luck!” Ichimaru trilled, giving a saucy little finger wave.

Byakuya returned to Unohana’s sitting room, where he had left his easel and poster board near the hideous faux fireplace with its tacky LED candles.

Aizen was sitting at the cardtable he’d set up at the front of the room, fiddling with his chintzy little gavel. “You look very prepared,” he said, in a tone of voice that was almost as insipid as the oatmeal-marl turtleneck sweater he wore. “Do try not to run too long, though. I’m only the substitute president, you know! I want to run a tight ship, ha ha!”

Byakuya narrowed his eyes. He was still slightly salty that President Yamamoto had felt the need to take a last minute trip on a “Single Seniors Cruise.” Something something about a flash sale and when you’re old you have to take advantage of the time you have left, etcetera, etcetera, but if there were anyone that Byakuya could count on take his side in the matter, it was that antediluvian rule-enforcer. For that matter, Byakuya wasn’t actually sure whether Yamamoto even cared about clipped hedges and shoveled sidewalks or if he just liked yelling at people and slapping them with fines.

Aizen was also a bit of a stickler for the finer points of home maintenance, but the man had no substance to him, with his floppy hair and his chunky knitwear and his horn-rimmed glasses.

“All right, everyone!” Aizen called in his stupid simpering voice. Byakuya had no idea what the man actually did, but Byakuya figured he was a preschool teacher or an art therapist or something equally touchy-feely. “Please take your seats! The next item on our agenda is a presentation on, uh, ‘A Secret But Important Topic, from our neighbor over at number six, let’s give a big hand for...Byakuya!”

“Hold the applause,” Byakuya said sternly, holding up a hand. “I come to you today to call for-- nay, demand the expulsion of one Zaraki Kenpachi from the Board of this Homeowners Association, and possibly also the entire neighborhood, if that’s possible.”

“We can’t kick people out of the neighborhood,” Aizen stage-whispered to him.

“Is he actually a member of the HOA Board?” Kyouraku asked, scratching his shaggy mane. “I’ve never seen him at one of these meetings.”

Byakuya turned to Tousen, the Board treasurer, who had taken his seat at the front table with Aizen and Ichimaru. “Mr. Tousen, did you happen to look into the dues records, as I requested?”

“I did, yes,” Tousen replied. “It turns out that Mr. Zaraki is excused from paying dues. There was a post-it note in President Yamamoto’s handwriting that said,” Tousen made finger quotes, “‘Zaraki fixed my car, excused from dues.’”

Byakuya scowled. “That doesn’t seem… sufficient… it is of no matter.” He grabbed the bed sheet covering his posterboard, and dramatically swept it away. It would have been more dramatic if the bedsheet weren’t covered in Chappy rabbits, but there was no way he was bringing one of his own 800-thread counts into a house that contained cats.

“I have been closely watching Mr. Zaraki’s residence for the last few months, as his rear yard backs to mine, and I believe he may be operating a fight club in his garden on weekends. They do move into the garage if the weather is unpleasant.”

A hush fell over the room, except for Isane and Ukitake Juushirou, who were discussing the merits of blind-baking pie crusts.

“Er, sorry, did I miss something?” Juushirou asked apologetically, after realizing he was the only person talking.

“Kenpachi seems to be running some sort of fight club,” his scruffy husband supplied, looking deeply confused, as usual.

“Goodness!” Juushirou exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

Byakuya cleared his throat. “Allow me to present the evidence I have gathered.” He picked up two large binders, and handed one to Soi Fon in the front row, and the other to Aizen, who immediately passed his, unopened, to Ichimaru. “There are about two dozen disreputable personages who are frequently found loitering about the premises. The first page of the binder indexes each of them by a descriptive nickname, including times I have seen them. Photographic evidence follows.”

“They seem to be washing cars in most of these photos,” Soi Fon pointed out, flipping a page back and forth. Or are they fixing the cars? I can’t tell.”

Komamura craned his head over, curiously. “Wow, is that a ‘73 Stingray? Nice.”

“Yes, they also like to get together to maintain and detail their vehicles,” Byakuya snapped. “Usually at ungodly hours of the morning. I am almost positive that many of those cars do not employ catalytic converters. In any case, it is easier to take pictures of them during the day.”

“Looks like they like to spray each other with hoses, too,” Gin noted, waggling his eyebrows. “Why are there so many pictures of this one guy with the red hair and tattoos? He sure doesn’t like to wear a shirt, does he?” Aizen appeared to be leaning to the side, trying to look at the book out of the corner of his eye.

“My dutiful sister did the photographic surveillance! She is very thorough, and I appreciated the help!” All these questions were knocking Byakuya off his game. He smacked his pointer against the poster. “May I direct your attention to Figure A, a bar chart of traffic on his street vs. hours of the day.”

“Tell us more about the fight club,” Soi Fon interrupted, shoving her binder over to Komamura. “Are there weapons involved, blunted or otherwise? How many people usually show up? Is it held regularly, or do you suspect there’s, say, an email list or something?”

“I think it’s some sort of mixed martial arts,” Byakuya said, rubbing his forehead. “There are often up to a dozen of them, but sometimes it’s as few as three or four.”

“You know, I’m looking through the bylaws,” Aizen said, turning pages in the bylaw binder without actually looking at them, “and I’m not exactly clear on whether fight clubs are actually… you know, forbidden.”

“They’re illegal,” Byakuya bit off.

“Per-haaaps,” Aizen drew out. “But what really constitutes… a ‘fight club,’ am I right? I mean, Dr. Unohana teaches kickboxing classes in her basement studio, is that a fight club?”

“No,” Byakuya replied.

“Exactly, and we wouldn’t want her to be painted with the same brush for just trying to teach other women the arts of self-defense, now would we?”

“It’s not for self-defense,” Unohana clarified.

“Or what about having a bunch of friends over and hitting each other with foam swords while you pretend to be werewolves?” Ichimaru broke in cheerfully. “That’s just our rights as citizens, to pretend to be werewolves in our basements with our friends.”

“It’s a tabletop RPG,” Komamura growled. “I am not a LARPer. There are no weapons. Also, you really do not need to bring it up every single board meeting. It is a perfectly normal adult hobby that I do to spend quality time with my friends.”

“Speaking of which,” Gin turned his binder of pictures around, “isn’t this guy in your group? With the sunglasses?”

“Hmm?” Komamura flipped a few pages. “Oh, huh, yeah, that’s Iba.”

“Surely a good friend of yours wouldn’t have anything to do with an illegal fight club, eh, Mr. Komamura?” Aizen suggested.

Komamura made a non-commital grumble. “I mean, I could ask him if it’s a fight club, if you want me to.”

“I have yet to hear any evidence that supports the existence of this so-called ‘fight club,” Tousen broke in.

“That’s because I keep getting interrupted, I have an audio recording and also some several emergency room admission records--”

“Mr. Zaraki is an upstanding citizen of our town and a devoted father,” Tousen continued. “Are you suggesting that Mr. Zaraki is not a responsible parent?”

“Well, now that you mention it…” Byakuya mused.

“Juushirou, you and Shunsui babysit for little Yachiru all the time, don’t you?” Aizen asked sweetly. “Have you ever seen any evidence that she isn’t the sweetest little girl in the entire world?”

Toushirou raised his hand. “Excuse me? She is a menace, actually?”

“Oh, no, Yachiru is always a ray of sunshine!” Juushirou beamed. “Very active child.”

“Eats a lot,” Kyouraku added.

The edges of Byakuya’s vision were beginning to bleed into red. “We are not talking about the Zaraki child--who, by the way, buried an entire ham in my prize tulip bed--”

“It sounds like you have a grudge against the entire family, Kuchiki,” Aizen replied mildly. “These board meetings are not a venue for airing your petty grievances.”

“You are not even listening! If you would just turn to page--”

“I think you’ve wasted enough of everyone’s time.” Aizen turned his doe eyes to the audience. “Is there anyone here who wants to invest any more energy listening to Byakuya’s vitriol?”

Byakuya looked out over his audience, looking for an ally. Komamura shifted in his seat uncomfortably. The Kyouraku-Ukitakes refused to make eye contact. Unohana was reading a magazine about decorative wreaths. Toushirou raised his hand again with a helpful smile, but no one actually ever cared what he thought.

“Soi Fon, you’re an actual police officer!” he begged.

“It’s just a fight club,” Soi Fon shrugged.

Byakuya was desperate. “Dr. Kurotsuchi?”

Kurotsuchi looked up from his phone. “Eh?”

“Have you been paying attention to any of this?”

“Of course not, I only come for the snacks.”

Byakuya gritted his teeth. “Zaraki is running a fight club and these fools wish us to turn our heads and look the other way.”

“Well, it’s not a very good fight club,” Kurotsuchi agreed. “I’ve been. They don’t allow poisoned weapons and the beverage selection is quotidian at best.”

“You see! You see, right there, Kurotsuchi has even attended! That’s proof that a) it exists and b) it defames the character of the neighborhood!”

“I’m declaring this issue closed,” Aizen replied breezily. “And Kuchiki, I really think you should try to get along better with Kenpachi. You are neighbors, after all.” He brightened. “Oh, I know! We’ve got the community yard sale coming up in June. Why don’t you go ask him if he wants to join the planning committee?”

“Byakuya… will...ask....Zaraki...to chair…the yard sale planning committee,” Gin read aloud as he wrote it into the minutes.

“I agreed to no such thing!” Byakuya howled.

“Onto the next topic!” Aizen chirped. “Trash pickup happens every Friday at 7am and a few of our neighbors have been leaving their bins out as late as noon.”

Later, after the meeting, as Byakuya was packing up his binders and his posterboard, Aizen walked up to him, munching on a rhubarb scone. “Really nice presentation, Byakuya. Good fonts, well cited, you obviously put a ton of work into it. Also, that Zaraki is a blight on the neighborhood. Ideally, he would be thrown in prison.”

Byakuya stared at Vice-Presiden Aizen, mouth agape. “Then why did you and your cronies ruin my presentation and shut me down at every turn?”

Aizen’s eyes narrowed. His mouth curved into a cold smile. Light glinted off his glasses. “You dared to usurp my rightful place as the winner of the Spring Spirit Most Beautiful Yard competition.”

Byakuya blinked at him blankly. “You cared about that? A man’s lawn is his pride. I keep my yard beautiful as a matter of principle, not for some silly competition.”

“You pay for a lawn service. You shouldn’t have even been eligible.”

Byakuya didn’t even recall entering, he’d just received a letter that he’d won, and a festive yard sign appeared next to his front walk, which he had immediately removed and thrown in the garbage. “The prize was a gift certificate to a miserable chain restaurant. I would give it to you, except that I already gave it to my sister to go out with her hooligan friends. They are perpetually short on funds. I could get you another one, I suppose. The amount was paltry enough, although I was given to understand that the place offers ‘unlimited breadsticks’.”

“It’s too late for that,” Aizen declared. “You have made a powerful enemy. You will feel my revenge in a thousand cuts.”

Byakuya wondered how much of a hassle it would be to just move. He’d heard there were some nice houses over in Karakura Acres.

~end

Shinigami’s Cup: GOLDEN!

“Do you think it would help if I infiltrated the fight club?”

“I appreciate your zeal, Sister, but, no, I do not think it would help.”

“Because I think I might have an in. I feel like I would be really good at going undercover. I could wear a body mic.”

“Rukia, you know I have the utmost faith in you, but are not even five feet tall. I do not, in any way, see how you could realistically ingratiate yourself to an organization populated by large, lumpy men whose raison d’etre is to clobber each other in the face.”

“I have cat-like reflexes! I am really good at dodging and weaving!”

“Rukia.”

“And I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos about muscle cars. Go on, ask me something about Dodge Chargers!”

“Rukia.”

“I even ripped the sleeves of an old t-shirt, I look super tough in it. Please, Byakuya, please can I?”

“All right, fine. But do not drink any alcoholic beverages that have ‘light’ or ‘ice’ in the title. It is against our pride as Kuchiki.”

“Thank you Brother, you’re the best!!”

[shirbertshitposts]

Things you can do to help Anne With An E be Renewed

There are so many different ways big and small you can help in the fight to get Anne With an E renewed. I’ll do my best to compile all the ways you can contribute.

1) One of the easiest ways to let networks know there is a demand for more Anne With an E is to request it on their help page. Request Anne with an E season 4 so they know you want the show to continue. There is also no limit to the number of times you submit requests.

https://help.netflix.com/en/titlerequest

https://help.disneyplus.com/csp

For Disney+ click “Give Feedback” then “Request a film or show” then you can type in Anne with an E season 4

2) Watch Anne with an E on Netflix. Just constantly stream it in the lead up to the season 3 premiere. When the show premieres Jan 3rd make sure you stream the new season that day and in the days after. Not only do we want Netflix to know that the new season has a big audience, but we also want as many people watching at the same time for the show to make it to the “Popular on Netflix” category. New people may be attracted to the show if they see it is popular on Netflix.

3) Write emails to Networks. Netflix and CBC are not the only options when it comes to Networks that could renew Anne with an E, since it seems that the rights to the show are currently owned by Northwood Entertainment the production company behind Anne with an E. Many other fans have done the hard work of compiling lists of emails of network executives. I will provide links to various tweets I have seen with important emails. (of note, most will probably not check their work emails again until after the holidays, so you can draft emails now and send them out after Jan 1st) Also below is a google doc that includes emails of many network executives.

https://twitter.com/LeaOux/status/1205485569691680768

https://twitter.com/KindredsParty/status/1208518970002870272

https://twitter.com/KatVal11/status/1206141522820976640

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1StN_dHgHjhPhYkfgS_7AbeMbmu0KXhrtJW1ytAASUaw/mobilebasic

Template for writing emails and email addresses to send emails to: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nkEu-ZyIiBkCABleKRBLU21T8lRSwRxwWXuVDZ7cxeo/mobilebasic

4) Write emails to magazines, newspapers, websites, etc. Any form of Press about Anne with an E will draw attention to the show from people who may not have heard of it before. You could write emails to ask them to cover the news of the show's cancellation, to review the new season, to discuss certain topics the show addresses that set it aside from other shows and more. Anything that you could dream up that could be an article that could be written about Anne With an E you could pitch the idea to someone to write about. 

5) Appealing to other fandoms with similar interests. Two big movies that are about to drop that have an audience that may be interested in a show like Anne With An E, would be Little Women and P.S. I Still Love You (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before sequel). Little Women is also a period piece with a feminist heroine, so you could point out the similarities in the stories’ themes to appeal to fans of that film (which premieres Dec. 26th). For P.S. I Still Love You, the big connection is that in the third book of the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy, Forever and Always, Lara Jean,  Lara Jean states that Gilbert Blythe is her ideal man. Screenshots of this quote have been going around all over tumblr and twitter since the P.S. I Still Love You trailer dropped. The selling point could be that if you enjoy the films and relate to Lara Jean then you should check out the stories and adaptions of those stories that Lara Jean considers peak romance. ( It also helps that the premise of the films relies on love letters and AWAE season 3 features love letters as well). When entering into other fandoms tags to recommend Anne With An E make sure you are always being RESPECTFUL and don’t just spam the tags with Anne promotion. You could always create side by side edits of the two programs to demonstrate how similar they are. Basically, make sure your posts in their tag don’t seem like a blatant promotion for AWAE.

6) Rate Anne with an E on IMDb. (Note: It is listed as Anne(2017) on IMDb). Right now Anne is listed in Top 250 TV Shows, but it is toward the bottom of the list at #248, with an average show rating of 8.4 stars. If enough fans rate it, the show could move up on the list, which may attract new people to watch the show. You can rate the show overall, and rate each episode individually. Plus you can leave a review. 

7) Watch the Anne With An E Netflix trailer and share it with others. The more views on the trailer the better. The trailer is available on Youtube and Instagram. On twitter, people are organizing trailer boosting parties for Dec 23rd - Dec 30th. 

This calendar shows when trailer boosting parties have been planned detailed descriptions of what those events include with links to tweets and posters

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=potatolightbulbs%40gmail.com&ctz=America%2FNew_York

8) Sign the petition for the show to be renewed and get anyone you know who likes the show as well to sign it as well.

https://www.change.org/p/netlfix-awae-fans-renew-anne-with-an-e-for-season-4?recruiter=916548586&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition

9) Recommend the show everywhere. On twitter search “What to watch on Netflix” or “tv show recommendation” and reply to any of these tweets with Anne With An E and maybe a reason why you recommend the show. If someone has already recommended Anne With An E don’t recommend it again, we don’t want to spam or annoy strangers. This can also be done on reddit search “What to watch” , “Netflix recommendations” , “Period Piece” and comment on any of the relevant results with Anne With An E.

10) Tell EVERYONE you know to watch Anne With an E. A great way to spread the popularity of the show is by word of mouth. People trust the opinions of people they know, so your friends and family are more likely to listen to your recommendations than strangers on the internet (but there is no harm in trying #9 anyway). 

11) Continue to be your amazing creative selves. Gif sets, fanart, video edits, memes, etc. All of these can help attract new fans to the show, so continue to create and post things related to Anne With An E.

12) Make bookmarks or small promotional posters and leave them in public places. I have seen a trend of this on twitter and it's not a bad idea. One amazing fan even took it to the next level and made tiny posters that have QR codes on it that when scanned takes people to the Anne with an E trailer or the show on Netflix. Below is a link to tweets showing what those looked like and how they dispersed them.

https://twitter.com/itsMaeWithAnE/status/1208618422768033792?s=20

Here is a tweet thread with templates for the posters if you want to print them out yourself:

https://twitter.com/itsMaeWithAnE/status/1208816797555671040?s=20

13) Buy official merchandise for the show and wear it around. You could be a walking advertisement for the show if you want (and can afford to). There is different merch available on the official Anne With An E shop website and on Amazon.  Also sales of the merch may be considered by networks when they consider whether to renew the show. 

https://shopannewithane.com

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/A8C18641-8ECE-4892-A276-6A0A952A125C

14) Join the r/Anne community on reddit. There has been some encouragement to grow the size of the community on this thread because it shows a static number of how many people are apart of it. This number could be used to approximate how much interest there is in the show. It currently only has 2.5K members. Even if you’re not very active on reddit, joining the subreddit would be helpful.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Anne/

15) Donate to the campaign to have a billboard to promote the show. Details can be found on the gofundme page.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/renew-anne-with-an-e?sharetype=teams&member=3295372&rcid=r01-157601384514-6d847f2ab5bb49bd&pc=tw_co_campmgmt_w&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet

16) Donate to campaign to run instagram ads for Anne With An E. More details on the gofundme page below.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/anne-with-an-e-season-3-ad-campaign

17) Let’s Make Some Noise Campaign. Some fans are encouraging people to write messages on white rags, like the ones the avonlea students use during their protest, and sending them to various streaming networks or Northwood Entertainment, the production company behind the show. Details can be found in the tweet below.

https://twitter.com/kindredsparty/status/1206624186342559745?s=21

18) Rate and review Anne With An E on Rotten Tomatoes. You can do this for each season. Currently there are a fair amount of negative reviews so it would be incredibly helpful to explain why you love the show. Good reviews would attract new potential fans to start watching.

19) Vote Anne With An E up on Ranker.com lists. This might attract new get people interested in the show if it consistently ranks high on lists of best shows.

https://m.ranker.com/list/the-best-new-original-shows-on-netflix-hulu-and-amazon-of-the-last-few-years/ranker-streaming?ref=also_ranked&pos=2&a=0&l=85370943&ltype=n&g=0

20) Take care of yourself. THIS ONE IS MOST IMPORTANT. Don’t sacrifice your health in your efforts to get the show renewed. If you need to take a break please do. Also don’t feel guilty if you need to step away or you can only do one or two things on this list. Every effort counts and is greatly appreciated.

I’ll try to update this as more stuff comes up. Good luck with all your efforts Kindred Spirits!

Remember “Dreamers change the world”

[nextbigaiello]

A few months ago I responded to an anonymous message in regards to the punching of Rick Moranis. I had posted a thread responding to the person in a back and forth. I cannot find the posts (maybe if I look on my computer instead of using tumblr on my phone) and they seem lost or deeply hidden on my page. If you can find it, please use it as a means of not making the same mistakes I did. I am not proud of my actions. I’m well aware this was back in October, so it all seems pointless due to the lateness. But I do want to address it and apologize for some of the things I’ve said and my overall immaturity. And even if no one cares or thought of it as a big deal, I believe that the things I said and my attitude weren’t okay and I would like this to be a teachable moment even if it may seem minuscule or “not that big a deal”.

The anonymous messenger had said something along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing because I don’t remember word for word) he deserved to get punched and the guy who did it was a hero. Though my overall response was to say that I found the act really strange and that anyone who goes around punching people (whether they carry a famous title or not) should face the consequences. Obviously nothing intense only one that fits the crime. But I did not say it like that. If anything the best decision would be not to respond at all and just delete it. But I obviously did not do that. I decided I wanted to gain some sort of high ground over this person and respond in a snarky, ridiculing way. So I mocked the use of being anonymous and kind of reveled in the idea that they were eager to send ME this, as I’m like a nobody. In anonymous’ message, they had said that all white people deserve to get punched in the face. I said that they can punch me in the face any time, but my biggest mistake was writing “I don’t know why it’s a race thing but ok” in the hashtags.

I AM THE BIGGEST IDIOT FOR DOING THIS! I WAS THE ONE WHO TURNED IT INTO A RACE DEBATE JUST BY SAYING THAT! I WHOLEHEARTEDLY BELIEVE AND UNDERSTAND THAT SAYING THAT WAS WRONG EVEN IN THE MOMENT. I DID NOT DELETE IT OR EDIT IT OUT BECAUSE I FIGURED IT WOULD ONLY MAKE IT LOOK WORSE. IT WAS NOT MY INTENTION IN THE SLIGHTEST TO COMMENT THAT. I SAW SOMEONE PUNCH ANOTHER PERSON ON CAMERA AND I WAS ANGRY. BUT I STILL WROTE IT AND POSTED IT THINKING THAT I WAS THE ONE EXPOSING SOMEONE. WHICH IS IDIOTIC, POOR, AND INCREDIBLY DISGUSTING. I LIKE TO THINK I AM AN ALLY WHO CONSTANTLY LEARNS NEW THINGS AND STRIVES TO BETTER THEMSELVES. AND WHILE I STILL THINK I AM AND DO APPRECIATE AND SEEK BEING CORRECTED, I MISCALCULATED AND SHOWED THAT I AM STILL SUSCEPTIBLE TO MAKING MISTAKES. THIS IS WHERE I FEEL THE MOST REGRET IN THOSE SERIES OF POSTS. I AM VERY SORRY TO THOSE WHO ARE AFFECTED AND HURT BY THAT PHRASE AND SIMILAR LANGUAGE THAT HARMS BIPOC COMMUNITIES AND THEIR STRUGGLES FOR HAVING THEIR VOICES BE HEARD. I AM SORRY THAT I DIDN’T APOLOGIZE SOONER. I HOPE FOR FORGIVENESS BUT ITS NOT NECESSARY IF YOU DO NOT SEE MY APOLOGY AS VALID. THAT’S TOTALLY FINE. I JUST HOPE THAT I CAN MAKE UP FOR THIS BY IMPROVING AND LEARNING EVEN MORE.

Unfortunately I continued to respond to this person. I kept posting the back and forth squabbling. They had caught my mistake and rightfully used it against me. The majority of the messages were framed as me basically being a performative activist and not actually liking black people. Which are not true. I can definitely do more as a white ally to help protect and support black (and other people of color’s) lives. However I do as much as I can, and encourage people to do the same. I was desperately trying to convince this person that I wasn’t racist and that I care about everyone. I had attached pictures I drew of myself (one being my pfp) in support of the BLM movement (amongst other things). All of my decisions sounded and looked better in my head. If anything, I don’t think I was really trying to convince anonymous. But actually I believe I was trying to convince anyone who follows me or could stumble onto the posts. I wouldn’t have to have convinced anyone if I just didn’t respond. But I was arrogant. Once anonymous had the mistake against me, my snarky attitude lessened and I wanted to come of as genuine. Mostly because I was. I wanted to see if I could try and get both of us to lower our torches and come to an understanding. My responses got longer. I still came off as a dick in places but tried to counteract that with questioning why they thought messaging me that was smart. We mostly talked about race and all I could say was that I care deeply about black people and I didn’t mean to say what I said. I genuinely said that if they wanted to punch me in the face, I give them the right to. In hindsight I should’ve known that this would come off as disingenuous and played for laughs at their expense. But I did mean it. I said it thinking that maybe it would make them feel better. Maybe they were right that all white people deserve to get punched in the face and I only furthered that idea. With all this time to think, I’m starting to agree.

We ended with neither side breaking. There was no use trying to convince the other side so no more messages were sent. Yet I acted as if I “won” and posted one final post kind of bragging and saying that it’s smart to respond to trolls in a classy and smart manner. Which I didn’t do. So that’s more points towards me being an unnecessary dick.

The second biggest thing I regret is not letting it go and constantly replying. It makes things worse. You’re feeding into it. Especially since I tried to be smug and pretentious. I should’ve never responded in the first place. I should’ve buckled down on having a passive tone and genuine behavior with the replies. But I didn’t. Don’t do what I did. Don’t give antagonistic people or trolls the time of day. Don’t address things you are not capable of talking about.

I believe we must all take accountability for our actions regardless of how big or small they may be. Especially as a white person. I am taking responsibility for this mistake and hope for forgiveness but seek education. Again, it’s all very late, but I didn’t take into account how it would be perceived. I’ve not gotten any messages from anyone about this and no one really interacted with the thread, so I don’t know how people felt about the whole situation nor am I being coerced to do this by someone else. But if I’m ever in a similar situation, please call me out! A few years ago I made a post that I didn’t even agree with at the time but I posted it anyway, and someone called me out saying that it could be perceived as bad taste. I immediately apologized and deleted the post entirely shortly after. I am grateful to them for asking about it and letting me know it wasn’t a good thing to post. I will gladly take responsibility and go about removing or editing something that is problematic or bad in general that I overlooked. I just feel terrible about doing it in the first place and acting as if there’s no possible way it could affect someone. Because it can. It can and I would feel horrible if it did.

Again I do not know where the original posts are. So I don’t have exact quotes and am just going off of memory. But if someone finds them and goes over them and asks me to address this again with the actual evidence and quotes, I’d be more than glad to do that. And if with the actual posts your views and opinions change, that’s totally fair and I’m just happy you took the time to read all this and the posts of you can find them.

All I can say is I’m sorry. I am so very sorry.

-DA

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

28. After the Morning After

Word Count: 3742 Previous

Guiltless Grace was the Grace that Grace liked the best. Nothing would convince her that she was wrong, because even if she was, she's human and allowed to make mistakes. Perfection plagued her a long time and she wouldn't be bringing any of that into her 23rd year. 

She woke up early, only a couple of hours after sleeping and called Hazel. 

"Hello!"

"Morning! How was your first night away?"

" I can handle it. I've slept in crazy places before. Lucy's is nice. They have an elevator!" 

"They live in a penthouse, so yeah. What are you having for breakfast?"

"Sugary cereal!" Hazel cheered. "It's GREAT!" Grace had to choke down getting upset about that. Sugary cereal wasn't great, but it wasn't going to kill Hazel to have a couple of days of it, even though that's not something that Grace ever bought.

"I stayed awake most of the night, so I'm going to get back to sleep soon."

"But you missed me?" Hazel asked.

"Yes."

Hazel laughed, "Get a life, Lady!" She joked. She and Grace laughed. "I'll bet I miss you tomorrow. I'm still enjoying myself… Are you enjoying yourself?"

Grace glanced around the unfamiliar room and looked where her swan goddess gown had been tossed onto the floor... It was gone now. Simon must've moved it.  Meanwhile, she was in nothing but an oversized MIT hoodie that Simon let her borrow. She supposed she was enjoying herself, but truth be told, she didn't feel like the pay off for letting loose last night was worth all of the self doubt of today. She had allowed Simon to be near her again… "I'm allowing myself to be imperfect," Grace said. She didn't lie to Hazel, ever. She just… tried to figure out ways not to potentially scar her with whole truths. She wasn't going to tell her details about Simon, but if it came up, she would be honest that she was there. It came up.

"Your presents from Simon look really nice… I want to see that Idol Princess doll ASAP!" Grace had forgotten about letting Simon take photos. He must’ve posted them to his social media already. Of course Hazel wanted to see that doll. Hell, she could HAVE it… "I've been bragging to Lucy how my mom is gonna be a doll now. She's jealous, of course." 

They talked until it was time for the girls to head to school. Grace sadly let Hazel off of the phone and finally climbed out of the bed. Simon stirred on the couch when she peeked into the living room. He seemed to be having a nightmare. He was curled up with Samantha at his feet and Grace's fur coat over him presumably for warmth. He still looked to be freezing though and she realized that maybe the rental didn't have extra blankets. She felt bad as she went to pull the one off of the bed to cover him with, setting her coat aside first. He snuggled into the blanket, but didn't wake up. He also appeared to be sleeping a little better with it.

Grace studied him for a moment. He looked so different than he used to, in terms of scars and age, but here, sleeping, he was like the little boy that she met and fell for very quickly. That is, if the little boy's hair was starting to gray and his worries had caused deep lines in his face. Still. He looked at peace. She leaned over to give him a kiss on the temple and ordered a ride to come pick her up. 

Her dress had been folded and placed on the trolley with her gifts. She peeked outside and it was pretty cool out there. Enough that she wanted to keep the socks that Simon had given her after her foot rub. They were really comfy and soft. Perfect. She was gonna take them. But, she removed his sweatshirt and got back into her dress. Her hair was.. a mess… nothing she could do about it at the moment. 

Whenever she got the alert for the car, she pushed the trolley outside and gave the driver a tip to pack it for her. She went to grab her purse and coat, brought the trolley back inside, gave Simon another kiss and left.

He heard the door shut and his eyes flew open. Simon jumped up and went to the door to look out. He saw a car down the road, but didn’t recognize it. He locked the door, wondering if he’d left it unlocked last night by accident. After a quick bathroom visit, he peeked into the bedroom and… Grace was gone. She left his sweatshirt on the bed, had changed back into her dress and was just gone. That must’ve been the door. 

He frowned, but she HAD told him that it wasn’t going to mean anything, and he agreed to proceed anyway. Her panties were still on the floor… He picked them up and tucked them into his pocket, unsure if she would want those back or not. He shot her a quick text: “Left in a hurry. Forgot your panties.”

“Lol. Thanks. I’ll grab them later.” 

He sighed and looked at his desk. He had work to do, but he was still sleepy, and now depressed, to boot. He set an alarm for later in the day and went to bed. It was more comfortable than the couch and it smelled like Grace. He wasn’t sure if that would make it harder to sleep or be more comforting. His jaw was killing him, and he knew that was a combination of Shana’s fists and Grace’s thrusts… but it was totally worth the discomfort this morning of having had Grace seemingly satisfied with his oral ministrations a few hours ago. 

He wanted more, of course he did. But, he hoped that she was at least minimally impressed by the fact that he graciously accepted what she was willing to give him. 

It was amazing, for him, actually. Simon hadn’t done that with her before. He chuckled to himself. If he had, maybe he would’ve turned his life around much sooner. He frowned at that joke, even though it only existed inside of his head. But, now he was back to thinking about the reason that she didn’t trust him with her body again. The way he had handled her the first time…

Simon had been selfish. Honestly, he simply used her body to get himself off, bending and moving her in whatever way seemed pleasing to him and because she loved him, she did whatever it took to make him happy… then he just stabbed her in the back. He hated feeling like a broken record, but he could never let go of who he had been back then, and she definitely couldn’t either. If he even seemed to be too close to her face she flinched and moved back. If his hands touched her, no matter how gently, she became irate as she flung them away. She didn’t want anything to do with him, but he was probably very convenient for her. He knew that he had to be fine with that. He had to be fine with her limits, her boundaries, her rules. He wasn’t, but he had to be and he was going to make sure that he seemed to be. “Thank you for allowing me to give you some attention this morning,” he texted. 

She took a moment thinking before eventually just replying, “Welcome.” In another text, she said, “I’m going to be sleeping last night off today. I’ll text you whenever I’m available to swing by.”

“Okay. Sweet dreams.”

“Thanx. Bye.”

.

Grace woke up around 1 pm. That was the latest that she had woken up in years, and not something that she ever did very often. She had several missed calls and texts from her friends. No more from Simon, thankfully, and sadly, none from Hazel. She had numerous notifications from her social media accounts. Most likely birthday wishes. She ordered some food and got ready for the day while she waited for it to arrive. Her legs felt a little bit sore. She had been dancing longer and harder than she did in her day to day last night. And had definitely used muscles she didn't usually at Simon's. So, she rubbed some oils into her muscles and stretched everything out.

While she ate, she checked all of her messages. All the girls wanted to know how she was today and Chapa was especially concerned (her friend from Julliard), so she messaged her first, since she hadn’t been there for the end of the night, then she decided to just go live, as it was easier than addressing everyone individually. 

“Hey, everybody. Forgive me for looking homely today. I traded in the beauty rest for an amazing time last night. I just wanted to show everyone my face and give thanks for all of the birthday wishes, as well as all of the concerned messages of friends who saw me get a little wilder than normal last night. Special thank you to my friends who celebrated with me and to those who wanted to celebrate with me but just couldn't. You’re all so very amazing…” She read a few of the incoming comments basically reassuring her that she was indeed still exceptionally beautiful, congratulations on having a fun birthday, and belated birthday wishes. Then, someone asked, "Did you see Simon for your birthday?" 

“As a matter of fact, I DID see Simon on my birthday. He was a total gentleman and got me some really nice gifts.” 

Then, the comments became a sea of interest in Simon, her relationship status with Simon, questions about his gifts, thoughts on whether or not she should entertain gifts or visits from him, and she ignored them to conclude, “Well, I just wanted to check in with everybody. I will be seeing the people that I planned on seeing today and I hope all of you have a wonderful rest of your day. Quote of the Day: I will hold myself to a standard of Grace, not perfection.” She winked and ended the video.

She noticed that Simon “loved” it, and she continued eating and went to scroll his page. He did one birthday post that had all of the photos of her receiving her gifts from him, but it also had this LONG ASS caption that she only skimmed through, seeing it was basically more of his groveling - claiming that she was the most perfect person in the world and that he didn’t deserve her to ever forgive him nor did he expect them to ever be on good terms again, but he was really grateful that they could be the way that they are and every pinch of her energy given to him was more than he had earned, etc. 

She avoided the comments, but accidentally saw one person say something along the lines of, “She might as well just forgive you and take you back if she’s going to be around you at all.” There was a long thread beneath it and she was curious, but didn’t check. She willed herself not to check. 

She went to check Hazel’s page and saw the video of Hazel preparing birthday breakfast, a post of selfies of the two of them before school that day and one that she snapped of Grace about to cry with the caption, “This is the face of a person with no life. It’s just a few days, Mother!” Grace sniffled even looking at the photos of them. 

“I miss my baby,” she whimpered, before calling Lucy’s mother to ascertain that there had been no problems or needs to be discussed. After she was done, and tossed her trash out, she sat on her patio, looking at her neighborhood and being reminded very much that she indeed did not have a life, as Hazel had suggested twice in two days.

She called Simon. “Hello.” He sounded… not well.

“Hey. When’s a good time for me to stop by?”

“I’ll be here all day. I don’t have anything to do, as I don’t know anything about the city yet.”

“Okay. Well, I’m gonna leave right now, and depending on traffic, shouldn’t take too long, since I’m…” She paused. “Not too far away right now,” she said. He scoffed or laughed. She couldn’t tell, but it annoyed her. “There a problem, Simon?”

“Nope.” She squinted her eyes and sighed. “See you,” he said and hung up on her. 

“There’s a fucking problem,” she said, shaking her head. Maybe she could go to Brooklyn and grab Shana and/or Iza. Damita lived in the Bronx… that was closer to where Simon currently was, but she was at school right now. Tulip was at work and Mikayla was likely doing something else, because she was always busy with something… And if she told Chapa that she slept there, lord… the backlash… Ugh. She got up and just sent a message to the group text that she was going to go pick up something from Simon’s and that he was acting funny on the phone. If anything did happen, they all knew his information. But, she hated that she was sexual with someone just hours ago that made her feel the need to even take such precautions, and she hated that she decided to do that. Nobody forced her to, or pressured her to.. UGH! 

.

The front door was open whenever she pulled up to the house, but she still rang the doorbell. Who knew what might set him off today? Simon came to the door with Samantha in one hand and her underwear in the other. He sort of shoved it towards her, and whenever she took it, he offered the fakest ass smile that she had ever seen him make. “You’re in a bad mood,” she said, accusatory. 

He furrowed his eyebrows, then slumped his shoulders, “Is it obvious? Sorry. It’s been a bad day.”

“You gonna be alright?” 

“Of course. I always am.”

She started to leave, but paused and turned around, “Does it have anything to do with me?”

“No!” he answered quickly and shook his head. 

“Okay… well… I feel like you’re taking it out on me, whatever it is and I don’t like that.”

He looked absolutely devastated by that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to take anything out on you… He set Samantha down and came outside, closing the door behind him. “I know that what happened between us was a one time thing and we’re not lovers or friends, so the last thing I wanted to do was bother you with my problems. I tried to just not say anything about them.”

“It’s fine to say that you don’t want to talk about something, instead of these short answers and moody tone, making me rethink even a one time casual engagement with you.”

He sighed again, “Okay. I’m sorry.” He sat down on the steps and she sighed and sat next to him. 

“What is it?”

“I didn’t sleep well. I haven’t heard back from the company about the position. I was denied a grant that I need for a really important project, and I spent more than a reasonable amount of time arguing with people on the internet.” He rocked his legs. “And now, I’ve let my day affect yours… which is just… the thing I hate the most of everything that I just said.”

She reached out for his hand and he looked down at their fingers, intertwined. She didn’t say anything or even look at him. They both were just looking at their hands, woven together, saying nothing. Eventually, she got up, said, “Hope you feel better,” and left. And… he did. He felt inexplicably better. 

.

Grace barely let Hazel breathe when she got back home. She was asking about how much fun she had (updates that she had been given daily), seeing if Hazel wanted to do a lot of other stuff (despite the fact that they had a very full weekend ahead of them), and Thursday evening, whenever Hazel appeared in her doorway while she was at the vanity oiling her scalp, Grace smiled, eager to see what Hazel wanted to do with her right now.

“Hey… So… Is it just gonna be you and me this weekend?”

“Yes! We’re gonna have so much fun!” Grace cheered. “I can’t WAIT for corn dogs at the amusement park.” Hazel came in and sat beside Grace on the little bench in front of her vanity. “Are you okay, Hazel?”

“Are you?” Hazel wondered. Grace was confused. “It was my first time away and I guess I thought it would be a good break for both of us, but you spent a lot of time checking up on me and… aside from your birthday, did you have any fun? Did you even have any fun on your birthday?”

“Yes, I had fun. I had more fun than should’ve been allowed.”

“I keep thinking about the tour you and Simon gave me and the stuff you two told me. I’m the same age that you were when you met. You were having so much fun and doing so many things with your friend… now, all you do is take care of me, and barely give me the chance to take care of myself.”

“Hazel, you have to understand, the stuff that Simon and I were doing was because we were both highly neglected. We were retelling stories of how we came together to make bad situations a little bit better. I don’t ever want you to feel neglected, so I make sure that I’m here for you, whenever you need me.”

Hazel nodded, and clasped her hands together, “I get that. But, also… before we lived together, I used to see you on social media having a great time and living so carefree. You had activities and friends. I feel like I’ve taken a lot of that away from you and…"

"It's my job. It's my job to take care of you. Not the other way around, Hazel. Don't worry about what things I don't do anymore." 

"I wouldn't, but it's hard not to think about it whenever you're being all… I don't know…" she didn't want to say the wrong thing. She wasn't trying to hurt Grace's feelings, but Grace was perhaps putting way more into this than Hazel needed.

"Ok. I get it. Just try to understand, I didn't have a good example of how much time a mom should give. I had faceless nanny after faceless nanny. Driver after driver whose names I've forgotten completely. Detached professional instructors and private school staff who could care less about my well-being. I'm trying to be the opposite of what I had and I guess in my quest to be a good mom I wound up not being one…"

"You ARE a good mom. You just need to also be good by yourself." Hazel twiddled her fingers, "I wanted to see if Lucy could come to the amusement park with us, but I didn't want you to feel bad."

"I won't. Call her up and see if she can come," Grace said, smiling but literally feeling horrible. Hazel rushed to go do that and Grace looked at an alert from her phone. It was artwork that someone did and tagged her and Simon to. "Grace as the Idol Princess." Really nice artwork. She liked it and continued her hair.

Lucy wouldn't be able to come this weekend. Hazel was upset, but still excited for the outings. Grace felt like her secondary plan, but brushed that aside. Whenever she went to bed, she saw a notification that Simon had gone live. She laid down and tuned in, catching him in the middle of a point about never being good enough to be forgiven. "And, I understand perfectly in instances nowhere I was completely in the wrong, for instance, everyone who follows me knows everything I did to Grace, but I didn't do shit like that to my mother, and even what I did do… how is that not her fault? How is she mad at me for something I did when she left me unattended? That was thirteen years ago. So… no. Don't tell me that I should be forgiving of her because she's sick or because of her problems or whatever else. My mother is part of the reason I became a person who could hurt Grace. My parents were majority stockholders in me being an unforgivable piece of shit to her. I don't care about what they were going through and I'm not going to explain that again."

She typed into the comments, "Wtf is going on?" 

He noticed it and ran a hand through his hair, "Hey, Grace. Just… still arguing with people on the internet. Explaining myself like a peasant," he joked, laughing. 

"CALL. ME." She typed. 

He stared at the screen for a while, then just cut off the video. But, seconds later, he was calling. "Simon… what happened?"

He groaned, "There was this entire debate about how you should just forgive me instead of us going back and forth, so I said that you're not obligated to trust me and it became this entire thing and somehow devolved into me forgiving my mom, especially because she's dying."

"What the fu… your mom is dying?"

"Yeah," he said casually. "She has very late stage cancer from a brain tumor." 

"WHAT? Since when?"

"I think she found out a couple of months ago? She told me in Belize, but my dad had made this post about it before then. I’m not sure why I thought you knew.”

“If I had known, I would have said something nice to you… or something.”

He chuckled, “I don’t need something nice… unless it’s you.” He smiled. She could hear the smile.

“Well, if you want that, it would take a whole lot more than you eating me out one night. You’ve got things to atone for, Buddy.” She laughed, but he was quiet for a moment. So quiet that she thought he might have gotten disconnected. But, he eventually spoke again.

“I’ll do anything.”

She smiled as wide as her face would allow and she simply whispered, “Worship me.”

Next

[bi-dazai]

a summary of the whole contrapoints thing from someone who has been spending most of her time on twitter and seen it first-hand throughout

(im using screenshots, some ive downloaded from trusted twitter mutuals and some ive made myself. since i have the shinigami eyes extension and many of my twitter mutuals dont, some scs will be inconsistent. i have checked each downloaded sced tweet to make sure theyre real.)

please dont try to start an argument on this post, im just summarising whats happened. ive already argued myself out over on my twitter and whatever point youre trying to make has literally already been said 20 times before.

Basically in late august/september natalie said some inflammatory shit about pronouns and nbs and “binary transes” which she’d said stuff along the lines of in the past. both nb and binary trans folks have criticised her lightly for this kind of attitude in the past as well. she has a pattern of behaviour (including being very...lenient towards terfs) but the stuff she was saying and the bad takes were tolerable, if incorrect and a little ignorant. what she said this time was basically “asking for pronouns in trans spaces is good i guess but it hurts passing/semi-passing transes like me” which is a take that makes no goddamn sense and is extremely ignorant towards both nb folks and trans folks who do not have the luxury of even trying to pass. she exaggerates the actual effect it has on her as well. basically the entire tweet reads really badly (the discussion was about asking for pronouns in trans spaces):

peter coffin made some batshit crazy takes (as usual) including inventing the term “enby cultural capital” which he refused to actually evaluate on past asking people to read a book (if you cant clarify your point on your own then you have an issue). he started tweeting like a madman and making it painfully clear how hard he will go to bats for natalie despite him being nb himself (many people joked/suspected  that its because he wants to fuck her, same with philosophytube, and honestly looking at how they see her that isnt hard to believe).

natalie went off twitter for a while, eventually leaving an apology that was actually alright and made me and several others believe she would return a little more understanding of trans intra-community issues, especially in terms of class because she has always had an issue with ignorance from that angle. she said she had a friend called gwen taking over (nobody knows who this is nor had they ever heard of this friend, leaving some people suspicious that she may have made her up. im not going to confirm or deny this because i have no clue.)

idk what peter coffin was up to because at this point i and most ppl had officially stopped listening to him but i believe he was angrily tweeting about cancel culture. a lot of people were as well, even though the bulk of the criticisms of natalie had been written and expressed in a mature, appropriate way. some of my twitter mutuals who had been involved in discussing natalie’s past trends with these issues as well as her lack of class consciousness and (probably) accidental antisemitism began to get messages from what was very clearly alt-right trolls trying to doxx natalie. it was real information, which is extremely concerning, but no person published it and her criticisers that got those dms were vocal about not bullying or doxxing natalie. natalie wasn’t pushed away because of “cancel culture”, and “cancel culture” really isnt a real thing and many contra fans believed this too until she came under criticism, which highlights a pretty weird mentality but whatever.

anyway, she came back this week with a new video titled “opulence” which i dont care for watching so i just read about it from my twitter mutuals who did. since i didnt watch it ill only summarise its criticisms very basically. 

to put it simply the main criticisms of the video were that she conflated trans aesthetic with literal opulence and class again, which people weren’t a fan of. she talked about her experience over the last few weeks, spinning it her way because how else would she spin it, thats to be expected. it was mostly just the usual contra, flawed takes and a bit of class ignorance...except for one blaring massive issue which is absolutely undeniable proof for where she’s heading with her politics and her content.

on that video, natalie invited infamous transmed, the guy who outed lana wachowski for money, buck angel, to collab with her. this guy is infamous in the trans community for being a cis bootlicking bigot. he makes kalvin garrah look like a lovely guy. he’s been around for a very long time and he’s very famous for being a massive asshole. heres just a taste of the kind of attitude he carries:

contra has previously spoken up about why you shouldn’t platform bigots. so her platforming a bigot has some very very obvious implications.

needless to say, people were and are pretty mad and very disappointed. a large majority of her fans have been against this.

 when oliver (philosophytube) promoted the video on his twitter many replies to his quote tweet were his fans begging him to be even mildly critical of contra. 

on contra’s subreddit (for clarification, natalie isnt a mod there and im not sure about how involved she is on the sub) there was even a thread created in which MANY of her fans on there expressed criticism of contra’s views. the mods then locked the post, deleted comments, and banned the use of the word “truscum” because it was offensive i guess? it was a move very close to “terf is a slur” territory

furthermore, some pretty infamous transphobes have been in support of her and buck angel in the past, including ian miles cheong which is...wow. some of these are scs from a twitter mutual, but the ones with red names are from me - i have the shinigami eyes extension, so basically any person with a red name is a known transphobe (im surprised buck isnt marked yet lol).

finally, ill put some threads here that give a pretty good analysis and view of the situation imo

[karmilleryn]

For the current situation, and going along with our collective hc of way more of the Foxes being POC than are explicitly identified as such in canon:

(I can’t find them now to link them, but I’m pretty sure I saw a post the other day that said the Foxes would totally kneel during the national anthem, and I def saw one that said something like “Andrew said ACAB” with quotes from the book [like him calling Higgins “Pig Higgins” and saying he didn’t trust the FBI to give Neil back, I think], so this kinda runs along the same lines as those)

Even though Neil doesn’t usually like to think about/embrace his fame and influence, he does like to use it sometimes for good, like when he can set an example for others.

(But not being so outspoken that the Moriyamas would be bothered. Which, idk if that would be the case with this, but let’s just say it’s fine lol.)

And this is one of those times. Especially because this is an issue that directly affects some of his closest friends family. Nobody fucks with his fellow Foxes.

(The originals at least - the ones from his freshman year. The ones after, minus Robin, can fuck right off lol.)

So when the protests start, once Neil gets Andrew on board,

(which probs wouldn’t be too hard for Neil/OOC for Andrew bc if nothing else, Andrew hates cops

and Neil could reason that it would earn Andrew some brownie points with their pro team’s PR [they’d be on the same team by now, right?] by doing what they’d actually want him to for once

[which he has to do every once in a while to not get fired from/kicked off the team... the last time might have been when he created his Twitter account in the first place lol. Neil’s slightly better at following the rules, but only slightly, and only because, again, he has the Moriyamas watching him]

assuming they’re on a good team that actually shows/want them to show support for this rather than staying out of it

and he was probs bribed with some ice cream too, lbr lol)

Neil tweets this [I’m just writing it out since I have no clue how to make social media edits, and putting slashes in the tagging so I don’t actually tag anyone accidentally lol]:

‪@/neiljos10: “I’m challenging the Exy community to join me & @/ajminyard in supporting #BlackLivesMatter by putting on your favorite Black Exy player’s jersey and joining your local protest. (As well as donating if you can and continuing to educate yourself, which we are also doing.) #ExyForBLM‬”

(And makes it a thread with another tweet - he’s getting better at technology! - that tells them not to use the actual hashtag for BLM, just #ExyForBLM, so they don’t clog up the other hashtag and push down tweets with resources, etc. [Although would quote tweeting his tweet still do that since his had it? I don’t know those details of Twitter that well lol.])

Attached is a pic of Neil and Andrew from behind (so you can read the names on their jerseys), standing side by side at a protest, holding protest signs facing toward the camera with different messages of support

Neil is wearing a Boyd jersey (either his old 04 Fox one or his current pro one)

And Neil got Andrew to wear an old Wilds 01 Fox jersey

Dan replies to the tweet with several hearts and these reaction pics of Matt attached:

And later quote tweets it with a pic of them at a protest, either wearing each other’s jerseys or ones for other Black players they want to support [I couldn’t decide which I liked better... maybe one at the first protest they go to and the other at the next one because you know they’ll keep showing up]

Andrew replies to it simply saying: “Junkie”

Allison quote tweets it with a pic of her at a protest wearing an old Gordon 06 Fox jersey

And a shit ton of fans and players quote tweet and/or fill the hashtag with pics/tweets of them accepting the challenge/following suit/showing support

(coaches, refs, announcers, etc., would probably tweet to show support without the pics since they can’t show favorites by wearing one specific jersey?)

Anyway that’s it idk how to end it also sorry this got way too long lol

(If anyone more talented/skilled than me sees this and happens to want to draw or make edits of these tweets/pics, feel free! Just credit/tag me please!)

((The credit for the idea of using those pics for Matt and knowing that they even existed goes to a post I’ve seen on here that’s a Snapchat edit where Matt (at least I think it was Matt... esp bc the pics are of Reece King, who most people fancast as Matt, myself included lol) finally snaps a pic of Andreil kissing so he posts it, and then at least one if not two (can’t remember which) of those pics above as his reaction, and then a blurry pic of him running away saying something like even if they catch him and he dies, Allison or someone still owes him for winning the Fox bet of being first to get a pic of them. I tried so hard to find that post to link it here (and to get the pic from it to use it), but again, no luck. So I just Googled pics of Reece King crying lol bc I at least knew it was him! And I actually found a series of four (all at separate links bc they were all separate posts that I found under “related” of course lol), so I decided to use them all as a full face journey haha. So here’s where I found them: [x] [x] [x] [x] ))

[pursuingideals-moved]

Hiya everyone! I want to say thank you for everything. It had been one year when I have this blog. So yay, pursuingideals had turn one year old! This make me very happy and not only that, right now I have 88 followers. ^^ So thank you everyone, thank you for following me, rping with me, interacting with me. You guys are one of the main reasons that this blog is still here. There are many times I am worry that my Kunikida is not good enough but I hope you enjoy rping with me and my portrayal of Kunikida. I know there are other more amazing and popular Kunikida blogs than me but I am still thankful for the people who follow and rp with my Kunikida. You guys all help this blog turn one year old. So thank you everyone for following me! Thank you for all the fun times you gave me! Thank you for helping this blog be alive! Thank you for rping with me! Thank you for being patient with me since I am a slow partner. Also I just find it funny that today is also my father’s birthday (August 26) so lol this blog and my father both turn a year older and Kunikida is kinda like a dad (well more like a mom but still) haha. I was feeling lazy and would just want to only tag people like I did when my Regulus blog became three years old but nah since my Kunikida just became one year old, I will do more than that.

@aiolia-leo / @luminos-red / @minerva-the-witch / @altered-aegis / @durkhankes

Afelle, hey you and Zaria are like my best friends on tumblr haha. XD Well, Zaria isn’t rping on tumblr anymore so it is just you but you know how much I love rpng with you whether it is with Regulus or Kunikida. Minerva and Kunikda are such good friends…more than just good friends lol, it will take a while for Kunikida to notice while Minerva is aware of her feelings already. But one day Kunikida will notice his feelings and he and Minerva are going to be one badass and cute couple. Kunikida and Lumina’s interactions are so cute, he is like the father Lumina wants. Ahhh and when Minerva and Kunikida get together, Lumina can call him daddy! Aiolia and Kunikida are good friends too. It is funny how Aiolia is like the older brother/mentor to Regulus and now he is the younger one in this relationship since Kunikida is so responsible and Aiolia looks up to him despite being higher status and Kunikdia sees him as a more responsible Leo saint than Regulus haha. Kohaku, oh so much things to say. While Kohaku is originally an evil character, he is completely different in the Bungou Stray Dogs verse, he is trying to learn how to be good again with Kunikida’s help. Kunikida is like that father and teacher that Kohaku need. I just love their relationship so much. Luke, Dei and Kunikida, while Kunikida doesn’t know a lot about them yet, he does respect them and lol I bet the more they know of him, the more Luke wants to hire him because he is so responsible and hardworking haha. But anyway, so many muses and threads and fun times between us. ^^ It is unfortunate that the Bungou Stray Dogs fandom is not interest in rping with you but hey as long as we have fun with each other. (Hopefully this will help get you some followers, jk I highly doubt that unfortuantely but ah well) Thank you, Afelle!

@thesoaringaquila

Hey Jemi! Our threads between Kunikida and Kallistrate is so much fun. It is always fun to see Kallistrate constantly teasing Kunikida and at least with her teasing, she seem to genuinely wants Kunikida to lighten up and not be so serius and uptight while Dazai’s teasing seem to poke more fun to annoy Kunikida more haha. It would be interesting to see their friendship grow more and see how they interact with each other more. Lol, now wait and see when Kallistrate ever see Kunikida’s list of ideal requirements for a romantic partner, she would be horrified. XD (cross out that requirements) So thank you for rping with me!

@muses-galore

Hi! First of all, Tetsu is such a cute oc. I know there isn’t a lot of interaction between Tetsu and Kunikida yet and Kunikida seems to scare Tetsu but lol he isn’t scary just too serious for his own good. XD But I am sure they will get more interaction and later when Tetsu get to know him better, he would see that Kunikida isn’t as scary and nice just like Regulus said he is. But thank you for rping with me!

@pxrtalmxster

Hey Kayla! Your oc, Kayla is very interesting, I can see that you put a lot of thought and development into her. I had fun rping with her. Our threads are so interesting, I mean I think our threads are the only ones that actually goes into depth and explores more of both characters, Kunikida and Kayla and I love that. I wish I would have more threads that explore the character but for some reason, it is strange cause our thread is the only that does that. (Lol, while for Regulus, I have more threads like that with him even if he is a more simple guy and Kunikida is more complex….) Not only that, Kayla and Kunikida’s relationship is interesting and complicated. They are not fully friends but at the same time, kind of are, as I said complicated. Kunikida is just confuse by Kayla and want to understand her more and Kayla is still keeping secrets and can see Kunikida is a good guy but not someone who could understand her. It is unfortunate that many people in the Bungou Stray Dogs is not interest in rping with your oc but I do hope you have fun rping with other people including me. ^^

@somegremlin / @setsunanoai

Hey Stella! I love your Yumeno so much. He had suffer so much and deserve happiness and a normal life as a child not as a prisoner of the mafia (I mean he lives in a prison instead of a room) And you know he can finally get the life he want in our au! I just love Kunikida fatherly relationship towards Yumeno so much! He just wants to give Yumeno a better life and help guide him to be a better person too. Yumeno is finally happy with the agency. As for Atsushi and Kunikida, I would have never expect us to have the crack thread haha but this would be fun. Lets have fun watching Atsushi and Kunikida in silly hats catch the criminal! Ahh overall,I love our threads and thank you for rping with my Kunikida.

@a-hell-of-a-lot-of-muses

Hey Saki! I know I mostly rp with Nathaniel and Margaret and I enjoy the threads with you and them so much. The threads between Margaret and Kunikida are more light heart but still fun especially with them getting along and Kunikida being pleased that at least someone understands that one must have ideal requirements for a romantic partner (and then watch as Margaret becomes horrified if she ever saw Kunikida’s ideal requirements, hadn’t happen yet but lol you never know) And Nathaniel and Kunikida, our threads are more heavier and enjoyable as we explore their interactions. It is interesting to see Nathaniel being free from Fyodor’s brainwashing and deal with the aftermath of it and how he is slowly trying to regain his memory and along the way Kunikida is going to help him. :) It would so much fun to explore and I am excited for the potential relationship between the two.

@diverse-hearts

Hey Mira! I know you have so many muses haha but I rp with your Chuuya, Odasaku and Strelitzia and I enjoy our threads. I know you keep saying you are slow but I am so much slower than you. I mean you have so many muses and threads compare to me but seem to be faster than me haha. I know I am not as interactive as your other muns but I just want to let you know I still find our threads enjoyable. I am excited to see how Odasaku, Strelitzia and Chuuya interaction with Kunikida grow since all of our threads are still just establishing things between them. Thank you for rping with me!

@yokohamaweretiger / @mishmashofmuses / @thestraydcgs

Hey Hunter! It has been fun rping with your Atsushi, Karma, Ranpo, Dazai and Jelle. I know I am a usually quiet person but I enjoy our coversations as well as all the quotes and posts you send me on discord. ^^ I know we have a lot of threads as of right now and of course take your time with them but I am always excited when you reply whether it is for Atsushi with so many verses (vampire, royal, main), Ranpo with the carrot cake, Dazai and his teasing and Jelle with his crush on Kunikda and Kunikida’s confusing feelings haha. Cause we both know Jelle and Kunikida will end up together haha. But yeah thank you for rping with me. ^^

@nullcfied / @invcin / @distorticnist / @nythz

Your Dazai is amazing and I have enjoy rping with you. I had always want to explore more deeply the relationship between Dazai and Kunikida and it has been hard to do when most of my other threads are just fun threads where Dazai bothers Kunikida as always but I am glad I can explore that with you. I enjoy our threads even if none were finish haha and I am super slow but it is the development between the two in our threads is interesting. Maybe those two would develop into somthing more, we will see. And even if I never rp with Kunikid with your multimuse blog, I still enjoy our threads between Regulus with N and Alcor. Our threads between Kunikida and Mishima are also enjoyable and even though we hadn’t gone far yet with Nyth, I am sure it would be an enjoyable thread. So thank you for rping with me.

@odigcs / @tryferotis

Hey Juh! I know Kunikida and Eleni doesn’t have a lot of interactions yet but I am still happy that we rp together. I can’t wait until Kunikida finds out about Eleni’s powers, he is going to be so freak out haha. XD But thank you for rping with both of my muses and I always enjoy our coversations between us especially our current on where we talk about Eleni and Regulus’ views on heroes, evil, good and death and I think that is all it was one long conversation hahaha.

There are so many others too that I rped, seen on dashboard, haven’t rp yet (and would love to rp with you) or rarely interact. I still want to say thank you. Again, I am only going to include people had been active and not others who had been inactive since they had left already. Thank you for being amazing and following and rping with me and the fun times together:

@metuereofnoctis, @deviantsbliss, @art-of-playing-god, @madame-sand / @pxtrified-forest, @thekindchefofhoritsuba, @onceuponalosttime, @abyssalreded / @flutheld, @cybersnw, @merrywandering / @carnageblossomed / @vivificamortem / @prodigiousvisions, @runwith-thewind / @hopeful-hugz, @tigerscorn, @fiercegravity, @deinox, @fllawllessness, @bandagedbastard, @nylliver, @mockingfeathers, @blxnkbooks, @oxidizedream, @hexfaul, @bxstxrd-king @errantscriptor, @killmoral, @thehouseofthedead, @bornfromhcpe, @theholylight, @godshunned, @stray-doqs, @empyrrrean, @arcadiianliives, @acricaleo, @diivinidad, @bldscrm / @rshmn / @dcdbtc / @frthtntdsrrw / @lghtsnw, @foolslcve,  @schxchterndschlau / @kunstneugiier / @mafiasbesten / @mafiaelltern / @mondlichtannulliert / @eiingebiildet / @kopiertrxumend / @diiegruppe, @nolongerbeneaththemoonlight, @memoriiascriipta / @quxtcthcrxvcn, @straylcved, @strongestofhorns, @carmellian

I hope that is everyone. I am sorry if I miss some people. I want to thank everyone who support me.

[godsmuses-archive]

How did you get into rp-ing? What advice/tips would you give beginners?

How did I get into rping?

Well, let’s see about eleven, going on twelve years ago now, one of my high school friends started rping Mar’i Grayson on Tumblr and she kind of just straight up told me I was going to write Mar’i’s best friend, Iris West II, for her. I knew nothing about the character or, frankly, the comics side of DC, I’d only ever watched the animated shows, but I did some research and made a blog and ended up having a lot of fun. 15 fandoms and 175 muses later, here we are!

So I guess the short answer to your question is I was bullied into it XD

Tips for beginners…

Have fun. This is literally the most important thing. A lot of people out there seem to want to run their rp blogs like they’re jobs, but they’re not, they’re just a fun hobby, so don’t stress about being fast at replying or pleasing the masses with your writing. It’s about you and what you enjoy. And obviously, your real-life commitments should come first and you don’t need to be sorry about it.

Give OCs a chance. I know it’s easy to feel wary of characters you don’t know or understand, especially ones that may interfere with what you know about the canon of your fandom, but some of the best interactions I’ve had over the years have been with OCs and their Muns are some of my best friends. You don’t have to interact with every OC or even like them, but don’t write them off solely because they are OCs.

Be respectful. Pretty much everyone these days has a rules page on their blog, which can get pretty overwhelming, I know, I often hesitate or talk myself out of sending someone a message because I’m on mobile and I can’t remember some of their rules, but for the most part you’ll do fine if you follow the standard rules of etiquette:

Don’t reblog an rp thread you’re not involved in. You’re welcome to like it or pop into one of the players DMs and let them know you’re enjoying it, but don’t reblog it. It messes up people’s notifications and threads are primarily meant to be enjoyed by the people writing them, not their follower’s followers.

Don’t rp on the bottom of someone else’s post. If you see a photo or an incorrect quote that you draw inspiration from, feel free to write a thread about it, but make a new post. The OP doesn’t really want to get 1000000 notifications of you and your rp partner hijacking their content.

Along the same lines, don’t reblog ask posts. You can, of course, use a meme or ask as an ice breaker or to start a thread, but rather than reblogging the person’s answer and putting your reply on the bottom, most people these days prefer if you make a new text post and just tag the ask it’s based on. It’s neater and prettier and seems to be most people’s preference of late.

Vague posting and callouts are a dick move. If you have a problem with someone, go talk to them about it or block them. Vague posts and callouts make a lot of people uncomfortable, not just the person you’re posting about. And of course, sending hate anons are never okay! If you don’t like someone, don’t talk to them. It’s not that hard.

Don’t lie about your age or write smut with minors. I’m going to be honest, when I first joined this hellsite, no one cared about this. I wrote more smutty rps between the ages of 15 and 18 than I have in the 7 years since, but clearly, now we’re a bit more responsible about this. And, you know, it’s illegal.

Don’t rp as real people. This shouldn’t need to be said, but apparently people still sometimes think this is okay? Even though it’s really weird. You can rp as Batman, but you should never be rping as Taylor Swift because she’s a real human being and can actually sue you for defamation of character and/or identity fraud.

Use a racially appropriate face claim. You don’t have to use the actor cast to play your character in the show or movie or whatever if you don’t want to, heck, you don’t even have to have a face claim at all, but don’t, for example, use a white guy as a face claim for Luke Cage or Lando Calrissian, because that’s whitewashing and racist.

Read people’s pages. This one drives me crazy, if you’re like me, you’ve spent a long time coming up with my rules, character bio, head canons, ect. and you’re proud of them. So is everyone else, so give them a look at least once. Especially head canons and rules. We can all tell if you haven’t read them.

Don’t format your text or blog so that it’s unreadable. A lot of people are a little too invested in “the aesthetic” of their posts or blogs these days, and you know what? Whatever, you do you. But be aware that trends like tiny text, harsh contrasting colours, ect., may limit who can or will interact with you for various reasons. The most common and frankly important being disabilities. The visually impaired and dyslexic communities will struggle to read tiny text, for example. And if someone can’t find your links on your blog because you’ve hidden them in a crazy theme, they’re probably not going to follow you.

Go easy on yourself. Look, no one is a brilliant rper right out of the gate, I personally look back on my own writing an cringe. It can take a little while to find a character’s voice and your writing ability will evolve and change over time. You’re also likely not going to be brilliant at writing every character. That’s fine, you can keep writing them anyways so long as you’re enjoying it.

[janiedean]

ah well, enough’s enough.

so, I noticed that tumblr used @gamoralives who of course has preventively blocked me is going around publishing SCREENCAPS of my replies to that op about the holocaust but not of my actual replies because of course not and I was trying to reblog it from @galactic-jewce-box who in turn was reblogging it from @jewish-privilege but ALL THREE OF THEM HAVE BLOCKED ME OF COURSE SINCE I CANNOT TAG THEM, from which we can ABSOLUTELY NOTICE how strong is their spine since they can’t even talk to me properly.

okay then, I know that this post is not gonna get screencapped as a whole but since y’all are a bunch of immature assholes who think they can get away with slandering people behind their backs, spread misinformation and be honestly disgusting people because first they accuse ME of holocaust denial and then

 deny that categories other than jewish and roma people have died in it

completely ignore that queer people died in it

ignore that disabled died in it

ignore that the pacific front had another genocide going on that had equal if not higher numbers of dead people

have suddenly decided that wwii and the holocaust are two separated things when before they weren’t

spread misinformation about auschwitz works

complain about polish ppl not fighting the nazis enough and then literally spit on the ones who did by going like IF A HANDFUL OF POLISH GENTILES DIED IT DOESN’T MATTER guess what you completely fucking asshole those people were political prisoners and I have absolutely no qualms calling you an asshole by this point so they died to fight the nazis but I guess that’s not good enough for YOU ALL FUCKING AMERICANS WHO HAVEN’T EVER SET A FOOT IN EUROPE HAVE YOU

I’m going at it. bye.

so, what my pals had to say about me.

THIS is what gamoralives screenshotted:

of course, she didn’t, like, LINK TO EITHER OF MY OPS, one and two in which I said a lot of things, INCLUDING:

like no one is denying that jewish people were the the most targeted category and no one is even dreaming of it and no one is denying that everyone had responsibilities in the jewish ethnic cleansing but the ‘blame the polish at all costs’ mentality I’m seeing in some comments on this post is honestly baffling and not really what brings us to a constructive discussion on the topic.

but of course y’all could not, like, directly engage with me on my op. nooooo. YOU SCREENSHOTTED THE REPLIES TO MY OP BY PEOPLE WHO WERE AGREEING WITH ME AND THEN GO AROUND SAYING I’M ANTISEMITE. GOD YOU’RE FUCKING COWARDS.

but never mind that.

so, what else does my pal, my friend gamoralives (WHO NEVER ONCE TOUCHED THE TOPIC DIRECTLY WITH ME lmao) have to say about me?

OOOOH, IT DISGUSTS YOU?

let’s see what disgusts me instead.

this is one of the OPs that got the screenshot from the OP of that post which we all know was yours like shut up don’t even try to deny it is:

that’s what some pal of yours had to say:

THEN YOU GO AND SAY THIS:

like YOU GODDAMNED IDIOTS YOU REALLY THINK Y’ALL CAN SPIN THIS AGREEING WITH ‘HOLOCAUST AND THE WWII BELONG TO ONE GROUP ONLY’ AND THEN YOU DO A 180° AND SAY THAT WWII AND THE HOLOCAUST ARE TWO SEPARATED THINGS????????????

LIKE???????

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS????

YOU SAID THAT WWII ***AND*** THE HOLOCAUST ARE PROPERTY OF JUST JEWISH PEOPLE AND ROMANI AND THEN YOU GO AND CLAIM THAT WWII IS NOT THE HOLOCAUST?

LIKE??????

but it’s not even the worst because honestly I still have fucking vomit in my mouth from this:

and then you do this:

YOU GODDAMNED - I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO CALL YOU, I HONESTLY HAVE EXHAUSTED THE WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, BUT SINCE YOU’RE SO EXPERT IN ANYTHING WWII, PLEASE LET ME FUCKING C/P YOU A THING YOU CAN FIND ON THE FUCKING AUSCHWITZ WEBSITE MUSEUM PAGE which you’d know if you actually set foot in there (spoilers: my antisemite ass did and I actually went to krakow 40% for the rest and 60% because I’ve been wanting to visit since I was fucking eight because I started reading up about concentration camps and studying wwii when I was in elementary school because I was interested and I never stopped, differently from you who most likely only learned how to *research* now by c/p-ing together information that doesn’t count the other side but oKAY THEN):

Gas chamber I

Auschwitz I, Crematorium I and the first gas chamber

This object is preserved in an original state to a large degree. Crematorium I operated from August 1940 in a prewar ammunition bunker adapted for its new function. The largest room was a morgue, which was changed into a provisional gas chamber. There were three furnaces for burning corpses in crematorium I, ordered by the camp administration from the Topf and Söhne company, which installed them.

When the gas chambers in Birkenau were going into operation, the camp authorities transferred the mass killing operation there and gradually phased out the first gas chamber. In July 1943, after the completion of the Birkenau crematoria, the burning of corpses in crematorium I ended. The furnaces and chimney were dismantled, and the holes in the roof used for introducing Zyklon B were closed. Two of the three furnaces and the chimney were reconstructed (from original parts), and several of the holes in the roof of the gas chamber were reopened.

Outside the boundaries of the Museum, the railroad siding and unloading platform (the so-called Judenramp or "old ramp") is commemorated. Transports of Jews deported for killing, and also of Roma and prisoners of other nationalities, arrived here from 1942-1944.

YOU GODDAMNED FUCKING ASSHOLE, YOU ARE SAYING THAT *AUSCHWITZ AND BIRKENAU WERE DIFFERENT CAMPS AND THAT NO ONE DIED SYSTEMATICALLY IN AUSCHWITZ BUT THEY DID IN BIRKENAU WHEN BIRKENAU WAS BUILT WHEN THEY DIDN’T HAVE SPACE IN AUSCHWITZ ANYMORE TO KILL PEOPLE *INCLUDING FUCKING POLISH POLITICAL PRISONERS WHO WERE THE FIRST CATEGORY IN THERE FOR TWO FUCKING YEARS* AND THEN *I* AM THE ONE DOING HISTORICAL REVISIONISM??? ARE YOU FOR FUCKING REAL??

MISCONCEPTION?????

MISCONCEPTION???????

and *I* m the revisionis according to you???????

and you actually don’t have the decency to realize you’re wrong and like drop this conversation and shut the fuck up already?

nooooooo trash talk me and say to pre-eventively block because why the fuck not?

here, you want pictures because you don’t trust the website?

I FUCKING TOOK THEM WHEN I WENT. HAVE YOU? SINCE YOU’RE FUCKING ***AMERICAN*** I DOUBT IT AND TBH YOU BEING AMERICAN IN THIS CASE TRUMPS WHATEVER ELSE YOU ARE BECAUSE AMERICANS TALKING ABOUT WWII AS IF THEY LIVED IT WHEN THEY DON’T HAVE A RELATIVE THAT FOUGHT IN IT CAN, AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED, SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY, SIT BACK AND LEARN FROM US PEOPLE WHO LIVE WHERE IT WAS ACTUALLY FOUGHT.

anyway, this is the gas chamber + ovens in auschwitz 1. I was inside it. it wasn’t nice. I still wanna vomit if I think about it. sure as hell I wouldn’t be using it to prove a point about fandom if I were you.

that’s the ovens:

BUT NONE OF THAT EXISTED IN AUSCHWITZ 1????????

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME????

then again, have a few other choice things that I took pictures of while I was having my merry stroll around the place while trying to not throw up in my mouth:

LOOK AT HOW MANY CATEGORIES ARE LISTED IN THAT HANDY, PRETTY CHART, HMMMMMM? I even put the high-res picture in case you wanna look at it in depth :D

that’s the monument for FRENCH PATRIOTS OF WAR BUT I GUESS THOSE don’t count either. aaaah and wait a moment I went into the barracks and took pictures of the explanations and look at what I have for you:

just in case you can’t bother to open it: that’s about the execution of polish citizens and the quote of the nazi commander in the white tag is:

‘'if I wanted to put up a poster for every seven poles who were shot the polish forests wouldn't be enough to produce the paper for such notices'.

UHM. A HANDFUL OF POLISH GOYIM, @gamoralives? god, you’re such a blatant, spineless hypocrite I can’t even.

ah, but wait, I’m not done:

I think that one’s large enough you can read it yourself.

like, wow, and I am the revisionist.

I’d say kindly shut the fuck up just based on that, but hey, then you went and reblogged this piece of shit post which has been making me almost vomit my tea all over again:

POOR

DEFENSELESS

EUROPEANS IN NAZI OCCUPIED COUNTRIES

for WILLINGLY HANDING THEIR JEWS OVER TO GERMANS?????????????????? MOST EUROPEANS WERE GLAD?????????

@tikkunolamorgtfo I’M TAGGING YOU BECAUSE APPARENTLY YOU HAVEN’T BLOCKED ME YET, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK. YOU.

NAZIS FORCIBLY INVADED MOST OF THIS GODDAMNED FUCKING CONTINENT. THE FRENCH CERTAINLY DIDN’T WANT GERMANS ON THEIR SOIL. THE POLISH DIDN’T AS WELL AND YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT GIVEN POLAND’S HISTORY WITH BOTH THEM AND THE RUSSIANS. THE SLOVENES, HUNGARIANS, CZECHS AND SERBS SURE AS FUCKING HELL DIDN’T ASK FOR IT EITHER, NOR THE NETHERLANDS WHICH WERE NEUTRAL AND NOR THE DANISH NOR BELGIUM AND YOU GODDAMNED LYING ASSHOLE, if you go to the copenhagen jewish museum there’s an entire part of it just dedicated to how the danish rallied and tried to send off to sweden as many jewish people as they could.

but no, you’re here saying that we’re all happy that the nazis/russians/americans/whoever else occupied our damned nations and did whatever the fuck they wanted just because we wanted to get rid of the jewish people?

well I’m going to tell you a story since y’all are so sure I can’t talk about wwii because I’m neither jewish nor roma but never mind. one or two. to you, gamoralives and all the goddamned assholes on that thread who didn’t even have the guts to engage with me directly because you know you’re wrong. and since I’m from italy, THE LAND OF THE DOUBLE-CROSSING PPL DURING WARS, let me just tell you a few things I can say as someone who’s studied this shit for twenty years.

1) hitler thought mussolini was his role model and shit. guess what, fascism initially targeted some categories, which were either killed or sent off to ‘confino’ which was basically ‘we’re sending you to a small town in the middle of nowhere where everyone knows you don’t like the regime’. who got sent to confino? political adversaries, gay men, prostitutes and trans people. and while sad to say ghetto is an originally italian word so we have our bad history of antisemitism as well, guess what, there were no laws against jewish people until ‘38 when mussolini officially allied with hitler and had to get on with the plan, and actually ALL THE NEOFASCISTS IN ITALY WHO JUSTIFY HIM SAY THAT ‘HEY HE WAS GOOD BUT THEN HE MADE THE MISTAKE OF LISTENING TO HITLER AND DOING THE RACIAL LAWS’, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? while europe has never not been antisemite BUT actually at the beginning of the 20th century things had been going better until hitler showed up, NO ONE WAS FUCKING THINKING ABOUT GENOCID-ING ANYONE IN THOSE TERMS. but okay.

2) the italian government seeing how the tide was turning in 1943 decided to change sides and go with the americans instead after deposing mussolini - fair enough, except that THEY DIDN’T WARN ANYONE LESS OF ALL THE ITALIAN ARMY which resulted in all the italian soldiers stationed in places not under allied control to end up deported to concentration camps and so on, except that then it gets better because italy got split in two with americans south of salerno and the germans north of it which meant we ended up in a civil war where partisans fought nazis in the north and americans tried to advance from the south and hmm

wow, just the russians whose total death toll was TWENTY MILLION did better than us but never mind that, SINCE YOU DIDN’T BOTHER TO READ MY OP, LET ME REMIND YOU THAT THE GERMANS WENT AROUND KILLING CIVILIANS RANDOMLY INCLUDING 130 CHILDREN AT ONCE FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE CIVIL WAR AND THAT THE ALLIED FRENCH ARMY POST-CASSINO RAPED AN AMOUNT OF MOST LIKELY 7K PEOPLE CAUSING A RIDICULOUSLY HIGH NUMBER OF SUICIDES ESPECIALLY IN BETWEEN WOMEN, but if you’d fucking bother, never mind:

After the armistice with the Allies, some 650,000 members of the Italian armed forces who refused to side with the occupying Germans were interned in concentration and labour camps. Of these, around 50,000 died while imprisoned or while under transportation. A further 29,000 died in armed struggles against the Germans while resisting capture immediately following the armistice

how bad, but:

marzabotto massacre (700+ dead)

fosse ardeatine massacre

sant’anna di stazzema massacre (130 children including A TWENTY-DAYS OLD)

or you could go on the WHOLE WIKIPEDIA PAGE ABOUT WWII massacres here where idk I’m opening a few pages at random of stuff happened in PLACES THAT THE NAZIS OCCUPIED:

Kisielin massacre was a massacre of Polish worshipers which took place in the Volhynian village of Kisielin (Second Polish Republicuntil 1939), now Kysylyn, located in the Volyn Oblast, Ukraine. It took place on Sunday, July 11, 1943, when units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), supported by local Ukrainian peasants, surrounded Poles who had gathered for a ceremony at a local Roman-Catholic church. Around 60 to 90 persons or more, men, women and children – were ordered to take off their clothes and were then massacred by machine gun. The wounded were killed with weapons such as axes and knives. Those who survived (around 200 by some accounts) escaped to the presbytery and barricaded themselves for eleven hours.

The Kragujevac massacre was the mass murder of between 2,778 and 2,794 mostly Serb men and boys in Kragujevac by Germansoldiers on 21 October 1941. It occurred in the German-occupied territory of Serbia during World War II, and came in reprisal for insurgent attacks in the Gornji Milanovac district that resulted in the deaths of 10 German soldiers and the wounding of 26 others. The number of hostages to be shot was calculated as a ratio of 100 hostages executed for every German soldier killed and 50 hostages executed for every German soldier wounded, a formula devised by Adolf Hitler with the intent of suppressing anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe. (3k deaths total)

The Kraljevo massacre was the mass murder of approximately 2,000 residents of the central Serbian city of Kraljevo by the Wehrmacht between 15 and 20 October 1941, during World War II. The massacre came in reprisal for a joint Partisan–Chetnik attack on a German garrison in which 10 German soldiers were killed and 14 wounded. The number of hostages to be shot was calculated based on a ratio of 100 hostages executed for every German soldier killed and 50 hostages executed for every German soldier wounded, a formula devised by Adolf Hitler with the intent of suppressing anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe.

In World War II, in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, the Lidice massacre was a complete destruction of the village of Lidice, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now in the Czech Republic, in June 1942 on orders from Adolf Hitler and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.In reprisal for the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich in the late spring of 1942, all 173 males over 15 years of age from the village were executed on 10 June 1942. Another 11 men who were not in the village were arrested and executed soon afterwards, along with several others already under arrest. The 184 women and 88 children were deported to concentration camps; a few children considered racially suitable for Germanisation were handed over to SS families and the rest were sent to the Chełmno extermination camp where they were gassed to death. The Associated Press, quoting German radio received in New York, said: "All male grownups of the town were shot, while the women were placed in a concentration camp, and the children were entrusted to appropriate educational institutions." About 340 people from Lidice died because of the German reprisal (192 men, 60 women and 88 children) and after the war ended, only 153 women and 17 children returned.

The Maillé Massacre refers to the murder on 25 August 1944 of 124 of the 500 residents of the commune of Maillé in the department of the Indre-et-Loire. Following an ambush a few days before and in reprisals against activities of the French Resistance, Second Lieutenant Gustav Schlüter and his men organized the massacre and burnt the village. Forty-eight children were among the dead. The SS unit believed to be responsible for the massacre is the SS-Feldersatzbataillon 17 of 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen (Lieb, 2007). In contrast to Oradour-sur-Glane, the village was rebuilt after the war to its pre-war state (Delahousse, 2008).

The Muczne massacre of 16 August 1944 was the massacre of Polish civilians committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) in village Muczne located in Bieszczady County in Poland.Among the Poles were mainly refugees after the repression of the population in Volhynia and retreating in front of - 70 Poles were murdered. They were residents of nearby villages such as foresters, priests and children. Members of the UPA murdered Poles with axes, pitchforks and scythes.In place of the murder in 2010 the memorial and a wooden cross was erected.

The Palikrowy massacre was a war crime committed by 4th police SS-regiment made up of Ukrainian soldiers of the SS-Galizien who were removed from the SS-Galizien at the time of the massacre and placed under German police command, Ukrainian SVK ("Self-defence", Ukrainian: Samoobronni Kuszczowi Widdiły) forces and Ukrainian Insurgent Army on Poles in the village of Palikrowy (since 1945 Palykorovy), which took place on 12 March 1944. A total of 385 Poles were killed. Palikrowy was an ethnically mixed village, with 70% Polish population. In 1944, the population was about 1880, with about 360 houses. The action in Palikrowy was coordinated with the attack on nearby Pidkamin including the monastery in Pidkamin, where some of inhabitants from Palikrowy were hiding during the massacre of Poles in Volhynia. All the inhabitants of Palikrowy were gathered on a meadow near village. The Ukrainian inhabitants of the village were released. Then the Poles were killed by two heavy machine guns. Only a few wounded people survived. Polish houses were burned down and hiding Polish civilians were murdered, and their property stolen.

or, SINCE WE’RE DISCUSSING THE POLISH: The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (Polish: rzeź wołyńska, literally: Volhynian slaughter; Ukrainian: Волинська трагедія, Volyn tragedy), was an ethnic cleansing (some polish scientiests think that was a genocide) carried out in Nazi German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the UPA) against Poles in the area of Volhynia, Polesia, Lublin region and Eastern Galicia beginning in 1943 and lasting up to 1945. The peak of the genocide took place in July and August 1943. Most of the victims were women and children. UPA's methods were particularly brutal, with many of the victims being tortured and mutilated, and resulted in 40,000–60,000 Polish deaths in Volhynia and 30,000–40,000 in Eastern Galicia, with the other regions for the total about 100,000.

The Janowa Dolina massacre took place on 23 April 1943 in the village of Janowa Dolina, (now Bazaltove, Ukraine) during occupation of Poland in World War II. Before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of the Polish Second Republic, Janowa Dolina was a model settlement built in the Kostopol County of the Wołyń Voivodeship by workers of the Polish State Basalt Quarry. The town was inhabited by 2,500 people. Its name, which translates as the "Jan's Valley" in Polish, came from the Polish king Jan Kazimierz, who reportedly hunted in the Volhynian forests, and after hunting — rested on the shore of the Horyń (Horyn) River. The town was destroyed during World War II by Ukrainian nationalists who murdered most of its Polish population including women and children

The massacre of Uus street was committed by German forces and local collaborators on 30 August 1941 in Tallinn.German forces occupied Tallinn on 28 August 1941 after the Soviet evacuation of Tallinn. The German occupation forces included a local Omakaitse militia. Einsatzgruppe Acommanded by Franz Walter Stahlecker closely followed the German front units, actively recruiting local nationalists and antisemitic groups to instigate pogroms against the local Jewish population.

The Huta Pieniacka massacre was a massacre of the Polish inhabitants of the village Huta Pieniacka, located in modern-day Ukraine, which took place on February 28, 1944. Estimates of the number of victims range from 500, to 1,200. Polish and Ukrainian historians disagree over the responsibility for the Huta Pienacka massacre. According to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, the action was committed by the 14th subunit of the '1st Ukrainian' Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS. Polish witnesses testified that the orders were given by German officers. According to Ukrainian sources, it was committed by the German police battalions. According to witness accounts and scholarly publications, SS Galizien were accompanied by a paramilitary unit of Ukrainian nationalists under Włodzimierz (Vladimir) Czerniawski's command, including members of the UPA and inhabitants of local villages who intended to seize property found in the households of the murdered.

I’m not going ahead because this post is already too long but I’d really like to ask tumblr user @tikkunolamorgtfo if they think that ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIED AS A RESULT OF WWII HAPPENING IN THE AFOREMENTIONED INSTANCES WOULD HAVE SIGNED FOR IT IN EXCHANGE FOR HAVING ALL THE JEWISH POPULATION REMOVED.

LIKE.

ARE YOU *SERIOUSLY* IMPLYING THAT ALL OF THE ABOVE WAS A THING EUROPEAN CIVILIANS FROM OCCUPIED NATIONS WERE OKAY WITH BECAUSE IN EXCHANGE THEY COULD SEND JEWISH PEOPLE TO DEATH???? BECAUSE THAT’S LIKE, FUCKING DISGUSTING, AND YOU’RE HONESTLY OVERREACHING LIKE NOTHING ELSE HERE. but nah, sure thing, everyone was so antisemite they totally would have died as well because hey, at least the category we hate more than we love ourselves gets to die, right?

you fucking asshole, of course in an occupied country people will collaborate with the forces occupying it in order to survive and to not get killed especially if you have a family, but assuming that we all accepted it and actually wanted it to happen is disgusting, not true, a slap in the face of everyone who died fighting the nazis and it can only come from someone who has no fucking clue of the vast consequences wwii had on everyone in this fucking thrice-darned continent. 

also, y’all demeaning the polish deaths in auschwitz/during their occupation in WWII is fucking insulting af because sorry but:

first you say the polish weren’t doing enough to fight against the nazis (even i they also were specifically targeted but y’all keep on ignoring that)

then you ignore that most polish people who died in concentration camps (YES IN AUSCHWITZ AND BIRKENAU TOO YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES) WERE POLITICAL FUCKING PRISONERS

POLITICAL PRISONERS

WHICH MEANS THEY WERE EITHER COMMUNIST OR SOCIALIST OR ANTI-NAZI OR ONE OR MORE OF THEM

WHICH MEANS *THEY DIED BECAUSE THEY WERE ANTI-NAZI* 

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED POLISH PEOPLE TO DO

AND YOU *DARE* SPITTING ON THOSE DEATHS SAYING THAT IT WAS A HANDFUL????

let me c/p it for you:

The number of Polish dead are estimated to number between 5.6 and 5.8 million according to the Institute of National Remembrance(2009). Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) and 3 million jews were victims of German Occupation policies and the war for a total of just under 5 million dead.

FIVE/FIVE-AND A HALF MILLION PEOPLE.

AND YOU CALL IT FUCKING HANDFUL?

NO ONE, LIKE LITERALLY NO ONE TRIED TO SAY THE JEWISH WEREN’T THE MAIN VICTIMS/TARGETS OF THE HOLOCAUST/WWII.

BUT YOU ARE SAYING THE ABOVE DOESN’T MATTER AND YOU’RE PROCEEDING TO INSULT THE MEMORY OF EVERYONE WHO FUCKING DIED THANKS TO THE NAZIS IN WWII and I haven’t even touched the russian war crimes but nvm that. honestly? HONESTLY?

AND I AM THE HISTORICAL REVISIONIST THAT YOUR FUCKING FRIENDS WON’T EVEN REBLOG FROM DIRECTLY AND BLOCK BEFORE SHE CAN DEFEND HERSELF BECAUSE DEEP DOWN THEY KNOW THEY’RE SPROUTING BULLSHIT?

HAHAHAHAHAHA.jpeg.

like. NO ONE like NO ONE IS EVER DENYING IT and fyi you’re talking to someone who has more than once defended the existence of israel in front of people who say it should be obliterated exactly because I think its *existence* is the least we owe jewish people for the european history of antisemitism that we have on our shoulders, and if you want the receipts I even did it on this hellsite once, HERE if you want to see how fucking antisemite I am.

but you and your friends are purposefully downplaying about everything that’s not what you want, and on top of that you are excluding from your holocaust victim list:

THIS IS A FUCKING OFFICIAL-ISH LIST OF HOLOCAUST VICTIMS.

all these categories were targeted under the holocaust.

that’s historical facts.

you cannot go and say that someone stating the facts is doing revisionism when the only people doing any such thing are you and your fucking friends.

ALSO, since y’all are absolutely denying the existence of the pacific front, I will remind you kindly a few things:

unit 731 existed;

the japanese made twice the victims compared to the nazist;

japanese war crimes have zero to envy the nazi war crimes tbqh;

and since y’all are so fond of doing math to prove that the polish were shitty and that they were, like, WORSE THAN ANY OTHER OCCUPIED NATION (spoilers: lmao) and to demean the fact that even with that they still have more than a quarter of the names in the just among the nations (ps: in krakow’s history of wwii museum [or the schindler factory now I don’t recall] there are two computers with a huge af database of names. on the left you have the people who helped the jewish people somehow, on the right you have the collaborationists and you can read their life story. SOUNDS TO ME LIKE THEY ARE AWARE SOME OF THEM WERE ASSHOLES), and since y’all are a bunch of hypocrites who use real life tragedies to make a fandom point and insult idek how many people in the meantime and are also a number of things I’ll say at the end, let me do some basic math for you and I’ll also show you that reading the war in black and white is lost effort:

see that chart above?

SEE THE NUMBERS?

okay then.

jewish people: six million.

roma people: between 130k and 5k.

serbians: between 300k people and 600k people. THEY EVEN CRANK THAT TOP FIVE. WOW, AMRITE?

now. let’s take the lowest one and say that the serbians killed were 300k people.

THE NANKING MASSACRE ONLY - THAT ONE ONLY - HAD A DEATH TOLL OF 300K PEOPLE.

which means that the japanese killed in one single occasion/war crime/however you call it as many serbians as the nazis did in the course of the entire fucking war, or half the number if you take the 600k figure. but wait a moment, who, during the whole nanking affair, saved 250k people?

A FUCKING GERMAN BUSINESSMAN NAMED JOHN RABE WHO WAS ACTUALLY IN THE NAZI PARTY AND STILL SAVED THAT MANY PEOPLE TO THE POINT THAT WHEN AFTER THE WAR HE FELL INTO DISGRACE AND HE COULDN’T EAT, PEOPLE FROM NANKING SENT HIM FOOD AND RALLIED UP MONEY FOR HIM AND GUESS WHAT AFTER HE DIED HE WAS EVENTUALLY BURIED THERE RATHER THAN IN GERMANY.

like.

as I said in my first op which of course you didn’t fucking bother to link, WWII and the holocaust and the asian genocide AND everything that made it up including the pacific front that y’all just don’t really want to acknowledge, is the most fucking mucked up ethical situation in existence because again, not counting the targeted categories of the mass genocide(s) and even with that we can discuss because as we said some polish people were collaborators, the russians persecuted jewish people themselves and so on, EVERYONE ON EVERY SIDE COMMITTED ETHICAL ATROCITIES AND WHILE OF COURSE THE ALLIES EVENTUALLY WERE IN THE RIGHT POSITION THEY CERTAINLY DIDN’T SHY FROM DOING EXTREMELY SHITTY THINGS AND I’M SAYING BRITISH, AMERICANS, RUSSIANS AND EVERYONE INVOLVED AND THE WESTERN BETRAYAL ISN’T EVEN HALF OF IT. and wwii is world war two because it involved the entire fucking planet, so trying to tell people that *TWO* CATEGORIES OWN IT AND NO ONE ELSE CAN TALK ABOUT IT IS A) DEMEANING EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED DURING IT, B) FACTUALLY INCORRECT.

ALSO, y’all are still glossing over the fact that - NOT EVEN COUNTING THE POLITICAL PRISONERS DISCOURSE because I know that getting you to agree that communists, socialist and prisoners of war could be a targeted category is wasting time - SPECIFIC TARGETED VICTIMS OF THE ****HOLOCAUST**** WERE:

disabled people because they were disabled (and most of those either were killed straight or were used for medical experiments and none of those survived) so thanks for being ableist fucks and forgetting 270k people;

gay people/queer people because they were fucking gay/queer and guess what MOST OF THE SURVIVED ONES GOT ARRESTED LATER BECAUSE BEING GAY WAS STILL A CRIME ANYWAY so hey thanks for forgetting those 15k people as well, I’m sure you love the smell of homophobia in the morning;

polish + serbians + slavic people FOR BEING SLAVIC and that chart isn’t counting the hungarians/czechs as well so like if we take it with the highest value we can say you’re forgetting four million people tops and HERE in europe it’d be considered as pretty damn racist because yes you can be racist against slavic people;

the poor jehova’s witnesses obviously deserved to die there because they like to press your intercom button to tell you about our lord and savior jesus christ I guess, but nvm it was enough of them they had their purple little triangle in auschwitz, the place where PEOPLE DIDN’T DIE;

we’re obviously not gonna touch the poor spanish revolutionaries who were from a place with a huuuuuuhhhhh fascist dictatorship? ah well, 7k is really not that much, right?

idk what you want to do with the data about russians pows/civilians which if we take the highest count as in 4.5 + 3.3 makes for a whopping 7,8 million people that makes a little more than 1/4 of the total 20 million ussr casualties on a total of 80 million total which means that one fucking fourth of ALL wwii casualties were russians, but hey, that’s math for you.

the entire point is that YOU CANNOT RECLAIM OWNERSHIP OF A HISTORICAL EVEN WHERE THAT MANY PEOPLE DIED AND THINGS WERE ETHICALLY MUCKED ON BOTH SIDES AND SIMPLIFYING THINGS IS NOT A THING YOU CAN OR SHOULD DO OUT OF INTELLECTUAL HONESTY and like... first y’all say wwii and the holocaust are one thing, then that they’re separate, THEN YOUR FUCKING PAL GAMORALIVES HAS THE GALL TO SAY THAT SHIT ABOUT AUSCHWITZ AND BIRKENAU WHICH IS LITERALLY THE FIRST THING YOU LEARN WHEN YOU OPEN A FUCKING BOOK ABOUT AUSCHWITZ AND YOU DON’T EVEN CALL HER OUT ON *THAT* BULLSHIT, BUT THEN YOU GO AROUND SAYING THAT WE’RE REVISIONISTS???

BECAUSE WE SAID THE FACTUAL TRUTH IE THAT A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT CATEGORIES DIED BECAUSE OF NAZI CRIMES?

like, especially if you’re american and your grandfather didn’t risk losing a limb or getting ptsd in this damned war: don’t. and tbh if you’re american and willingly ignore the pacific front when the usa basically shouldered most of that side of the war by themselves out of all the allied coalition idek what you learn in school but I’m fucking worried about your educational system.

but sure go around saying that that I’m an *antisemite* just because I told you the actual historical facts while you demean around, idk, 70 million people deaths with your arguments contradicting themselves and @gamoralives goes around sprouting factual bullshit about how auschwitz works (because excuse me that’s factual bullshit period) and y’all do it after having blocked me preventively (okay, the tumblr user I tagged hasn’t yet but I’m sure it’s a short time coming) and haven’t engaged with me directly once because I have an inkling that having my original OPs on their blog would have made them look like the assholes they are. totes makes sense. next time I run into my former ***self-declared fascist*** classmates who called me a jew-abiding commie when I was nine I’ll tell them that according to you I agree with them. jfc.

and fyi, I never, never, NEVER in my entire life read anything by a jewish wwii survivor or a jewish wwii historian or anyone jewish discussing wwii/writing about wwii/making movies about wwii where the message was your message. the message usually was ‘we were the main targeted party but other people were with us as well and we can only hope it never happens again if everyone knows about it and talks about it’, and I can assure you I read wwii fiction, nonfiction and such on made by people of every damned background including memorials of camps survivors.

I mean, you ever read this is a man?

written by italian jewish chemist-then-writer primo levi who survived auschwitz and later killed himself out of survivor’s guilt?

I mean, if I were you I’d consider reading this shit and then avoiding saying things that go directly against what actual auschwitz survivors had to say about the entire thing while automatically having a greater understanding of how human nature works than any of us in this discussion, but what have you, you have the infused truth given to you and no one else around here has and you’re all, constantly, treating world war two as if it happened in a social context that’s, guess what, the usa’s.

it. was. not. deal with it and for the love of fucking everything at least if you want to call me an antisemite do it to my fucking face and not vagueblogging about me and only c/p-ing comments and not, like, THE ENTIRE OP.

but hey, we all know that if you knew you were in the right you would let your followers read what I actually said in the first place.

but honestly, honestly, I’m fucking appalled that I had to write all of this crap down and that we’re fucking comparing AUSCHWITZ CAMPS BECAUSE Y’ALL WANT TO MAKE A POINT ABOUT A DUMBASS *FICTIONAL FANFIC THAT WASN’T EVEN WRITTEN YET* AND YOU’RE DOING THIS OVER SHIP FANDOM DRAMA.

I mean, it seems to me that discussing this shit over fucking fandom drama is tasteless and honestly insulting af but whatever, you have the incensed truth of it.

please come at me and tell me how wrong I am.

to my face, thank you. btw: it’s rich of you to assume that poland in wwii was the template for how every other country behaved especially bc poland has a specific history that’s not shared by most other european countries, but reading your posts one starts thinking that according to you most of wwii got fought in poland while everyone else was chilling back and sending targeted categories to concentration camps while sipping a few margaritas and then all of a sudden the americans decided to drop the h bomb on the japanese BECAUSE THEY FELT LIKE IT (I mean you didn’t say that but knowing how tumblr talks about wwii I have a feeling it’s where it’s headed) and then it was all over but let me tell you, it’s so wrong and simplicistic and misinformed and misleading that I don’t think the level of a-historicism in all of your posts - and your friends’s which I haven’t shared because otherwise I’d have been here until tomorrow - is so mind-boggling it’s not quantifiable.

cheers. ps: technically I could report you for slandering me because that’s just about what you did. think about that. and no, you couldn’t report me for the contrary because differently from you I never said anything that wasn’t true or sourced and most of all I never once said jewish people weren’t the most targeted group.

have fun, I guess, if you read this far.

ah, btw, just because you’re demeaning consequences of wwii on civilians: my grandmother didn’t fight in it and wasn’t part of any targeted category, but they were starving so much during the war (and they were in the american side of italy good for them) that for the following sixty years up until she died she wouldn’t waste a drop of food, she wouldn’t spend a cent that wasn’t absolutely necessary and wouldn’t go to the doctor’s because IT WASN’T AS BAD AS THE WAR and every time anyone told her to take a rest she’d say that WE WEREN’T IN THE WAR SO WE COULDN’T UNDERSTAND and it ended with all of her kids having... issues that more or less go back to that and her approach on life made sure that she spent her old age suffering for shit she could have helped but wouldn’t because THE WAR and she died after one year of real fucking bad conditions BECAUSE SHE ENDED UP IN THOSE CONDITIONS BECAUSE OF HER ISSUES THAT WENT BACK TO FUCKING WWII and if it was like that for her try imagine people who fought in it or survived it or their descendants and come tell me to my face again that no one else suffered because of the fucking second world war.

sincerely, go fuck yourself. all of you. and I hope you feel half-ashamed that you went as far as this but I have a feeling y’all are so self-centered you wouldn’t get it.

ps: I’m done with this discourse from this point on but like if y’all think I’m letting you shit talk me behind my back you can forget it. :)

[notesfromthefielddesk]

Episode 2 - E.E. Evans Pritchard

Episode link - https://open.spotify.com/episode/0LqJQ1q2kv5utkoct7V8Cg?si=485ef5c24837440e

John

I’m looking out over the plains of what was once Nuerland. The heavy clay earth is broken apart by the relentless sun. Deep cracks and the threaded depressions of rivers which rarely fill, even in the rainy season, are the only features on the dead flat, almost alien landscape. Around me cattle rest on the slightly (We hear gentle mooing) elevated sandy spot I found for my desk. From here I can see clear to the horizon where I spot sporadic patches of trees but all other greenery has browned and died back months ago. What these cows are living off is beyond me.

In years past the sodden clay retained water allowing certain plants to survive through the dry months. When the rain came this whole plain would be covered in grass reaching over my head as I sit behind my desk. Near the rivers edge they’d reach up to my shoulders even when standing. The rivers would fill then overflow making the whole plain a marshy swamp. At times like those this sandy mound would be prime real-estate and i’d be sharing space with far more cows.

Nowadays, this is South Sudan. The rainy season has become more sporadic and unpredictable. Often the relief of rains arrival is followed - shortly - by overwhelming flooding. Right now people are still waiting on that rain.

(we hear the wind starting to pick up)

The wind is picking up. A cloud of dust is rising on the plain. The horizon, with it’s sporadic trees and the cracked earth disappear from view behind a wall of air thick with clay. I can see about two cows away. Out of the dust emerges a figure. They’re walking towards me.

This is notes from the field desk.

Theme

oh! you. Look after what you told me in Papua new guinea I don’t think we should be talking. What are you doing here anyway? -

what do you mean am I following you? I am here by chance. My flight back to London from Brisbane got diverted because of technical fault with the plane and we landed in Juba. So there is no way I could have followed you here. If anything you’re probably followed me!

(sigh) Fine, I suppose there is no harm in you sitting here. There’s a tree stump just there you can listen to me record if you want. That is if you’re not busy organising a coup or whatever.

Anyway, when we got grounded in Juba I had a look through my collection. Oh, I should explain, I travel with a trunk of the one hundred most influential ethnographies, that’s what we call the books anthropologists write.

Side note, I never thought the trunk would be a problem, in all these Ethnographies they talk about getting porters to carry all their stuff, but when I asked at the airport for a porter, they just laughed at me?

Anyway, we were grounded a while before they cancelled the flight. So I had a look and it turns out another anthropological founding father did research in South Sudan. E.E.Evans-Pritchard. Or as I call him EEEE Pritchard. Okay well look, I don’t even want you to find my jokes funny so you just sit there rolling your eyes all you want.

Evans-Pritchard was a student of Malinowski at LSE and in the late 1920’s he set out for what was then Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He wrote a couple of Ethnographies about the Azande which mostly focused on magic, kind of an obsession with early anthropologists. Then he headed south in 1930 to do research on the Nuer, which focused mostly on politics. A good hard subject we can get our teeth into! Anglo-Egyptian Sudan came Sudan in 1956, then split into the mostly Muslim North and mostly Christian South in 2011. Then in 2021 I arrived to do some peer-reviewing. I’m hoping Evan’s Pritchard is a bit less of a controversial figure so my students will get off my back.

(phone rings) ignore that, i’m ignoring, that’s nothing.

(Clearly still flustered) Okay, last time, we talked about the two sides of anthropology, the field and the desk. If Malinowski represents the innovation of field, you know participating in society, going native, spending years in the field. Then Evans-Pritchard is the OG anthropologist who developed the desk. Anthropology trades on being able to create a sense of being there through vivd description, where Malinowski could be a bit stiff and scientific Evans-Pritchard had a bit of flare with his flowing prose.

Is that cow looking at me? That one there with huge horns. I swear to god it’s looking at me.

Anyway, EP, I like calling him EP when I do he feels like a friend. (clear throat) He made drawings, he took tonnes of pictures, he described the plains, some of his diary crept into the ethnography. No racism as far as I could tell but He talks about being frustrated, he shows his work. A move towards modern anthropology. So reading his The Nuer, which is the ethnography he wrote about this region, is really like the experience of being here. Way less of a slog than boring old Malinowski.

(Email Chime)

Ohh an email, do you mind if I just check this? I just got assigned a student whose thesis i’m supervising. Very exciting. Shaping the next generation of anthropologists and all that.

okay, here we go.

“Dear Professor Johnson”

Not a professor but i’m quite pleased with that.

“I discussed briefly with Susan, uh-huh, during the introduction lecture that I’d be interested in researching the club scene, queer identity and youth in London. I’ve been reading tony Adams and Stacy Holman Jones on Auto-ethnography and that’s inspired me to try it myself. If you could point me in the direction of some readings to get myself started with.

All the best,”

I’ll leave their name out of it, bit of privacy. Hmm well i’m not sure about that. I mean really ethnography should be done in a rural place, not the city, should they even be doing research in the UK? This is anthropology not sociology. Plus auto-ethnography? I’ve never heard of it but we’re supposed to be studying the other not ourselves, this isn’t psychology. Hmm well I need to think about a reply, don’t want to stamp on the young fellows aspirations but he needs setting straight.

What is that cow doing. Is it - it’s coming over here isn’t it. Shoo, shoo! it’s licking me. Do something don’t just laugh. No do not nibble my suit! Argh. This suit cost a lot of money cow! Get off me. Shoo. Fine, i’m getting up. it’s your desk now!

Go on get out of here!

You know what happens now because you wouldn’t help me? We’re going to talk about theory. Yes groan away, there isn’t even a sea for you to paddle in this time so I guess you’ll just have to sit down there with the cows and listen.

This book actually is mostly about cows. All three hundred pages of it, I don’t think there is a single sentence that doesn’t mention cows or cattle or I don’t know bovine. I mean I like cows as much as the next englishman but it’s not exactly thrilling. But in fairness to Evans-Pritchard the Nuer didn’t exactly give him a choice. He said that

“whatever subject I would start on, and approaching it from whatever angle, we would soon be speaking of cows and oxen, heifers and steers, rams and sheep, hegoats and she-goats, calves and lambs and kids.”

Basically the Nuer loved cows. He said this fact was the underlying structure of Nuer society. So everything in Nuer society comes back to cows. Love, war, religion, politics, it was all about cows.

Our boy EP is a structural functionalist, - look the terms are important so just get used to it - meaning he thought there are underlying structures to all societies, that cause us to behave in a certain ways. Where Malinowski and functionalism thought post hoc ergo propter hoc - I can see you rolling your eyes, sometimes latin is useful! (deep sigh) Fine, i’ll explain it another way.

Malinowski would say the Nuer like cows because they give them milk - our boy EP would say okay but why love cows instead of say… soy beans which can also give you milk. It’s because the conditions the land in which the Nuer live aren’t good for growing soy beans, but they are good for raising cattle.

What would be a good comparison. Okay, Malinowski would say you like your iPhone because it gives you messages from friends. Those messages make you feel nice, so it fills a need. And EP might say, yes that’s true but it’s also possible that you like the phone because the underlying structure of Western society values objects especially expensive ones. Or else you’d have a nokia 3310. It still fills the same function but EP aims to explain why people choose one thing over another. If you’re a quote fan here is how Evans-Pritchard put it.

“Although the Nuer have a mixed pastoral-horticultural economy their country is more suitable for cattle husbandry than for horticulture, so that the environmental bias coincides with the bias of their interest and does not encourage a change in the balance in favour of horticulture.”

Oh there is a guy over there! (Shouting) Hey! Hey sir! Sir! Who do these cows belong to? Sir? (Biggish pause) (Snort in distance) He’s gone. Well I didn’t have time to chat anyway, i’ve got a tutorial. Just keep that cow away from me while I’m teaching. I doubt you care but here’s a Nuer song that Evans Pritchard translated.

Extract

The wind blows wira wira;

Where does it blow to?

It blows to the river. The shorthorn carries its full udder to the pastures;'

Let her be milked by Nyagaak;

My belly will be filled with milk. Thou pride of Nyawal,

Ever-quarrelling Rolnyang.

This country is overrun by strangers;

They throw our ornaments into the river;

They draw their water from the bank.

Blackhair my sister,

I am bewildered.

Blackhair my sister,

I am bewildered.

We are perplexed;

We gaze at the stars of God.

White ox good is my mother

And we the people of my sister. The people of Nyariau Bui.

As my black-rumped white ox. When I went to court the winsome lassie,

I am not a man whom girls refuse. We court girls by stealth in the night,

I and Kwejok Nyadeang.

We brought the ox across the river,

I and Kirj oak

And the son of my mother's sister Buth Gutjaak.

Friend, great ox of the spreading horns,

Which ever bellows amid the herd. Ox of the son.

Return from tutorial

You let the cows eat my notes!? I thought I said watch the cows! What happened? Was it that same cow again? What do you mean they all look the same, the one with the evil eyes!

Okay, so it seems like I missed some things again. The students pointed out that on page one of the preface, I might have skipped the preface, says “My study of the Nuer was undertaken at the request of, and was mainly financed by, the Government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.” Which means the colonial government most likely paid for him to do the research because they wanted to control the Nuer. He describes them as violent willing to go to war over cattle at the drop of a hat. In text he says;

“At the present time cattle are the main cause of hostility

towards, and suspicion of, the Government, not so much on

account of present taxation as of earlier tax-gathering patrols

which were little more than cattle raids and of the avowedly

plundering expeditions of the Egyptian Government era that

preceded them.”

The students pointed out that given theat the government violently took their property, it was kind of understandable that the Nuer were angry. Again, if he was there trying to collect information so the colonial officers could control them, can we trust his findings?

During the second world war he used his ethnographic relationships to recruit Sudanese troops who he then led in Guerrilla warfare against the Italians. I said that sounds pretty cool right? Which made them angry, academic knowledge shouldn’t be used as a weapon to manipulate people into fighting in a war, which, regardless of the outcome would leave them colonised. They asked why we were spending so much time focussing on old men.

(Phone rings) Ignore that!

Pause takes a breath

I said fine, but we have to cover foundational figures who would they rather cover? What about Boas? He thought races were biological different and with some inferior to others. Ruth Benedict? They say she wrote a book for the US army in the Second World War about how to defeat the Japanese based on their culture without ever setting foot in Japan. Fine, Margret Mead? Exoticised the sex lives of Samoans and thought they were primitive.

I’m taking off this jacket it’s so hot and it’s got cow slobber all over the shoulder.

Well if all of them were racist then let’s just pack the whole thing in! They said I wasn’t understanding. I was thinking about racism as an individual failing caused by ignorance. But they weren’t ignorant, their racism was a product of society. In that way Evans-Pritchard was right. They lived during colonialism and the rise of the nation state. Which meant Nations had to justify their difference from others and their superiority over others.

People had to have a reason to believe in “Being British” rather than French or Sudanese. Or why would you think it was okay to rule them? Or to enforce boarders?  These ideas of superiority and difference permeated the early anthropologists the same way the utility of cow herding led to the Nuer loving cattle. So everyone from that era was bound to be Colonialist.

They also said It doesn’t help that doing fieldwork confirms the differences between people. My head felt like it was going to explode. Still trying to figure it all out and it doesn’t help that that cow is still looking at me. I asked where they were getting all this from? Lentin and Visweswaren they said, apparently it’s on the reading list… I haven’t read the reading list.

(Phone rings once but he immediately hangs it up)

So, they said maybe next we could talk about Talal Asad. Apparently he is an anti-colonial ethnographer or something. I said fine whatever. They seem to know more than me anyway. Maybe we shouldn’t do fieldwork, maybe we should all do auto-ethnography. My students said maybe, but we still need to pay attention because racism hasn’t gone away, it’s still in our society. Which means we still might make arguments for it in our work unless we’re careful.

I guess before I do field work I should look at what the underlying structures of Britain are effecting my thinking. Not just my assumptions like I thought with Malinowski but what it means for a British person to turn up at a former colony. What does that act mean even before I start interacting with people.

I know that sounds like the same conclusion as episode one but my students assure me it’s subtly different. My head hurts, let’s go.

Nah leave the desk I’ll just get another.

Theme

This was notes from the field desk written by me James McGrail.  

This episode references

Evans-Pritchard, E.E., The Nuer, 1940, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Lentin, A. (2004). Racial states, anti-racist responses. Picking holes in 'Culture' and 'Human Rights'. European Journal of Social Theory 7(4): 427-443.

Pocock, D. (1975). Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard 1902–1973: An appreciation. Africa, 45(3)

Visweswaran, Kamala (1998) Race and the Culture of Anthropology, American Anthropologist 100/1: 70-83.

Theme ends

Susan

Do you think I’m stupid? You think I believe your flight got diverted to South Sudan? South Sudan? Oh and it just so happens that it’s thematically appropriate for your little podcast? Get back to London. Now. We need to have a serious conversation.

https://freesound.org/people/Mystikuum/sounds/401636/

https://freesound.org/people/JarredGibb/sounds/233143/

https://freesound.org/people/selcukartut/sounds/504882/

https://freesound.org/people/felix.blume/sounds/187756/

https://freesound.org/people/darrinsmith/sounds/274434/

https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/405561/

https://freesound.org/people/t-man95/sounds/553265/

[swooncraft]

Thoughts Into a Void-Art & Depression

This is me... organizing things for myself to get back into the swing of things. It’s a little disjointed, but it.. writing things out like this, reflecting, always helps me. It’s not sad and woe is me like.

Taking any time to share a thought and having the power of the internet to spread that to numerous people is amazing.

There’s a disconnect for me somewhere along the line. The platforms I use, while some are made for stories and comics and others aren’t, there’s just something inherently frustrating about spooling out one large cohesive sum. Not just as a reader, I assure you it’s frustrating as a creator too.

When I first learned people make and share their own comics online I was floored. I’d been writing stories and making doodles with them all my life. Ten years ago I shared my first page to the internet. Here it is.

I love realism with a hint of magic or sci-fi, and maybe you can blame Temix for that, but I realized something about that single page; “Why was it only one?” I asked on the forums how people on that site go about posting to make sure people were keeping up and remembering what was happening between posts. My art was crude (for being a young self taught teen artist), but very well intended; and it took me twelve goddamn hours to complete over the course of a week.

A lot of what people said was to have a schedule, people who like your story/art will stick around and remember. I heard a few people agree that webcomics had more dedicated fans, because you posted once or twice a week they would spend a little more time looking at the available pages.

That didn’t seem.. Right to me. I did the same with real comics and manga. If I liked it, once I was done I’d look back through the art... And how could posting a page at a time be beneficial to anyone? One could show consistency and integrity in a schedule with a several page post once a month or one full chapter every several weeks. It boggled me.

I kept drawing though, because I didn’t have several pages to share at a time. I tried my best to post once a week. I worked 50 hours as a manager at the time, so the ten hours I was spending on these pages was a huge investment. After a year I burned myself out...

Part of it was that I didn’t have the artistic skill to depict the things I wanted to do in that old project. Part of it was that it was gaining steam and had something like 30 people following and anticipating it. Part of it was my lack of planning, and still being a little new to storytelling on the scale the project needed...

So, I didn’t draw for months after I hit that wall. It.. was rough. We’ve all got issues, and mine and my inability to get back on my feet back then made me very volatile to myself.

Temix had just gotten out of art school and tried convincing me to draw a bit. I doodled, because she knew how to approach me about it and make it something I couldn’t back down from.

Sooner than later I dreamt about a zombie apocalypse and Deadgirl & Sue were born. With a lot of help and shaping by Temix.

The mission was ‘fuck art, tell the story.’ And that worked fine for a few months and several pages. I didn’t set deadlines for myself, and I didn’t care when I drew two right hands...

Even though this one haunts me to this day.. Anyway, fall of 2010 became summer 2011 and I was reeling internally about this non-schedule and art and story. So I stopped again. But I didn’t kick myself too hard about it because unlike my first comic, no one was paying attention to DG&Sue.

I’d been writing a lot anyway, and was feeling really good about the growth I was making there. I’m ‘good’ at art, I’m ‘okay’ at singing, but since I floundered on story years prior I learned and felt that that was were I shined. Just putting words on a page. I still mostly agree with those sentiments. Maybe now I’m a ‘little better’ at art, and ‘decent’ at singing, but I’m still a star at storycraft.

It was 2013 when I got back on track to finish that single first chapter of DG&Sue. I’d spent the previous 8 months writing a novel. I had the premise for the story in my mind for a few years so I wrote. I learned a lot and crafted something that.. Is really rough and raw, but it’s something I’m still very proud of..

So that fall I finished the second draft, Edited it all myself (though it still probly has plenty of grammatical and spelling errors) and reread it a hundred times to make sure it was only what it needed to be... And submitted it to several agencies. While waiting for replies I finished the last handful of pages for the first chapter of DG&Sue.

it was done. Not only did I write a 65k novel, I finished a comic. It wasn’t completely over, I left it a little open in case I wanted to bring the characters back. For a while though, Juliet and Sue got to rest in peace.

Meanwhile.. Let me be honest. The agents... Who the fuck am I? I’m a hack that flails against a keyboard screaming endlessly into the void; “NOTICE ME, BUT PLEASE DONT LET ME NOTICE THAT YOU NOTICE ME SO I DONT GET OVERWHELMED.”

All of the agents rejected me.

I wasn’t expecting to wow all of them.. I thought one might want to see the whole novel and tell me it could work if I changed something major about it. But none of them-Some of them in their emails back were offended that I submitted my query to them.

That really fucked me up. See, earlier THAT year I hit rock bottom as an alcoholic. Writing that novel helped me stop drinking. And after all of the months and long nights I spent refining that story the best I could to be rejected... I couldn’t kid myself though. None of my friends would even read it. So, I reiterate; screaming endlessly into the void; “NOTICE ME, BUT PLEASE DONT LET ME NOTI-” And I felt really dry. I couldn’t just not do anything about those feeling, but I couldn’t resort to liquor and video games weren’t taking the edge off...

So, to quote a great book, “I felt like destroying something beautiful.” Created a nice new little OC... And sent her through some good old fashioned Lovecraftian horror to fucking break her the way I felt broken inside. It beats being a no life drunkard, and it’s better then shooting up a school or suicide.. The first draft was a short story outline. And I thought, ‘It might be nice to do this as a comic.. to try using.. photoshop like Temix keeps suggesting. I’ll practice colors while I destroy this poor girl. I’ll become intimate with yellows like I became intimate with tones while drawing DG&Sue. And I’ll make Lovecraft my own like I made Priest, and Way, and Palahnuik my own.’

And this release of my feelings...

I decided to do it right. It was scheduled. And made sure it had an ending I could reach. It was a shining yellow light in deep blotchy darkness, Ink was more well received then I ever imagined it would be.

So, I toyed with expanding it while it was being finished. Picked up the threads I left for DG&Sue hoping.. Thinking that if I were working on a rotating schedule, that I wouldn’t get bored, that a new thing to work on every few months would keep me challenged... That I wouldn’t get overwhelmed... and stop.

I wasn’t wrong.

I haven’t missed an update in close to three years now. Sometimes I forget to post at one place or another, but the pages are available somewhere.

Over those years I expanded to several internet mediums... Swoonsphere of course, The Duck where I first started at, DeviantArt, Imgur, Pixiv, Tapastic, and I was directed to upload on Tumblr too, even though it doesn’t lend itself to webcomics...

Between Imgur, Pixiv, and Tapastic, being the only places I do bulk page uploads, I see terrible, but consistent growth every time I post on Tapastic (the other two there’s views, but not a lot of following). Which brings me back to something someone asked me recently, and what I started this and my webcomic career with.

Why don’t I post batches on Tumblr? On most sites?

I considered it. But everything is generally bite sized and easily consumable on these types of sites. That’s why I’ve been more stressed out lately. I’m not hoping that people will follow my Tumblr, because it’s not my... place. It’s not the right platform for what I do. I can only hope that people will see a fragment of a story, or decent art, or decent colors, or interesting tags and click the links to my website where it’s easier to read. I don’t make money off of Swoonsphere, the ads on it are usually blocked or disabled anyway because there’s no traffic. So.. Is it bad practice to hope someone will open a new tab to take a closer look while they’re scrolling through their Tumblr feed?

You know? Like I said.. screaming endlessly into the void; “NOTICE ME BUT PLE-” I don’t know how to market my comics. I dont expect people to come around for my art streams, and I dont expect people to be wowed by my ‘finished’ art. I just want people to read my stories and want to know what the next step is for the characters, or tell me what they think, or ask me why things went the way they did.

Personally I think my stories are a little cheesy and tropey, but have some unique things, and if nothing else, have characters that you can root for.

But I’m tired.. And feel myself after 30 months burning out. Because like my novel no one’s actually read what I’ve done even though it’s readily available for simple viewing. If it’s something wrong with Swoonsphere, I could direct people to the Duck or Tapastic. I post everywhere, and the sum of readers after all this time is hilariously low.

I’m not stopping yet. But I am frustrated, and disheartened.

[jaymebyers1971]

Public Discourse and Conversation

So I have a childhood friend (well I was closer with his younger sister who was a year behind us) who runs an organization called Less Government.org.  He is of course an arch-conservative. I disagree with a lot of what he supports.  But I do agree with some.  And I enjoy, at times, interacting on his thread.  And because I don’t wear blinders and I am not close minded, I am more than willing to listen to opposing views.  But the following exchange has me somewhat frustrated.  Is this really what discourse and debate has come to in this country among presumably somewhat intelligent and educated people?  It’s disappointing and honestly somewhat scary.  It’s scary because of what it portends for the future if this trend continues.  I know I am not crazy.  I know I showed no hate in my responses.  I know that I was not arrogant or condescending.  I know that my initial comment was thoughtful and reasoned as were all of my responses. The responses I got, the reactions, and the accusations make no rational sense. The blindness, the rationalizations and justifications that these two women display in their willingness to block out anything that doesn’t agree with them is stunning.  And staggeringly disturbing.  And the saddest part is they miss the fact that I am actually supportive of the issue being discussed.  

Am I crazy to feel that a point should be able to stand on its own without name-calling or fact-twisting? Am I wrong to feel that being inflammatory, accusatory or negative simply detracts from your point, making people feel like you are trying to distract them from the fact that the point is not valid or supportable – even if it actually is? Is it wrong to be scared about this sickening trend in our public discourse?

"Trump's immigration ban is unconstituional."

"Actually, it isn't. But while we're here - where in the Constitution is the federal government expressly empowered to create Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid or the Departments of Education or Energy or the Environmental Protection Agency?"

"........Racist."

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Cassedy Stien they don't get it!

 Like · Reply · 1 · 5 hrs

Cassedy Stien I just wrote this on a drone's wall. You liberals want to break our laws and let everyone into our country then you take them in, house them, buy their drugs and get their diseases. You American haters want socialism because you want your freebies like Anthony. He wants to get his teeth fixed so bring down America, open up the flood gates, destroy our constitutional rights and have a ONE WORLD GOVT where NO ONE HAS RIGHTS but we all get to be fed in the food lines, get our free shots and healthcare and be cradled from BIRTH TO DEATH! No thank you!

Like · Reply · 1 · 5 hrs

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 James Byers I don't paint all conservatives with the same brush. I am neither naive enough, arrogant enough, condescending enough or for that matter stupid enough to do so. I do not and never have used the words Republican, conservative, or even "tea party" as pejoratives. I do not assume that all conservatives (of any flavor) are stupid, ignorant or naive. I am a proud Democrat, a moderate but yes still a liberal. And painting me with the same brush as the far left is as self-defeating for your side as my side painting all conservatives with the same brush I (or we) apply to the alt-right. You want to change someone’s mind, you want them to listen to your arguments, then present those arguments with factual support and do so in a way that does not make you look like or come across as a deluded psycho, out of touch with reality, operating in a world of blinders and simply spewing one more rant. I have never felt marginalized by anything Seton Motley himself has posted and I can't think of a single post of his I was not able to fact check his claims and find them valid - even when I disagreed with him. I cannot say the same for many of the people who comment on his posts. I am someone who wants to be convinced by legitimate arguments. Rants will not do it. And I am sick and tired of narrow minded people unable to engage in reasoned discussion without trashing their opponents. I am thoroughly sick of being opposed by people who use the words Democrat or Liberal as pejoratives and who refuse to understand that neither party nor side is monolithic. Both represent a wide range of thoughts, beliefs opinions and ideas. We work best when we work to build on our common ground not work to drive the wedge and schism deeper and wider. (That being said, Cassedy Stien, I love your Dumbass post above - pointed and accurate.)

Like · Reply · 2 hrs

Cassedy Stien James Byers Guess what the thread started with? Name calling and f bombs so whatever you say. Good luck with that. Most of these idiots are hopeless. Just like George Washington during the revolutionary war. 1/3 joined the British, 1/3 did nothing and our greatest 1/3 fought and gave their lives, homes and families for our freedoms.

Like · Reply · 1 · 2 hrs

James Byers Cassedy Stien Can you please give me your sources for your 1/3 quotes. I don't like numbers without facts behind them. As someone who grew up the son of a professional historian, an assistant director of the National Archives who specialized in American History I find your numbers somewhat questionable.

Like · Reply · 1 · 2 hrs

James Byers Cassedy Stien And furthermore I am sure you have heard the saying two wrongs don't make a right. It doesn't matter what the "other" side lowers themselves to, don't ever go down in the gutter to play - you've already lost once you have.

Like · Reply · 2 hrs

James Byers Cassedy Stien Also for the record I am a combat veteran who did put his life on the line for this country. Still a liberal.

Like · Reply · 2 hrs

Helen Jeck Cassedy Stien So we know James is a liberal but keeps quiet so he can think he is so thoughtful. Your name calling gave you away immediately....that is all you had to do....

Helen Jeck James Byers Most of us stopped listening when you showed your hate.

 Cassedy Stien James thanks for ur service! Bye who's side were u fighting for? Our constitutional republic or for NWO??? Just curious?

Cassedy Stien Btw sorry iPhone auto correct

Cassedy Stien Btw save ur little condescending speech for someone who cares!! Lol

 James Byers Helen Jeck How in God's name is pointing out that name calling simply turns people off and therefore defeats the purpose of convincing them of your point in any way hate? How is asking for factual support of a point in anyway showing hate? How is the fact that I told Ms. Stein that I liked her Dumbass pic/post? Which obviously shows that I do in fact support this executive order and believe it is legal. How is the fact that I have posted multiple times in this comment tread and respond to and post multiple times in many of Seton Motley's posts in any way indicative of me choosing to be or actually being quiet? I think dear lady that you and I have different definitions of hate and quiet.

Helen Jeck James Byers Never allow myself to have a REAL conversation with anyone who is childish....get it.

James Byers So when someone in an intelligent and reasoned manner challenges your preconceived worldview they are childish? That's amusing to say the least. I am very open to listening to the other side. I have voted and supported both Republicans and Democrats. Disagreeing with someone does not make me right or they wrong - it simply means we have a difference of opinion. It also doesn't make them or I childish, hateful, ignorant, stupid, and condescending or any number of adjectives that get thrown around by both sides these days. And rants and name calling should never be necessary to make a point. A good point will always stand on its own merits and facts. You should try it sometime - it's very refreshing. And it is also the practice of the person Seton Motley whose thread you are commenting on.