#hannas creations

[clarkgriffon]

fashion in rosewood in every episode → shadow play (4x19)

[ppgarchive]

Bubbles gets a new, very normal IPad.

[necronomicon806]

Thundarr The Barbarian - 1950s Super Panavision 70

[alj4890]

L-O-V-E Part 2 (Liam x Riley)

A/N The writer's block is killing me. I know how I want this to go but every time I sit to work on it, the words just don't come. So let's try once more with this storyline.

Rating: G for fluff

@gkittylove99 @kingliam2019 @texaskitten30 @yourmajesty09 @mom2000aggie @ofpixelsandscribbles @twinkleallnight @lodberg  @amandablink @neotericthemis  @mm2305 @sfb123 @tessa-liam @thesvnsins @krsnlove @choicesficwriterscreations

Masterlist

L-O-V-E Part 2

Charlotte's chambers...

"Your highness?"

Charlotte blinked a few times only to realize she had become distracted.

A servant waited on her to finish discussing the plans for dinner this evening.

"Forgive me." Charlotte's nose wrinkled over her thoughts drifting to the young man her sister had brought along. "I believe there will be at least eleven of us this evening. Perhaps we should plan for twelve in case the Duchess of Lythikos decides to make an appearance."

"Very good, your highness." The servant bowed as he backed out of her sitting room.

Charlotte waited until the door was shut before flopping back onto her couch. She stared up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the intricate crown molding, while wondering why she couldn't get Sean off her mind.

Perhaps it is because he is my sister's best friend. That must be why I'm so interested in him. Shouldn't I want to know more about him to make certain he isn't the type to take advantage of her new status and fortune?

Charlotte could only deceive herself for so long. She knew her reasons for fixating upon the young man were simple: she found him very physically attractive.

His dark, nearly black eyes shined with a great deal of intelligence. His smile was warm with a touch of humor. His thick head of ink black hair made her long to run her fingers through it to see if it was as soft it appeared. He wasn't too terribly tall, which made her grateful.

She'd never liked being dwarfed by many of the noblemen and diplomats who regularly visited her father's court. They almost seemed to use their immense size to push whatever agenda they were after upon her petite figure.

They soon realized that though she was soft spoken and genuinely pleasant, she had a backbone of steel that no amount of posturing or arguing could cause her to bend in ways she was opposed to.

Charlotte released a sigh as her imagination drifted once more to what she found appealing in Sean.

She jumped when her phone rang.

"Yes?"

"Hey. It's Sean."

She rolled off the couch at the sound of his voice.

"What was that?" He asked when he heard her hit the floor.

"Nothing!" She winced as she stumbled to her feet. "How may I help you?"

He cleared his throat. "I was wondering, if um, I could go for a walk. Outside."

"Of course!" She replied. "We have many lovely trails throughout the palace grounds."

"Which one is your favorite?" He asked.

"Hmm." Charlotte contemplated that for a few moments. "I think I tend to take the trail that takes me to the apple orchard more often than the others."

"Would you like to go with me?" He asked a touch nervously. "Or if you're too busy, could you at least point it out."

"I'd love to." She replied. "Nothing would make me happier than showing you one of my favorite places."

"Great! I was hoping you would go with me!"

His enthusiastic outburst brought a smile to her face.

Sean cleared his throat. "I will wait here for you since I'm not sure where your room is."

"I'm on my way."

She set her phone down then ran into her bathroom. She stopped in front of the large floor to ceiling mirror to critically take in her face and figure. A slight groan escaped as she tried to decide whether or not to change clothes once again.

Knowing it would take too long to decide on a new outfit to wear, Charlotte swiped up her powder to touch up her makeup. She brushed her hair until it fell in soft golden waves upon her shoulders. While tucking a stray strand behind her ear, she wondered if Sean found her pretty.

Twirling around to make certain that all was as it should be, she practically skipped out of her room.

Perhaps this walk would allow her to find out if this attraction she felt was mutual.

****************

Liam's study, second floor of palace...

Liam glanced up when he heard voices coming down the hall. With a smile forming he got to his feet to greet the group of people who had remained by his side all these years.

Hana entered before Drake and Maxwell. Very little had changed her appearance over the past twenty years. She was still strikingly beautiful, graced with a warm smile that revealed how kind she still was. Her figure made one think it was impossible that she was the mother of three.

Drake's dark hair was sprinkled with gray strands which he swore was from dealing with Maxwell's antics along with now having a teenager of his own.

Maxwell's few wrinkles came from years of laughter and smiling. He still was the same, inside and out, that he'd always been.

"Are they here?" Maxwell asked.

"Yes. They're upstairs resting." Liam asked a servant to bring in refreshments. "And Riley can't wait to see you again."

"I can't believe she's here" Drake remarked. "The night Brooks left, I was sure we'd never see her again."

Hana wiped at the few happy tears that spilled out. "I didn't think we would either."

"And to think that our Blossom went and had a little blossom all on her own." Maxwell shook his head. "That had to be tough on her."

"Did you bring your families with you?" Liam asked.

He was worried that too many people might make Riley and Hope uncomfortable for their first night back.

"No." Hana's smile dimmed some at the mention of family "I told Neville that he should remain at Comery Isle with the children until the night of the ball."

"Candace has to work the night shift at the hospital these next few days." Drake explained about his own spouse. "She'll be off the night of the ball and will come then. Jackson has a big project to work on plus he's got a new girlfriend."

Drake rolled his eyes over Maxwell's catcall.

"He's so wrapped up in her that I doubt he heard me explain the plans we have for this week."

Maxwell grinned when they all turned towards him.

"Sherry's out of town again for a photoshoot." He told them with a hint of pride over his famous photographer of a wife. "She took Annabelle with her to practice with her new camera. They should be back by the ball."

"Good." Liam relaxed some. "I invited Olivia to join us. She said she might come."

He hesitated as he thought of their unusual past. He never understood why Olivia left early the night of the coronation. She'd been in tears and yet she seemed only willing to speak to Riley.

He never found out what had bothered her nor why she remained for the most part in Lythikos. Olivia only came to the capital when it was a direct invitation from Liam. She'd accepted an arranged marriage offer from the late Duke of Domvallier to marry his heir, Rashad.

They had two children, an heir for each of their duchy's, and for the most part lived apart. Rashad's work schedule kept him out of the country for the majority of the year, yet he made certain to spend as much time as he could with his children. He and Olivia got on well together, both having a loyal, determined work ethic, and had been strong supporters of Liam as king and now of Charlotte as future queen.

Liam couldn't help but think how many of them had settled for arranged marriages. He originally thought there was nothing wrong with them. But then, a certain American came along and opened his eyes to possibilities he'd once thought were impossible.

Perhaps they had been. After all, he ended up married to Madeleine. Hana agreed to her parents' decision to match her to Neville Vancouer. Olivia accepted Rashad shortly after Liam married.

It took years for Drake to find someone he could love. One night, shortly after Charlotte was born, he confessed to Liam that he'd fallen in love with Riley. Drake told him how she didn't return his feelings, having fallen for Liam, but that he didn't know if he would ever find someone who could make him feel that strongly again.

When Charlotte was three, she came down with tonsillitis. Candace was the nurse brought in to help care for her during her recovery from surgery. Drake was still living at the palace at the time and the two began to hang out while the little princess slept.

Two years after that, Candace became pregnant. The couple eloped and had settled down on a plot of land Liam had gifted them with. Drake began to raise and train race horses, becoming the most sought-after trainer in Europe.

Maxwell went nearly a decade before meeting someone he could fall head over heels for. He'd become a romance author. His first book was a fictionalized version of Liam and Riley's relationship. He'd made sure to give them the happy ending he'd wished his friends could have had.

After his first novel was turned into a movie, he'd gone on to create an entire Royal Romance series with the cast of characters who eerily resembled those he knew so well. His stories bordered on the line of absurdity with threats from foreign powers if the princess was not put into an arranged marriage along with the fictional king having an unknown sister who was in a secret society that controlled all the powerful people of the world.

Cordonians devoured the books and films that followed.

When HBO offered him a chance to create a series to rival Netflix's The Crown, he not only said yes, but also met his future wife.

Sherry was the one to shoot the photographs from his interview and then those on the set. Her fun loving nature matched his and the two began a love affair that led to marriage and the birth of their own daughter.

Liam wondered though what would have happened to them if Riley had been here. How different would their lives have been if they'd had her friendship and support?

Would they each have different lives or would things have basically worked out the way they had?

As his friends talked about the past, he decided to forget the what ifs in his life and focus on the present and possible future.

"So?" Maxwell nudged him. "You and Riley still have sparks?"

Liam's eyes widened. "I certainly feel them. I'm not certain she does though."

"Ask her out." Drake argued. "You're single. She's single. What have you got to lose?"

"I have a great deal to lose." Liam pointed out. "I want a relationship with Hope like I have with Charlotte. If I ruin things by pushing Riley into a relationship, then chances are that I will ruin them with Hope."

"You can't miss out on love again." Maxwell told him.

Hana nodded, reaching for his hand. "You know what it's like to be in a marriage without love. We both do. Don't lose out on this rare chance."

Liam gently squeezed her hand in understanding. He got to his feet and paced over to the window to look out over the palace grounds. His attention was captured by the sight of Charlotte walking with Sean towards the apple orchard.

His lips curved when the young man stumbled. His daughter stopped him from falling then kept her arm linked with his as they continued on. They both were laughing and gazing at one another as if no one else existed.

He then noticed movement to his right.

Hope and Bartie we're rushing over to the hedge maze. They were holding hands while Bartie pulled her into the entrance. Even from this distance, Liam could see the excited smile upon her face.

He wanted that. He wanted his daughters to find love with two young men he approved of. He wanted to find love again. He wanted Riley to find it too.

But he wanted her to find it with him.

Liam turned back towards the three people he trusted the most.

"I already asked Riley to be my date for the ball."

The hopefulness in their faces made him grimace with what needed to be said.

"She didn't necessarily say no, but she did state that she was a scandalous woman and that she doubted anyone would approve of us being seen together."

The three remained silent.

"Then we'll have a talk with her." Hana decided.

"Playing Cupid is what I'm best at." Maxwell added. "Time to put my skills to work once again."

"If ever there were two people made for one another, it was you and Brooks." Drake said when Hana and Maxwell pointedly looked at him. "We'll convince her to give you a chance."

"Thank you." Liam glanced out the window again. "Hopefully, all will work out like it should."

*******************

The hedge maze...

"So you're a lord?" Hope asked.

"I am Lord Barthelemy Beaumont, heir to the Ramsford duchy." He replied. "Though I prefer to be just Bartie to those I am close to, which drives my father crazy."

She laughed over the face he made.

"I've never met a real life lord before."

"Am I everything you imagined?" He teased.

"Not at all." She squeezed his hand. "You are way more fun than I expected."

"I wish I could say that all of my rank are like this, but sadly I'm the only one." Bartie tugged her down a pathway.

"What about my sister?" Hope asked. "Charlotte is able to be fun while still maintaining her princess decorum."

"That's what I've always loved about Lottie." Bartie replied. "She is exactly what you see." He winked at Hope. "But she's not a lord."

She rolled her eyes with a giggle. "I know that. I meant she's part of your world yet still fun."

"That's why she's been my best friend since childhood." He turned a corner to a spot he thought Hope would find symbolically beautiful.

"I know that's why Sean has been my--"

Hope gasped at the sight of dozens of rose bushes waiting for the chance to bloom.

"Like it?" He asked with a grin.

"It must be beautiful in the spring!"

"Your grandmother planted these." He told her.

"She did?"

"This is the spot where King Constantine proposed to Queen Eleanor. To keep it special, she personally planted every single rose bush. He had that bench and trellis built for them to sneak off too during balls and such."

Hope walked over to it and read the engraved gold plaque.

For my Eleanor and the endless joy she has given me.

"He must have been a romantic." Hope replied.

"I think so too." Bartie joined her on the bench. "Though their time together was short, I believe they were very happy."

"That's all I want out of life." Hope sighed at the thought. "Someone to simply be happy with, share things with, laugh with..."

"Sneak around palaces with?" Bartie added while draping his arm along the back of the bench.

Hope laughed then turned towards him.

"Who wouldn't want someone to sneak around palaces with?" She teased. "That's the foundation to any romantic relationship."

He chuckled, fingers gently brushing her shoulder.

"So that's what makes a relationship romantic?"

Hope's cheeks flared with color. Her eyes though held his.

"Well yeah. Didn't you know that?"

His eyes dropped to her lips. "I mean, I always assumed it was."

"First comes sneaking around," she explained, "then comes the knowledge of what this means."

"And then?" He lowered his head towards hers.

"And then," she licked her lips, head tilting in anticipation, "there's a kiss."

Her eyes closed over the first touch of his lips. The soft kiss made her melt against him. Bartie moved his lips against hers in an achingly slow fashion as if he was savoring every single second.

Hope tangled her fingers in his hair when he deepened the kiss.

It was, she decided before all ability to think fled her, the most romantic kiss she'd ever received.

*******************

Riley's room...

After waking from a much needed nap, Riley took a shower. As she went through the typical motions of drying her hair and such, it hit her that not only was she in the same spot she was twenty years ago but that the man she'd fallen head over heels for was once again asking her out.

And just like that young woman she once was, she was highly tempted to say yes to his escort to the ball.

"I guess I've never really grown up." She said to her reflection.

It didn't matter that she'd gone on to raise a child of her own or that she was a successful woman who had managed to have a career and family all by herself.

There was simply something about Liam that made all her common sense disappear.

Logically, she knew she should not encourage anything with him. Her past would be held against her. She'd been photographed in her underwear with another man. That alone would be a source of contempt regardless of whether or not she'd had the reigning monarch's child.

She could only imagine the media blitz that would strike the moment she entered the ballroom with Liam.

Riley couldn't do that to Hope. She wanted her to have a peaceful existence here. She knew there would be whispers and whatnot about her previous visit to Cordonia, but she believed that the people would focus on getting to know their new princess more so than on her mother's past.

As long as nothing scandalous occurred, Hope would be welcomed with open arms.

The only way to ensure that Riley was not caught in anything questionable, was to not do anything to draw attention to herself.

Like going on a date with the king.

With a loud groan, she slipped her shoes on and left the comfort of her room.

If she could manage to get through dinner without any more temptation, then her first night back in Cordonia would be a success.

I can do this, she thought to herself. "No matter what, I'll just steer clear of Liam.

*****************

"Your grace," a servant bowed as he held the door open.

Olivia gave a short nod as she walked through the front door of the palace. Her attention was immediately drawn to the woman hurrying down the stairs.

Riley looked up and came to a halt at the sight of the duchess she'd once competed with.

Smiles dawned on both their faces as they walked over to greet the other.

"It's good to see you again." Olivia suffered through Riley's impulsive hug.

"And you." Riley stepped back, shaking her head in disbelief. "How did you manage to not age like the rest of us?"

Olivia smirked, linking her arm with Riley's, as they followed a footman toward the dining room.

"The air in Lythikos freezes more than water."

Riley laughed, feeling her earlier tension lessen. "I need to visit. Time is trying to march across my face every night."

"You should. You and your daughter will always be welcome." Olivia replied.

Riley gently squeezed her arm. "Thank you."

Olivia truly meant her invitation. Though she was cold and distant to most of the people from her past, she couldn't be with Riley. For over twenty years, Riley had kept her family's secret. She could have sold it to the press for money, especially when she discovered she was pregnant. Yet, Riley had proven that she was truly a friend, one that the duchess could let her guard down somewhat.

And for that, Olivia would remain loyal to her and her daughter.

The two stepped into the dining room, causing the conversations to abruptly stop.

Before Riley could say a word of greeting, she was snatched up in multiple hugs from Maxwell and Hana. Even Drake gave her a brief hug.

While the four talked over one another, Liam edged around them to be able to speak to Olivia.

"I'm glad you decided to come." He pressed a kiss to her hand. "It's been a long time since your last visit to the palace."

Olivia lowered her eyes. "I know. How is Charlotte?"

"She is in alt over having Hope here. I can't wait for you to see them together."

"Are they not joining us for dinner?" She asked.

"They are supposed to." He checked the time. "It isn't like Charlotte to be late."

Riley overheard him as she talked to Bertrand and Savannah. "Sadly it is for Hope."

At that moment the two girls rushed in with shy smiles for everyone.

The two young men following at their heels also had apologies at the ready for their tardiness.

Liam waived those away with assurances that it didn't matter. He then stood between his two daughters and proudly introduced Hope to his friends and Regina.

Exclamations followed on how much she looked like Riley had all those years ago. Then everyone began to ask her questions about her studies, her hobbies, and anything else that came to mind.

Hope's nerves lessened with having Charlotte and her father practically beaming with delight in having her there. Their kindness and acceptance was still such a shock to her. She didn't know how she'd ended up so lucky to have such people as family.

Her mother sat not too far away and smiled encouragingly at her while helping her answer some of the questions. She didn't know what she would have done without her mother always there as her biggest champion.

Sean too explained their years growing up and what kind of child Hope had been. He made everyone laugh with many of the stories of their adventures around New York. Hope also noticed that he made certain to make Charlotte laugh as much as he could. His eyes always drifted back to the crown princess. Hope couldn't be more pleased with this new development.

Hope also had a new, unexpected champion sitting beside her. Bartie slipped his hand discreetly into hers under the table each time a question was asked. His fingers twined with hers, letting her know she wasn't alone.

As the dinner went on, Hope relaxed and thought she might be able to hold up well talking to more people in her father and sister's world. At least she hoped that would be the case.

She honestly was terrified of the upcoming ball.

[sohannabarberaesque]

"Animation is a visual medium. But so far, I haven’t seen anything AI [artificial intelligence] can do visually that an artist doesn’t do better currently."

--Sam Register, head of Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios, during a recent panel discussion conducted by the Los Angeles Times about the entertainment industry in 2023.

During the discussion, Mr. Register was asked by one participant what he thought of storyboards as were AI-generated, whence he replied:

As an animation studio, I just think it’s important we protect the artists and the art form as long as we can. Because I think we should give jobs to people who really do that and so they can get their entry-level experience.

At anye rate, It's So Hanna-Barberaesque would rather not see any AI-generated Hanna-Barbera-inspired fan art, fanimation or fanfiction; the belief here that AI does not show any serious care or love on the part of such fans willing to contribute to this endeavour in keeping Hanna-Barbera's funtastic spirit going for a new generation.

"Think about it"

[theperfectquestion]

TWENTY YEARS TO MIDNIGHT

The Venture Brothers starts out as a show that makes fun of the past, but lasted long enough to be one that truly understands it.

So I rewatched The Venture Brothers in one big splurge over the course of two weeks, from Turtle Bay to Baboon Heart.

One of the most charming things about the show is a product of its lengthy creation process and the fact that it was written almost entirely by just two people. The story nearly has a tight continuity, so if you take it at its word then all the events of the story take place over a period of two and a half years, while the actual show was made over a period of twenty years.

The outcome of this curious time dilation is that we follow the Venture Brothers, Hank and Dean, through those difficult years between 16 and 18, but we also follow the writers, Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, through the difficult years between their twenties and their forties. The show begins irreverent, contrarian and cruel and changes, cell by cell, into something wiser and more profound.

The treatment of Rusty Venture, former boy adventurer and long-suffering heir to the poisonous Venture legacy, is a fascinating thread to follow. In the very first episode he steals his son's kidneys like a ghoul, and his various addictions and neuroses are firmly treated as quirky objects of pity. I don't know much about the personal lives of the writers, but I imagine a certain amount of tragedy would have found them over the course of twenty years. A certain empathy for Rusty's position kicks in around the second season and develops strongly throughout the years. By the time the writers have reached the age that Rusty is when he is introduced, there are delicate attempts to reach out to the poor man, to understand and maybe counteract some of his own personal tragedy, though careful not to smother the comedy that such a character brings to the table.

But the thread I enjoyed following the most was that trailing behind Action Johnny. If you have ever heard of The Venture Brothers, you already know that the show began as a parody and deconstruction of the 1960s Hanna Barbara cartoon Jonny Quest, which was itself an attempted relaunch of the Edisonade craze of the 1910s, riding on the coattails of the far more successful and popular Tintin and Uncle Scrooge comics.

Jonny Quest was the son of a world famous scientist and adventurer, Doctor Quest, who led an extraordinary jet setting life where he accompanied his father to exotic places to experience exciting, often racist, science-themed thrills instead of going to school. He was watched over by his lantern-jawed bodyguard, Race Bannon, and joined with his adopted brother, Hadji.

The Venture Brothers stole this set-up entirely, and Rusty's backstory is a carbon copy of Jonny's. We are first told that this is something more than a swipe early on in the first season of The Venture Brothers when Race Bannon appears, as himself, as a secret agent belonging to the same organisation as the Venture family bodyguard, Brock Samson. It's a clever shorthand for saying that boy adventurers are not singular in this world, they are a type, one which occupies a distinct social strata along with their bodyguards, enemies and other supporting cast members.

The way that we are told this fact, in the seventh episode of the first season, is peak 2004 adult swim: beloved cartoon character Rave Bannon drops out of the sky, lands in front of one of our characters, dies, then shits himself. This was vaguely subversive at the time, but twenty years of Robot Chicken and the like have rendered it a tired, hoary gag. Venture Brothers itself has proved that this moment is at least a wasted opportunity. There was undoubtedly more comedy and interest to be mined from having Race Bannon around as an older counterpart to Brock Samson. But there was fun to be had with squandering opportunities and biting the hand that feeds for writers in their twenties in 2004.

When Jonny Quest himself appears in 2006's season two episode, Twenty Years to Midnight, things aren't much different. Jonny is found haunting the bathyscaphe from the cartoon, injecting heroin, waving an antique pistol and ranting about his father. He has a teardrop tattoo and missing teeth. He is discovered by Rusty's brother, the overachieving but naïve Jonas Junior. It's a much better gag in execution than the Race Bannon one, despite being essentially the same beat, but there is some pathos thanks to Brendan Small's delivery. Jonny is left alive, unlike Race, but the capper to this scene is somehow more humilating and tragic than when Race's corpse shat himself: Jonny is brought on side by Jonas Junior who, pressed for time and not as accustomed to being threatened and menaced as Rusty is, is unable to apply superscience to this situation and simply offers Jonny a supply of heroin.

The entertainment industry's relationship to its back catalogue of intellectual property has changed a lot in the last two decades. Characters like Jonny and Race were embarrassing curios in Ted Turner's garage in 2006. Why not dust them off and kill them in a cartoon to make college kids giggle? Why not give them a crippling drug habit and have them collapse to their knees, bellowing, "I'm in real pain!" But within ten years the media behemoths realised they could spin their old straw into gold, and instead of selling sheink rays at a yard sale, so to speak, they were putting the Flintstones in ads for Halifax bank.

So the Venture Brothers show renamed their tragic, adult Jonny Quest to 'Action Johnny' and in doing so was forced to consider him as a character rather than a skit. And the colossal strength at the heart of the Venture Brothers is in taking ridiculous things like boy adventurers seriously. Jonny Quest was allowed to become a valuable (?) piece of IP, forever a child, forever innocent and marketable, while Action Johnny could live his life unfettered by the parent company's fears.

Action Johnny appears two years later in Season 3, sober but shaky, doing a favour to Rusty by running a seminar for his ill-fated summer camp. He undercuts the spirit of the event by warning the children of the long term effects of adventures on the psyche and unravels into rants about his father. It's a solid bit by itself, especially when contrasted with a neighbouring table from the Pirate Captain (who, despite being an important recurring character, the show refuses to give a name) about the joys of being part of the 'rubber mask set.' Though the world of the Venture Brothers is nominally organised through a bureaucracy of licenced 'protagonists' and 'antagonists,' the biggest tension on screen is between the characters who chose the life, like the Pirate Captain, and those who had the life forced upon them, like Action Johnny. It just so happens that the former tend to end up as tortured, resentful good guys and the latter wind up as joyful, carefree villains.

Bringing that point home in the same episode is the appearance of Doctor Z as the summer camp's headliner. Doctor Z is the final borrowed character Jonny Quest, and one who the writers clearly take the brightest shine to, probably because he has the funniest voice to imitate. Doctor Z also represents the goals of show's resplendent second half - having deconstructed the boy adventurer genre in the early seasons, the Venture Bros very carefully puts the pieces back together into something wholly new.

And so Doctor Zin, the generic yellow peril villain of Jonny Quest, becomes Doctor Z, the retired and contented former archfiend of the Venture Bros. Doctor Z is treated by the other characters as something like a national treasure, a beloved old star who made the game his own. The joke of Doctor Z is that he seems genuinely bemused that his lifetime of villainy seems to have had a lasting negative effect on people. When he appears at Rusty's summer camp, all theatre and terror, he is delighted to meet his old foe Action Johnny, while Johnny is thrown into a whirlwind of trauma at the sight of Z, one that will drag him down into further troubles.

Doctor Z will become more of a feature than Action Johnny over the following years as the show becomes more interested in its older cast members - the ones whose personalities shaped the world, and who have sunny memories of the days that were so painful to Rusty and Johnny. He is part of a larger rehabilitation arc on the meta level, where characters with reprehensible aspects to them are held up for the audience to inspect so that they may find some empathy with them. Sargent Hatred is the poster child of this era, who is a repentant paedophile who joins the main cast as the Venture Brothers' new bodyguard. He's a whole other topic, but Doctor Z has the same function as Hatred, but on a metatextual level. His ancestor, Doctor Zin, is a hideous racial stereotype of the sort that makes modern revivals of the adventure genre so unpalatable. In its first deconstructionist half, the Venture Brothers show would simply wave Doctor Z around as shock tactic - 'look how racist Jonny Quest was, and by extension the company that made it and, logically, its audience!' and then maybe give him a violent and undignified death to wash their hands of the whole matter. But the reconstructivist Venture Brothers show embraces Doctor Z, and takes him beyond his tawdry origins to become an integral part of its story.

In 2009, Action Johnny helps Rusty to articulate this in the episode 'Self-Medication' from Season 4. Johnny and Rusty are in the same therapy group for former boy adventurers, a premise that would later be stolen wholesale by the She-Hulk show. A trail of tenuous clues leads the group to Doctor Z's house in the middle of the night. Johnny forces a confrontation with Z, accusing him of murdering their therapist to perpetuate the spiral he has been in since he saw Z take the stage back at Rusty's day camp. Doctor Z immediately groks the situation and invites the former boy adventurers into his home for tea with his beloved wife, who proudly proclaims herself to be his beard. Doctor Z is proud of what he has done in life, and so has the ability to put the past behind him. Sat between Z and Johhny, who is unable to move on, Rusty realises that he has more in common with the antagonist in the room than the protagonist. Rusty has many such insights throughout the length of the show and they lead him to an interesting end point where he seizes the nettle and becomes a parental figure to the whole weird superscience community.

The final encounter between Action Johnny and Doctor Z takes place nine years (!) later in our timeline - 2018's 'The Terminus Mandate.' Doctor Z is retiring from active villany and, according to the ceremony-obsessed fraternity of organised supervillans, that means he must menace his archenemy one last time. Action Johnny's father is long gone, so Johnny inherits that dubious honour.

It's the first time that we see Doctor Z not being fully committed to the bit. Johnny is resident at a posh rehab clinic and Doctor Z is conflicted between genuinely wanting to see Johnny again but unsure of how to interact with him in a way that doesn't cause actual, lasting harm. Doctor Z even brings a prop from a Jonny Quest cartoon as a gift, in a sequence lovingly reanimated to translate Jonny Quest's vocabulary into the Venture Brothers' language. The sequence chosen is virulently racist, almost too racist to be believed: a mask of the god Anubis lands on top of Johnny's dog, and Doctor Z's Egyptian henchmen suddenly believe that the mask is a vengeful god come to punish them and so abandon the young Doctor, giving the advantage to Johnny's team. In the lobby of the rehab centre, in the late to evening, Doctor Z struggles to articulate why the Anubis mask means so much to him and Johnny cringes at the memory while enjoying the act of reminiscing. He offers to go and run and hide, so that Z can find him, and they both discover they are delighted by the idea.

It's a touching, uncomfortable and deeply weird scene that, to me, is the pinnacle of The Venture Brothers as a creative endeavour. Behind it is a group of people who have been mulling over the implications of Jonny Quest as a short-lived but impactful cultural phenomenon for most of their adult lives. They have been mining the absurdity, the legacy, the implications, the pathos and the bathos of those 26 half-hours of cartoon and found incredible treasures. It starts with finding a silly old thing in the attic that you want to ridicule and it ends, twenty years later, with you acknowledging the attachment one has formed to that silly old thing, and how it has informed your life, for better or worse, in ways you can't deny.

[grishamanimationstudios102]

My thoughts on the 2025 Smurfs movie trailer

After watching the 2025 Smurfs movie trailer, I’m feeling a mix of emotions—some excitement, but mostly disappointment. On the positive side, the animation itself looks decent. It has a vibrant, polished look that stays true to the Smurfs' classic design while taking advantage of modern technology. The blend of 2D-inspired textures with 3D animation is well done, and I appreciate that the characters still resemble Peyo’s original designs rather than the overly glossy look from the Smurfs live-action hybrids.

That said, the creative choices in this film already seem questionable. Bringing the Smurfs back to the human world again feels like a step backward. One of the biggest strengths of The Lost Village was that it kept the Smurfs in their medieval fantasy setting, allowing for a story that felt more in tune with the comics and original cartoon. But now, once again, the Smurfs are being dragged into modern society—probably for easy pop culture jokes and to cater to mainstream audiences who apparently can’t enjoy a fantasy film without a real-world connection. It just feels uninspired.

And then there’s the attempt to make the film overly trendy. The part with DJ Papa Smurf is downright cringeworthy. Who thought it was a good idea to turn the wise, fatherly leader of the Smurfs into some kind of hip-hop DJ? It just screams “trying too hard.” This is exactly the kind of thing that ruined other beloved franchises—shoehorning in modern slang, flashy neon aesthetics, and dance sequences that feel more like they belong in Trolls than in The Smurfs. It’s like they’re copying DreamWorks’ formula rather than embracing what makes the Smurfs unique.

And speaking of forced modern elements—Rihanna. Look, I respect Rihanna as a musician, and I’m sure she’ll do fine as Smurfette, but her presence already makes it feel like the studio is prioritizing star power over authenticity. And hearing her sing a pop cover of Heaven Is a Place on Earth in the trailer? That just doesn’t fit the Smurfs at all. In the Hanna-Barbera series, the Smurfs danced to classical music, folk tunes, or cheerful, whimsical melodies. Not radio pop hits. It makes me worried that the soundtrack is going to be full of chart-topping songs instead of anything that actually matches the Smurfs' traditional charm.

The introduction of Influencer Smurf is another point of contention. Many fans of The Lost Village have expressed their displeasure with this addition, and I have to agree with them. It feels like a contrived attempt at modernizing the timeless and classic Smurfs. Also, whoever heard of the internet in the Middle Ages? It didn't even exist yet. The Smurfs are supposed to be timeless, not the 2020s.

Furthermore, the Smurfs' unique language, where they replace various words with "smurf," has always been a charming aspect of their identity. However, in the 2025 trailer, this quirk seems overdone, especially when used to censor curse words. In the Hanna-Barbera series, this language was used sparingly, adding to its charm. But hearing "smurf" in nearly every sentence becomes tiring and feels like a forced attempt at humor.

According to fans of The Lost Village, the 2025 movie is nothing more than nostalgia bait. It seems the studio is banking on the Smurfs' legacy to draw audiences, without offering anything genuinely new or respectful to the original material.

I was hoping for a new Smurfs movie that embraced the heart of Peyo’s creation, not one that feels like it was designed by a marketing team trying to make the Smurfs “hip” again. Based on what I’ve seen in the trailer, I don’t think I’ll be watching this movie anytime soon.

And no offense to those who are hyped. I’m not bashing anyone who likes Smurfs 2025; it’s just my personal opinion. If others are excited for it, that’s totally fine! It’s just not what I was hoping for.

[hannaloony]

Hii Hanna! I hope you're having a lovely day! I had a dream I met you at a comic con and bought dbd merch from you, and so I'm here to ask if you ever considered opening a merch shop online? Your creations are so amazing and I'm sure a lot of people from the fandom would be interested in buying a keychain or something like that from you! If not that's ok tho, we're still blessed to have you in the fandom you know!

Take care!! Love ya!!

Hi! I am now sitting and smiling widely. It's so cute and so nice! Love you 💖💖

I've actually been asked about this before and it seems your message is the last straw and I'm taking action.

So there are two problems:

a) I have problems with my credit card

b) I am a dumbass when it comes to the Internet and online stores. And no experience yet.

BUT I would really like to do it for all of you, because I have never received so much warmth in my address, for which I am so grateful! 😭💖 So I will try to solve these two problems in short time and come with good news

Huge hugs and lots of love 💗💗

THANK YOU!

(and here is a small spoiler for a cool project that will be in September)

[dcdreamblog]

So was Black Vulcan a real obscure superhero, or just someone that the guys behind that old Superfriends cartoon made up because Black Lightning wouldn't allow them to use his likeness?

Black Vulcan isn't a real person and despite what I'm sure were the best of intentions of the people creating him, the story behind his existence is liable to make you mad.

(A model sheets of Black Vulcan from the "Challenge of the Superfriends" cartoon) The Superfriends Cartoon, despite not being well remembered, was actually sanctioned by the Justice League in a 50/50 split with Hanna Barbera with the League's 50% profit being given to charitable foundations. The League does this all the god damn time through what's called the Watchtower Foundation. If you own a piece of League merch, it's probably official and its profit probably went at least half to charity. The Watchtower Foundation also does really cool stuff like making sure all of its merchandise is made with adult labor via living wages, which makes things feel nicer. In the creation of the Superfriends, Hanna Barbera wanted to diversify the cast they had been given to create heroes of African American, Native American, Asian and Latin American heritage. Creating the false hero "Black Vulcan" to fill that role. Now you may ask why the obvious candidate for that role, IE, Metropolis' own Black Lightning wasn't chosen. There's an excuse reason and a real one. The excuse reason is that Black Lightning wasn't a member of the League in any official capacity for several years yet and Hanna Barbera wasn't confident in their ability to secure "rights" to the man's likeness (while superhero identities are uncopyrightable under the law, should that hero have no public identity to claim it, its generally understood that doing unofficial business in a superhero's likeness is a good way to piss off the community). The real reason was discovered years after the show's production during the company's acquisition by Warner Bros. Namely a note was made by Hanna Barbera's upper management that Black Lightning was "too radical" a figure for a Saturday morning TV show. IE, Black Lightning is a famously empowered figure who fights on behalf of black causes and black communities to the point of often being used as a strawman by fearmongers and racebaiters and it was feared the his inclusion would be "Too political" Basically they wanted to have the points for black representation without having to stand behind an actually antiracist message.

[erisweekofficial]

We are beyond grateful for your incredible contributions, unwavering support, and beautiful art that you created! The sheer number of stories, pictures, and creations you shared this week has truly amazed us. Each and every one of you helped make this week so special. It's amazing to see how a single character can unite so many people from around the world

Thank you for making this week so special and also thank you for everyone who reached out with corrections! We have done our best to put together all the masterlists, credit all the artists for the fanart correctly and add any missing work!

We can't wait to see you again next year!

-- STT and Hanna (2024 mods)

(dividers by @tsunami-of-tears)

[clarkgriffon]

fashion in rosewood in every episode → miss me x100 (5x05)

[lingthusiasm]

Lingthusiasm Episode 98: Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender

When a human learns a new word, we're learning to attach that word to a set of concepts in the real world. When a computer "learns" a new word, it is creating some associations between that word and other words it has seen before, which can sometimes give it the appearance of understanding, but it doesn't have that real-world grounding, which can sometimes lead to spectacular failures: hilariously implausible from a human perspective, just as plausible from the computer's.

In this episode, your host Lauren Gawne gets enthusiastic about how computers process language with Dr. Emily M. Bender, who is a linguistics professor at the University of Washington, USA, and cohost of the podcast Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000. We talk about Emily's work trying to formulate a list of rules that a computer can use to generate grammatical sentences in a language, the differences between that and training a computer to generate sentences using the statistical likelihood of what comes next based on all the other sentences, and the further differences between both those things and how humans map language onto the real world. We also talk about paying attention to communities not just data, the labour practices behind large language models, and how Emily's persistent questions led to the creation of the Bender Rule (always state the language you're working on, even if it's English).

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements: The 2024 Lingthusiasm Listener Survey is here! It’s a mix of questions about who you are as our listener, as well as some fun linguistics experiments for you to participate in. If you have taken the survey in previous years, there are new questions, so you can participate again this year.

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about three places where we can learn things about linguistics!! We talk about two linguistically interesting museums that Gretchen recently visited: the Estonian National Museum, as well as Mundolingua, a general linguistics museum in Paris. We also talk about Lauren's dream linguistics travel destination: Martha's Vineyard.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Also, Patreon now has gift memberships! If you'd like to get a gift subscription to Lingthusiasm bonus episodes for someone you know, or if you want to suggest them as a gift for yourself, here's how to gift a membership.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Emily Bender

Emily Bender on Bluesky and Twitter

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000: The Newsletter

The AI Con by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna

'Data Sovereignty and the Kaitiakitanga License' on Te Hiku

wordfreq by Robyn Speer on GitHub

Lingthusiasm Episode ‘Making machines learn language - Interview with Janelle Shane’

Bonus with Janelle Shane: we do a dramatic reading of the funniest auto-generated Lingthusiasm episodes

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

[scotianostra]

24th December 1914 saw the death of John "of the mountains" Muir, noted naturalist, explorer, writer, and geologist.

John Muir was born in Dunbar, East Lothian, on April 21, 1838. He was the third of Daniel and Anne Gilrye Muir’s eight children. Muir recalled in The Story of My Boyhood and Youth that his father was religious and extremely strict, keeping his children in line with frequent whippings. In 1849 the Muri's moved to the United States and bought farmland near Portage, Wisconsin. Muir’s father worked him hard on the farm and would not allow him to waste daylight hours on reading. Muir asked for and received permission to rise early in order to study. He invented an “early-rising machine” that dumped him out of bed at one o'clock each morning so that he could read. In 1860 he displayed this and other inventions at the Wisconsin State Fair.

In 1861 Muir entered the University of Wisconsin to study science. He also tried studying medicine but soon gave it up for various jobs that challenged his skill at inventing things. His interest in nature, particularly plants, was growing; he made frequent trips throughout Wisconsin and nearby states to observe plant life. In 1867 he gave up his own inventions “to study the inventions of God.” He set out on the walk described in A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf. Actually, he went as far as Cuba. In 1868 he travelled to San Francisco, California, and worked on a sheep ranch. Exploring Yosemite Valley occupied much of his next six years. On all of his explorations he kept a journal of scientific and personal observations and also pencil drawings.

In 1880, after returning from exploring in Alaska, Muir married Louie Wanda Strentzel, the daughter of a Polish plant grower. They would have two children. In 1881, after another trip to Alaska, Muir settled on a fruit ranch near Martinez, California. He worked for ten years to make enough money to enable him to stop. Having provided permanently for his wife, two daughters, and himself, he turned his full attention to the study of nature. Glaciers and freezing particularly interested him, and his work contributed to an explanation of the process by which glaciers are formed. He also went on expeditions to Europe, Asia, and Australia.

In 1889 Muir argued in Century magazine that Yosemite Valley should become a national park. The passage of a law in 1890 making that happen owed much to Muir’s influence. The Mountains of California, Our National Parks, and his many articles in popular magazines greatly advanced the conservation movement, as did his creation in 1892 of the Sierra Club, an organization dedicated to preserving wild lands such as Yosemite. Muir served as the president of the club until his death. Muir’s wife died in 1905. From then until his death Muir published four books, including Stickeen, which was a popular dog story, and My First Summer in the Sierra.

He died in Los Angeles, California, on December 24th, 1914 and is buried at Muir-Strentzel Hanna Cemetery, Alhambra Valley, California.

[myx-on-earth]

Content Warning: Landfall Game's April Fools Triumph

For the Content!

It would seem that an April Fools joke of a game has resulted in overnight indie success. Landfall Games, a beloved indie game studio, has a yearly April Fools tradition they call “Landfall Day”, where their devs put together essentially a parody of whatever game is popular at the time. They’ve parodied everything from DayZ to battle royales (Twice, with Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and Knightfall), and this year it would seem it’s Lethal Company’s turn.

Lethal Company is a game known for silly co-op shenanigans that seem to instantly translate into YouTube content- and Content Warning takes that idea and turns it up to 11, making being an influencer a part of the game mechanics. You and a group of friends take a diving bell to “The Old World”, a spooky map filled with monsters and traps entirely for the sake of internet entertainment value. With a single camera and 90 seconds of film, your group has to make the spookiest, funniest video possible- because your only source of income is Spooktube, and that revenue doesn’t come easily.

It's such a brilliant parody of both the horror genre Lethal Company tapped into and the loop of content creation in the internet age that it, somehow, wraps around to being an excellent game in of itself, though Landfall is no stranger to finding gold through satire. Previously, their first battle royale parody (Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, a riff on PUBG) found some success, enough that Landfall turned it into a full venture. It’s not as popular nowadays, but it IS legitimately good- and Content Warning seems to be turning out the same way with its initial popularity and engaging premise.

Typical Content Warning video result, featuring myself, @thatpocketninja, @squiddskipp, and a third friend who requested to remain anonymous

In the space of video game development, April Fools seems to be not so much a “joke” day, but a day that allows ideas to be thrown around that might not otherwise have been considered, which can lead to majorly creative leaps of faith. With examples like the Yakuza series’ pivot to turn-based combat, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s continued success in the midst of a floundering Ubisoft, and even Lilith Walther’s upcoming definitely-not-Bloodborne Kart (now known as Nightmare Kart), the idea of “joke turned legitimate gamedev venture” isn’t exactly new.

I actually had the pleasure of exchanging emails with Hanna Fogelberg (@thebirdmountain on Twitter), Landfall's Head of Community, who provided some insight into Content Warning’s development and the overwhelming response in the interview below.

1. What's it like to go to bed seeing some success, then waking up to find your joke game is a viral hit? Did you expect this at all, given the surprising amount of polish it has?

"We couldn't sleep to tell you the truth! Even if the team said good night at about 2am we kept texting the player numbers to each other throughout the night, we were very wired! We always knew there was the potential of the game going really well, there's something about the design and shareability of the videos you make that we knew could hit it big but it's still surprising it went THIS well."

2. How long did it take to develop Content Warning?

"Content Warning was made in about six weeks of active game development, but the idea came to us back in December!"

3. What were your main inspirations for the game? (Beyond Lethal Company, of course)

“Lethal Company and similar games were an obvious reference for the gameplay loop, we love that game! That said, what was most interesting to us was the core of the game - the filming and video creation. We were inspired by YouTubers and influencer culture, there's something interesting in people risking life and limb for content that we wanted to play off of. 

Other than that, the vibes of The Older World were inspired by Junji Ito and a specific H.R Giger painting while The Over World references the Swedish children's book Pettson och Findus.”

4. How experienced was the dev team?

“We're pretty experienced, the Landfall team has been making games for over 10 years with previous releases being Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Stick Fight: The Game, Clustertruck and Rounds to mention a few.”

5. How does this experience compare to the last semi-viral success Landfall had with a Landfall Day game? (TABG)

“This game outdid TABG in player numbers several times over! So it's hard to compare, this is by far our most viral hit to date.” 6. Any plans for the future of the game? Or just basic bug fixes and some more content? 

“We will see! Currently, we're focusing on fixing bigger bugs and other issues but we already have some new content planned. We're kind of playing it by ear at this point, it all depends on how things go in the coming weeks.”

Some may attribute Content Warning’s success to multiple factors- the 24 hour free period, how it riffs on Lethal Company and the tropes it already employs, or even that it was “designed to go viral”- but you can’t deny that, even as an iterative piece, it still manages to find its own identity and already seems to have captured the content creation hearts of everyone who gives it a chance. Games like this, that aren’t reliant on micro transactions and are buoyed by the PEOPLE you play with, rather than the money that one must spend on it, are the hope- and, hopefully, the future- of the video games industry. You can find Content Warning (No longer free, but still very cheap!) at the link below: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2881650/Content_Warning/

[eretzyisrael]

by Joanna Tokarska Bakir

As it turned out though, 8 October proved to be worse than 7 October, because it was then that the campaign of denial began. Western academics, artists and activists, some under the banner of justice and humanitarianism, others devoid of any banner, rushed to explain how the whole attack was simply armed resistance, and not genocide,[vi] even though Palestinian terrorists had killed everyone in their path.

The American writer Najma Sharif tweeted sneeringly: ‘What did y’all think decolonisation meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Losers!’[vii] Former minister Yannis Varoufakis, leader of the Greek left, declared that it was not Hamas, but ‘Europeans’, who were the criminals[viii]. Furthermore, in a joint statement, 35 organisations from the University of Harvard placed all the blame for the massacre on one actor – Israel of course.[ix] While attendees of the ill-fated rave party were still hiding in bushes from the terrorists, the New York section of the Democratic Socialists of America and the anti-Zionist organisation the Jewish Voice for Peace held a rally on Times Square in support of ‘Gaza’. [x] Susan Sarandon, the unforgettable star of Thelma and Louise, spoke at the next demo, and expressed satisfaction that Jews were finally ‘getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country’.[xi]

Meanwhile, a photograph went viral of a man paragliding over the Gaza barrier on 7 October so as to take part in the massacre. The image was shared by the Chicago branch of Black Lives Matter and Jodie Dean, a political theorist from Hobart College. The latter viewed the event as ‘exhilarating’.[xii] ‘And what do you stand for? For liberation, or for Zionism and imperialism?’ she asked.[xiii] The creators of the posters that were put up across New York got straight to the point: ‘Zionism = terrorism’.[xiv]

The terrorists themselves seemed somewhat disorientated by the unexpected outpouring of sympathy, and they published contradictory statements. Some claimed that no hostages had been taken, because Muslims do not wage war against civilians.[xv] Others declared that there are no civilians in Israel, because all the Jewish inhabitants were occupiers[xvi].

All this took place amidst the deafening silence of humanitarian and progressive organisations, who in the wake of the murder of George Floyd or the outbreak of war in Ukraine had issued statements around the clock.[xvii]

Slogans such as ‘Queers for Palestine’ drew comparisons with the little dog from Moominland Midwinter who longs to be with real wolves in the woods.

Go back to Poland

The slogan ‘Go back to Poland’ was tested by Lebanon’s Hezbollah following Hamas’s attack,[xviii] and a couple of months later it spread to the placards of American students protesting against the war in Gaza.[xix] Confronted by the fact that their postulates conformed to the definition of colonialism – dictating a situation overseas at someone else’s expense – the students superciliously shrugged their shoulders.

They had clearly never been exposed to the view that at the time of the creation of Israel, the majority of Jews were refugees, and Palestine was their haven (refugium), established by UN resolution no. 181 in 1947. This concept did not conform to the narrative about settler colonisers, and the same could be said about the traumatised kibbutzniks, peers of Hanna Krall from the orphanage in Otwock such as Lili Szynowłoga, who had miraculously survived the war by hiding in the cemetery in the town of Chęciny.[xx]

In Stanford, the first sit-in was held in mid-October, so before Israel entered Gaza. The young participants were angry and resolute: in their bid to justify the violence of the liberators, they cited Franz Fannon,[xxi] likened Hamas to Nelson Mandela, and compared the massacre of the kibbutzniks to Ukrainian self-defence in the war with Russia. In fact, Hamas and Hezbollah flags were few and far between at the New York demonstrations in early November, but soon the Columbia students announced that ‘We are Hamas’, while also championing such slogans as ‘By any means necessary’, ‘Globalize intifada’, ‘Abolish the settler state’ and ‘Glory to our martyrs’.[xxii] The red, upturned triangle that is used by terrorists to denote their aims started to appear on Jewish institutions (for example the Brooklyn Museum).[xxiii] One day, passengers on the New York subway heard something that Polish Jews remembered from 1968: “Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist. (…) This is your chance to get out.’[xxiv]

At Stanford, students were only let into the building if they recited the words ‘Fuck Israel, free Palestine’.[xxv] There were calls for boycotts of Israel – academic and others; these slogans had been launched by the anti-Israel movement Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, which had been prohibited by Trump, but which now found itself back in action. Recently, it gained official support from the American Anthropological Association, an organisation of specialists that nevertheless had vehemently opposed the movement for many years (i.e. when the serving president was the daughter of one of the survivors of the Jedwabne Pogrom).[xxvi]

The reality I have described thus far might seem like a clumsy imitation of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. The next installment is, however, more of a dark satire on universities – factories of the world’s greatest minds – as if straight from the movie The Social Network.

‘We don’t want no two states! We want all of ’48!’ chanted Stanford students, calling for a return to the situation prior to Israel’s 1948 war of independence (which was started, like the wars of 1967 and 1973, by Israel’s Arab neighbours who, rejecting the previously mentioned UN resolution and the creation of Jewish and Palestinian states, attacked the former, but did not win).[xxvii]

‘We are Stanford University! We control things!’ – shouted young Americans in keffiyehs. They covered their faces, so as not to jeopardise their future careers. The creator of the idea of civil disobedience, Henry David Thoreau, believed that the condition for carrying out such defiance was voluntary submission to the resulting penalty, but this notion was considered ridiculously out of date by the protesters.

Worse than Again

I observed all this while in the US, where I spent the last academic year. My vantage point could be called privileged, considering that I was based at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, but that autumn, it was one of the more unfortunate places to be.

Although school groups bustled to and fro outside the museum, which adjoins the National Mall, the building seemed deserted in early October, and its lifts, which had been designed to bring to mind gas chambers, broke down more than usual.

The black cloud that hovered over the institution following the events of 7 October was expressed in a vigil in honour of those who had been killed or abducted by Hamas. A handful of pale, elderly Holocaust survivors took part. For the first time in the history of the museum, only the initials of those who attended the vigil were provided, due to security fears, but the situation gave the impression that the participants were culprits, not victims.

The official optimism that had been part of the museum’s mission for several decades disintegrated when social media started to swarm with unfriendly statements in the aftermath of 7 October. Suddenly, Jews found themselves on the wrong side. Rywka, a relative of Kielce Pogrom-survivor Anszel Pinkusewicz[xxviii], was on duty answering the constantly ringing telephone, but when the situation became completely unbearable, she started to consider handing in her notice. In November, things got even worse, when pictures of Hamas’s hostages were torn down under the cover of night. The fact that the institution was in crisis was plain to see: within just a few hours of the attack taking place, the museum’s main exhibition, with its motto ‘Never Again’, became painfully outdated. When clips from terrorists’ bodycams were uploaded onto the net, old symbols such as cattle trucks transporting Jews to Auschwitz receded far into the distance. Something had begun that Henry Grynberg had described as ‘Worse than Again’,[xxix] and the hallmark of this was the deafening silence in which it took place.

[avkizi]

paranormal investigator dr intro!!!

"milkshakes and cat eyes / lipstick and french fries"

BASICS🕯️୧⋆ ˚｡-------------------------------------------------------------

⚰️ name: mako andromeda fujita

⚰️ nickname/s: none

⚰️ age: 20

⚰️ birthday: 06/04

⚰️ home: lincoln, NE (hometown) mexico city, MX (current)

APPEARENCE + MOODBOARD🕯️୧⋆ ˚｡---------------------------------

⛧°｡⋆༺──────────────────────────────────༻⋆ ｡°⛧

⚰️ faceclaims: i dont even have a specific one tbh just my pinterest appearences board <3

⚰️ voiceclaims: combo of lindsay nikole, gabbie hanna, and cynfyre_

⚰️ ethnicity/nationality: 1/2 japanese, 1/2 pakistani

⚰️ height: 5'3 (157 cm)

⚰️ features: double lobe and septum piercings, dimples, green/gold/hazel eyes, a couple small tattoos, and moles + freckles

⚰️ clothes aesthetic:

⛧°｡⋆༺──────────────────────────────────༻⋆ ｡°⛧

CAREERS🕯️୧⋆ ˚｡----------------------------------------------------------

⚰️ paranormal investigator:

-i'm really close with sam & colby and we make a shit ton of content together -i'm an empath & medium, so i can communicate with and am more aware of spirits etc -some of my favorite videos to film were probs the crescent hotel and the 2024 hell week videos with kris & celina, or the sturniolos -i don't know what it is, but i have this weird connection to the energy field, it pretty much manifests as weird shit happening around me -most commonly things move/float seemingly on their own or like they glow and have like light auras around them -i can't always control it super well but it usually happens in fight or flight/super emotionally charged situations -think matilda by roald dahl ig because i am her and she is me

⚰️ college/uni:

-while i'm not off investigating the paranormal or doing (possibly) illegal stuff, i go to college/uni !! -i played D1 volleyball for UNL (univerity on nebraska-lincoln) for two years until i had to stop so i could pursue doing content creation/social media -i finished my bachelor's online, majored in entomology with a minor in forensics <3

MISC/TRIVIA🕯️୧⋆ ˚｡------------------------------------------------------

⚰️ i do streams sometimes of like horror games or just chatting etc. and i have my own youtube/tiktok/insta accounts (@/mako.shark)

⚰️ i'm the thrift and diy god actually its my life and soul i don't think i have one single thing in my closet thats not etiher thrifted or modified/altered by me in some way

⚰️ i also have two cousins who are my age, but they're more like my sisters than my cousins atp anyway

⚰️ i am such a compulsive baker if im bored i bake if im hungry i bake istg i black out i wake up and there r sweet treats in my house i made ig?? like ate

⚰️ my n my s/o (alex quackity 🤭🤭) were ghostface and casey b. for halloween when i had blonde hair and it was so cute raaghhh

⚰️ i used to play piano and as a kid in concerts and recitals etc and can still sight read oh yeah baby perfect pitch moment (im literally your asian parent's friend's kid you get compared to final boss)

⚰️ associative synethsesia baddie (fun fact i have AS in my cr too <3)

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