#but not force it into enough of a crisis that the law can actually be challenged

[signipotens]

For anyone wondering what this has to do with the 14th Amendment, most famously known for its Equal Protection and Due Process clauses, the relevant part of section 4 of the amendment reads:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, […] shall not be questioned.

It’s never been tried in court before because the debt ceiling has always been raised before it’s become a litigable issue* (even during the big controversies after the GFC), but it is widely regarded by legal experts that the plain text and original intent of the amendment would render the debt ceiling (at least in part) unconstitutional.

* In the United States, the Supreme Court isn’t allowed to issue rulings sua sponte (on its own initiative) and strike down whatever laws it wants whenever it wants, it has to wait for someone who has been injured by a law to file a lawsuit against the government.

There are some extraordinary measures that the Treasury Department can take on its own to get more money to tide things over, but at the scale that the US Federal Government works, the money from those runs out pretty quickly. Many of these measures have already been taken, and it’s that money that will run out here in the next couple weeks.

What may happen if this continues is that Biden will issue an executive order to the Treasury Department telling them to ignore the debt ceiling, using the various powers granted to the president by the Constitution to ensure that the government runs smoothly and meets its debts and obligations. Then someone will try to sue, and then the Courts will review the constitutionality of the debt ceiling.

If you or anyone you care about is relying on:

Food stamps/SNAP/EBT

SSI/SSDI/social security

a tax refund not yet received as of May 2023

a government employee salary

Medicaid

Medicare

Pell grants that have not yet been disbursed

Or anything else paid out by the US federal government—

You need to be aware of what's happening with the debt ceiling!

Because any or all of the items listed above might not be funded right away in June 2023.

The US government is increasingly looking like it will run out of money on or around June 1st, and no one has yet made the rules about which bills WILL get paid when that happens.

The usual way the gov stops this from happening is being blocked by Republicans who insist they won't let the problem be fixed until programs keeping people alive are cut. (They won't cut corporate subsidies though.)

You and people you care about could be impacted by this.

Please save back any money you can, fill your prescriptions now, and look up news about the debt ceiling.

[ukrfeminism]

We’ve been chatting for about half an hour when Eloise lowers her voice to a whisper. Until now she’s been confidently talking through the ups and downs of being a 19-year-old woman in a world she finds unsteady. 

She’s annoyed that, on TikTok, the advertisements she gets are keyrings with rape alarms and “stabby kitties” (a cat-shaped metal keychain with pointed ears sharp enough to cause damage), feels that modern feminism sometimes goes a bit too far, but having grown up in the age of nudes, she doesn’t really trust men. Which is unsurprising considering the story she tells me next.

“So a boy I know was asking a girl at his school for nudes,” she says, quietly. “And then when she refused, he threatened to rape her.” The boy was 14 and had recently posted an Andrew Tate video to his Instagram page, which was Eloise’s first encounter with the online influencer. 

“It said stuff like how women are your property and that it doesn’t matter if women say they’ve been sexually assaulted; if you’re with them that’s your right. I didn’t like it,” she adds.

Tate has made several appearances in the headlines this week. On Tuesday, a Romanian court rejected his appeal to ease the ban on him leaving the country as a legal case against him – in which he’s charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women – continues. He denies all charges against him. The following day, Ipsos polling for King’s College London’s Policy Institute and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership found that one in five men aged 16-29 who have heard of Andrew Tate have a positive view of him.

Separately – or, arguably, perhaps not – another survey published in the same week underpinned a renewed focus on the attitudes and beliefs of Generation Z, this time from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The research asked just over 3,000 adults of varying ages – 50.6 per cent of whom were female – about their understanding of rape and serious sexual offences, and the law on consent, and drew troubling conclusions.

Overall, 74 per cent of people surveyed understood that it can still be rape if a victim doesn’t resist or fight back, but the number fell to just over half (53 per cent) of 18-24-year-olds who had the same understanding. Less than half of respondents from this age group recognised that victims might not report a sexual offence to police immediately, that being in a relationship or marriage doesn’t mean consent can be assumed, or that if a man has been drinking or taking drugs, he’s still responsible if he rapes someone. More than 70 per cent of over-65s recognised that even if no physical force is involved a person might not be free or able to consent to sex, compared to just 40 per cent of young people.

Previous generations have become used to hearing that rape myths and misconceptions continue to persist, but that’s precisely why this week’s grim trinity of headlines stings. “There tends to be a public assumption that things are generally always getting better,” says author and feminist campaigner Laura Bates. “Actually, views like these are incredibly widespread among young people.” 

Bates regularly works with schools, talking to pupils who often tell her that “rape is a compliment”, that “it’s not rape if she likes it” or, “it’s your boyfriend, you have to have sex with him”.

She adds: “Attitude surveys have to be taken seriously because they are a real red flag that we’re going backwards – we’re seeing much more extreme and concerning misogynistic attitudes among the youngest generations than we are among the oldest. We have to face up to that and ask, why is that happening?”

Gen Z has never been neatly contained. Growing up as the first digital natives in the chokehold of crisis – climate, Covid, cost of living – has seen them praised for their social awareness, but disenfranchised and forgotten by politics. Their extremely online nature has given them unprecedented access to the world and other people – but, of course, that’s a double-edged sword.

“The internet has made everyone’s voices louder, but that means the most misogynistic people in the world are heard more too,” says Niya Clement-Hickson, a 26-year-old marketing designer from London. He says his generation has been “kind of ruined” by social media.

“You’d be surprised at just how many people around my age will argue that Andrew Tate is not as bad as he seems.”

When I spend an hour talking to 16-year-old Tate fan Manus from Ohio on TikTok, he says exactly that. He’s relatively timid and seems unsure of what he thinks at times, but came across Tate aged 12, being drawn to his motivational speeches, humour, and attitude towards making money. “[Tate] kinda showed me how people really are in reality,” he says. On Tate’s assertions that women are the property of men, he says those beliefs are simply from the Bible (though Manus himself is Muslim).

He maintains he’s never seen Tate speak violently about women, and when I send him leaked voicenote recordings of Tate saying that he enjoyed raping a woman, Manus is certain it’s fake “probably to make him look bad”. I ask for his views on feminism and he responds that feminists now want “superiority” and “more rights”. What rights exactly? “More rights in general,” he says, vaguely.

This opinion is not a rarity – there’s a pervasive idea circling comments sections and pub corners that the pendulum has “swung too far”. “Some of us warned that when you continue to suppress their identity by telling young boys that they are inherently toxic, they’ll start acting irrational,” one comment under an Andrew Tate post this week read. But it’s not just boys who hold this idea. Early last year, a survey from Ipsos UK and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London echoed this and some of Eloise’s views that feminism has gone too far. They found that 52 per cent of Gen Z and 53 per cent of millennials believe that we’re now discriminating against men. Less than half of Gen Z respondents said they defined themselves as a feminist.

Was it coincidence then, to see that shortly after the research was published in March 2023, the year of the girl was in full swing? A persistently pink summer was punctuated with girl dinners, #tradwives – modern women who believe in traditional gender roles – and stay-at-home girlfriends sharing their daily rituals on news feeds. New York magazine’s The Cut declared it “Woman in Retrograde” as the year came to a close; a cluster of reactionary elements to a significant demise of mainstream feminism.

This shift back to traditional behaviours is also present in younger men, says Niya. “A lot of guys feel that their role is all about providing money, being a protector. But they feel they deserve to get something out of the interaction. They just can’t deal with being told no.”

In terms of consent, does he hear attitudes that put women in danger? “Absolutely,” he replies. Niya didn’t learn about consent in school – “I don’t think it was ever talked about beyond ‘don’t have sex until you’re old enough’” – and thinks this is quite common for men of his age. For Maya, who’s 24 and neurodivergent, the line of consent is difficult to pinpoint and somewhat shaped by social media. There’s a “disconnect” from what she really wants – and is able to articulate – in the moment.

“I think that we do have less and less sex and more and more porn,” Niya adds. “And I think that once porn is your main and in some cases, only engagement with sex and women, then that is going to completely screw up how you see sex.”

Do all roads lead to porn? Probably. Clare McGlynn, who is a professor of law with particular expertise in sexual violence and online abuse, says: “We know that algorithms promote more extreme content, more hate – and many, many younger people, men and women, are getting this. Millions of people, as we speak, are watching mainstream online pornography that is racist, sexist, misogynist and violent in its content. Of course, it’s shaping attitudes and lives.”

“There’s certainly a pressure on young boys and men, for example, to be taking and sharing nudes – they’re part of a culture that is encouraging them to,” McGlynn explains. During a study, she looked at what material was presented on the homepage of popular sites – she found landing pages which were filled with sexually violent material. “So it’s also not them even actively choosing that material; we’re part of a culture that is grooming young men, teaching them expectations around sex – and asking them to accept and normalise it.”

What appears clear from the survey conducted by the CPS is a dangerous lack of understanding of what constitutes a crime. “I do lectures on criminal law and I’ve had students come up to me afterwards and say that they didn’t know they had been sexually assaulted or raped,” McGlynn adds.

Laura Bates says that we’re in the midst of a “crisis of sexual violence among young people”. 

“Deeply misogynistic misinformation is being spread to young people online at a rate that most people just have absolutely no idea about,” she says. “And there is a massive knock-on effect.

“Some will look at these surveys and go, well, what does attitude matter? But you have to draw a connection between these really worrying attitudes about rape and the fact that nearly 80 per cent of young people told Ofsted inspectors recently that sexual assault is normal and common in their friendship groups.”

So what can be done? More responsibility and accountability from social media companies, says Bates. Tate’s content – some of which reportedly shows him attempting to beat a woman with a belt; she later hides behind a locked door – has been viewed more than 11 billion times on TikTok, she says, adding: “That’s more than the population of the planet.” Last year, advocacy group HOPE found that more 16-17-year-old boys had watched Tate’s content than had heard of Rishi Sunak. “I think it’s really important that the government supports high quality, age-appropriate sex and relationships education,” she adds. 

Actively listening to and engaging with boys – as seen in initiatives like the state of New York’s Starting the Conversation campaign – is also important. Boys must have a safe and judgement-free environment to express themselves: the more their experiences of rape culture are internalised, the more difficult they are to see.

The Online Safety Bill, which was enacted in October last year, she says, was a missed opportunity for change. While it asks for more transparency on social media platforms and imposes sanctions for those not following the act, along with criminalising cyberflashing and sending unsolicited nude images, “it went 250 pages without mentioning women and girls once, until campaigners changed that”, Bates says.

“It’s so much more effective to focus on prevention of radicalisation than trying to unpick it once it’s happened,” she says. “Young people really are prepared to listen and prepared to change their minds, it’s just a shame this isn’t happening in every school.”

“It does make me worried about how safe the world is going to be,” says Eloise, who will begin her twenties in the summer. “What if people really start thinking that women are property again?” Then, she’s quiet again. “I really hope it can change.”

[scvcnmore]

†Hidden Washington Event 18 Plot/Starter Call!†

¡Hola mi gente!

This is a quick starter call, with some info about what the clowns will be up to and some potential plots tossed in. Apologies in advance, this is my best attempt at 'keeping it simple'. There is currently no cap of requests per mun, and the cap on starters is something I'm flexible on if you really happen to want one form a specific loser lol If there happens to be something that isn't explicitly listed here, but you feel any of my muses would be able to fit for a plot you've got in mind for yours, by all means feel free to let me know! My DMs here and on discord are always open <3

Olivia Benson † She/Her † Law and Order: SVU † 35 † Unaware † 3/3:

Aware of a change to the city

As if the coming to terms with the fact that your entire life, as you remember it, may all be lie wasn't hard enough on its own, let's add sudden change in venue to the existential crisis. Ever the consummate professional, though, Liv has been quick to pivot and shift her focus to adapting to the current environment, making sure she's still more than capable of carrying out her duties, and doing her best to ensure that friends and family -both 'believed' to be true and those recently re-discovered- are and remain safe

Sheriff

Potential plots/connections: fellow lawmen, fellow folks aware of the sudden change, faux-life friends and family (I know that one's not really even specific, but it could be something interesting to play with in the new setting)

Eisa Rigel † She/Her † Star Wars(OC) † 34 † Unaware † 2/3:

Unaware of a change to the city

As far as Eisa is concerned, this is the Queendom that's been a part of her entire life. An orphan, she once used her 'abilities' to help out an ailing knight, and in return he took her in as a page and his personal squire. Her training held the added burden of also ensuring the same abilities that earned her a home, stayed secret from any other soul. The 'flip' on her personality now being the more emotionally detached one of her and her twin from being unaware has translated over

Knight

Potential plots/connections: fellow knights, a squire nearing their own knighthood, another force user or anyone with powers in general they share their secret with

Viktor Hargreeves † He/HIm † The Umbrella Academy † 30 † Unaware † 5/3:

Unaware of a change to the city

He's been able to remain just a lil guy, running a place where people come to have a good time, and still depending on borderline-toxic positivity to keep whatever curse he's been born with in check. If he can keep his own powers hidden, he can continue to use the tavern as a front, while providing a safe-haven for other powered individuals that might be seeking help

Tavern Keeper

Potential plots/connections: regular patrons of the tavern, merchants he has business with, powered people in his inner circle that help with the tavern's 'underground'

Helena Kyle † She/Her † Birds of Prey '02/DC Comics † 28 † Aware † 3/3:

Aware of a change to the city

Currently really wishing she could be ignorant to any other life, because knowing there's an alternative just peeves her off even more that she's stuck in this one right now. She's apparently inherited the title of Marquise after the passing of both parents, and while Hel's found it easier to just play the part during the day, at night she's taken to slipping past her small guard and taking back to the streets to play the outlaw. It's a bit harder to keep the ruse of prim and proper Marquise while not getting caught as the true face behind the masked face on a few wanted posters

Marquise/Secret Outlaw

Potential plots/connections: other nobility they'd know by virtue of station, friends -noble or not- that are a bit more aware of their actual disdain for their position, someone they'd have helped while behind the outlaw mask and then have to also interact with as Marquise while trying to keep their secret

Caden James † She/Her † Charmed '98(OC) † 27 † Aware † 3/3:

Aware of a change to the city

At this stage in the game, Caden has come to expect just about anything, but a real-life ren faire with equally real, era-appropriate consequences for being found out as having 'abilities' was not on her bingo-card. If she can manage to keep her powers under control just long enough to ride this one out, that's all she's aiming for

Brawler

Potential plots/connections: someone she has to convince not to out her as a 'witch', arch-rival from her turn as a brawler

Rotta Tiure † He/Him † Star Wars † 26 † Unaware † 3/3:

Aware of a change to the city

If he was already suspicious of the city before, this is definitely cementing his theory that there's far more to this place than meets the eye. His position as a cleric gives him ready access to the material he needs to keep notes on anything and everything that he deems of note, and also gives him a slight in to speak with people who might have more information

Cleric

Potential plots/connections: fellow peeps that are aware there was a change that they can bounce ideas off of or can attempt to talk him down from reaching full-blown 'conspiracy theorist' status, open to a change in memory status

Alice Hart † They/Them † Fear Street Franchise † 26 † Aware † 1/3:

Unaware of a change to the city

As far as they're aware, this is the version of D.C. they arrived to. They found themselves relying on the knowledge left behind by their old habits, and taking up a spot as an assistant at an apothecary shop. They've developed quite a knack for the compounding aspect of it all

Apothecary's assistant

Potential plots/connections: clients that come to her directly as opposed to the shop, people that she works with to help out those that can't afford the shop's services or any other kind of medical care

Vi Zaun † She/They † Arcane † 24 † Unaware † 2/3:

Unaware of a change to the city

I'm committing to the bit, and this one will continue to be clueless to anything even remotely out of the norm. This has been their entire life, growing up with their lovely sister, and now being on the cusp of their own knighthood

Squire

Potential plots/connections: a knight they serve as squire for, fellow unaware peeps that want a childhood idiot friend

Rachel Summers † She/They † X-Men/Marvel Comics † 23 † Unaware † 5/3:

Unaware of a change to the city

They've been living in the same Queendom since ever, as far as she's aware. Ray signed up to train for and join the Royal Guard at the first opportunity she had, feeling the training would help her keep a better handle on her powers, the position would be beneficial to keeping herself closer to and in-the-know of anything coming from on-high that will affect fellow 'cursed' folks, and hopes that in demonstrating a high-level of loyalty to the Crown and the royal family will help mitigate if she's outed, especially if she's using them to protect the Queendom

Royal Guardsman

Potential plots/connections: fellow royal guardsmen, if anyone wants an 'assigned' guard let me know, their mentor in the guard, 'childhood' friends

[seldarinesorcerer]

Ipcha Mistabra

In the Talmud, in Tractate Bava Metzia, Abaye and R. Pappa, two 4th century Babylonian rabbis, got into an argument. And like many arguments in the Talmud, what they disagreed about was which of two earlier authorities held differing opinions on a matter of Jewish law. You could see it either one of two ways – say you have an argument with your brother, for example, about a disagreement that went on years ago between your great aunt and your great uncle. You say it was your great-uncle that loved the Red Sox and your great-aunt who loved the Yankees, but your brother says it was the other way around (she loved the Red Sox) – and then he throws in the fact that Ted Williams was a better baseball player than Joe DiMaggio, now you have a full-blown rabbinic kerfuffle.

Getting back to the case of Abaye and R. Pappa, they were attempting to establish the basis for determining a fair market price for olive oil, which was a precious commodity in the ancient near east. It turns out that olive oil was sold filtered, no sediments were supposed to be in it; and the authorities carefully watched the seller’s and the purchaser’s assumptions about how much of this excess material got through the process anyway, got mixed in, and they’d establish the price based on their divergent assumptions. 

So after Abaye lays out his reasoning, lines up which side took which role in the argument, R. Pappa turns around and says “You’ve got it totally backwards - how they argued it out,” and he offers an 180-degree differing explanation about who (more than a century earlier) took which position and what was motivating them.

"Ipcha Mistabra" – the Talmud says. It’s Aramaic for “Things can be understood the other way around.” It’s the Talmud’s way of saying, hey, you might think that, here, this is the logic behind a certain dispute, but guess what! I’m going to illustrate an opposing, maybe counterintuitive, way of looking at the disagreement. You can see it from a different angle entirely.

Ipcha Mistabra

An editorial writer in Haaretz on August 1st this past summer (Haaretz being a totally secular newspaper) used the term to make his point. He suggested that in political circles we should all be asking what may be counterintuitive, even shocking – about why Netanyahu would assassinate the political leader of Hamas in Tehran, if the guy was a key player in negotiating a diplomatic solution to the hostage crisis and ending the war? (Keep in mind this was before the assassination of Nasrallah and the Hezbollah decapitations in Beirut!) The guy who got killed, Ismail Haniyeh, was a bad guy, for sure, but do you assassinate one of their chief negotiators? At the time, most commentators just drew the conclusion that Israel may have overshot its goals, made a tactical blunder. But the same writer went against the grain, by suggesting that Netanyahu intended it, he did it deliberately – he “outsourced” a tenet of Israeli escalation domination strategy to Iran – by calling its bluff – letting Iran figure out at what level – it would decide to retaliate. The reasoning for this, he continued, is that the Israeli prime minister actually wanted Iran to bear the risk of confronting the US. Force Iran to think about a larger war it can’t control by upping the stakes for itself and its proxies and sucking America into it. And, at the same time, the Israeli prime minister would divert attention away from the war in Gaza!

But I’m not bringing this up to get into politics, we have enough of that. See, what I’m curious about is this way of thinking – going with what’s counterintuitive that’s happening right in front of us. We’re often so sure about how things have reached the stage they’re in right now – but just suppose we pause to ask an alternative set of questions? In the dazzling novel Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, a young woman from East Berlin falls in love with an older married man from the “other” side, only a year or so before Germany is reunited. As the wall falls, her reality and her fantasies disintegrate, better yet, are subsumed within a new mental mapping – and all that remains of a long, illicit affair is a ritual they go on performing whenever they part company (in Erpenbeck’s words): “When they leave a place together, he holds out her coat, she slips into it front-wise, briefly holds him in her arms, then slips it off and puts it on the right way.”

Ipcha Mistabra

I can remember, when I was a child, I used to walk down this (what I thought was a) long hall and peer behind the thin glass of a mirror on the wall, to see if there was something there looking through it – back at me.

Getting to the Truth is more than simply arguing the other side of a debate (that’s hard enough, standing in someone else’s shoes); sometimes it’s looking at the obverse of what we think we know – for everything we commonly think of as true and solid – there may be, in fact, something more unsettling to it. 

At the end of July, it was reported that William Calley died in a hospice in California. For those of you born long after the Vietnam War, Mr. Calley was synonymous with the My Lai massacre, the mass murder of a village filled with defenseless women and children, although in so many ways his conviction told us something more. It stood in for a senseless war fought by Americans for a regime that was terrible and corrupt – a war that our society eventually came to realize it should have no part in. It unmasked a larger issue: that something in our own society was rotten, had failed, and we needed to look ourselves in the mirror. Coincidentally, the same day that it was reported that Calley died, it was also reported that a Palestinian prisoner was abused in the crudest way by Israeli soldiers, and were it not for a whistle-blower, there was a likelihood that others would get away with this abhorrent behavior, and, in fact, probably already have. And yet, there were loud protests in Israel by people who think it’s somehow unfair to accuse prison guards who, after all, are put in charge of the worst of the worst.

Ipcha Mistabra

What do these moments mean for our hopes and illusions in a larger sense? How do they speak to our commitments to one another, to making a better world? Can we, in these Days of Awesome, marshal the fortitude to peer behind the hell-scape of the kibbutzim that were devastated on October 7th, the charred remains of homes, the wreckage of a dance festival? Is there a way to see behind the mirror – or maybe it’s for this very reason that we cover the mirrors in a house of mourning? And then there’s the cruelty to the hostages that keeps us looking away.

Ipcha Mistabra

Have you read Percival Everett’s great literary invention, called James? It takes Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and turns it around, so that we explore, we come to know what’s behind the opaque figure of a slave, however benevolent, the character of Jim is in the original famous book. In Everett’s telling, that same Black human being, invested with dignity and chutzpah is brazen enough to steal… a pencil! He’s hidden it away deep in his pocket, because if he’s caught with it, he’s liable to get hung. The pencil is more valuable than anything else – and in Everett’s words, he writes “himself into being.” In fact, James’ supple use of language is his character’s animating force – he’s not just intelligent, but he’s a human being with his own desires and imagination. What you get is there’s another side to Twain’s story. And, I’d also go so far as to say that Huckleberry Finn in each telling of the story is a child who’s a tabula rasa – he’s malleable, sympathetic, not yet formed, our humanity without the artifice of race, that reflects what could someday be true of all of us. But in the meantime, it’s James who comes into focus in this new telling. 

Ipcha Mistabra

The same pattern of obfuscation-and-recovery holds true for Viet Than Nguyen, the writer of the wonderful novel from a few years ago, The Sympathizer, but who also wrote a scholarly nonfiction work entitled Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and The Memory of War. He calls attention to the design of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, its shiny black granite surface, as bringing not just the names of those lost American soldiers front and center, but, we, the viewers, see ourselves observing it. The wall provokes anxiety – there’s a mirror effect – and suddenly we are implicated; and it subverts the patriotic American framing of this war being our tragedy. We’re looking away! We’re omitting the memories of millions of dead Vietnamese, after all. He calls it a “disremembering”.

I was talking to a rabbi in my community about this, and he told me that he and his wife had taken a trip to Vietnam this past spring. He said that he was hoping naively, as a Jew living at a time when our own prospects for tomorrow are in question, to understand how and to what extent the Vietnamese have come to terms with the past and embraced a different future... But in wishing to see things all “repaired”, he very well could have been disremembering too. I wonder how the Vietnamese will write “themselves into being” again? 

So we know right now we’re standing at a crossroads in modern Jewish history. It’ll take decades to sort it all out: what we in the Jewish world should want, whom it is we think we serve, whom we fail to serve, and the memories that cloud our vision. There’s that mirror we hold up, as does Sarah in Genesis 21, with the opening line:

ויהוה פקד את־שרה כאשר אמר ויעש יהוה לשרה כאשר דבר 

It’s translated “G-d remembered Sarah just like God had said,” but it’s more than remembering – the verb פקד means “G-d performed an accounting, (as if there was something yet owed).” And the commentator Malbim explains that although G-d had predicted the birth of a child in Sarah’s old age, to her it was – until this point – lacking in credibility, unresolved – what with her passive husband yielding to her jealousy, nonchalantly leaving Hagar with her toddler out in the cold, the family in turmoil. After all, Sarah famously laughs out loud, she finds G-d’s prediction funny, even a bit disturbing. In this troubled Torah narrative, amidst her doubts, the future hangs in the balance.

Nachman of Bratslav teaches that when we are despairing, at odds with the people around us, we can become like a blank slate, a book that’s empty – Every one of us can be like “a human being,” שאין לו ספר. There’s nothing in the book – it’s vanished! An empty Torah scroll! So, he says, we begin, this is where we find ourselves, at this place of no place, but we still have this blazing desire in our hearts, a yearning to learn! Maybe we forgot something? 

And how does Nachman set it up? He says it’s like this: that somewhere out there in the world there are two tzaddikim, two righteous people, they’re conversing with one another, however – the only thing is – they’re walking along on two separate paths, this one tzaddik over here on this side of the world and this other tzaddik miles and miles away. Maybe it’s a bit like being online? But he goes on to say that this one tzaddik over here poses a question and the other one over there offers an answer, a way to figure it out. A question and an answer, but again – it’s just speech, our voices, often cacophonous, nothing more than that – but they can add up. It’s the vibrations that unite, and they can produce the purest Sound, the Voice of G-d. And it’s this Voice that ultimately connects one to the other, Nachman says – it’s this Voice that then gets written down as a ספר זכרון, we call the Book of Remembrance. We remember!

We may have during a long, hard year forgotten something about ourselves, what we really stand up for. It’s possible. We may have, on the arduous path – amidst our arguments, our public statements, our gatherings in solidarity or in protest – lost track of who we are, where we can vibrate with the Truth – where the Truth of humanity is. James Baldwin said it: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” 

Ipcha Mistabra

Things can sometimes be explained the other way around, in a way we have as yet not fathomed, or refuse to see. We may never have expected it, we may never have imagined an entirely different future, or maybe we disremembered it all along! – but somehow, in seeing things differently, it might yet help us to get at the Truth. 

On this Yom Kippur, may we loosen the shackles of ideology, slacken just a little bit the cords of fear and recrimination and sanctimony, and help our adversaries, our neighbors, even the ones we love who’ve hidden their faces from us at times – to write ourselves “into being”. May we all be written and sealed for a year that gives us new life and hope and, G-d-willing, a focus on peace.

Amen.

[lemonhemlock]

"Rhaenyra didn't have a choice; she was married to a homosexual man and they had to produce heirs somehow!"

Let's see what Rhaenyra could have done differently to secure her claim, ranging from the most ridiculous to the most advantageous.

Rhaenyra / Aegon

Otto puts this proposal forward to Viserys in order to combine the two rival claims.

I don't blame Viserys for refusing; the age difference is too big and I doubt 17(?)-year-old Rhaenyra would appreciate being betrothed to a toddler. It would also place her towards the twilight of her reproductive years by the time Aegon could be reasonably expected to consummate the marriage.

It's a good idea on paper, but just too damn weird, I'll grant you.

Rhaenyra / Jason Lannister

Rhaenyra acts so offended that Jason Lannister has the audacity to propose to her, but why wouldn't he?

He is conceited and aloof, but he's the lord of a very powerful, very rich house that has been sidelined by the Targaryens ever since the Conquest. They're just itching to receive some attention. He has the means to build her a Dragonpit at Casterly Rock if she so wishes, he has the resources to back up her claim financially and militarily and he would definitely press for her to become Queen.

Marrying Jason would also rob the Hightowers of a powerful ally and leave them more isolated.

Betrothal tour

If it's marrying for love Rhaenyra wanted, she had a reasonable chance for that, too!

There's no reason she couldn't have married Harwin, if she wanted. They were both at court at the time. She could have easily made a list of eligible young men starting with the Red Keep and the Crownlands and assessed each possibility. It's not terribly romantic, but imagine having this level of freedom.

Viserys was super permissive with her and told her to pick whomever she wanted (I presume he'd have to be of noble birth, at least).

He even organizes a royal progress for her with this very purpose in mind. This was a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity that no other woman or man in Westeros has ever had. To journey through Westeros, be feted by the lords, go to feasts and balls organized in your name... ! No wonder Alicent considers Rhaenyra ungrateful.

All she does is huff and complain and insult her suitors. She is seen exasperating Boremund Baratheon with her antics.

Viserys only forces her to marry Laenor Velaryon after the brothel debacle with Daemon. It's suggested that he doesn't believe her to be a maid any longer by the fact that he sends her moon tea. In his mind, he has to marry her as soon as possible to prevent her from making any more rash decisions.

The match is not a bad one, politically-speaking. The Velaryons are a another rich, powerful house that could provide Rhaenyra with a fleet, money and even dragons to secure her claim.

Rhaenyra & Laenor

Jace and Aemond are about the same age. Realistically speaking, how hard did Rhaenyra and Laenor actually try to conceive?

I realise that they both suffer from the trappings of patriarchy here, but they seemed to get along fine and could have had a reasonable partnership. With the risk of sounding crass, Margaery proved more inventive than them.

In any case, Rhaenyra and Laenor didn't need to have children. Viserys already provided enough heirs. Rhaenyra could have just named Aegon as her heir and be done with it, instead of creating a future succession crisis by having bastard children.

Corlys wouldn't have been pleased by this and could have threatened not to support her, since he seems really pressed to become grandfather to a king, but by compromising on Green heirs to succeed her, the question of a succession war becomes less likely. And what's Corlys going to do, not support his son, the royal consort?

Laenor doesn't need heirs either. Laena exists and has her own children. They can get Driftmark after him. If Corlys is really hung up on male primogeniture, he can take it up with his wife, daughter and son-in-law.

Absolutely do not marry Daemon and make people think you killed your husband.

Of course, it would also help tremendously if Rhaenyra didn't alienate the green faction by completely ignoring her siblings and acting hostile towards them whenever the occasion permitted. If she maintains a good relationship with Alicent, she is less likely to collaborate with Otto.

Of course, Viserys messed up his own succession when he took a second wife from a prominent family and fathered younger sons that could challenge his eldest daughter's claim. But there are also actions that Rhaenyra could have taken on her own to secure her own position and even prevent future wars. She wasn't a powerless, hapless victim in all of this.

[frodothefair]

Eothiriel have twins?!

I kind of want Éomer and Lothíriel in the TGH verse to eventually have twins. This probably won't end up in the actual fic, so I suppose it's post-canon, but hear me out.

Per canon, Éomer has "at least one son," Elfwine, who is the heir to the throne, but this does not preclude him having other children, including one born a mere 20 minutes later!

Having identical twin sons can open the door to a world of dramatic possibilities, including:

--slender and fragile Lothíriel carrying a twin pregnancy is all sorts of whump-compatible, and leads to an Éomer mad with worry. Twin pregnancies are often more miserable than singleton pregnancies, and also more high-risk.

--Lothíriel declaring that she bore an heir and a spare at once, which is more than anyone asked of her, and she's never doing this again.

--poor Hafrith, the lady in waiting who was forced to give up an illegitimate child and decided never to marry (there will be a whole subplot about this) will be involved in childcare by necessity, and will become a loving aunt.

--the absolute chaos that will be wreaked in a royal court when there are two almost identical humans, but one of them is the heir to the throne, while the other is not. Everyone is always horrified of mixing them up, because this can cause a crisis of succession. The twins take full advantage of this once they become old enough, you can be sure of that.

--competitive wrangling between the twins, the fact that they're incredibly close, but also worlds apart because of a quirk of timing and law

What do you think?

@konartiste @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras @emmanuellececchi @celeluwhenfics

[thought-42]

Flipped the switch and set the ship across the sea

Star Wars, 2900 words, Luke Skywalker, Ezra Bridger

In which Luke talks to a stranger on the internet and Ezra has an existential crisis.

Notes: Takes place before this, and after the as-yet-unpublished au wherein Thrawn and Ezra head back to the Ascendancy instead of languishing in side-character purgatory for 13 years, and Ezra and Che’ri start training pseudo-Jedi in a program supervised by Thrawn and Wutroow and intensely side eyed by everyone else (including Eli and Ar’alani).

*

The message arrives on Luke’s extremely secure, ‘first member of the new Jedi order, twin brother to a sitting senator and princess, hero of the Rebellion’ datapad at that exact hour of the morning between too late to fall back asleep and too early to get up. The sender is just blanked out, which he’s never seen before. It’s probably an advertisement, at best. More likely a slicer trying to get access to his personal information. He may have grown up on a farm but he also grew up on one of the biggest hubs for criminal activity and slavery and smuggling, he knows better than to let anything onto his datapad that he doesn’t trust implicitly.

He should delete it. This shouldn’t even be a question.

He opens it, obviously.

The message is short, and unsigned.

‘so i hear youre rebuilding the jedi.’

He shouldn’t respond. It’s not even technically a question, and the lack of any context is concerning. It could very easily be interpreted as a threat. It certainly wouldn’t be the first one he’s received.

He answers it, obviously.

‘I sure am. May I ask why you’re interested?’

*

It takes a good three months of cautious messages before Laezra –human in the Chiss Ascendancy, which is apparently an entire place and society that exists; Force sensitive; charming; obsessed with sending pictures of his tooka– agrees to an audio call. Luke has never heard anyone speak Cheunh, but he’s still expecting an accent. He’s expecting someone who sounds way older than him. He’s wrong on both accounts.

“I feel like I should say it’s nice to meet you, but that’s kind of dumb,” Laezra says, static crackling behind his words.

Luke laughs, hopes it doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels. “Hi! Yeah. I’m Luke Skywalker.”

“I know,” Laezra says, probably not intending to come across ominous. “Actually, I wanted to ask: any relation–”

“Yes,” says Luke, trying to project ‘I don’t wanna talk about it’– but not in a mean way. Apparently even the Chiss know about his dad. Cool. Good. Great.

“Huh. Neat.”

“...that’s a word,” Luke says.

*

“So maybe a weird question,” Luke says, as soon as Laezra answers the call.

“Good start, good start. Do I need more caffeine for this? I might be actively bleeding, incidentally, but it’s fine.”

Luke feels confident enough in his understanding of Laezra as a person that this isn’t actually concerning. “You’ve mentioned that you’re human. And General Sindulla– she’s my brother-in-law’s arch-nemesis– used to talk about someone she knew a long time ago.”

“Oh boy,” says Laezra.

“Is that a yes?”

“It is if you promise not to mention my existence to anybody.”

“She misses you a lot,” he says, because it seems kinder than ‘she’s mourned you and your assumed death is, as far as I can tell, one of her biggest regrets’.

“Yeeeaaaaahhhh,” Laezra’s tone is remarkably similar to Ben’s when he doesn’t want to admit to stealing Luke’s fancy chocolates. “I’m going to reach out to her and everybody. I just… there’s some uncomfortable political stuff. And a lot of emotional avoidance. Acknowledging it is the first step, right?”

“Even if I could let her know you’re alive,” Luke says tentatively.

“Please don’t.”

Luke presses his lips together. “That’s crewel,” he says, finally, and doesn’t let himself feel guilty about it.

“It’s complicated,” Laezra retorts.

“Fear leads to the Dark Side,” Luke says. “She’s not going to be angry at you for surviving.”

“But she might be angry with me for… everything else.”

“And? You’re so far away. It isn’t like she could say anything to you about it. The only difference is she’d know you’re ok. Alive.”

Laezra changes the subject, clumsy and pointed, but later that afternoon Luke gets a message that reads ‘shell expect that im coming home but i dont know where home is and thats terrifying’.

Probably Luke should’ve realised that was the issue. Logically, if Laezra is the missing Jedi he’s heard about, it would stand to reason that his friends would want him to come back. If he was part of the Rebellion, he should be part of the new Republic– at least that seems to be the default assumption. But Laezra is already quite definitively part of something else.

It makes sense if you lay it out like that. Luke just would never have thought to do so. Laezra is the voice on the other end of his communicator, the void where he can send all of his middle-of-the-night existential crisis messages that are far too embarrassing to tell the people in his real life. His Chiss mirror– same birthday, same age, same lack of a living master, same jedi aspirations. His written Basic sucks because Luke is the only person he uses it with. He can never tell Luke where he is, or details about most of the people in his stories. He references drinks and plants and models of ships and traditions Luke’s never heard of.

Luke would love to meet him in person, would love to be able to show him the Jedi texts he’s found, or have him demonstrate a lightsaber form for his students, or take him flying in his X-Wing. But he thinks of doing all of these things like you would with a guest, like when he first met Biggs at school and invited him back to the farm. Like Leia should have been able to show him around the palace on Alderaan. A place where you are always welcome but that is not your home.

So yeah, he can see why Laezra might feel a little conflicted about talking to General Sindulla. It still doesn’t mean he shouldn’t do it, though. Luke tries to imagine letting Aunt Beru think he was dead for years on end and simply can’t.

He’s pretty sure General Sindulla has a kid. Ok, that’s a lie, he knows all about Jacen Sindulla through not at all creepy channels, and he totally respects his mom’s choice not to send him off to Luke’s scrabbled together attempt at a Jedi school. Not like Force sensitive younglings are pretty kriffing thin on the ground or anything. Not like Jacen’s dad wasn’t a jedi until the very end. It’s totally fine.

Anyway, Jacen would basically be Laezra’s brother, or cousin, and Luke can say from experience that not knowing about family members is really unpleasant for anybody involved.

***

Laezra lands at the public spaceport on Naporar so late it’s almost early. He’s coming back from his bi-monthly trip to poke things with his brain and the Force on Sposia. He takes public transit the six blocks to his apartment because the snow is coming down in giant wet flakes and when he steps outside the wind hits him so hard it knocks his breath out of his lungs.

His apartment is dark and cold – he left the kitten with his neighbour, and Za’lea is with Sacher and Thrawn on the Stringhawk hopefully not learning to commit war crimes. Personally he thinks she’s old enough to stay on her own, but he’s been reliably informed that his standards for childhood independence are deeply flawed. Even the timer on the UV light he set up over his sad little herb boxes has failed (again), so the only light in the entire apartment when he steps in the door is the notification light on his questis informing him of all his missed messages.

He dumps his boots and jacket and backpack all on the front mat to dry off, and takes his questis with him into the fresher so he can start running a hot bath while he checks his messages. There’s three from Tro’owmis, who still hates that he’s not allowed to take his questis with him when he goes to sposia and sends him urgent questions or orders every time he’s out of communication just to make a point.

The rest of the messages are from Luke. They’ve got attachments, and he makes the mistake of assuming they’re going to be pictures of whatever jedi artefact he’s dug up this week. So he’s utterly unprepared to see a kid with Hera’s bone structure and Kanan’s eyes staring up at him from the screen.

He does not drop the questis into the bathtub, because he’s a Jedi Navigator in the CEDF and a full-ass adult who doesn’t over-react to objectively mundane pictures. He does sit down right there on the floor very fast, and then gets up to go check the cupboards for alcohol he doesn’t have.

That’s a real kid. A whole person. Hera and Kanan’s person. He looks at least twice the age of luke’s nephew. Maybe a couple years younger than Za’lea. In one of the pictures he’s standing beside Chopper, smirking that little self-satisfied grin Kanan always got when he was pleased with himself. In another he’s all dressed up in a little suit, standing with a group of other kids in a formal looking office, face very serious. In another he’s sitting at the controls of a ship, holding a popsicle between his teeth as he pilots. It takes Laezra’s breath away more effectively than any blizzard.

‘His name is Jacen,’ Luke’s accompanying message reads.

Laezra’s got a pretty good idea what Luke’s intentions are, sending him these pictures. Getting in contact with any of the Spectors –or anyone from the Rebellion, really– had been basically impossible for the first four years post-Purrgil, two years just him and Thrawn alone on the world where they’d crashed with barely any functioning technology, then another two years working their way back to the Ascendancy. By the time he’d been somewhere secure enough to send a message, none of his codes worked anymore, and anything but the most basic of text communication was pretty much impossible to send over such distances. He’d have had better luck hiring somebody to take a hand written letter. And the longer he went without being able to reach out, the more terrifying the prospect felt. Word of the Empire’s fall had made it to the Ascendancy a couple of years after he and Thrawn had, and he’d actively tried to reach out again, but his messages bounced back, undelivered, or simply vanished into the void of the Chaos or some shaky holo-relay in the middle of nowhere. It hadn’t been until his Patriarch had contacted him personally to tell him about the rumours of a fledgling Jedi order –and provided the technology to contact the guy supposedly in charge of it– that the very real option to contact his family had been back on the table.

Ten years is a long time.

He has this idea, this nightmare scenario, where he calls Hera or Sabin and they don’t recognize him. He was a kid the last time he saw them. Some days he feels like a completely different person. Worse is the idea that he’ll contact them and they won’t care. He knows that’s wrong. He does. He knows they will care, the same way he would in their place, the same way he does. But knowing doesn’t stop his brain from catastrophizing.

And then there’s what he told Luke. What if they want him to come back to lesser Space? What if he goes? What if he goes and it’s perfect and he realises the life he’s built over the past decade has been so much less than he could have had? What if he goes and he hates it and it’s an obligation and he winds up missing his life and resenting all the people who got him through his midaged years in one piece? What if he goes and they treat him like that same midager, frozen in amber in their minds? What if nobody takes him seriously because he knows the wrong languages and the wrong tax system and the wrong history and pop culture and military structure? Or maybe worse, what if they treat him like a stranger? What if he looks at them and sees strangers where he should see family?

His questis buzzes, and he’s so primed for it to be Luke that he answers without even looking.

“Your student says you’re panicking,” Sacher announces from the screen. “Do I need to steal a shuttle and come rescue you from your own mind again? Or prison, I’ll also rescue you from prison.”

Laezra gasps out a startled laugh, leaning back against the edge of the full bathtub and exhaling roughly, even as he reaches out down the training bond, sending reassurance and apology at Za’lea.

“Literal existential crisis, nothing to worry about,” he says, all over-bright mania. “Also, one of us is likely to wind up in prison here and it’s not me.”

“Did the UAG find something upsetting?” she asks.

He presses his face into his hands. “You know I couldn’t tell you that even if they did. But no, it’s not anything like that.”

She’s quiet, waiting him out. He presses his knuckles into his eyes, breathes deep and steady until he feels less like he’s starting to float away.

“I’m imagining all the things that could go badly if I contacted Hera and sabin,” he says evenly.

She makes a soft noise of understanding. This isn’t the first time she’s talked him through anxiety about this particular subject, it’s just the first time where the possibility is so immediate and real.

“You know what I’m going to say,” she says. “Family and home are not the same things.”

She doesn’t remember her birth family, of course, and she’s never made any attempt to find them. But she’s already told him that even if she did find them it wouldn’t change who she is now. The analogy is about as subtle as a brick, but he feels like he always needs to hear it. He remembers telling Hera “nothing is more important than family”, the first time they’d all met her father. He and Kanan would have made terrible traditional Jedi. Lesser Space jedi. Frost, are he and Luke going to have to come up with a new name for Luke’s new Jedi to differentiate them from the Jedi Navigators?

Which means talking to Luke. Which means thinking about Jacen.

“I really do just need to call them, huh,” he says, slumping.

“If you were able to do so, hypothetically,” she says, pointedly, “yeah. You do.”

He nods. “Ok. Ok. I’m just gonna do it. I’m gonna call hypothetical Luke and get Hera’s hypothetical comm code and make a hypothetical call and hope it isn’t midnight wherever she is.”

She inclines her head. “Ok.” And then, “you know if you wanted to go back to visit, I’d go with you. I mean, we all would, but I don’t think they’d let us take the kids into Lesser Space, and Thrawn would definitely get murdered, and Tro’owmis would probably offend someone, but. I’d go with you, if you wanted.”

He opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He has genuinely never imagined any situation where he does not return alone, be it triumphant hero or lost child or lonely stranger. He was born an only child, but he lets himself remember sitting in the main cabin on the Ghost, squished beside Sabin at the table, and then for the first time he adds Sacher to his mental picture, sitting across from them, and then Jacen, constructs an image of him from the holopics and fits him right in there with the rest of them. It makes him lightheaded, the intensity of the wanting that strikes him.

“That,” he says finally, “would be amazing, actually.”

“Call her,” she says, and cuts the connection.

He keeps breathing nice and deep. He swipes the current call closed, and there’s already a new message from Luke, because even across galaxies now that they’re aware of each other it’s almost impossible not to constantly See each other to some extent. Kanan always said he was bright in The Force, and he imagines Luke must be even brighter.

He considers having his bath first, considers changing out of the clothes he’s been wearing for the past 30 hours and an inter-planetary hop, considers doing one more search for that whisky that Thelivan had bought him for his last starday.

He does none of these things.

Luke has made the comm code clickable, so he doesn’t even have the slow drama of typing it in. The call takes even longer to connect than it does when he calls Luke. He actually turns on the holo image, which he’s never done with Luke, and he can almost feel the signal from his questis struggling its way across the lightyears.

Part of him is hoping she doesn’t answer. He could leave a message. That’d probably be easier.

Naturally, he’s not that lucky.

“Who is this?” she says, as soon as the connection is established. The first thing that strikes him is that she sounds older. Or maybe he’s been remembering her voice wrong all these years.

“Hi, Hera,” he croaks out.

The noise she makes is somewhere between a gasp and a sob and a tiny scream, and it reaches right into his ribcage and punches him in the heart. “Ezra.”

She still recognizes him. She knows who he is.

It’s a good start.

[icespur]

There are not enough Mpreg Parent Akeshu fics

I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed.

it's not like there's zero. There are some, but not nearly enough or I'm not looking in the right tags.

There's especially HUGE missed potential that not enough people utilize.

I've seen wholesome Akiren as a parent. Seems everyone is in agreement he'd be the chillest, awesomest, father.

But what about Akechi?

Goro "I had a bad childhood, no father figure, Mom passed away when I was young leaving me to grow up in either Foster Homes or the closest living relatives the Social Worker could track down. Who took me in but didn't want me. so I grew up to mask my true nature by being polite on the outside and a celebrity to get some form of positive attention, and I tracked down my deadbeat father who I'm going to ruin the life and career of out of spite and vengeance, for me and my late Mother." Akechi.

The man has childhood baggage, who knows how many young children he's interacted with as an adult. So his experience would range from "limited" to "none existent"

If one of these boys wouldn't take to being a parent well immediately, it would be Akechi. Like, the man is having an external crisis, he's not okay.

"I am the LAST person that should be a father. Do I look like fatherly material to you? I can't even recall the last time I interacted or made eye contact with an infant. Maybe I never did! I can do research and read books, I'm good at researching, I'm going to read the books no matter what but that can only help so much. I know what not to do, from my childhood. I'm going to try my best to do the exact opposite of what Shido did, but no parent is perfect, I could still screw the kid up! Not to mention I'm still processing the fact that MY RIVAL HAS A FUCKING FULLY FUNCTIONING UTERUS.

I knocked up my Rival

I knocked up the man I once shot in the head

I knocked---holy hell what have I done?

I've never been interested in Women, so I never thought I'd have to worry about accidentally planting a little me inside someone. Do you realize how many women I have turned down?

So here I was, thinking I'd be safe. That obviously nothing would come from indulging in a night of passion with my frustrating, Idiotic sexy, alluring, Rival.

But once again, you are just full of surprises apparently in the internal organs sense too because you can carry children and now both of us are unironically FUCKED."

"I'm not going to force this on you, I just thought you deserved to know. If you don't want to we can--"

"Pfft, HAHAHAHA. You say that like it's an actual option. Do I need to remind you what my upbringing was like? I'm not repeating the same mistakes, I'm not leaving. Granted you are obviously in a better financial situation and have a proper support group unlike my Mother. But if I decide to leave now, or stay but run later down the line, what's stopping our child from living in a constant internal state of guilt and loneliness, which will eventually evolve into anger and spite and once they're of age to move out, make it their mission to hunt me down and enter a false work alliance so they can gain my trust enough to eventually betray and torture me. Or just flat out kill me. And You know what? I wouldn't blame them! I'd kill me too if I could. I can't let that happen, I refuse to put a child with my D.N.A. through what I went through. So we are moving in and getting married (oh my god, I have to move in and marry my Rival) Because that's what Japanese family laws all encourage. And I'm going to internally pray and wish that I don't somehow manage to fuck up an innocent being that belongs to us, even though I have no idea what I am doing. Did I mention I have zero experience with babies and children?"

Point is, parentGoro! Has so much potential and it should be a crime that there are so little fics exploring that.

[piouchas-basket]

Drawing compilation of my babiiies rambles under the cut!

Ruvyn is an elf/vampire hybrid. His mother is an elf from an aristocratic and rather conservative family, she is married to another noble elf but was in love with a vampire, Ruvyn's father. He was chased away by Ruvyn's grandmother when she learned of her daughter's pregnancy, and they hid his vampire side by passing him off as her father-in-law's son.

His grandmother feared that his bastardy would become known and reflect on the image of their family, she has always been very strict with him, which explains why he left the family home as soon as he could. Despite that, he still haven't fully overcome his trauma and struggle to refuse his grandmother's orders out of survival instinct.

Out of pure contradiction, he got into music and has done quite well. He spends most of his nights between concerts and parties, which allows him to excuse his rather nocturnal life cycle by nature.

He still keeps in touch with his mother, not understanding why she remains under the thumb of her grandmother and does not seek to join his father. However, his mother remains attached to her family and her husband and does not want to cause more problems. In addition, she and her husband had a son, Ruvyn's half-brother who is therefore considered his little brother.

The latter does not like Ruvyn, but the hybrid does not hold it against him, suspecting that it is a consequence of his education by his grandmother. In fact, he hopes that time will help him understand the reasons of his elder.

===

Werewolves are quite frowned upon in their world, cited as unstable, which is why Dagan is someone silent and relatively discreet despite his stature. He has always done his best to keep the jobs he had access to, often until his condition became a problem. Werewolves have two lupine forms, a partial and a complete one. They take their partial form every night of a full moon. It still allows them to speak but their behavior and appearance are closer to that of an animal. On the other hand, when they are exposed directly to the light of the full moon, they take a complete form that makes them almost entierly animal, and often causes them to cause damage because of the animal instinct taking over in a stressful environment.

It was because of a crisis of this kind that Dagan lost his last job, and came across Ruvyn whom he had helped earlier in the day. Ruvyn's family having forced him to take a bodyguard to preserve his origins, he decided to hire the werewolf to obey without giving them satisfaction.

The two get along more than one might think, and Dagan has actually become attached to his employer. Being very loyal by nature, he quickly worries about him, and is one of the few people with whom he dares to raise his voice to put him back in his place when they are not in public.

Normally, werewolves only transform at the full moon, but there are some moonstones that force them to transform when they are close enough to it.

Ruvyn had a collar developed that he, in very specific circumstances (ie, Dag' is not in a state to win a fight and risks dying) can use to make him reach his partial form He can choose at any time to open the collar so that it comes off and falls to the ground and Dagan takes human form again, it is for this control that the greatest accepted the creation of the collar Dagan does not like this solution at all but he recognizes that it has saved their lives several times already

In return, he also asked Ruvyn to bite him. This way, the latter has more power over him in terms of hypnosis, and can much more easily calm him down, mainly in the post-transformation state. This works a little when he is transformed, but much less because his attention is much harder to keep, especially in noisy/agitated environments.

[scope-dogg]

Biden’s approach to foreign policy is so so frustrating, because while I think he takes the right stance on most issues but his actions on those same issues are so wrong and half-assed.

Ends US presence in Afghanistan: the war there is unpopular, withdrawal is probably the right choice, however he does it in the most sudden and disorganised way possible, fails to predict the country’s more or less immediate fall to the Taliban and transformation into a nightmare of human rights abuses and humanitarian crisis.

Russia invades Ukraine: condemns invasion, imposes sanctions and sends aid. However sanctions are full of holes and ultimately don’t do enough to staunch Russian military procurement, aid is pretty much always in too small amounts wand forces Kyiv to beg for months for crucial systems like tanks, artillery, aircraft, air defense and long range precision weapons, when he eventually caves in and they arrive it’s always too late to make the difference they could have had. Constantly and seemingly eagerly broadcasts that he’s terrified by Russian nuclear blackmail which emboldens Putin to keep doubling down. Gets cucked by Republican sabotage. War drags out and keeps getting bloodier and bloodier with more and worse Russian atrocities when it could have long been over or never even started if he’d taken a stronger stance to begin with.

Venezuela starts saber rattling and threatening to invade Guyana: condemns, starts subtly broadcasting that US is considering intervention by organising small-scale exercise with Guyana. However fails to unequivocally state that US will definitely oppose Maduro, months later he starts saber rattling and trying his luck again. US has nothing to lose by putting its foot down and staying the Venezuelan aggression won’t be tolerated, relations with Venezuela are already poor and the country is too weak to threaten the US, but despite this the prospect of this becoming yet another flashpoint still lingers.

Gaza crisis: takes reasonable stance that Israel has the right to retaliate and rescue hostages following g 10/7 terror attack. When it becomes apparent that Israel is failing to comply with laws of war and is deliberately exacerbating dire humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, does actually criticise Netanyahu, but consistently undercuts himself with actual actions, such as leaping to Israel’s defense yesterday against Iranian retaliatory attack when it’s Israel that provoked it through a brazen embassy strike. This way, despite publicly criticising Israeli conduct, essentially rubber stamps the idea that Netanyahu can do what he wants no matter how outrageous and still count on Western support. Any actual criticism of Israel’s provocative conduct in the region and atrocious humanitarian record is constantly overshadowed by parroting “Israel has the right to defend itself!” as if that’s the only consideration that really matters in all this. As a result the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues and reflexive US support of Israel continues to be an albatross around the West’s neck.

I think the history books will attribute the current descent into global chaos to Biden’s weakness, and if the US does lose its status as the guarantor of and guardian of the global political order I think it will all end up being laid at his feet.

[horizon-verizon]

If we’re talking about the Iron Throne, then ALL male claimants must be exhausted before a woman can inherit the throne. So a king’s brother would inherit before a king’s daughter. When Aegon III’s sons Daeron I and Baelor I died childless, they were succeeded by their uncle, Aegon III’s brother, Viserys II, despite Aegon III having three daughters.

Aegon II’s stans are truly delusional, y’all really think Aemond would let Jaehaera be the heir ???

Viserys came back from a traumatic loss of most of his family from a succession crisis over male vs female and it had already been established by external parties outside of Viserys' control that made would precede women, which he decided, yes, to respond to be supporting as to not risk another succession crisis. Annoying, but kinda understandable. He was named heir/king bc there was no legitimate Targ male left at all as you say, there was no other option. Maegor killed Aenys' son Aegon to get the throne after Visenya helped him by getting him back to Westeros as soon as possible and gathering his forces/supporters. He attempted to "exhaust" the male line bc....

Maegor's situation was different from Viserys (II) bc Maegor and Aenys were just one generation removed from when their parents set up the kingdoms they were to rule and so they were still at the stage where they set up specific precedents and laws for the rest of the realm through will and resource and careful planning. The Targs hadn't established their own House law (c. 19th century-ish rules that govern a royal family or dynasty in matters of eligibility for succession to a throne, membership in a dynasty, exercise of a regency, or entitlement to dynastic rank, titles and styles) in regards to their monarchy yet bc there was no solid precedent and they wanted to make sure their dynasty would adapt enough to survive. The transfer of power and candidacy for rulership was still one of those things to really be solidified--would the Targs go agnatic primogeniture, Westerosi male-preference style (cognatic) primogeniture, absolute primogeniture. they could very well have chosen to have uncle go before sons if those sons weren't ideal for rulership and thus either focus more on voluntary designation of an heir.

However, back to Aegon, Aegon definitely would not choose Jaehaera if they are going to be faithful...he didn't even do what MAegor did when he installed Aerea as his heir apparent until he actuall got a son. Aegon gleefully was looking for a wife in Cassandra Baratheon, instead, despite his burnt out/burnt body....

So let's hope that's kept in and incorporated somehow.

[minquiec]

Some lore stuffs + how her story ends

This is kinda all over the place bc I don't have a coherent idea but I just need to write it all down before I forget

How Jia was bit was on a hot ass day and she basically fell asleep on a spider and gained powers unknowingly

Doesn't find out for maybe a week

Has a weird dream one night where she basically meets a deity in her dream and the exchange was literally like

"You, Jialin Chen, now bear the powers to protect this la-"

"Uhm yea no thanks, pass 😬"

"WHAT?"

And then a comedic exchange occurs between mortal and god haha! Until the deity was like ENOUGH this is your DESTINY you will bear it whether you like it or NOT 👹 so Jia's kinda like alright fine damn 🙄 but obviously we all know how she really feels abt the whole situation (she hates it bc of issues) but anyways

The reason why it took a whole week is cause uhmmm plot hole lelel or smth the deity can't actually interfere directly with the world

EITHER WAY this is basically spoilers for endgame but it's not like I'll ever make a coherent plot bc I'm too lazy and dum but basically

The deity of Jia's universe is border on obsessive with creating a story line and destiny and heroes and stuff like that and ofc it has to be perfect (bc ofc it has to be, totally not cliche or anything)

Anyways this obsession makes them interfere TOO much with Jia's universe because if the deity was never this obsessed

Jia probably would've gotten over her issues (bc she's meets someone to help her copeeee 😋😋 cougjocughcgpuccough)

But bc the deity is an unreasonable shithead, they're literally the root of every problem:

They're responsible for Jia's split soul because of how abrupt her duties were suddenly forced on her

Bc of the split soul problem, it nearly upsets the world balance that could've been very bad for the universe! (the day she had lost the plot and had a existential crisis breakdown I think I posted it here but basically on that day she was flickering between both before Lin took control)

-> the logic is rlly,,, idk nonsensical for this bc what I thought as world making is that you can't have two souls in control at once and it goes again natural laws so it nearly ficked up her world cause it AINT SUPOSE TO HAPPEN ITS NEVA SUPOSE TO HAPPENNN but moving on

So then Lin switches in place of Jia and the world balance is briefly restored YAYY 🎉 everything is fine‼️

❌ WRONG ❌

Cause now Lin went and 'broke up' (idk it wasn't rlly a break up bc she never said 'lets break up' but she kinda did go 'we aren't meant for each other 🖕' and dipped) with hb so NOW HES GOING THRU IT and the rest of her friends back at spider society are like ???? What the??? Fuck???

Lin does manage to spend a few days or more at the hq cause technically she is still Jia but just

Different

But everyone's kinda weirded out cause she's Serious™ now and even Miguel's kinda like wattafack 🧍 plus the fact she has long white hair that spawned out of nowhere so they kinda piece some form of logic together that she's a different Jia

Anyways some time passes and one day an especially big anomaly is warned abt in Jia's (still Lin) universe which is bizarre cause they're not usually this big but it's all because of that STOOPID FUKASS deity GOING AROUND FUKIN THINGS UP and somehow created this ridiculously bad threat as a 'enemy' for the 'hero of their story' to defeat

The biggest problem with the anomaly is that while it doesn't really like, belong in Jia's universe, it doesn't belong in any OTHER universe either BECAUSE THAT DEITY BOUGHT IT UP OUTTA NOWHERE BC THEYRE PSYCHO I need to stop hating on characters that I literally made anyways

So HQ can't exactly deal with it like they usually do but they can try to offer assistance at least

Obviously for obvious (cliche) reasons CERTAIN PEOPLE are gonna be there cause yknow they still care abt Jia even tho she's changed (to Lin momentarily)

Battle occurs blah blah I'm not good with action scenes and things are looking a littttlee bleak for Lin and Co and all the sudden Lin receives a bad injury that nearly knocks her unconscious but thru her ringing ears and muted background noise she hears SOMEBODDYYY CALLING HER NAAMMEEE (god I really wonder who)

Because her state of unclarity from the Blunt Force Head Trauma makes things a little weird, the fine line between Jia and Lin also becomes a little muddled and the Jia that's been hiding behind Lin can hear his voice and it quite literally brings her out of that dark room in her mind to control again so TLDR Jia is back again instead of Lin

Reunion happens for maybe 3 minutes tops before shit hits the fan again and suddenly the deity has teared through time space fabric out of anger to speak directly to them mortal little earthlings on the ground because they're a little bitch

All because they thought Lin was the true protagonist they've been searching for all along and now 'that insolent fool' (hobie) has ruined everything (he does no wrong)'

But suddenly because the deity is in direct contact with the mortal world, they're like wait 🤨 you're not from this universe and sees other things also not from this universe and goes on a tangent about how they don't need to rebuild a 'story' anymore and can just find another 'story' to pilot (TLDR AGAIN: local deity discovers universe theft and wants to ditch this universe cause Jia's spiderman story wasn't perfect and now wants to find another universe to force to become their 'perfect story')

Obviously spider people are like 😨😨😨 UHMMM NO TF UR NOTTT so they start retreating (as they should tbh) and Jia's like helping to round up people to gtfo of her universe before some batshit deity absorbs them or smth

Atp bits of her universe is already crumbling and disintegrating because the deity is already trashing it because it's worthless and imperfect now (ngl me when art 😭😭)

So now it's the last of the people to go back thru the portals and its Jia and Hb :)) (y'all should know what's coming next)

Truthfully, Jia wants to so so badly go thru the portal to stay with the rest of them but she knows that there was the possibility of her connection with the deity of her world and her as a creation from the said deity

So she says goodbyes

Pushes him thru

And throws in her watch before it closes properly so the FUCK ASS DEITY CANT GET ANY KIND OF CONNECTION TO THE MULTIVERSE

And thus it concludes her coming of age plot because she found the proper courage to do what was right in all senses and came to terms with her spider girl identity

Even though she had so much she wanted to do with the rest of them was what she had thought while the thread of her universe on the multiverse crumbled into nothingness

ANYWAYS THE REAL CONCLUSION IS THE DEITY IS THE REAL ANOMALY THEIR OBSESSION DROVE THEM INTO AN ANOMALY AND INTERFERING WITH THE LIVING WORLD but thats kinda what happens when you've been living for centuries, you kinda go a little nuts

Anyways thanks for this long and incredibly messy read, don't kill me ✌️ peaces

[fancoloredglasses]

[RERUN] Crisis on Infinite Earths, issue 3: “Oblivion Upon Us” (The Purge: Multiverse Edition)

PREVIOUSLY ON…

The Multiverse is disintegrating at an alarming rate, being heralded by a being known as Pariah. A being known as the Monitor and his assistant Harbinger have gathered 15 super beings from across the multiverse to guard 5 pillars that he says will save what’s left. Meanwhile, he has gathered the last survivor of Earth-3 (Alexander Luthor, who went from infant to adolescent in a matter of hours), making 4 of 6 characters made specifically for the series accounted for.

The fifth we have heard as he shanghai'd one of the Monitor’s champions (Psycho Pirate) and has compromised Harbinger.

Meanwhile, Pariah has appeared on Earth-1 as the wave of white that spelled the doom of so many universes approaches.

Caught up? Good, cuz the cast is about to more than triple in size (and is only going to get bigger as the series progresses). If you would like to read this issue, it (along with the rest of the series) has been collected in graphic novel form and is available (or can be ordered) at your favorite comic shop, bookstore, or online retailer…or on Read Comic Online.

[I want to note that I’m not going to explain who everyone that appears is unless they’re important to the plot. There are just too many and I’d like to finish this before the next DC Cinematic reboot begins]

That all being said, let’s continue…

The Monitor studies Alexander Luthor (still rapidly aging, now a teen) Alex is composed of matter and antimatter (and didn’t explode? Someone tell Mr. Scott that ye can change the laws of physics!)

…no doubt due to his journey from Earth-3 to Earth-1. Harbinger slips away to inform the Big Bad. Psycho-Pirate tells him that Harbinger’s loyalties are conflicted and offers to use his powers to fix that. The Big Bad refuses, saying that Harbinger will eventually do his bidding and kill the Monitor.

We then visit the 30th century, where the Flash has been living after being framed for murder (long story that I’m not telling now). He sees the wall of white that’s threatening the universe and decided to return to his own time to warn everyone (not sure what good that will do)

…but as Batman, the Outsiders, and the Teen Titans witness the Flash’s return, he is enveloped in a strange energy and teleported away.

For whatever reason, we switch to the cybernetic super villain Brainiac, who is in space and sees the wave of white. That’s it. Kinda pointless, actually.

Next we go to Markovia during WW2 (I’m assuming Earth-1, as Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company is among those in attendance) Blue Beetle’s trying to guard the pillar while Dr. Polaris and (Markovian native) Geo-Force are busy fighting Nazis. (Geo-Force because he feels obligated to defend his homeland over 20 years before he was born, and Dr. Polaris because it means he can murder people and no one will care) Easy Company and the Losers (the WW2 strike team, not the guys in the 2010 movie) investigate the pillar…

…but the wave of white comes in and envelops the Losers, disintegrating them! Then come the shadows. They take out Easy Company’s “Flower” (I don’t know his actual name as I never read any Sgt. Rock comics)

…and attempt to do so to Blue Beetle, but Beetle’s mystical scarab (why a tech hero has a mystical artifact, I don’t know) saves him, but his shoulder is trashed.  Monitor sends him home (that’s two down, including Psycho Pirate)

Meanwhile, at the Planet of the Apes Great Disaster, Solovar has been injured enough to be sent home as well (make that three)

We now switch to the fourth pillar in Earth-1′s Old West (why aren’t there pillars on any other Earth?), where we see the heroes from DC’s western titles: Bat Lash (no relation), Jonah Hex, Johnny Thunder, Scalphunter, and Nighthawk. Joining them are Psimon, Cyborg, Green Lantern John Stewart, and Firebrand. The shadows arrive shortly after, and John’s ring dies due to the Central battery going kaboom back in issue 2.

Nighthawk retreats, only to run into the white wave.

Meanwhile, at the Monitor’s satellite, the Monitor is ready to start Phase 2 of his plan.

…just in time for Harbinger to kill him!

WILL the Monitor’s machines save the rest of the multiverse?

WHO is the being behind this multiversal massacre?

WHY are the machines only on Earth-1? ARE the other universes not important to the writers?

These questions and more will be answered in the next issue!

[smilestrawbunny]

Hello. I apologize if this message is unwanted and I want to warn that it contains mentions of suicide. So if you’re not in the headspace, maybe stop here. Also please don’t feel pressured to post this if you don’t want to!

I just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work and art. Especially when it comes to the creation and execution of Strawberry.

I’m a Crisis Counselor and have been for five years now. I wear a lot of hats in the mental healthcare and social work world, but my primary job is to help people who are suicidal or who have just attempted suicide.

However, one of the drawbacks of this is that there are times when we can tell that suicide is inevitable in a person we work with and there is nothing we can do. After a point, a choice has been made due the the insurmountable amount of trauma held in that person’s life, and if someone knows the garbage system enough, they can skirt around it. Sure, in some places you can force hospitalization to keep someone safe temporarily, but this doesn’t always work and isn’t always ethical. Also unlike most US states, in my state the laws heavily value client autonomy in most cases, which I think is overall a very good thing. Pushing anyone to do anything that they aren’t comfortable with is rarely, if ever, going to help them in the long run. However, this can lead to feelings of helplessness when you feel like you can’t protect clients from themselves or the terrible situations they’re going through. And we do lose people. Good people, who we grow attached to.

Caring deeply about someone that you’ve just met and barely know so much and then watching them die is traumatizing. And it happens more often than we like to admit. Sometimes you pour as much into yourself as you can into another person, and it doesn’t matter. You couldn’t be what they needed and now they’re gone. You think about them forever. You remember every single person. And though it’s not about you, it never was, it still hurts very much.

I don’t think I have ever encountered a character in any media that captures that feeling the way that Strawberry does. Her journal entries and the way she reacts to player choices in Berrywitched just hit so close to home in ways that I find it difficult to describe. She also shows in the one endings, however, that it’s worth while to care, even if you don’t help everyone. Even if you only help one person.

I know this message is bleak. We actually do have more success that failures. If my work didn’t help anyone I wouldn’t be doing it because the system is terrible. But I really wanted to thank you for creating a character that means so much to me. I’m very much anticipating your new projects and I hope you have love, light, and success in your future!

Aw gee reading this made me so emotional…! Thank you so much for taking the time to share this with me. Strawberry is a character who really means a lot to me so knowing that there’s people out there who understand and empathize with her really touches my heart. Thank you for doing all that you do <33

[chargetheintruder]

Three simple Questions.

1-- WHY isn't anyone in the Press reporting on Trump's Sentencing today? He is in fact a convicted felon, found guilty on 34 counts of fraud? And today was supposed to be the day. 7-11-2024. July 11th.

More to the point, Ex Post Facto (after the fact) laws are NOT Constitutional and never have been. NO recent "Supreme Court" decision CAN overturn even one of Trump's guilty counts without creating Ex Post Facto law. That's not how it works: new laws and new rulings take effect that day and go forward.

So, is the Press so deeply paid for that even Snopes is bought out and lying and throwing softballs on Trump's behalf? What the fuck is going on and why is Trump's sentence not reported when EVERY felon's sentencing IS usually reported in the most smug manner imaginable?

2-- Elon Musk aside, why IS Trump still stupid enough to say whatever the fuck he feels on Twitter/x, whenever, and then think nobody's listening? To get to the point, Trump admitted on that platform that he still has firearms. Which is a no-no for convicted felons. And which might make Trump either a National Security risk or a homicide risk, pick one.

3-- And why do the so-called "decent people" of the Democratic Party in Washington, D.C. simply refuse to have a spine on one damned fool thing ever? So you "can't" use the 25th Amendment, force the issue until Joe is Stubborn PASSES a Cognitive Impairment Test, and make Kamala Harris President Pro Tempore? So you "can't" just TELL America at a Press Conference that Trump's Former Staff and Major Supporters are ALL behind Project 2025, because delegating responsibilities, that's been a thing for so-called "conservatives" since Reagan? So you "can't" convince an angry Mark Zuckerberg to come back and run for the White House with Kamala Harris in any capacity? So you "can't" make an immediate decision ever and "can't" do what it takes to save society until voters go postal and revolt against every toxic, back-biting Press Meme that gets shoved down your gullet, the way the whole "losing all of Congress" thing was in 2022? Really? You creaky ship of cowards just has to go along with EVERY RENTED PIECE OF JUNK INFO THE PAID-FOR PRESS VOMITS AT YOU BECAUSE CEOs ARE SOOO FUCKING BORED?? REALLY?

I'd strangle some of you myself, but I'm not sure you even breathe much lately. I'm not sure, some of you have a pulse. You're so passive I'm not sure if you're alive or capable of knowing what the fuck a crisis is. Because you've ran us all OUT OF FUCKING TIME. ENTIRELY. No, listen to me, it takes time to actually put the President Pro Tempore (Kamala Harris) in charge and it takes time to cough up new Presidential candidates and it takes time to wage a pre-emptive counter coup-d-etat against the Trumps and their Psycho Idiot 28 Percent. It takes time to actually get the deeds done and enough people moving to get it done.

But nooo, it sure as shit looks like you WANT us all to lose and WANT American society to DIE, worse than every last English tea-swilling little knock-kneed bitch ever. What is your problem?

[kingofkingsschizo]

The system is failing the mentally ill population across the nation. As a mentally ill person, I was incarcerated and abused, neglected, and also excessive force was used against me and I suffer from mental illness.There could come a time in your very own life where you are in crisis and are having episodes trying the best you can to survive with your mental illness out in society, out in public. You may act out and lash out at law-enforcement being that you may be delusional. This occurs all the time in public with law-enforcement. It happens in public. No one understands what a mentally ill person goes through with his life of mental illness. There are occasions and instances where we may become psychotic with episodes because we are unmedicated or other crisis and stresses that causes us not to be not in control of our mental health. The system has failed us because there is nothing in place to be proactive and provide the correct support and response that we need. There is not enough social workers trained professionals in law-enforcement to deal with the crisis that we have now. Incarceration while being mentally ill is very dangerous to the mentally ill person. I know this for a fact. I think once a person has been established as someone who suffers from mental illness in their community. There should be a red flag. Whenever a call comes in that this person is in crisis again. The place where it all goes wrong is communication and keeping record of who is mentally ill in the community. When consecutive calls are made on a mentally ill person it seems like that they have become a nuisance to the public. so the law enforcement becomes your enemy and wants to see you locked up for good because you have committed so many disturbances out in the public. They wanted to give me 2 to 10 years for spitting on the officer which  I would have never done in my right mind. But I went through incarceration and a stressful probation. I had to pay fines and complete community service when I am mentally ill. Plus from the abuse I suffered in the county it caused permanent damage to my spine and I was expected to complete community service. By the grace of God, I made it out without having to be re-incarcerated for revoking my probation. But I made it. There are a lot of things I would like to talk about while being incarcerated. I have ideas in my head to revamp the system the way it is right now. The status quo has to go. abuse, neglect should and remain held accountable to those who provide actually nothing at all to help the mentally ill while incarcerated. They do very little to correct the problem with the person that is on the ground in crisis. Their solution, the system, is to incarcerate and convict. And with that comes abuse suffering and neglect to a degree that blows my mind. I can’t believe that I have to discuss this issue in this day and age but this exist. You may be schizophrenic and new to your diagnosis and there are a lot of things you need to examine that’s going on in the media with mentally ill people stay abreast to everything that’s going on because it could happen to you, because it happened to me,. When all I needed was help. God help this mess.