#has 242 as of today

[deus-and-the-machina]

the dunmeshi yuri discourse feels wild to me because it just feels like the wrong series to be doing this with. yes farcille is a juggernaut ship but like. the series is still made up of a mostly male cast and the more important side characters are also male. for a while its just marcille until izutsumi gets added and she's a teenager so no shipping with most characters for her. if we're being honest this is not a series where its a shock or an upset for there to be more m/m.

not to mention that farcille is still the most overall popular dunmeshi ship on ao3 by far, the m/m to f/f ratio seems to me that there are several m/m ships being rotated around where with f/f its mostly farcille with a couple of minor ships. the only other f/f ship ive seen any consistent content for in the fandom is namari/kiki, a little bit of izutsumi/tade, and some canary ladies.

While dunmeshi is a great series that resists a lot of anime tropes about portraying women and body types I feel like we still owe it to ourselves to be honest in that most of the central character are men who, with the exception of senshi, are pretty slim, women included (falin is fat in my HEART-). I dont really say this to critique ryoko kui, but just because I think its best to temper our expectations about what the story actually includes. you cant hang everything on "but look how well farcille is written" when, while I do love them, falin admittedly spends a good chunk of the series as a plot device more then a person. the glimpses of her self we get are really fascinating to me, and I would confidently say she's a character in her own right, but it would be disingenuous to claim she couldn't have used more screen time or depth into how she feels during all this crazy shit that's happened to her.

[blkdaddie]

Empregnas University: Code Gold

I shifted in my seat as Professor Roca droned on. As a second-year law student class, it's important to have good notes but my concentration is shot today. The baby has been sitting low in my pelvis for a week with no signs of labor. At least I can breathe a bit better but a 10 lb baby plus sitting for hours is murder on my back. I feel the now familiar urge to pee, and ease my heft to my feet. Prof. Roca doesn’t miss a beat of his lecture – with almost 40% of our student body pregnant at any time they’re pretty easygoing about bathroom trips during class. I take a few shuffling steps, knowing my waddle has become exaggerated with this bowling ball of a kid between my hips, when I feel a sudden wetness. I try to waddle faster mortified that I’ve wet myself, when a contraction seizes me and I double over with a grunt. “Holy shit, Derek’s finally having his kid!”. If I weren’t in so much pain I would laugh; I realize the wetness is at my rear – my waters have broken.

Prof. Roca finally pauses his speech on the intersection of artificial intelligence and ethics, turning his attention to me with a sigh. “I really thought we’d get through one semester without a labor starting in class. Damn nuisance, these kids.”  I don’t know if he’s referring to me or the baby, but I’m too panicked to care. This baby feels like a boulder between my hips and I sink to my knees aided by a classmate,  Anthony. I distractedly notice he has a slight belly, and he’s clearly freaking out, probably imagining his own labor.  I’m too breathless to reassure him.

Prof. Roca crosses to an old-school landline phone on the wall and I understand why it’s still there when he picks up the receiver. “Code Gold, Memorial Hall Room 242. And send janitorial, he’s leaking all over the place.”

The pressure is immense. I feel like I’m floating outside of my body as I watch my belly warp from the force of my muscles all moving the baby down.   “Derrick, just sit tight for a minute, health center is sending someone with a wheelchair. Now, where were we…”  Professor prepares to continue his lesson but I can’t bite back the pained cry that escapes my lips. I have an overwhelming need to push, and start scrambling for the waistband of my jeans. “Um, professor, I don’t think he has a minute!”  Anthony awkwardly kneels beside me and I feel cool air against my ass as I push my pants lower. A couple of classmates who have delivered before rush to my side, but most sit there gawking. We all know anal birth is normal and natural but seeing it live and in person is some wild shit.   James, who I know had twins last year, probes to check my dilation, and Andre, who has a toddler, starts talking to me softly.  “Bro, you gotta focus. Quit screaming and breathe. Da fuck is wrong with you, coming to class like this?”  He shakes his head but looks resolved when James signals something from over my shoulder. “Next contraction, fuckin’ push.”    My belly hangs low and heavy as I sit back on my haunches, looking for any relief, but it’s futile.  I’m terrified but my body takes over. One push. Then another. Unbearable burning. On the third push the baby’s head is out and I can feel it wiggling. The sensation is surreal but I don’t have time to ponder. I bear down again and the baby slides out into James’ hands. I feel a sudden physical emptiness but my heart is bursting when I hear a mewling, then a cry. My classmates help me lie back; I’m shivering as I come down from the adrenaline high, but my grasp on my wet squawking baby is confident and secure. Professor Roca gives up, slamming his laptop shut. “Forget it. Class dismissed. See you on Thursday.”

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

History Repeating Itself 💔

Joe Biden’s Role in the Yom Kippur War

Joe Biden had his first meeting with an Israeli leader, Golda Meir, on the eve of the Yom Kippur war, right after meeting with officials in Cairo. During the then junior senator’s meeting with Meir, Biden suggested that Israel make a unilateral withdrawal from settlements for peace, criticizing the settlement policies of the Labor Party, and suggesting they represent a form of “creeping annexation.” Though Biden assured Meir that Egyptian officials were convinced of Israel’s military superiority, 40 days later, Sadat initiated a surprise attack against Israel.

This is the gist of a bombshell tweet from Israel’s Channel 13 reporter Nadav Eyal containing excerpts from a classified memo from an Israeli official who attended that fateful meeting. While it may have been the first meeting between Biden and an Israeli prime minister, it was certainly not the last. In subsequent meetings with Israeli prime ministers, Biden threatened Menachem Begin with withholding U.S. aid, and publicly upbraided Benyamin Netanyahu because it had been announced in a town council meeting that 1600 homes were to be built in future in the Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo (more about this here).   

Joe Biden paints that early meeting with Golda as something precious that cemented in his mind how important Israel is to the Jewish people. It is clear, however, that Joe Biden has always been against the Jewish people settling their indigenous territory. The very thought of Jews planning to build homes in Jerusalem makes him furious. Therefore, contrary to the love fest with Golda he has often described, Biden used the first chance he had to meet with an Israeli prime minister to broach the subject of unilateral concessions.

One wonders how much clout the young senator wielded at that time. Not to mention the timing of subsequent events, with the surprise attack on Israel by Egypt occurring just 40 days after Biden’s meeting with Meir. Is it possible that Golda Meir incurred wider U.S. displeasure by refusing to entertain Biden’s suggestion of unilateral concessions? Was Egypt perhaps emboldened by this state of affairs to attack Israel without fear of American intervention?

During its years in office, Israel fought the 1956 Sinai War, the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Labor agreed to UN Resolution 242 and the notion of trading land for peace. Nevertheless, successive Labor governments established settlements in the disputed territories and refrained from dismantling illegal settlements, such as those established in 1968 at Qiryat Arba in Hebron by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, and others set up by Gush Emunim. By 1976, more than thirty settlements had been established on the West Bank; however, their population was fewer than 10,000.

"TODAY’S BLOG:

Joe Biden’s Role in the Yom Kippur War

In January 1973, Joe Biden was sworn in as Senator from Delaware.

September of that year found him in the Middle East on a trip to Egypt. Shortly thereafter, Biden was in Israel in a meeting with Israeli PM Golda Meir.

In that meeting, Biden convinced Meir that Egypt would not attack Israel by convincing her that Egypt thought that Israel had absolute military superiority.

The meeting was documented on October 2, 1973 in a secret letter (below) written by Israel Foreign Ministry official Gideon Jordan. Four days later Egypt attacked Israel.

Foreign Ministry official Gideon Jordan summed up Biden’s words as follows: “Of all the personalities (in Egypt) he (Biden) met, he heard that there was not one of them who disbelieved in Israel’s perfect military superiority and therefore stated that it is not possible for Egypt to go to war against Israel now. According to the people he spoke to Egyptians, time will take its course and when God wills, he will find the solution.”

What this letter calls into question is Joe Biden’s extreme misreading of Arab “personalities” and their intentions. His misreading–and that of Israeli intelligence–had disastrous consequences in the Yom Kippur War. One cannot help but think of similar Biden misreadings when it comes to Iran, Lebanon, and elsewhere.

Gideon Jordan later notes in the secret document that Biden was interested in more than Egypt: “The senator repeatedly said that Israel should do a unilateral act, that is to withdraw from some territories, of course not from those territories of strategic importance such as the Golan Heights, Sharm el-Sheikh and the Gaza Strip–but to withdraw without even any negotiations or an agreement with the Arabs.”

Jordan remarks that Meir immediately disagreed with Biden about unilateral withdrawals without achieving true peace. Again, one cannot help but think about the disastrous Biden unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the unilateral concessions that the U.S. has demanded from Israel in the current Lebanon “agreement” talks.

The secret letter is below for those of you who read Hebrew:

When Biden met Meir: Joe Biden advised Jewish PM to trade land for peace - The Jerusalem Post

 Biden meeting between Joe Biden and former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, described in a memo published by Israeli reporter Nadav Eyal, sheds light on the former Vice President's thought process at that time, and what he believed Israel should do shortly before the Yom Kippur war broke out. The meeting took place following his return from Egypt where he discussed with Saadat several things, roughly 40 days before the surprise attack that would turn into the Yom Kippur war.

https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/when-biden-met-meir-joe-biden-advised-jewish-pm-to-trade-land-for-peace-646732

[bloopitynoot]

Reading SVSSS: Chapter 4

For those who don't know, I am reading SVSSS for the first time and sharing my thoughts!

If you have not read it, there will be spoilers! Consider this a warning.

Also- if you want to follow along, I am aiming to post updates daily. You can find all the posts in the tag bloopitynoot reads SVSSS. You can also check out the intro post for context on my read.

aaaaaaand i'm back for another chapter! Again at my desk with my reading buddy (Charlie) tea for this chapter is a soy matcha latte.

So, I thought the conference was a few days from when Shen Qingqiu/Shen Yuan was in the cave, but im assuming it's annual? Since he was in the caves for a year? p191

Ah JK. the top of the next page - the conference is every 4 years 192

I'm actually so stoked for this demon blood reveal. I want to know how its spun in this "version" of the story p 193

I love how confused shen yuan is, he's still over here thinking he's the villain when he has so clearly been upgraded to Love Interest/Damsel in Distress. IDK what to tell you pp193-194

Okay so now luo binghe is 17. Question though- do we ever actually get an age for Shen Qingqiu? p195

This kid is still here simping. Actually at this point I dont even know who is the simp. Luo Binghe is openly heart eyes and Qin Qingqiu isn't even aware of his own feelings but the way he describes future luo binghe is too much LOL. It is a trainwreck to read. p195

Binghe: *all flirt* Shen Qingqiu: shit. fuck. ah. I need to not fuck this plot point p196

LOL at Shen Qingqiu taking the carriage "I'm frail and indisposed" x3 twink energy p200

not the snacks too LOL p200

oh no! Luo Binghe thinking that Shen Qingqiu has any feelings at all for Liu Mingyan p201

But also then trying to make Shen Qingqiu jealous. Oh boy.

Let's take a second to appreciate how clear and concise the point system is for the conference. like this was well thought out- I love it. It's also giving a bit of hunger games spectator energy p205

This guy (Shen Yuan) already knows the outcome, and yet he's going to gamble (AND GAMBLE BIG) anyways p 208

I cannot with this group following Luo Binghe "my feet hurt :(" p215

why the foot fetish material 💀 217

RIP to the OG timeline's harem- the have been felled to the Demon Realm's Nu Yuan Chen p218

omg this is a massacre p220

awww at liu qingge not letting Shen Qingqiu join the fray. I feel like these two probably have a shit ton of fics pairing them p223

THE HEAD SPIDER WHAT pp226-227

Shen Qingqiu's entrance though!!!!!!!! p227

Shen Qingqiu is even getting the flower poison plot (points for my love interest/damsel in distress plotline) "Stop. Do not pass go. The girl you're supposed to pick the flower for, Qin Wanyue, is right next to us, watching- and you want to deflower it in her presence, and for a big, strong man to boot? Leave your wife some dignity, all right?!" p231

oooo now we get details on who the spy is. Enter Shang Qinghua p233

Shang Qinghhua deserves an Oscar for this performance 236

And more damsel shen qingqiu 242

the miscommunications! oh gosh why is this scene so painful. They're talking about two different things. pp247-248

Oh no. Shen Qingqiu/Shen Yuan is not okay :( p257

oh no oh no oh no -> heartbreak points?!?!?!? this is so sad p259

OMG WAIT WHAT AN END TO THIS CHAPTER. THE AUTHOR IS HERE TOO???????????? WHAT THE HECK!!!

RE: Who the spy is- A SPY WITHIN A SPY?

Thats all for today!

The twist really twisted me at the end there. AH. I can't wait to read more. Will they work together? will they be mortal enemies??? Will this be the author attempting to usurp Shen Yuan????? I DONT KNOW????

[rukafais]

@wingedarrows #wait ruka what do you MEAN nat 1 being a crit fail is just a very popular house rule HUH?#i learned something today

Yeah, explosive failure nat 1s aren't really.....part of the base rules in DnD?

Even 3.5, which was hugely swingy and very popular, only has 'fumbles' for nat 1s:

VARIANT: CRITICAL MISSES (FUMBLES) If you want to model a chance that in combat a character could fumble his weapon, then when a player rolls a 1 on his attack roll, have him make a DC10 Dexterity check. If he fails, his character fumbles. You neeed to decided what it means to fumble, but in general, that character should lose a turn of activity as he regains his balance, picks up a dropped weapon, clears his head, steadies himself, or whatever. Fumbles are not appropiate to all games. They can add excitement or interest to combat, but they can also detract from the fun. They certainly add more randomness to combat. Add this variant rule only after careful consideration.

which is very different from the super explosive super catastrophic nat 1s people are used to hearing, and it's a variant rule, so it's not in there from base.

In 5e there are a few things that happen for nat 1s:

On attack rolls , the phb says "If the d20 roll for an attack is a 1, the attack misses regardless of any modifiers or the target's AC."

For death saving throws: Rolling 1 or 20. When you make a death saving throw and roll a 1 on the d20, it counts as two failures.

Ability checks and saving throws do not have a critical failure state by default.

There's also a variant rule:

Critical Success or Failure, DMG pg 242 Rolling a 20 or a 1 on an ability check or a saving throw doesn't normally have any special effect. However, you can choose to take such an exceptional roll into account when adjudicating the outcome. It's up to you to determine how this manifests in the game. An easy approach is to increase the impact of the success or failure. [...]

But again, it's not the baseline expectation. It's an optional variant rule.

Which basically means one of the most notorious parts of DnD is just a very enthusiastically used variant rule LMAO you don't have to have it!

[kemetic-dreams]

Kandake, kadake or kentake (Meroitic: 𐦲𐦷𐦲𐦡 kdke), often Latinised as Candace (Ancient Greek: Κανδάκη, Kandakē), was the Meroitic term for the sister of the king of Kush who, due to the matrilineal succession, would bear the next heir, making her a queen mother.

Pliny writes that the "Queen of the Ethiopians" bore the title Candace, and indicates that the Ethiopians had conquered ancient Syria and the Mediterranean.

In 25 BC the Kush kandake Amanirenas, as reported by Strabo, attacked the city of Syene, today's Aswan, in territory of the Roman Empire; Emperor Augustus destroyed the city of Napata in retaliation.

Cassius Dio wrote that Kandake's army advanced as far as the Elephantine in Egypt, but Petronius defeated them and took Napata, their capital, and other cities.

Four African queens were known to the Greco-Roman world as the "Candaces": Amanishakheto, Amanirenas, Nawidemak, and Malegereabar

Biblical usage

The Baptism of Queen Candace's Eunuch (c. 1625–30, attributed to Hendrick van Balen and Jan Brueghel the Younger)

In the New Testament, a treasury official of "Candace, queen of the Ethiopians", returning from a trip to Jerusalem, met with Philip the Evangelist:

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship

He discussed with Philip the meaning of a perplexing passage from the Book of Isaiah. Philip explained the scripture to him and he was promptly baptised in some nearby water. The eunuch 'went on his way, rejoicing', and presumably therefore reported back on his conversion to the Kandake

Evidence outside of Nubia that shows additional links to Kushite's queenship concept are found in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has a long dynastic history claimed to be over three millennia from before 1000 BC to 1973, the year of the overthrow of the last Menelik emperor, Haile Selassie. The Ethiopian monarchy's official chronicle of dynastic succession descends from Menelik I includes six regnant queens referred to as Kandake. The following queens from the king list have "Kandake" added to their name:

Nicauta Kandake (r. 740–730 BCE)

Nikawla Kandake II (r. 342–332 BCE)

Akawsis Kandake III (r. 325–315 BCE)

Nikosis Kandake IV (r. 242–232 BCE)

Nicotnis Kandake V (r. 35–25 BCE)

Garsemot Kandake VI (r. 40–50 CE) – Allegedly the queen who ruled at the time of the Biblical story of the Ethiopian eunuch.

Twenty-one queens are recorded as sole regent in the kingdom of Ethiopia until the 9th century CE. The conquest of Meroe by the Axumite King Ezana may well provide the historical fiction for the Ethiopian dynastic claim to the Nubian Kandakes and their kings, as it was from this point onwards that the Axumites began calling themselves "Ethiopians", a Greco-Roman term previously used largely for the ancient Nubians. For example, Makeda, Queen of Sheba, in the Kebra Nagast, is also recognized as Candace or "Queen Mother".

Alexandrian legend

Jewellery of Kandake Amanishakheto, from her tomb

A legend in the Alexander romance claims that "Candace of Meroë" fought Alexander the Great. In fact, Alexander never attacked Nubia and never attempted to move further south than the oasis of Siwa in Egypt. The story is that when Alexander attempted to conquer her lands in 332 BC, she arranged her armies strategically to meet him and was present on a war elephant when he approached. Having assessed the strength of her armies, Alexander decided to withdraw from Nubia, heading to Egypt instead. Another story claims that Alexander and Candace had a romantic encounter.

These accounts originate from Alexander Romance by an unknown writer called Pseudo-Callisthenes, and the work is largely a fictionalized and grandiose account of Alexander's life. It is commonly quoted, but there seems to be no historical reference to this event from Alexander's time. The whole story of Alexander and Candace's encounter appears to be legendary.

John Malalas has mixed the Pseudo-Callisthenes material with other and wrote about the affair of Alexander with Kandake, adding that they got married. Malalas also wrote that Kandake was an Indian queen and Alexander met her during his Indian campaign

List of ruling kandakes

Pyramid of Amanitore in modern day Sudan

See also: List of monarchs of Kush

At least eleven kandakes also ruled in their own right as monarchs (i.e. queen regnants) of Kush:

Nahirqo (middle 2nd century BC)

An unknown queen regnant (end of the 2nd–first half of the 1st century BC)

Amanirenas (end of the 1st century BC–beginning of the 1st century AD)

Amanishakheto (early 1st century AD)

Shanakdakhete (first half of the 1st century AD)

Nawidemak (first half of the 1st century AD?)

Amanitore (middle 1st century AD)

Amanikhatashan (middle 2nd century AD?)

Amanikhalika (second half of the 2nd century AD)

Patrapeamani [de] (early 4th century)

Amanipilade (mid-4th century)

Based on the reading of a single inscription, some lists give two later kandakes named Maloqorebar (266–283 AD) and Lahideamani (306-314 AD). A recently discovered inscription corrects this earlier reading, however, showing that neither was a woman.

Archaeological sources

The Kandakes of Meroe were first described through the Greek geographer's Strabo account of the "one-eyed Candace" in 23 BCE in his encyclopedia Geographica. There are at least ten regnant Meroitic queens during the 500 years between 260 BCE and 320 CE, and at least six during the 140 periods between 60 BC and 80 AD. The iconographic portrayal of the Meroitic queens depicts them as women often alone and at the forefront of their stelae and sculptures and shown in regal women's clothing. Early depictions of Kushite queens typically do not have Egyptian elements making their appearance drastically different from their Kushite men and Egyptian counterparts. As seen in the Dream Stela of Tanawetamani, a large shawl was wrapped around the body with an additionally decorated cloak worn over the first; typically, a small tab-like element hanging below the hem touches the ground and has been interpreted as a little tail. The first association with this element of dress is with Tarharqo's mother during his coronation ceremony.  

It was not until George Reisner excavated the royal cemeteries at El Kurru and Nuri that archaeological material became available to study the Kushite queenship. Additionally, a few royal tombs of Kushite women have been found at Meroe's cemetery and in Egypt at Abydos (Leahy 1994). At El Kurru, six pyramids belong to royal women of the 25th Dynasty and a pyramid for queen Qalhata of the Napatan period. At Nuri, the tombs of royal women are located on the west plateau with more inscriptional information available at the site, linking the roles that the kings' mothers played in succession and their importance during the Kushite dynasty.

The most important event that Kushite women participated in was kingship's ensured continuity, where royal women were mentioned and represented in the royal ceremony. The lunettes of the stelae of Tanawetamani, Harsiyotef, and Nastasen all provide iconographic and textual evidence of these kings' enthronement. In all of these stelae, the king is accompanied by a female member of his family, mother, and wife. The king's mother played an essential role in the legitimacy of her son as the king; textual evidence from Taharqo's coronation stelae represents inscriptional evidence suggesting that the king's mother traveled to her son's coronation. During the Kushite 25th Dynasty, the office that is known as God's Wife of Amun was established. The royal women in this role acted as the primary contact with the Kushite god Amun. They played a decisive role in the king's accession to the throne.

Bas-reliefs dated to about 170 B.C. reveal the kentake Shanakdakheto, dressed in armor and wielding a spear in battle. She did not rule as queen regent or queen mother, but as a fully independent ruler. Her husband was her consort. In bas-reliefs found in the ruins of building projects she commissioned, Shanakdakheto is portrayed both alone as well as with her husband and son, who would inherit the throne by her death.

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to Mad Worshipper's Chapter 242

TL;DR - Rosalyn feels challenged and thinks of this as an opportunity for growth. New elf characters. Rosalyn's group versus the heretic inquisitors begins.

Rosalyn's Growth The 1st half of today's chapter was all about Rosalyn. She was feeling the pressure of challenging powerful enemies, but was excited to use this as an opportunity for personal growth. And CH was there to support her.

We got another scene of Rosalyn sinking the CH x Rosalyn ship again with her thoughts of CH being a colleague and friend whom she could trust. 😞

The Elven Heretic Inquisitors There were 24 heretic inquisitors, and they were referred to by their seat number. 1st seat seemed to be their leader. Moving on, we got introduced to the three elves who were dispatched to the Har Kingdom:

Yanni - a female elf with long blonde hair, holding the 9th seat.

Peterson - a male elf with green hair, holding the 17th seat. Specialty is wind.

Lingling - a female elf with red bobbed hair, holding the 2nd seat. Has a lively personality, but is cruel underneath.

Yanni had some suspicions about Pope Kesilia's orders to send Kendall to the Erghe Mountains and the disappearance of the 1st subjugation force, but decided to only report that suspicion after subduing the enemy.

Ending Remarks Rosalyn's appearance was quite nice, and I'm excited to see how much she has grown. But I'm disappointed with the upcoming fight. I thought the mad worshippers would be fighting each other, but it would be Rosalyn, Tasha, and Witira fighting the three elves, while CH, Clopeh, and Hannah would be fighting the two mixed blood dragons. So next chapter would be a battle chapter... DHB's naming scene seems so far away. 🥲

[todaysdocument]

J-1626 - Letter from Mother and Daddy to Lester E. Ford.

Record Group 242: National Archives Collection of Foreign Records SeizedSeries: German Reports of Downed Allied Fighters and Other Aircraft

Fri. June 16-44

J 1626

Dearest Lester,

I keep hoping every time we go to the

office will receive a letter from

you but as yet haven't, will be six

weeks Sun. since your wrote us

last & that seems a long time.

Surely they will soon be letting

you write.

We are really having warm

weather. I have been cleaning house

& putting away the winter clothes

this week.

H. [L.] Johnson died last Sun. he has

been having trouble with his heart

for a long time & he died suddenly.

You remember he was Vivian

Johnson's daddy.

The Scout's are making a flag with

all the boys names on it who

ever were scouts here, they are asking

for all names to be sent in - I sent yours in andthey are going to have court

of honor July 18th and the

mother of each boy is to

light a candle & then they

put the name on the flag.

Mr. Carter said he thinks his

boy is in England - I believe

he is on a bomber, you

remember he went to Salt Lake

City about the time you left.

[Bro] Wallace has gone to begin

his meetings for the summer

Bro. Foy Wallace Sr. and his wife

are to come today or tomorrow

& be here while Paul is gone.

Daddy & I have just been to

lunch, about all we had was

pie & milk, we just don't take

time to prepare much for noon,

we have our regular meals

most of time morning and

night.

Val Prahl is at home, I think

[study-with-aura]

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

It is the middle of the week, and I felt it today. I managed to still get three hours of piano in and finish my school work in a few short hours, but I am exhausted tonight after ballet. I am currently eating a snack, since I had to have my dinner early, but then I am going to shower and fall into bed and sleep until morning.

One of my green pens also ran out of ink. I did use them all throughout the summer as soon as I got them in because I was so excited to have erasable gel pens. I replaced it with another green pen that is a darker shade of green than the other but still has that muted saturation to it unlike my bright green pen. If you look at my Algebra 2 notebook, the last question has the new pen while the rest has the old, while the notebook on top of the picture has the bright green pen.

Good night all!

Tasks Completed:

Algebra 2 - Review Quiz (10/10)

American Literature - copied vocabulary terms + read about Anne Bradstreet + read Bradstreet's poem "To My Dear and Loving Husband"+ read the article "Anne Bradstreet: 'To My Dear and Loving Husband'" + read Bradstreet's poem "Prologue" + determined meter, rhyme scheme, and how the poem portrayed humility + read chapters 12-13 of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne + read an article about reflective writing

Spanish 3 - Took graded quiz on correct form of verbs (8/8)

Bible 2 - Read 2 Samuel 14-15

Early American History - Read about the Spanish Mission system + read about the San Juan Capistrano Mission + completed study guide (40/40) + took ungraded quiz (100%) + looked at a list of names of other historically important people in the 1500s and the 1600s.

Earth Science with Lab - Read the chapter "Origins of the Solar System" + looked over the questions to consider

Music Appreciation - Watched a video about the bassoon + watched a video about the trombone + copied major necessary terms from the D section of the music dictionary

Khan Academy - Completed US History Unit 2: Lesson 1 (parts 4-8)

Duolingo - Studied for approximately 30 minutes (Spanish + French + Chinese) + completed daily quests

Piano - Practiced for three hours in one hour split sessions

Reading - Read pages 242-271 of Stateless by Elizabeth Wein

Chores -  None today

Activities of the Day:

Personal Bible Study (1 Kings 8)

Ballet

Variations

Journal/Mindfulness

[workersolidarity]

⚠️ WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT⚠️

[ 📹 Horrific scenes from the recovery of a woman who was targeted by a Zionist sniper as she attempted to exit the Al-Said Hospital, in the north of Gaza, resulting in the immediate amputation of her leg. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

DAY 242 IN THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION'S GENOCIDE IN GAZA: ALL HOSPITALS IN RAFAH CLOSED AS UNITED NATIONS AGENCY DECLARES THE SITUATION "CATASTROPHIC", THE GUARDIAN DECLARES HAMAS "STILL STRONG" DESPITE NON-STOP BOMBING AND SHELLING, GENOCIDE CONTINUES WITH ONGOING MASSACRES OF CIVILIANS

On 242nd day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 7 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 71 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 182 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands, of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

"There may be more Hamas militants in the north of Gaza, supposedly cleared by Israeli forces months ago, than in Rafah, the southern city in the territory described by Israeli officials as the extremist Islamist organisation’s “last stronghold”."

That's the assessment of analysts according to a piece published in The Guardian today, Tuesday, June 4th. In the article, The Guardian describes the Hamas resistance movement as "still strong" in northern Gaza.

Despite the claims of the Israeli occupation's authorities, that the occupation army has destroyed at least four brigades of Hamas militants, the fiercest fighting to occur so far was during the occupation's second invasion of Jabalia, in Gaza's north, after supposedly clearing the area of Resistance militants early on in the war.

“We do have to remember there are more Hamas armed people in the north of Gaza in the places that the IDF has already moved out of than … in Rafah … Those are the IDF’s numbers. This is why the IDF had to go back into Jabaliya and … [Al-]Zeitoun [a neighborhood southeast of Gaza City], Hamas is controlling all those areas,” the head of "Israel's" national security council from 2021 to 2023, Eyal Hulata, is quoted as saying by The Guardian.

Rather than admitting that the occupation army isn't anywhere near as strong as it claims to be, or that the Resistance isn't anywhere near as weak as they said it was, The Guardian instead goes on to assess that "the battles in Jabaliya between lightly armed Hamas militants and a powerful IDF force underlined the ability of Hamas to return to parts of Gaza from which it was forced to retreat by earlier Israeli offensives, threatening a “forever war” for months or even years to come, as Israel tries to stamp out a tenacious insurgency, experts say."

According to the article, residents in Jabalia told The Guardian that they'd witnessed Hamas officials just last month patrolling local markets, enforcing price controls and organizing the distribution of humanitarian aid.

“There was a Hamas government in control, especially through the police, but it was low profile because they were being targeted and they did just very basic duties. It wasn’t like before the war,” The Guardian quotes Joe Shamala as saying, a 26 year-old resident who had fled Jabalia recently.

"Other civil organisations more or less run by Hamas also allow low-profile but effective governance," The Guardian added.

In other news, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA), Andrea Di Domenico, warned today that the situation in the Gaza Strip has become catastrophic, and is "getting worse," emphasizing that all hospitals in Rafah were no longer functioning.

“There are major efforts to re-establish a hospital in the central region of Gaza, but there are no longer operating hospitals in Rafah, except for field hospitals," Dominco is quoted as saying.

Speaking at a press conference, Domenico told how medical teams from all over the world have been sent to Gaza, but that these doctors were unable to find someplace to treat their wounded patients.

He went on to state that it had become "very difficult for United Nations operations to continue their presence in Gaza in light of the current situation."

"To be honest," he went on, "I believe that there is no other place in the world where the regime is suffering from great pressure, and I believe that there is no other United Nations mission that can continue its activities under these circumstances other than Gaza."

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation forces continue pushing ever deeper into Rafah, while heavily bombing and shelling across the entirety of the Gaza Strip.

This comes in spite of orders given last month by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), at The Hague, to "immediately halt" all ground operations in the Rafah Governate, and further, ordering the occupation to allow the free-flow humanitarian aid through the Rafah border crossing.

After several weeks of ground operations in the north of Gaza and in the Rafah Governate, driving large parts of the civilian population into the central Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have been heavily bombing and shelling in several areas of central Gaza, targeting residential homes by the dozen.

Occupation warplanes launched several raids on the Bureij Camp last night, with one of the strikes targeting and destroying the home of journalist Muhammad Ghanem, killing four Palestinians and wounding several others.

In further war crimes, IOF fighter jets bombed four residential towers, including the Al-Ahlam and Al-Maghari towers, in the center of the Bureij Camp, in central Gaza, within a two hour period, causing enormous damage to the buildings and the surrounding neighborhood.

According to local reporting, the IOF warplanes fired at least one missile into the Al-Maghari Tower, resulting in five casualties who were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

The same series of Zionist airstrikes also targeted the "Hamad Block-9" tower and the "Al-Quds Block-7" tower in the Bureij Camp.

Another raid in the Bureij Camp, at dawn on Tuesday, bombed the residential home for the Ghanem family on Block-10, with a number of casualties rushed to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

The Israeli assault continued when occupation aircraft bombed a civilian vehicle and a group of civilians in the vicinity of the entrance to a displacement shelter north of Deir al-Balah, south of Gaza City, killing 7 people and wounding 20 others.

Local reporting states that the "targeted area is crowded with displaced people near a college used as a shelter and housing hundreds of families," adding that a witness pointed to "the remains of the victims and bloodstains scattered around the place and on parked vehicles."

Meanwhile, another occupation airstrike targeted an empty room in the Abu Helu School, which houses displaced families, though luckily no casualties were reported in the attack.

The same cannot be said with another Israeli airstrike, which targeted the Al-Amsi family home in the New Camp area of the Nuseirat Camp, also in central Gaza, killing two people and wounding a number of others.

In the Rafah Governate, south of Gaza, Zionist soldiers are destroying dozens of homes near the border with Egypt, and along with the Zaroub roundabout area, while also bombing several neighborhoods in the city of Rafah.

An IOF airstrike also targeted the Khirbet al-Adas neighborhood, north of Rafah, while local paramedic crews recovered four bodies after another bombing near the Al-Najjar Hospital, east of Rafah.

In the meantime, in the northern Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike bombed the home of the Ghabayen family in the Al-Daraj neighborhood, east of Gaza City, while the Zionist forces continued detonating residential homes in the vicinity of the University College, in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, south of the city.

An occupation warplane also bombed the Daghmush family's residential home near the Jordanian Hospital, in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, south of the Gaza City.

Meanwhile, as the day went on, the Israeli occupation forces continued hammering residential homes with airstrikes and shelling in the Bureij, Al-Maghazi, and Al-Nuseirat Camps, in central Gaza, as well as in Al-Masdar village, killing another 13 Palestinians and wounding many others.

The Zionist air forces also bombarded the eastern neighborhoods of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, while occupation vehicles opened fire east of Al-Qarara, amidst violent artillery shelling.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the endlessly rising death toll in this war on civilians now exceeds 36'550 Palestinians killed, including over 15'000 children and over 10'000 women, while another 82'959 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

June 3rd, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

An independent terrorist attacked took place today, terrorists fired at an Israeli vehicle, it overturned and the driver was killed. So far, over 1,400 people in Israel were killed on Oct 7, then 9 people were killed in the north since Hezbollah joined Hamas in firing at Israel, and at least 19 Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza since the ground operation started. The number of hostages, after 4 were released and 1 was rescued, is 242. Over 50 people are still missing (meaning it's unknown if they were murdered by Hamas or kidnapped).

Of the 19 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza, at least 13 were killed by anti-tank fire. The attack in Jabalyia targeted the Hamas terrorist who was in charge of the anti-tank units. The damage from the IDF's strike was increased tenfold, because the terror tunnel Hamas built under the camp collapsed. Here is a high ranking Hamas terrorist talking about why they built terror tunnels, instead of bomb shelters for the civilian Gazans:

The operation also wielded a lot of important intel.

One of the Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza is the Druze officer, 33 years old Salman Habaka. On Oct 7, without waiting for orders, he went down to the south, joined soldiers there and helped stop the massacre in kibbutz Be'eri, where Hundreds of Hamas terrorists were torturing and murdering civilians. May the memory of this hero forever be a blessing.

Iran forced Jews living there to disconnect any communication with their relatives in Israel.

The evacuation of wounded and foreign nationals from Gaza through the Egyptian border was really important to Israel. Today, Israel also turned to several European countries, asking them to send hospital ships that can treat wounded Gazans.

Germany has outlawed all Hamas activity there. I try not to comment too much on the news flowing here, but this is so important, and I'm very grateful to hear this!

Several more direct hits from rockets in cities around Israel, with fires breaking out. In one case, the family was in their house when it was hit, they were in the bomb shelter, and had to be rescued from it. Israel has intercepted today rockets from Hamas, from Hezbollah, and from the Houthis in Yemen.

I mentioned that 9 Israelis were killed by Hezbollah's rocket fire into Israel's north (I couldn't find an official number on how many were wounded in total, but based on daily reports, it has been twenty at most). The terrorist organization released an infographic in Arabic, which claims they've killed and injured 120 Israeli soldiers and officers. I'm mentioning this because it's again a reminder that terrorists, who have no problems targeting civilians, also have no issues lying.

Pro-Iranian militias are reported to have moved into the south of Lebanon, to help Hezbollah.

Ella Hamawi was fatally injured by Hamas terrorists on Oct 7. For almost a month they fought to save her life, but she has now succumbed to her wounds.

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

[eretzyisrael]

HARIF urges sending letters on Jewish refugees to parliamentarians

Jewish refugees from Arab countries are an issue at the heart of any understanding of  conflict in the Middle East.  Yet they are so often ‘erased’ from the narrative or their story distorted.  Alarmed at the lies, misinformation and omissions about Jews and Israel – contributing to skyrocketing antisemitism – HARIF, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, has launched a letter-writing campaign to raise awareness of Jewish refugees in the new Labour government and among the new crop of politicians taking their places at Westminster.  Harif has composed a sample letter (below)  for its supporters to send to their MPs (Full list at the We work for you website). If you do not live in the UK, you can adapt the letter  to be sent to US Congressmen, Senators or other political representatives.

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear

I am writing as a constituent of yours to draw your attention to a neglected aspect of the Israel/Palestine conflict – namely the human rights issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. I  ask for your support in ensuring that this issue be given equal prominence with the far more familiar issue of Arab/Palestinian refugees from 1948.

In fact,  a larger number of Jewish refugees  –  850,000 – were driven out from Arab countries at the same time,  for no reason other than they shared the ethnicity and religion of  Israelis.  The majority of the Jewish refugees found a new home in Israel without the aid of UNRWA, and today constitute, with their descendants, 53 percent of the Jews of Israel.  However, some tens of thousands were resettled in the UK.

The 7 October Hamas massacre has stirred painful memories among these Middle Eastern and North African Jews. Many suffered similar violent episodes  before the creation of Israel.

In addition, there is no question that in 1947-48  Arab countries deliberately targeted their Jewish populations with discriminatory laws. 

On Sunday 16th May 1948 the New York Times carried a headline: ‘JEWS IN GRAVE DANGER IN ALL MOSLEM LANDS’, with the sub-heading ‘Nine Hundred Thousand in Africa and Asia Face Wrath of their Foes’. 

In Egypt, as early as 1926 a nationality law stated that a person born in Egypt was entitled to Egyptian nationality only if their father “belonged racially to the majority of the population of a country whose language is Arabic or whose religion is Islam”.

In Iraq, a 1950 law to entitled “Supplement to Ordinance Cancelling Iraqi Nationality,” was used to deprive Jews of their Iraqi nationality.

In all Arab countries, riots, expropriations and expulsions ensured that Jewish communities were forcibly deprived of their rights and property. It Is estimated that Jews lost privately-owned land equivalent to Jordan and Lebanon combined. 

   Indigenous Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities, which predated colonisation by the Arab conquest and Islam by 1,000 years or more, have ceased to exist.

At the time the injustice done to Jewish refugees was recognised by international actors: the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) recognised on a number of occasions that the plight of the Jewish refugees fell within its remit. This is also why UNSC Resolution 242 refers to “a just settlement of the refugee problem” without specifying the “Arab” or “Palestinian” refugee problem.

Some countries have recognised this Jewish refugee issue as the injustice it is. In 2008 the US House of Representatives  passed Resolution 185 which stated that “any explicit reference to the rights of Palestinian refugees must be matched by a similar reference to the rights of Jewish refugees”. In March 2014, the Government of Canada officially recognised “the experience of Jewish refugees who were displaced from states in the Middle East and North Africa after 1948”.

My request to you is that you use your influence to persuade the British government  to recognise the injustice that was suffered by more than 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and to ensure that it recognises this tragedy in its policy towards the Middle East.

Yours sincerely

The post HARIF urges sending letters on Jewish refugees to parliamentarians first appeared on Point of No Return.

[ohplagg]

Keeping Track of Time in I Love Yoo

I am back again with another timeline because I guess this is my life now. This timeline, though, is specifically about the events for December 21st 20XX and forward since I've noticed that Quimchee is adding clocks ever since Nol got stabbed, and everything feels like a race against the clock for some reason.

I'm not going to add any screenshots since this is just, as the title says, keeping track of time. Nothing more, nothing less.

Just in case someone is not paying attention to what they are about to read, this contains spoilers up to I Love Yoo's Episode 244.

If more clocks appear in future episodes I might update this.

As always, I love hearing what you guys think so feel free to reach out!

Italic means that it's not known when exactly in the timeline that specific event took place. I still placed the event where it makes most sense.

(Ep. XYZ) means the episode where the time is mentioned/seen.

Saturday December 21st

9:42pm Nol falls from the second floor to a glass table. (Ep. 210)

Before 11pm Nol is rushed to the hospital (Ep. 215)

Kousuke went to Hirahara's hostpital to look for Nol after being spaced out for around 30 minutes. (Ep.213)

Kousuke get's knocked out by a wall.

11:55pm YuJing leaves Rand alone. (Ep. 215)

Sunday December 22nd

12:00am Kousuke wakes up to hear Hansuke arguing with Yui (Ep. 220)

12:19am Meg find's Rand's present for Kousuke in the trash (Ep. 220)

12:22am Hansuke steals the blood samples (Ep. 221)

4:28am Rand leaves to visit Kousuke. Kousuke has been knocked out by the tea. (Ep. 221)

4:21am Nol wakes up. Shin-Ae texts Dieter and Soushi who are out of the hospital (Ep. 215)

4:47am Dieter and Soushi leave WacDonalds (Ep. 225)

5:06am Dieter and Soushi arrive to the hospital (Ep. 225)

5:09am Shinae goes to get Dieter and Soushi/Birthday party starts. (Ep. 225)

5:26am Stalkyoo dance to christmas music at sunrise. Geez, not even 20 minutes? no wonder Dieter was still awake to witness it all. (Ep. 220)

Hansuke visits YuJing and stores the blood samples.

Nana arrives to the hospital and Nol's jail time is pushed for 3 days counting today (so December 24th is his last day of freedom)

Hansuke takes the blood samples to get tested

7:52am Shin-Ae texts Dieter "Is everything okay?" after he and Soushi left the hospital (Ep. 225)

8:21am Shin-Ae and Nana meet (Ep. 225)

Kousuke wakes up, goes with Yui for breakfast, Hansuke and YuJing pick him up afterwards

8:40am-ish Yui arrives to church right after mass ended (Ep. 230)

"Convince me"

Shin-Ae gets picked up from the hospital by her family

Maya and Shin-Ae talk

Kousuke get's medically checked

11:30am Dieter texts Shin-Ae about going to the hospital together during the afternoon. Shin-Ae takes a nap (Ep. 235)

1:30pm Kousuke drops off his phone at his apartment before heading to Nol's hospital (Ep. 244)

3:30pm Dieter texts a sleeping Shin-Ae (Ep. 240)

Dieter comes to pick up Shin-Ae

Dieter talks with Nol

Kousuke arrives at the hospital with Hansuke and YuJing

Kousuke has a panic attack

5:51pm Shin-Ae wakes up from her nap (Ep. 240)

5:55pm Shin-Ae texts Nol "I know I'm blocked but just in case..." (Ep. 243)

The AA 101 Group to which Shin-Ae and her dad go to is at 7:00pm

7:41pm Hansuke and YuJing are hanging out with college friends. Kousuke isn't picking up his phone. Gregory M tells Hansuke that he can get his stuff done by the end of the week (Friday is the 26th) (Ep. 241)

8:35pm Nana, Dieter and Soushi leave the hospital for the day. (Ep. 242)

8:45pm Shin-Ae is at the AA 101 Group and receives a text apology from Dieter (Ep. 242)

Alyssa tells Nol she "really needs to see him"

Monday December 23rd

10:10am Kousuke's secretary looks at his watch and notices Kousuke missed work (Ep. 243)

10:30am Yui get's a text message from Alyssa saying she's going to visit Nol (Ep. 244)

11:05am Meg mentions how she is heading to the library soon (Ep. 243)

A bit before 11:45am Alyssa arrives to Nol's hospital to talk (Ep. 243)

Between 11:45am and 12:25pm Nol and Alyssa stay quiet (Ep. 243)

12:25pm Alyssa and Nol finally start talking and Yui arrives. (Ep. 243)

Shin-Ae will arrive to the hospital around 2pm (Ep.244)

Nana mentions she'll arrive around 3pm. (Ep. 243)

[girlactionfigure]

ISRAEL REALTIME - late-morning updates - Nov 2

THE MEMORY of the Holocaust is fading with the lives of those who saw it.  WHO will speak for the murdered babies of October 7 if we refuse to see it?

Do not turn away, do not ignore, do not go about your lives.  We will witness, we will speak for the murdered.

— BEIT LID, SHOMRON/YEHUDA (West Bank)… terror shooting attack at passing car on Route 557.  Driver shot, car overturned, did not survive.

Related - there are many reports of active incidents throughout the Shomron / Yehuda (West Bank).  At least 3 terrorists shot, skirmishes by Kalkilyah (at least 1 terrorist shot), riots by Shechem (Nablus) with rioter(s) shot attacking checkpoint.  

— LEBANON… Al Jazeera: An Israeli drone attacked with two missiles a target in the Al-Adisa area in southern Lebanon.

— NASRALLAH… the wait of the day is a 3:00 PM speech planned by Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.  Will Hezbollah ramp up, do the ‘big launch’, or posture?  Will Israel launch a preemptive strike?  IDF spokesman to Nasrallah a few minutes ago: We are ready.  

— POP-UP BATTLE REPORT… The heroic battle of the fighters of the 13th Battalion of Golan in the north of the Gaza Strip: about 30 terrorists from an elite Hamas force prepared a planned ambush from tunnels, with anti-tank missiles, rocket launchers and drones. The terrorists tried to surprise the fighters - and even tried to get into their armored personnel carriers. The fighters engaged in face-to-face battle, and with air support that hit the terrorists. The battle lasted about three hours. About 20 terrorists were killed in the battle, about 10 escaped. No casualties to our forces.

— HOSTAGE COUNT… increased to 242.

— GERMANY… from today activities of Hamas are banned in Germany.

— US THREATENS TO WITHHOLD GUNS GIVEN TO CIVILIANS?  (Supposedly from Haaretz)  “The USs has reportedly warned Israel that it would not send American-made rifles after the Israeli national security minister was seen handing out such guns to civilians amidst the war with the Hamas. The row erupted after images shared by minister Itamar Ben-Gvir showed him distributing rifles to civilian security squads on Oct 28 (Saturday), Israel’s Haaretz outlet reported.

(( This story is a bit bizarre. I can’t find a US source, Israel has PLENTY of guns - the IDF throws away nothing, generations of M-16’s etc, and many of the new Kitat Konenut town defense volunteer squads have also been raising money for their own equipment upgrades, and Israel manufactures rifles.  It buys them from the US because US military aid requires it. MSN reported but unconfirmed. ))

— WHEN THEY SAY IT OUT LOUD… Hamas Official Ghazi Hamad: “We Will Repeat The October 7 Attack, Time And Again, Until Israel Is Annihilated; We Are Victims – Everything We Do Is Justified.”  

[itwoodbeprefect]

fic writer 20 questions

i was tagged by @luredin! thank you! <3

i feel like i've done this one (or one very like it) at some point before, but i couldn't find it when i went searching, so maybe i just read through it and composed answers in my head? or my very confused tagging system is understandably failing me.

How many works do you have on AO3?

right now, 242!

What's your total AO3 word count?

587,542.

What fandoms do you write for?

several! these days mainly starsky & hutch, but h50 is still very present too, and i think both stargate atlantis and 911 may also be worth mentioning. beyond that there's a lot of other things for which i'm working on a single fic, or there's a document with multiple of them but i only open it once in a blue moon.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

well. four out of five of these are for a fandom i wouldn't write for anymore today for obvious reasons, and the other one (Tell me I'm perfect) is a Shadowhunters fic:

It's the truth

Tell me I'm perfect (but tell me the truth)

I dare you to dare me

Finders Keepers

That escalated quickly

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i wish i did! i keep trying to get into a healthier habit on that front, because i love comments and i'd like to say thank you and engage with people more, but it's a complicated thing - not in real life, but in my head, unfortunately.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

not an easy question, and it's not because there's too many to pick from! i'll indulge in a little melancholy at times, and maybe even a somewhat things-aren't-perfect ending, but generally there's at the very least a solid spark of hope even if the rest of the fic was sad. i think maybe Sobering (a mash hawk/trap fic) could qualify for actual angst, but even that one i seem to have tagged as "angst? i think?" when i posted it.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

now this, this is where we get tangled up in weighing a hundred fluffy fics against each other to decide happiness rankings! maybe something like Flowers for no reason but you missed me (starsky/hutch) or And I love every inch of you (And then some, and then some) (h50 steve/danny) because both of those are just pure giddy happiness start to finish, which means the happiness has been building for the longest by the time the ending rolls around.

Do you get hate on fics?

thankfully, not really! most of my stuff is deeply inoffensive. there's been a sporadic comment here or there over the years of someone randomly telling me they didn't agree with something i wrote (by which i don't mean people pointing out genuine mistakes - that's very different, and very helpful), but even then i wouldn't necessarily classify that as "hate", just as a very awkward way to respond to reading something that annoys you for whatever reason. what springs to mind is one that started with "i have not seen the episode" and then proceeded to interpret an in context line from a character as my personal beliefs on whether children are capable of evil, so. that kind of thing.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

not officially! but unofficially i've been told that it's fun and really really sweet, so no surprises there.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

not usually, which means that the craziest (and only) one on ao3 is probably the h50/s&h crossover (Said the apple to the orange), which is truly very uncrazy.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i wonder about that sometimes (i feel like after many many years and with the recent bot stuff on top, the answer should maybe be "probably"), but not that i know of!

there was an instance once of someone copying a story title, but they did so in a way that didn't even work. i was writing in dutch at the time, but english titles were Very Cool, so my story was called "ladies, bugs and ladybugs", and the other person took that, translated it to dutch, and used that for their story, which. those words don't match up the same way in the slightest, so it's just a random sequence of things by that point.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! actually, i was probably the first person to translate any of my fic - all of the very, very early stuff posted to ao3 was just an english copy of originally dutch stories - but these days there are also a lot of russian translations (russians seem to be very active in h50 fandom!), some mandarin, some french. one italian, i think. it's very cool!

also, shout out to people who do podfics, too. <3

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

a few attempts were made over the years, but most of that never went very far for one reason or another. none of it is on ao3.

What's your all-time favorite ship?

as of right now, probably starsky/hutch!

What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

oh, i'm afraid i could fill, well, lists. one that immediately comes to mind that's technically a little past this category because i know i'll never finish it is a very long h50 project in which i took up about a hundred different little threads from the series and tried to weave them together into a giant fix-it-ish getting together coming out case fic sort of thing, and i still think the plotting work for that one was sound, but i'm just never going to actually get 100k down for a fic like that at this point in my life. (note that this is not a fic that's already up on ao3 in part - i'll finish those, one way or another.)

and oh my, for maybe a better answer: the starsky-watches-cowboy-movies starsky/hutch fic. i want to write that one, i do! and i am, and i do have real hope that i may one day finish it, but it's a fairly ambitious project in multiple ways, so there are some serious obstacles i will need to find some way around.

What are your writing strengths?

i love the patter of writing dialogue! people tell me characters sound believable and like themselves, so that's nice. also, balancing ridiculously fluffy things in such a way that it doesn't tip over into saccharine, and i also think i manage good jokes sometimes. i've been working on descriptions and atmosphere, and that's been fun.

What are your writing weaknesses?

i've completely unlearned how to write long stories! and ironically, i do write a lot of overlong sentences. also, i'll turn to google for absolutely anything, but deep down i'm a pretty impatient writer when research is needed and it doesn't happen to be a subject i'm already interested in, which oftentimes means i'd rather handwave things or scrap the idea entirely, even though i think really well-researched fic is amazing. and on that note, no matter how much american media and internet content i consume, i'm not american and have never been to america, which can be a challenge when writing for almost exclusively american fandoms. (i think i understand beds now, but i'll have to google sinks one of these days.)

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

ha! this was a thing that was very, very common for a while in my dutch fic writing community, because more or less all of the fictional properties and/or real life celebrities people were writing about were british or american (maybe with tokio hotel as the one notable exception), so there was A Lot of fic written in dutch with stilted high school english dialogue thrown in. i was never very into that, but hey, if it makes you happy, definitely go for it, and that goes double if it's just a few sentences for flavor! compared to what i used to see, ao3 culture is extremely conservative with these sorts of things.

all of which i say while also still, in the back of my head, considering the possibility of writing a really obnoxious ted lasso fic with 90% dutch dialogue, so. i too might become guilty at some point in the future.

First fandom you wrote for?

twilight! it was nessie/jacob, with i think a love triangle with a vampire thrown in. we all have to start somewhere.

Favorite fic you've ever written?

i recently reread How To Build A Triangle (or accidentally fall headlong into one, or whatever the fuck) and i still think it's really good and fun, plus it's a minor miracle that i got it finished so easily! there's a decent chance i'd name a different fic if you asked me again tomorrow, though.

Tagging

I have no idea who has already done this or been tagged for it, so I'm just going to throw a few names out there (@redgoldblue @actingcamplibrarian @stephmcx @spurious @goneahead), and then give the usual disclaimer that obviously i'm tagging you all with no pressure, and that if anyone sees this and it seems like a fun list of questions, i'm tagging you too! ✨

[herrlindemann]

Musik Express - September 1997, Interview with Till and Richard

Thanks to Ramjohn for the scans!

Opinions are divided on this band - demonized by some, loved by many as passionately as the fire on their stage. An interview by Peter von Stahl.

In the press, adjectives such as 'controversial', 'fascistoid' or 'glorifying violence' can still be read in Rammstein stories. Is life good with this image?

Richard: We only depict violence in our shows and address it in our lyrics. We strictly reject using or propagating violence. Every kind of music serves a cliché in the mind of a journalist. Rammstein has this heaviness, these metal guitars. The right clichés immediately pop up in your head: long hair, short pants, American metal. And then comes a band that doesn't serve all of that anymore, that has a completely different, very own appearance - and then they need a new drawer. And it probably says 'controversial' on it.

Every artist says that in an interview — no one wants to fit into a drawer. Your music isn't that revolutionary.

Richard: But bands like Krupps or Front 242 are different. Rammstein is just unique. There is no band that sounds like Rammstein.

Till: I just have to listen to our neighboring rehearsal rooms: on the left it sounds like Pearl Jam, on the right like something else that you've known for a long time. You try to make it easy for yourself.

Richard: Maybe they just never got the hang of it because they only ever wanted to serve one market. Even more extreme in the West than here in the East. There was no market to serve.

Till: After the reunification, I drove over to the west and used my mountain greeting money to stuff my stomach with rubber animals, yoghurt and all that stuff. But that's about it. It was the same with music: there was so much. But soon it was noticed that the water is not boiled any hotter there than it is here. We used to look forward to a concert for weeks, today you can see 30 to 40 things in Berlin every evening.

The German media have a hard time with hard, German-sounding music. Record buyers and concert goers don't seem to have a problem with you.

Till: The media's problem with us also has something to do with a lack of musical tradition and history, because we don't want anything to do with understandable German history either. After the war, Americans and the English brought rock, and apart from German hits, there was never anything that had its roots here.

This is also a question of phonetics. Till rolls the 'R' deeply and evocatively - and everyone thinks of the sound of an original shellac with Göbbels speeches.

Till: The rolling 'R' didn't even come about on purpose. It came naturally because in that low pitch you sing like that automatically. I'm not actually a musician. I have absolutely no knowledge of the instruments. But I can give good support to our music with my voice and the lyrics. It's a matter of illustration, tone color, phonetics. We didn't want to create a fascist attitude, for God's sake. Only later, when we were asked about it in interviews, did we have to deal with it.

And yet it is certainly no coincidence that you provide music for David Lynch and not for Walt Disney. Because of his preference for the narrow bridge between 'reason and instinct' (from the Rammstein song 'Du riechst so gut'), Lynch films were basically never anything other than filmed Rammstein subjects - only he just makes films and no music.

Richard: First of all, he's an American. We couldn't have a Lynch. The only one I can think of is Werner Herzog — I sometimes see Rammstein pictures there.

Till: The Germans only have a problem with things in Germany. As soon as a thing finds international recognition, it also becomes socially acceptable here in Germany. We noticed that through the David Lynch film: German cars, German soccer, German tennis, Formula One — no problem at all. But as long as it stays in the country, there will be unlikely friction.

'Bravo' has no problems with you - there you operate as a 'heavy band with Feuerteufel as a singer'.

Till: That was great for me. My daughter is only twelve years old and she has never understood why I travel so often, drive away so often. Now she can finally read the reason why in her newspaper.

Does your daughter listen to Rammstein or rather boy bands?

Till: No, she listen to something else. She doesn't like boy bands that much, she prefers electronic stuff with a melody.

As a single father, how do you balance work and family?

Till: It wasn't that bad before, I played drums in a punk band and we practically had our rehearsal room in the house where I lived. I had them alone for seven years, but now I share parenthood with my daughter's mother again, because I'm on the road with the band half the year.

How does your daughter actually react to the hard Rammstein texts?

Till: She always giggles. She doesn't understand the extreme things yet.

Children watch movies and TV news on these topics without understanding them. The younger fans will feel the same about your lyrics.

Till: We never intended to make music for 13 or 14 year olds. This has only recently developed through 'Bravo', 'Viva' and so on. But when I see what's on the afternoon TV program, in the news, what's in the newspaper - they have to deal with that too. With their idols Tic Tac Toe they have to deal with prostitution, with drugs. Or with tampon ads on TV, where they see small, hidden gestures at dinner - how are we supposed to leave children disturbed?

After all, the menstrual fluid is kept in a friendly light blue in the advertising. With you, blood is still blood—deep red.

Till: First and foremost we make our music for ourselves. And the images it projects in people are very different. For some, the lyrics are totally incomprehensible, but they might like the music and just let it flow. On the other hand, a girl recently told me that she walked in a performance as the hooker that appears in our song 'Seemann' — the hooker who stands by the lantern.

Which of course is never mentioned in the text...

Till: Shall I explain that it's not about a whore, but about this and that? It's her picture, her story about the song.

When you sing about SM phenomena in songs like 'Bück dich' or 'Betraf mich' on the new record, the images are more clearly defined.

Richard: Just yesterday we were with some friends and discussed Rammstein. There was also a young evangelical pastor who was terribly upset about Rammstein and especially about the text of 'Bück dich'. He complained that more and more people in his youth community were listening to Rammstein and were therefore taking the wrong path. The evening grew longer and longer, they drank more and more - and at some point it turned out that the pastor himself was the only one in the group who really lived this 'bend over' sex and that he had a different woman almost every night drives in this way.

The church, especially the Catholic one, has enough internal institutions that deal intensively with Rammstein topics: incest, sin and punishment, the devil. In contrast, the anti-authoritarian educational models of the post-1968ers, the evangelical discussion groups, seem to have failed, also because of the denial of the existence of evil. How do you feel about raising your own children?

Till: One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. I try to separate Rammstein and my private life as much as possible. That's exactly how it is with the fire effects on our stage. I'm not a pyromaniac. I never light a cigarette privately. Just as Richard procures state-of-the-art musical equipment, it's my job to take care of the pyro effects for the show. We're a band that just does its job. Anyone who knows us privately cannot believe that we are so nice. We are quite normal, we do our job like fishermen who leave their hut in the morning, kiss their children, go out to sea, fetch the fish with the nets from the depths and return to the hut in the evening. Their children go out with them from time to time, and our children sometimes go to concerts too. But when they watch their father kill fish and gut them, they quickly realize that this is father's job. If they grow up with that, they're fine with that because they keep the two things separate.

In any case better than hiding from the child that the schnitzel on the plate was once a live pig that was slaughtered.

Richard: Just like the child of a sex performer or actress might at some point see their mother in a sex scene on TV and wonder where dad is. You will learn how to deal with that.

If every artist would live their madness of whatever kind in private, then there would almost certainly only be sick people in the charts. But: Do your lyrics at least help in your private fight against your very own, hidden demons?

Till: That happens. For me, solitude always gives me a creative boost — you have another glass of wine and you feel even more shitty. Art cannot do without suffering. Art is also there to compensate for suffering.

As one of the most successful metal acts in Germany, you will probably soon suffer too little to be able to continue to nurture your art.

Richard: Above all, we have no time to suffer. Except in the lonely hours after the concerts.

Till: It makes you feel like shit. You play a concert in Berlin in front of 16,000 people, then you cycle home from the rehearsal room because the after-show parties might not be the real thing either, you sit alone in your booth and have to come down again. It's like a hangover.

At this moment, your single father support group seems to be failing you.

Richard: If you sit on each other constantly for two years, you know the whole whining by heart.

Hartmut Engler from Pur says he still wants to put the whole feeling into his lyrics at the 67th gig.

Till: Sure — he always cries. Nonsense! Everybody is saying it! Maybe at the beginning, at the first two concerts. At some point it will become operational blindness. When 'Seemann' was still very fresh, I often felt a shiver. Later on, you tend to make sure that the intonation is right.

In many of your songs you can hear borrowings from the soundtracks of old spaghetti westerns. Who is actually the inveterate Ennio Morricone fan with you?

Richard: That's me.

Till: He's a fan of old cowboy music and movies.

In this sense, Rammstein is like Karl May - you don't have to murder, desecrate and humiliate yourself to be able to write lyrics about mauling, child abuse and incest.

Till: But that's exactly the point: you're talking about 'tearing, child abuse and incest'. I wish people would approach such topics much more sensitively. My daughter is at an age when something like this could really happen to her — maybe the day after tomorrow. And so I take it upon myself to imagine what that would be like. If it were about my daughter, I would probably want to cut off an egg from a perpetrator like that, shoot him or something. On the other hand, I can also sit in a dark corner and think about what drives him to do it. And about what drives me to be able to understand such a drive. Those are the two sides of this thing: On the one hand, reason, morality, my completely normal life — for me there's no question about that. But then I sit down, close my eyes and think about how, for example, the day before yesterday I felt such a longing for this grown woman — why shouldn't someone have such a longing too, who can't even help it, because he may have been abused himself in the past. And maybe he can't appreciate what it means to transfer that desire to a child. Where do you put the value, how do you want to judge?

It's shocking how many people were abused in their childhood. On the other hand, you are accused of the fact that your texts deal less with illness and morality than with the problem of overcoming the conflict between reason and instinct.

Till: No, no. Sick is sick, there is no discussion. And if it wasn't sick by normal standards, we wouldn't need mental hospitals anymore. But more important is the question of why and how it happens. Otherwise, this is only of interest to the lawyers who dig into their clients' childhood so that they can plead insanity. I've lived in the country for quite a long time and saw a horse molester almost lynched on the village street - I really felt sorry for him.

The line between everyday life and madness is known to be fluid. After all, the worst things happen every day in most cities behind every fifth window.

Till: If that's enough. Probably behind every third. And that's why I find it sad that lyrics about things that actually happen every day can kick up so much dust. For example, we had a listening session in Malta with Petra Husemann and Tim Renner from our record company. And when he heard the line 'Couple with your own flesh and blood' from the song 'Tier', Renner immediately dismissed it - a case for the index, which in Germany includes everything about sex with animals, incest, sibling love and so on acts. I don't understand that — you can even read about the relevant extras in the 'Bild' newspaper. And yet some act as if none of this exists.

And then? What have you done? Did you soften the text at the end?

Till: Nope. We aim for it.

I was never really interested in Rammstein myself until my wife put your record on again and again. On the other hand, feminists accuse you of the worst sexism.

Richard: We keep hearing that it was women who brought their men to Rammstein. Petra Husemann, the wife of Timm Renner (Rammstein's record boss/ed.), the girlfriend of our manager Emu, many wives and girlfriends of journalists. Men seem to have more of a problem with us than women.

Maybe that's because you're a lot better looking and have a lot more muscles than most media men.

Richard: It has more to do with head and gut. Rammstein frightens many men because they recognize qualities or character traits in our texts that they carry within themselves, but which they have suppressed.

So you mean you hold something like a mirror in front of the men's faces. A mirror in which they can suddenly and suddenly see the animal in them?

Richard: The animal, sure. A lot of things. A kind of machoness when we sing about the 'Wilder im Revier'.

Till: For us, the sexism that we are accused of is more about protecting women.

I'm really sorry, but now I can't follow. I do not understand that.

Till: For us, it's about understanding the woman's feelings and then showing them as extreme as they actually are. Yesterday a journalist asked us why we don't write love songs. Love, this is just this one brief moment. But after that, that's when the work begins. The constant misery: finding each other, falling in love, sticking it out for a while, then sticking it out, and then it all starts all over again.

Do you think you know more about women than men?

Till: No, not at all.

Perhaps for this reason you cannot imagine that husband and wife can be happy together in the long term.

Till: I don't know of any intact relationships. One or two maybe, but the circumstances aren't normal there — they don't see each other very often. I'm talking about this thing: getting out of the house in the morning and putting the kids to bed at night. Where are the theater visits, who still brings flowers? Being in love, bringing flowers to your loved ones — eventually it always ends.

That's why the resolute 'no' to the female marriage wish on your new single 'Du hast'?

Till: 'until death do you part...' — that's just as unnatural as a tattoo on your arm. It won't go out for the rest of my life. At some point, as a pensioner, I’ll sit with my grandson on my lap and he’ll ask what kind of silly thing I have on my upper arm.

However, Rammstein does not seem to want to live entirely without women. After all, you've now recorded a hymn to the primary female sex organ. What do you say in the rehearsal room when you want to play this song?

Till: Sometimes we say, 'Now let's play cunt!' Isn't that what you wanted to hear?

The song title 'Kiss me, Fellfrosch' sounds a lot more tender.

Till: Fellfrosch — the word alone is a homage to this part of the body. That's a nice, childish way of looking at things: fur stands for small, furry little animals. Hamsters, guinea pigs and such. And frog or snail takes care of the second part. Fascination and disgust, both play a role.

Perhaps the disgust at the bitter aftertaste is really just a problem of overly careless personal hygiene?

Richard: Tastes change too. Much of what seemed too bitter to us in childhood tastes good to us today. On the other hand, we usually find the sweets from the past too sweet. Every fur frog tastes different. Pure question of taste. There is no judgment in the text. We're not saying it stinks.

Feminists will not see the 'fur frog' in such a differentiated way. This will cause trouble.

Till: Hopefully! That's the same topic as before: It's about something that is completely self-evident and that everyone knows. That's the most normal thing in the world. Exaggerated feminism, on the other hand, is an indictment. And when they get upset about it, that's ultimately just proof to me that they don't have a sense of humor. Just the other day someone told me a joke about a forty-centimetre cock. It was a woman.