#hijacking another post for science

[ellycrys]

Huh.

That’s…

A lovely synchronicity if you’re a Good Omens fan.

Maybe we misheard Crowley and he was actually saying…

Listen, new nightingales.

Or… we collectively wished a new nightingale into existence?

welcome slaty-backed nightingale-thrush!

[mathysphere]

Hey, so, this post here-- by @hadeelfamily, a woman trying to evacuate her family from Palestine-- is real. She is who she says she is. I'm certain of it.

I've donated myself, and will donate more; for the rest of the year-- or until their need is met-- one half of everything I get selling cross-stitch patterns will go to Hadeel Mikki and her family.

If you would like to see my research and reasons to be certain, it's after the cut.

The fundraiser is for a woman named Hadeel Mikki and her family-- her husband, two daughters, her mother, and her two brothers-- and includes two photos of her:

A search for her name brings up a long internet trail: as a programmer and former computer science major, Hadeel Mikki's been active online, and when she's posting about work stuff-- mostly web and app development-- Hadeel uses her real name and photo.

I found six different accounts, all using the same name, and all featuring photos of the same woman-- not all identical photos, but separate photos of the same person-- and all with activity dating back at least a year or more.

I've looked over the activity for each, and I do not believe there's any chance that they aren't legitimate.

Two of them are static freelancer websites, and another is an abandoned Pinterest account: the info there matches the others, but there's nothing current. On the other three (LinkedIn, Threads, and TikTok) the most recent posts are all variations on the same theme: "Please help my family. My young daughters are suffering. Please donate to help get us out of Gaza."

They're certifiably real accounts, and they link to the same GoFundMe. Is it possible that either her LinkedIn or Threads or TikTok account could have been hacked and hijacked into posting a scam fundraiser? I guess. But not all three, and not with the ability to post new photos and videos of her kids-- how would a hacker even get footage of a hackee's daughters in war-torn Gaza? You can't just hire some child actors. They need to match the kids from the family portrait.

This is not a scammer using someone else's name and photos, and this isn't an opportunistic hacker who managed to break in and hijack an account: this is a real woman trying to save her family.

I've looked through everything, and am myself convinced. I'll include summaries and screenshots of each account, along with the links if you'd like to check them out yourself.

On LinkedIn: profile from 2015, photo updated a year ago, liked and commented on various tech posts. Shared her GoFundMe four months ago.

On Threads: icon is her and her husband, shares programming content, "#ProgrammersCoffee" etc, and four months ago she shares a link to her GoFundMe. She has the same laptop as me.

On TikTok: early videos are about programming and app development, and the current ones are asking for help for her daughters, including photos and videos of the girls both before the war and now.

On Pinterest: nothing really there. Looks like she tried it out a long time ago and then dropped it. Still links to her long-defunct Google Plus account, even.

Five years ago she did have a board called 'Boyfriend gifts'. Must've gone well for her; they're married now.

[hadesoftheladies]

i've been on radblr for a while, and maybe it's because of the specific users i follow being woc or disabled, but recently i've been seeing more ableist and racist radblr users crawl from whatever hole they've been molting in

in light of a recent conversation thread between @menalez and two whitefems, i've come to see the issue other radblr users have been talking about

radblr lacks a culture of intersectionality. there are many white/straight/abled women here who think solidarity means we only cater to their liberation, and they can ditch us whenever they please. it is one-sided support, and isn't solidarity at all. they are used to being centered, used to seeing themselves as default woman, used to seeing themselves as the standard of feminism and womanhood. their problems as more deserving.

i'm not going to use this post to diagnose radblr, but to say why these women are insanely stupid

racist and imperial radfems have been bold in their assertion that their empires are somehow benevolent, neutral, helpful to outsiders. they have endorsed their militaries, asserted that they are genetically and intellectually superior, and that they're oh so tired of stupid, backward women from stupid, backward countries whining about how colonization improved their society. (and some western black users have agreed).

and it's so STUPID because . . . how do you not see you're approving of the structure of your own oppression while complaining about the injustice of it?

you can acknowledge that men have misattributed women's achievements to men, that they have destroyed, twisted, and erased their history. you can acknowledge that the reason there weren't as many women geniuses as men was because of the brutal subjugation and social, economic barriers women faced, or some just had their ideas stolen and died unnamed and unattached to their invention. you understand how women's language, spaces, and philosophy have been hijacked by the male perspective in everything, from religion, to education, to literature. in marxist or materialist analysis, you understand that economy creates culture.

but you can't understand any of that when it comes to majority world countries? you mysteriously lose your capacity to analyze culture when you're at the top? your countries are rich because they're just so gosh darn good at being rich, aren't they? stolen wealth and labor doesn't give you a head start at all! and if money is power, and you have the money, you can get away with stealing even more, but that only applies to men, see? not our nice, lovely, governments! colonization and war aren't actually that bad or brutal and don't have any lasting negative effects! neocolonial systems don't exist! it's not like our beloved empires have anything to do with killing the cultures of billions because they can, they have, and it is in their best political and economic interest to. black people never did anything significant! this is a fact, and has nothing to do with deliberate propaganda from imperial countries! imperialist propaganda, ha! imagine that? african and asian people can't be smarter than white people, because . . . . genetics! whitefems on radblr care so much about science when it comes to transwomen, but their brains turn to mush when it comes to thinking whiteness somehow genetically increases intelligence. biology, everybody!

it's honestly funny. like you're trading one regime for another, congrats! you're anti-revolution! you can get off our backs and stop using our plight as examples of your oppression.

and to the british storm trooper that claimed her intelligence was genetic--if you truly believe that, you've got two options:

consider that this statement is unscientific, racist, and false, or

take an ancestry DNA test and find out if you're adopted :)

[residentdormouse]

Can I ask you to ramble about your current hyperfixation?

I am always up for some rambling! Thank you for the ask!!

Unfortunately for my non-fandom followers, my hyperfixation has not changed for the past two and a half years. (All mutuals now groaning, ‘Shut up about the Stand, Mouse.’) I still cannot explain my extended fix; usually I'm a year tops. Hook onto a character, appease the yearning rats, move on. Not this time…

This may have to do with the fact that the Fandom is smaller. Other fixations, I could casually scroll Tumblr for fan art, find stories to scratch the itch on AO3, and passively ride the wave until something pulled me in another direction. Couldn't do that here. There were like 11 stories for ‘the Stand’ that even tagged Glen Bateman as a character. Some of them were prior to the version of Glen that took up residence in my brain (2020 miniseries), and none of them had him as a primary focus. What's a girl to do, right? Write also turned out to be the answer. So this was the first time I was writing and posting fanfic to AO3. About 290k words later, and almost a year of digging into their characters, here I am, stuck on the same damn guys. The rats are still yearning, and I have no further way to appease them. (Although, I'm sure they will thank you for indulging them now.)

But yeah, still 100% hooked on Stephen King's ‘the Stand’, and specifically the newest 2020 miniseries version. I blame Kinnear's version of Glen. He's a great character in the other versions, but the stars aligned with his take. Witty. Intelligent, but with a cheek and lightheartedness. Logical, yet open to the new world of the unknown. Questioning, but true to himself and loyal to those around him. Speaking his mind, and saying what he believes, regardless of the danger it poses. (And this is not even touching the vaping, which is a fantastic touch, and definitely a way to my heart as well.) Plus, I've always loved Kinnear as an actor, just never saw him in a role where I connected to his character like this. I truly was doomed from the start.

And that's pretty much how it went too. The first damn scene he’s in, and I'm instantly hit with the ‘holy fuck, I love this character’ K.O. punch. Cause that's what I really need for a hyperfix to stick, love for a character.

Then the end of that same episode. This look…

I could go on for days about this look. A ‘Man of Science’ facing the reality of the previously unbelievable. His world view shaken, and now left to piece the puzzle back together. Tear down what he ‘knew’, and start looking at things from a new perspective. This single moment where the world changed for him. It's just… 🤌

I love this fictional man. He has hijacked my brain, and honestly, not really seeing a problem. He can stay as long as he wants. I'll give him some paints, and he can chill up there making fun commentary about life. Maybe give some helpful insight.

But yeah, the Stand still top hyperfixation for me. I have a love of the story as a whole too, don't get me wrong. Read the book, have the ‘94 series, picked up the comics… And other characters have worked their way into my heart too (Lloyd Henreid, I'm talking about you), but Glen was, and still is, the reason I'm here so long after.

Was that rambling enough? Too much? I have no gauge. But I will always elaborate if asked. Do not be afraid to ask, this is why I'm here!!

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

....holy shit

this.

this is it. this is what I want in a partner. exactly this. tell me myths til I fall asleep. recite old recipes from memory. Know Way Too Much About Prehistoric Fish and let me know that while I curl up with you in a pile of blankets. I'll read Beowulf to you for hours, random girl out there somewhere, whoever you are, I'll read it in Old English, if you'll love me all the more for it.

I hope you have dark curly hair with the gray coming in early, and big wistful eyes with long lashes, and that you know how to do makeup and speak Latin or Ancient Greek, or do math or physics you really like dinosaurs, because I can't do those things well and I want to be able to learn from you, and I hope you'd want to learn from me. I can teach you to speak Old English and how to clean leather and make a really good tuna sandwich and how to make your own earrings too. I hope you're okay with a bit of dirt and grime, and anxiety, because that's part of me too. I don't like to hug or be touched, but if I find you, random girl somewhere, I don't think I'll ever want to let go of you.

(....also I really really hope you're also Terminally In Fandoms bc otherwise you're going to get really cool with a whole lot of stuff really quickly)

I just talked to my gf about waterfall heights until she fell asleep I fucking rule

[llatimeria]

another example of Instagram actually being a pretty nice place sometimes - I've somehow wandered into teacher/parent/adults-who-interact-with-kids-frequently Instagram and it's so fucking refreshing seeing adults retaining the negative lessons they were taught as kids&teens and actually trying to help their kids overcome problems instead of just punish punish punish.

like I just ran into a computer science teacher who observed that kids in her class post-covid were having a harder time getting off their phones and focusing on their work, but she still wanted to not confiscate the phones entirely because you can't just. take someone else's stuff like that. and she wanted them to be able to listen to music while they worked if they wanted, since that's now extremely normal and it'd be really frustrating and unrealistic to force someone to work in silence if that's just not how they work best.

so she came up with a genius solution: when a kid was messing with their phone too much, she'd put it in a paper bag and staple it shut, then leave the bag at the kid's workspace. this is so fucking smart it's sending me reeling. I got in trouble for fiddling with my phone too much in class so much as a teen... because I was developing PTSD and my phone was my lifeline. now, post-covid (ok "post" is a stretch but yknow), basically every fuckin kid on earth is traumatized, basically kneecapping an entire generation with focus issues and all the other delightful things that come with experiencing trauma. they aren't struggling because they're dumb phone addicted iPad babies, they're struggling because they've experienced being ripped away from their friends, their family, their culture, their community, leaving them completely isolated (in potentially toxic home lives) if it weren't for their phones. of course these kids are hesitant to put them down. they had "phone = where I get love" kicked into their skulls by a cinderblock during an extremely sensitive point in their brain's development. taking their phones away could be a minor retraumatization - not to mention all the other logistical difficulties involved with confiscating a $1000 piece of personal machinery (like if it gets broken or stolen under your watch... you might be on the hook for it, and that's no fun lmao)

so basically. you just can't do that. it's in no one's best interest.

but the kids still need to like... learn. in school. it's good for your brain to learn things, and learning skills (especially creative/technical skills like coding) might actually help them heal, so you really do not want to associate your classroom with pain and anxiety like that, and the paper bag method feels so perfect for that. the kids still have their phones, and precious little is actually separating them from it -- it's just a paper bag. if they really need their phone, it's no issue to break into it. but the paper bag is enough of a barrier that it helps redirect their attention back to their work. if they start feeling The Itch(tm), they'll look at their phone and be immediately thwarted by Bag, reminding them of their assignment or redirecting them to scratch their Itch with a fidget toy instead so they don't get sucked into an infinite-scrolling black hole or a stupid mobile game designed to hijack people's attention and keep them on their phones for as long as fucking possible because that's how ads make money.

this isn't foolproof obviously but this absolutely would've worked on me as a phone-clingy teen. honestly it probably will still work on me as a phone-clingy adult. I might actually try it. i wish someone had thought to try it when I was in school! I definitely would've felt like it was more fair than confiscating my phone entirely but still actually help me improve my attention span. I'd definitely just be like "that's actually a pretty fair deal" and put my phone in the stupid bag if it was offered to me ever, but instead I just had to endure living in a soul blender until I graduated.

[nimuetheseawitch]

John and Vala Rec List

I love John, I love Vala, and I think they'd be incredible friends, but there aren't a ton of fics about them. So here are some fic recs, posted with the author's summaries unless otherwise noted. Friendship fics are listed first, then slash fics.

Fics where John & Vala are the main focus:

Glad You're Here by Catalina_Leigh (1k, T, gen)

The SGC may not be Atlantis, but at least John has Vala, who loves movies and popcorn as much as he does. And she's happy to have him around.

The SGC Guide To Intergalactic Hookups: An Etiquette Manual by bomberqueen17 (12k, T, John/Rodney, Vala/Daniel)

Not the author's summary: this is part of a larger series, and is set during The Return. Additionally in this series, John and Vala meet in New Friends, he sends her a gift in Rotary Cutter, and she joins him and many others for Christmas in A House A Home.

Fics where John & Vala aren't the main focus:

G******, Pirates and Thieves* (series) by auburn (372k total, M/T, many ships, mostly John/Rodney

Author's summary from the first fic: Vala Mal Doran and her partners, renegades Jehan abd-Ba'al and Meredith McKay, hijack the Tau'ri ship Prometheus and leave the Milky Way behind in search of the Lost City of the Ancients, Atlantis.

No Good Deed by forestgreen (65k, M, John/Cam, Daniel/Jack)

John opened the closed record that Stargate Command had on him and skipped over its content: "Dr John Sheppard, Civilian Consultant to the U.S. Air Force, member of SG-1, PhD in Applied Mathematics and PhD in Computer Science, gifted mathematician with a penchant for stealing, trustworthy." A small, satisfied smirk crooked John's lips. He struck the last part out and added a correction in red: "Gifted thief with a penchant for mathematics, not to trust." He saved the document and erased all traces of his presence in the system. It'd take a while for McKay to figure out that John had found yet another weakness in the SGC network. He ordered pizza and waited for the rest of the SG-1 to arrive. It was Mitchell's turn to pick the movie.

Gray Skies (series) by bluflamingo (27k total, T/E/G, John/Cam)

Not the author's summary: Post-Vegas, John ends up on SG-5 with Cam, Cadman, and Vala.

John/Vala

Good Vibrations by nimuetheseawitch (3k, E, John/Vala)

Vala has discovered the sex toy stores of San Francisco while visiting Atlantis in the Bay and needs to try out all her new gear. John is willing to help. (shameless self-plug)

When There's Nothing Left to Burn by auburn (8k, M, John /Vala, Rodney/Vala)

Neither of them tend to think about the consequences.

Home is Where? by Lyl (2k, T, John/Vala)

The day he was finally assigned his own team, John read their service records and promptly decided to find the nearest bar and get drunk.

So Good to You by busaikko (6k, T, Vala/John, past John/Cam)

Rodney had extorted a promise from John to not get recruited into SG-1 while he was on temporary re-assignment to the SGC. As John finished reciting his marriage vows from the crib-sheet Mitchell had handed him, he suspected Rodney would never let him live this down.

A Wanted Distraction by esteefee (1k, M, John/Vala)

"I thought you were supposed to have magical powers or something," Vala said. "Can't you just think the door open like a good boy?" If she didn't stop squirming like that, John was going to—well, there wasn't a hell of a lot he could do, considering he couldn't move an inch or two in either direction.

Pretty Pickle by esteefee (6k, M, John/Vala)

Vala and John get up to some mischief in the Milky Way.

John/Vala/more

Blame the Apocalypse by estefee (5k, E, John/Sam/Vala)

They stuck to the coastline, because the zombies—infected humans—instinctively avoided the ocean, what with the way saltwater made them dissolve.

Three Days in the Valley by Anagrrl (5k, T, John/Vala/Cam)

Cam never thought he'd be here, out on the sand and scrub. His family had wanted a farm, to grow fields of dark green and golden yellow, the soft brush of leaves audible in the early morning, underneath the drone of insects. They'd tried for it, they really had, but here he is, on horseback, no fields in sight.

(AKA - Vala and Cam herd cattle western AU)

Play Time by bluflamingo (2k, E, John/Vala/Cam)

"This galaxy has John, and a machine that just transformed all three of us into sea otters," Cam corrected

Business or Pleasure? by NeoVenus22 (6k, E, John/Vala/Sam/Cam)

What happens in DC stays in DC.

Fill me like a song do by anonymous (2k, E, John/Vala/Cam/Daniel)

Before standing, she’d kicked her legs off of their perch and nudged John out of the way with the toe of her boot. Tonight, he had asked to be pushed around and manipulated like a piece of furniture and a sex toy, and Vala had started with him as her footstool while she had called Daniel and Cam. The sight of a shirtless and collared John on all fours was making Daniel’s mouth water.

*This title is censored due to the use of a common racial slur.

[gracehosborn]

Past/Current/Next WIP Tag Game

Thanks to the lovely @kaylinalexanderbooks for the tag!

Rules: share a past work-in-progress, your current work-in-progress, and the work-in-progress you want to work on next.

Past

I have so many abandoned WIPs lol. The one that got the most development though was a science fiction series titled The Earths Beyond. Essentially, the daughter of a NASA employee who’s on an internship discovers this strange hidden file on a computer while helping clean up. The file, titled The Earths Beyond, contained information on mission logs from centuries’ past of these six planets that colonies were founded on. After centuries, the humans on each planet adapted to their environments and created their own societies. Confused as to why the government would hide such a feat from the public for centuries, our protagonist with a band of friends would hijack the next planned mission and steal a spacecraft to go find these worlds at war thanks to neglect. And then be on the run from the U.S. government.

I only got to part of the world building stage for TEB, but I’ve considered touching it again.

Current

My current project that has most of my attention is of course The American Icarus. Following the life of Alexander Hamilton, but written in the style of a posthumous memoir. I’ve spent absolutely forever writing just book one (of five somehow), but so far I’m making steady progress. Super excited to tackle Hamilton’s time as a New York artillery captain. Even if most of the fun will be writing things going boom and some bloodshed sprinkled with badassary.

Next

To be completely honest, I don’t know what’s next after TAI. I do have that Aaron Burr post-duel idea, and my Hamilton Quasi-War alternate history idea (and even more Hamilton adjacent ideas similarly styled to TAI), but at the moment with how taxing TAI is proving to be with the amount of research I’m doing, I’d like to take a break from something rooted in lots of real history. So probably something akin to my fantasy/alternate history novel, Ink of Destruction, that’s less serious with itself while still unique and chaotic. I’d love to mess with time travel for instance, but right now I can’t figure out how I would put a fresh spin on it and not just write another time travel story. A common feature among all my projects is proving to be that history plays a notable role though, and honestly this is very fitting.

Leaving this as an open tag for anyone who wants to play!

[kalinara]

I have come to the realization that my reaction to that "which author has the funniest/worst opinion about fandom" post is probably a little disproportionate.

It's worth talking about why. But there's no need to hijack that particular post to do it.

The thing is, I always have a knee jerk reaction to posts that mock/decry authors for disliking fanfiction because I remember what happened when Anne McCaffrey died.

So Anne McCaffrey, if you don't know, was a science fiction author who, among many other books, wrote a series about people who ride dragons on a distant planet.

This obviously is the kind of idea that captures fan interest immediately. So there were and are a lot of people who want to play in Ms. McCaffrey's universe.

Ms. McCaffrey, throughout her life, has had varying opinions about fanfic as other related fan content with regard to her universe. At one point, she was opposed entirely. At another, she was cautiously okay with it, but not with her characters. She also had some odd and draconian rules when it came to role playing games.

To put it simply: she was a pain in the ass.

I do want to clarify: I do not agree with Ms. McCaffrey's stance(s). I think, personally, that fan creations are the moral right of the fans. The LEGAL right, I think, might be a gray area. I'm no intellectual property attorney, so I won't weigh in on that aspect of things. I do, however, support the idea of anyone writing or reading fanfic for anything that they enjoy on general principle.

But I think, sometimes, fans can be really ugly about it.

See, Ms. McCaffrey died in 2011. And that day, fandom got nasty. There were all kinds of celebratory posts saying "We can write fanfic now! Yay!"

And honestly, my view of fandom has never been the same.

I support fanfic. I love fanfic. I agree with the idea that fans should be able to write fanfic even if the author doesn't like it.

But to celebrate someone's DEATH because NOW you get to play in the sandbox SHE created?!

There's something WRONG with that!

Look, whether or not we like an author, whether or not we agree with them or think they're a good person, they still CREATED this thing that we're so passionate about that we want to write fic for in the first place.

Without McCaffrey, there is no Pern. Period. Whatever joy (or revulsion) that the stories and concepts give you, that comes from her. And she was a real human being.

She deserves better than to have people celebrate her death because she had an inconvenient stance on fanfiction.

So yeah, any time I see one of those "ha-ha, this author said something negative about fanfic! What a hypocrite!" posts, it reminds me that fandom, for all its talk about not treating fanfic authors as soulless content creators, thinks nothing of doing the same thing to the original authors whose work is the thing that brought us together.

[thessalian]

Thess vs the Learning Curve

There was this whole post I just finished reading, which I didn’t want to hijack, about how old people should be when they learn to read, and in what setting. And ... I mean, there seems to be some serious research that indicates either way, but my experience is a little ... different.

So let’s start with ... I learned to read when I was about three, three and a half, as far as anyone can accurately figure. The reason this is such a vague age range is because no one knows exactly how the fuck I learned how to read. The best guess is that I followed along with my mother when she read aloud to me (because it didn’t matter how busy she was, or how tired, she would read to me every night) and picked things up from there and storytime at day care. They figured out that I could read at my day care; apparently I’d been eschewing the usual toys for the bookshelf, and the lady who ran the day care centre was curious about whether I’d memorised the books or could actually read them, and her little test resulted in the following conversation when Mum came to pick me up from day care:

Counsellor: Ms [Thess-Mom], were you aware that your daughter could read?

Mum: I ... suspected, but I wasn’t entirely sure if it was memorising or--

Counsellor: Well, it isn’t. She just read me the newspaper.

No, I probably didn’t know what a lot of the words I was reading meant. But apparently I was pronouncing them pretty damn well.

Now, I don’t know whether this is how you should learn to read, and I sure as hell don’t know how primary school goes about teaching you how to read, because I never learned in school.

...Well. Not in English, anyway.

See, at around the age most people are in kindergarten and first grade, learning how to read and write in their native language, I was learning in French and only in French. I lived in Montreal. The school had a French immersion programme. The first three years of grade school were 100% done in French, no exceptions, whereas the second three years gave us a head start on swapping classes throughout the day by having some of the subjects (mostly history and French grammar / literature etc) in French and some (science, maths, English literature but never English grammar, oddly) in English.

I didn’t learn English grammar in a classroom setting until I moved to the US and hit eighth grade, and the heavier stuff in ninth grade was a nightmare for me because I’d learned French grammar first. Thing is, I could still construct a perfectly grammatical sentence long, long before that - I just didn’t know what an adverb was in English.

(My asshole of an English teacher that year took out his dislike of me, specifically of me flagging up that Shakespeare was writing plays for people to watch and enjoy and laugh rather than knowingly Creating Art That Would Resound Through The Ages, by refusing to help me even when I asked, but that’s another story.)

So, yeah, I dunno. I was reading pretty well when I was very young, pretty much miles ahead of my classmates. But I was never formally taught to read in English at all. So that whole post made me feel a little like an outlier and a whole lot more like a freak. That’s my own damage, I know - I probably shouldn’t care about that so much, so many years later. But I do. Being the outlier gets old pretty damn quickly. Still, it’s not my fault that apparently my brain works the way it does, and it sure as hell isn’t my fault that my education was in a bilingual city in a bilingual province that was trying to be as Francophone as possible by the time I left, and then moved to the kind of place where they’d yell at you to “speak American”.

Sometimes I just get fed up with Being Weird.

[littleemptyattik]

Sorry to hijack your post OP, but I think I can add something relevant here!

I have been struggling for months—years really—with getting to where I need to be. It hadn’t been a lack of work; I’ve gotten two degrees that directly apply to the medical field, which is where I wanted to make a difference in research and science. I’ve spent hours and hours and hours applying for jobs, doing extra work to be considered “qualified,” writing and rewriting my resume and cover letter and CV over and over again, all of it.

A year and a half ago after I graduated with my masters, I ended up getting a job I was thankful for, but it wasn’t what I felt like I should do long-term. It was in science but it was literally the lowest position in the whole field you could possibly get. For another thing, the pay was kind of abysmal and not sustainable for a whole career. I was also not geographically in a place I felt I belonged.

As grateful as I was for the job, I still spent the last year and a half feeling out-of-place and, not going to lie, frustrated. This is especially true because I have three Big Life Goals—a good career in medical science, adopting a child, and a home near the sea. And none of these three prayers were being answered. I kept wondering why God would watch me work and pray and dream and hope, believing my three Big Life Goals were put on my heart by Him, only to make me feel like He was doing nothing to help me achieve them. I never doubted that He could see me and loved me, but did He actually care about me as much as he cared about other people who seemed to be getting their prayers answered left and right around me?

I started looking around for my next, hopefully better, position back in August 2023, and I decided then that I was going to give it six months. The middle of February 2024 would mark the end of that six-month job search period, and if I didn’t have something by then, I was going to allow myself to get upset and panicked—but not before. I decided that until the middle of February 2024, I was going to believe with all my heart that God was working for my good. Six months, and after that I would start looking at other options, with or without God’s help. I knew I would always continue believing in and loving God, but I wasn’t sure I would always believe He loved me in return. If He continued refusing to make me feel seen and helped, He was just going to have to accept that I had the right to lose trust in Him at that point. (Ha—“the right.” Yeah right. lol)

I applied for over a hundred jobs. Of all of those, only two looked promising, and ultimately ended up not working out. By November, things weren’t looking great. That’s when I came across a job listing for a position that I felt was absolutely perfect for me. It was everything I wanted in a career. I applied for that job and immediately broke out into prayer claiming it in Jesus’ name, if it was part of His will.

A week and a half into January, I hadn’t even gotten another request for an interview from anywhere, much less that one job out of the hundred that I wanted so badly. I figured they’d trashed my application just like every other place seemed to. I wrote a letter to God in my notebook expressing my frustration and begging Him to explain why I didn’t deserve to get somewhere meaningful in my life. I kept clinging to that trust I swore I would have for another month, but come on—I had one measly month left out of the six I had pledged, and so far there was nothing promising a future for me.

In the dead middle of January, I got a call from that one job I had wanted so so much. Turns out they hadn’t trashed my application at all; they just were moving slow because of the holiday season. And LISTEN TO THIS PLEASE—on the 13th of February, almost the exact middle of the month, the exact DAY I had sworn I would give up hope if nothing happened, I was offered the job.

Not only is this job exactly what I wanted in a career, it’s also near the coast. That’s two of my three Big Life Goals answered in the blink of an eye. But there’s more, because their initially salary offer wasn’t enough to cover moving expenses. So for a split second, I thought maybe this prayer was about to be left unanswered anyway after everything. But I was able to negotiate, and after I turned it over into God’s hands completely, the job came back and not only raised their original offer up to what I asked for, but they also offered me $500 MORE a year that what I actually asked for. Just like God was giving me a little sprinkling extra.

I’ll be moving to this job at the beginning of April (today is February 25th for anyone reading this later). There are still unknowns, such as where I’m going to move that’s affordable and works for me. So I’m still praying, but I’ve been praising and glorifying God for days and days now. And through this I’ve been able to tell some of my unsaved friends all about how God answers prayers.

I’m so so sorry for the length of this. I even left out some stuff and I know it’s still long. I just wanted to put this on here in case anybody is feeling the way I was. I was so frustrated and sad for so long and thought that God didn’t care. But I can tell you with so much confidence now:

YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN. YOU ARE LOVED. YOUR LIFE HAS PURPOSE AND A DESTINY WITHIN GOD’S PLAN. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE JUST CLING ONTO THAT HOPE. PLEASE TRUST HIM. HIS TIMING IS PERFECT AND HE IS WORKING.

All blessings to you, my siblings in Jesus.

to the girl who’s going after a new life. a fresh start. just be patient with yourself and your journey. remember that whatever’s meant for you, won’t miss you at all.

believe in God’s plan and timing.

[wraithclatter]

📝 Journal Entry 10/12/24

🌡- 74°

Weather- ☀

🌕phase- 🌓 wax. Gibb. in ♒

Leviathan's main method of attack is the weakening of it's host population. The more the host-population is cognitively, spiritually, emotionally etc. unsound- that is, irrational- the more it can give the manipulators of its system an advantage. A refined, or dulled down, form of instability. Unsoundness in the human constitution, like anything else, is a gradient spectrum; and you can find all manner of use for the different irrational portions of the population. The less controlled are good patsies and weapons qua weapons. The more 'civil' irrational populations, a larger bulk but being quickly matched by the former more volatile population, are the most advantageous to utilize. The bottom line is you want the majority to be easily distracted and easily reactive. Addiction in its most general form is seeded in the H.P. and weaponized as well. A tale as old as time. All of this coupled with various "naturally"(by consequence) occuring environmental factors such as comfort and its amenities, digital media and communication technological infrastructures, etc., that can be, with deft fingers, played like a tuned instrument. Resentment is a great weapon to utilize and Leviathan wastes no time weaponizing it as it is in substance built from it, is comprised of resentment itself. It is easy to gas up an underdog type to encourage them into harming themselves and perceived enemies on the part of Leviathan. And by applying, deliberately and methodologically, the Secret Sacred Science of True crowd psychology, the more of these types one can employ as a weapon and cheap but easy means of exploitation amd resource farming in every sense of that term. Everything can be farmed, weaponized, gleaned for information. As I have stated before: everything can be weaponized. No exceptions.

This is the way marginalized groups are weaponized and exploited. This is the core motions of crowd psychology engineering that every institution in Leviathan works with. To take Leviathan's own analogy: say you have a leper colony that exists outside of the purview of the normal stratas of society- in the fringes, the refuse pile, as it were. You go to this group and you manipulate their world-view, or subjective interpretations of the world and their identity within it, and lead them to believe their status, afflictions, ill constitution, are not only unique brands worthy of pride but make them fundamentally different than the average person in some major and possibly game-changing way. In a word: you exacerbate and exploit their cognitive and emotional imbalances and feelings of self-worth in order to consecrate them as the crude blades to be used in the dialectic ritual dance.

Post-script: I would also like to point back to earlier blog posts in which I talk about the weaponization of human behavior and lines of thought/reasoning: We have been conditioned-for generations upon generations now(one could argue all of human history has been this conditioning process), to not just mistrust and dismiss our instincts and intuition, we have been coerced to repress, even purposely move in its opposing direction. Instinct is not infallible and a lot can be said about how much instinct and anxiety/neuroses can muddle it, but what has resulted is the weaponization of our more basic positive and neutral traits of altruism and trust, ability to act Just in extreme situations, etc. These have been weaponized by Leviathan against us to hijack our psychology- to possess us, essentially. And with the technology people like our buddy Charlie Lieber have been developing for decades now, it seems they are attempting to do it digitally, from the near-atomic level, from the inside. But that is another can of worms in and of itself. So I'll leave that to a future rant. But to get back on topic, our altruistic, positive traits have been altered, hijacked, and even made to be self-attacked by our own hands because of this. When you also constantly have everyone falling apart, histrionic, terrified yet so detached and loaded that they act like emotionless sociopaths, they are in a very suggestible and weakened state of attention. The sorcery runs deep, my friends. Bone deep.

I also would like to end this rant by saying I think it is significantly possible things like ADD, aspects of cluster-b personality dispositions and forms of mood and quasi-schizophrenic and autistic dispositions stem in part from consciousness trying to adapt to the overly saturated informational techno-future dystopia we live in and have for the past few centuries. Ok so yeah that's what i wanted to say. Thanks for reading and live in health!

Mark Well These Words, For They Are Of Your Eternal Salvation

[culttvblog]

Bugs: All Under Control

I know that I pride myself that everything I blog about here is cult TV, but in this post we are in proper cult TV territory, in fact a show I haven't long known about. Bugs (1995 to 1999)is not one of those shows that just everyone has watched, but has a definite cult following in the UK, with actual fans. I don't know whether it has much or any of an international following. In fact Bugs has been described as 'an Avengers for the nineties'.

Frankly I wish people would mostly stop comparing shows to The Avengers. It doesn't do, they don't usually compare, and it sets up an unrealistic expectation of what the show can come up with and places the show under unfair stress. Adam Adamant Lives is a show this has been done to, as is Virtual Murder, and both shows are quality entertainment in their own right and don't need comparing to anything else. However in the case of Bugs it's not just anyone describing it as the Avengers of the nineties, but it's Brian Clemens. Yes, that Brian Clemens, script writer, editor and producer of The (actual) Avengers, who had an input into this show. Holy cow, this show had the bloke who did The Avengers working on it. Of all the shows compared to The Avengers, this actually *is* as close as we'll get to The Avengers of The Nineties.

It's an action/adventure cum science fiction show about Gizmos, a team of crime-fighting technology experts. And so we have the witty dialogue, we have the fantastic technology, we have the sexual chemistry, we absolutely have the great and the good gone bad, and while the complete unreality has been toned down a bit, it has rather been transferred to the technology that features in the show. Oh, the technology that features in the show. I don't mean the fictional technology, I mean the technology of the nineties. Thirty years later this show might as well be set in 1960 because some of the technology looks so outdated it's like a trip down memory lane. Of course this wasn't intended at the time. My personal opinion is that it doesn't really matter that the sort of futuristic fictional technology depicted didn't really come to pass in most cases, because that aspect of the show can firmly be consigned to fiction. It's against a familiar nineties background, though.

One of the things which makes the background so nineties it that the show is shot with a very definite aesthetic in mind. Its palette is predominantly blues, and greys, with splashes of yellow or read in places. Essentially if you heap up a collection of vintage nineties computing equipment you would have exactly the aesthetic of this show and it's glorious.

Another interesting feature of this show is that it was impacted twice by IRA bombs during the tail end of the Troubles. Initially it was mostly filmed around the reveloped London Docklands with its futuristic appearance, but this was ended by the IRA bombing of the South Quay Plaza in 1996. Then the Omagh bombing in 1998 severely disrupted the broadcast of the final series. Truly of its time.

All Under Control is perhaps slightly different from the other episodes because it's about the team's investigation after a passenger aircraft is hijacked by remote control. Not to beat about the bush here, I love the dead nineties computer set up with a mouse that the hijacker uses to hijack the plane. Otherwise the episode is a great opportunity for filming outside the city, including obviously at an airport and also at the homes of the genius who designed the state-of-the-art navigation system of the plane. It's great stuff.

I have to say that the plots of Bugs episodes are fairly straightforward in the early episodes (I haven't got there yet but apparently in later episodes more human interest stuff starts intruding): basically they are presented with a problem, investigate it and find the solution. It's about as no-nonsense as you can get, while still having that Avengersesque/futuristic feel. I suspect this is the reason this show has a cult following: you'll either take to it or you won't, and personally I don't follow the plots too closely and just let it wash over me.

If I have a criticism it is that I think the episodes are possibly a little longer than they could be, at least in terms of plot. the good looks and nineties state of mind never gives up. I wouldn't go to the stake for this opinion though.

I have to say it is a pleasure to find a series which might actually have a claim to be a successor of The Avengers because of having Brian Clemens work on it and I recommend it very highly. I'd suggest starting at the beginning if you've not seen it because the fans seem to like the earlier ones better than the later ones.

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Archives from 2013 to September 2023 may be found at culttvblog.blogspot.com and there is an index to the tags used on the Tumblr version at https://www.tumblr.com/culttvblog/729194158177370112/this-blog

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 11.26 (after 1950)

1950 – Korean War: Communist Chinese troops launch a massive counterattack (Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River and Battle of Chosin Reservoir) against United Nations and South Korean forces. 1965 – France launches Astérix, becoming the third nation to put an object in orbit using its own booster. 1968 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire. He is later awarded the Medal of Honor. 1970 – In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 38 millimetres (1.5 in) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded. 1977 – An unidentified hijacker named Vrillon, claiming to be the representative of the "Ashtar Galactic Command", takes over Britain's Southern Television for six minutes, starting at 5:12 pm. 1979 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 740 crashes near Taif in Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia, killing all 156 people on board. 1983 – Brink's-Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brink's-Mat vault at Heathrow Airport. 1986 – Iran–Contra affair: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the members of what will become known as the Tower Commission. 1986 – The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of committing war crimes as a guard at the Nazi Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem. 1991 – National Assembly of Azerbaijan abolishes the autonomous status of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of Azerbaijan and renames several cities with Azeri names. 1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland. 1998 – The Khanna rail disaster takes 212 lives in Khanna, Ludhiana, India. 1999 – The 7.5 Mw  Ambrym earthquake shakes Vanuatu and a destructive tsunami follows. Ten people were killed and forty were injured. 2000 – George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida's electoral votes by Katherine Harris, going on to win the United States presidential election, despite losing in the national popular vote. 2003 – The Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England. 2004 – Ruzhou School massacre: A man stabs and kills eight people and seriously wounds another four in a school dormitory in Ruzhou, China. 2004 – The last Poʻouli (Black-faced honeycreeper) dies of avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii, before it could breed, making the species in all probability extinct. 2008 – Mumbai attacks, a series of terrorist attacks killing approximately 175 citizens by 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan based extremist Islamist terrorist organisation. 2008 – The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2, now out of service, docks in Dubai. 2011 – NATO attack in Pakistan: NATO forces in Afghanistan attack a Pakistani check post in a friendly fire incident, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others. 2011 – The Mars Science Laboratory launches to Mars with the Curiosity Rover. 2018 – The robotic probe Insight lands on Elysium Planitia, Mars. 2019 – A magnitude 6.4 earthquake strikes western Albania leaving at least 52 people dead and over 1000 injured. This was the world's deadliest earthquake of 2019, and the deadliest to strike the country in 99 years. 2021 – COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization identifies the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant.

[libertineangel]

Finding a ship hauling advanced electronics turned out to be a surprisingly difficult endeavour. Sloan scouted three different factories, and at each one the docks were fairly desolate for the entirety of her watch, and it became apparent that there was some kind of production shortage going on as the only reported sources in any useful quantity were a couple of large Teladi trading posts. Trying to hijack a ship in such high-profile locations would've invited far more heat than she was willing to risk, so with profound disappointment she sent the Bold Acquisition up to buy the damn things, and picked up a couple more sabotage contracts which would more than balance the books.

With that dealt with, she chose her next objective, namely to head a little deeper into Scale Plate space than she'd gone before to find a signal for that Hatikvah worm that'd been waiting for a good while now. After nearly getting blown up by a Kha'ak raiding party as soon as she entered the system (her first time encountering one, and hopefully the last considering the strength of their very intimidating electrical beam weapons) she found a small maja dust factory and scanned for signal leaks; she still didn't bloody find any, but not wanting to risk another encounter with the Kha'ak she resolved to make one instead of searching for another station, building herself an EMP and blasting a hole in the station's comms frequencies before scanning the new leak and fucking off before the fighters scrambled for vengeance could catch up.

Safely back in Argon space, Commander Sloan got two transmissions: one from Boso Ta, telling her that they'd figured out short-range teleportation and could get to work on whatever else she wanted; this was of course a remarkable feat of science, and the next would be to give Sloan's signal scanner reverse-engineering programs so that scanning signal leaks on factory stations could give her blueprints to build her own (this required yet more energy cells and electronics, along with a shipment of graphene and smart chips this time, but dealing with that could wait). The second transmission was from Dal Busta of the Hatikvah Free League, telling her that now the worm was uploaded he wanted to take things up a notch, that she should build a couple of bombs and directly hit a Scale Plate delivery. She was hesitant about this, as she was making good money as an intermediary courier between them and the Vigor Syndicate, but if the League's ambitions came to fruition they could be a far more useful and powerful ally in the long run.

[shellofatime]

I hope that you don’t mind me hijacking this post to explain why I think that Rise Donnie would be the victor if all the Donnies got into a fist fight.

EDIT: Tl;dr at the bottom

First I want to point out that all Donnies are buff nerds with great upper body strength (except for 2k12 Donnie for some reason).  So (just about) all Donnies have brawns to go along with their brains. Though some more than others.

I’m not gonna count Mutant Mayhem Donnie because that movie hasn’t come out yet. Hell, the trailer for that movie hasn’t even come out yet. All we have is a few pieces of concept art to go off on and that’s not enough to gauge Mutant Mayhem Donnie’s strengths and weaknesses.

I’m also not gonna go over non-IDW comics Donnies (like Mirage, Archie, Last Ronin, etc.) because they weren’t mentioned, and I know nothing about them. (Though if anyone has read any of the other TMNT comics (that aren’t IDW), please feel free to add them in this discussion if you want to.)

Now based on what I know about each Donnie listed, I’m gonna list them from weakest to strongest and explain why I think they deserve their place in my list. (Though I welcome any and all discussion and debate on this.)

2k12 Donnie is the weakest out of all of the Donnies listed (which makes no sense to me because his bo staff is also a hidden naginata, which should make it heavier than a regular bo staff). (He’s also the weakest of the 2k12 turtles too.) Which I put most of the blame on the TMNT 2012 writers for that because each 2k12 turtle is kind of written as a stereotype. And 2k12 Donnie’s stereotype is nerd, and he was made with the whole nerd=weak bs. For example, he’s slimmer in muscle mass compared to his brothers. He appears to train less than his brothers (prefering to pursue scientific activities). He also appears to not know how to properly use a bo staff. And (as one of his biggest flaws when it comes to fighting) he gets caught up thinking about his attack rather than actually attacking.

2k7 Donnie is stronger than 2k12 Donnie, but a little bit weaker than the other Donnies. Mostly because he’s probably the rustiest. Because sometime after 2k7 Leo left for his training journey, 2k7 Donnie started to work in IT. And during the time that 2k7 Leo was gone, it doesn’t look like 2k7 Donnie kept up with his training.

I don’t know much about IDW Donnie, except for what I’ve seen of his wiki page and tumblr. So I might not get him right, and I welcome any correction from people who have read the IDW TMNT comics. But what I do know about him is that he appears to have the most amount of training under his belt because of his past life. Though I’m not sure if it counts since he has yet to remember his past life. He also isn’t one for fighting since he has thought about retiring and living a peaceful life when the going got really tough. And in one future, he did in fact do that. Being the only one of his brothers to survive because he yielded to the Shredder and gave up fighting and went into hiding to live a “peaceful” life. So I don’t think that he would put much effort in a fist fight between his other selves, or even participate in one.

‘87 Donnie is another Donnie on the list whose knowledge I have of him comes from his wiki page and his content on tumblr. Along with his appearance in Turtles Forever and TMNT 2012. So I might be wrong about him. Correct me if I am. That being said, he is strong enough to tear cars apart with his bare hands, but he is (like the rest of the ‘87 turtles) the least serious out of the Donnies. So even though he could kick some serious ass, I don’t think that he would be serious enough to do so. Maybe if it was a life or death situation he would be serious, but in a fist fight between his other selves? I think that he would be more likely to crack science jokes with his other selves than crack their heads.

Bayverse Donnie has a leg up on the other Donnies in the fact that he was purposefully mutated. Which makes him stronger and have a healing factor. He’s also a bit of a wild card (he did jump out of a plane without a parachute), which can be helpful in a fight. But like with 2k12 Donnie, he falls into the nerd stereotype. He has a slimmer build and appears to pursue the fields of science rather than training. But most importantly, out of all of the other Donnies, Bayverse Donnie has the least combat experience. He (and his brothers) have only faced two major threats (Shredder and Krang). So even if his greater strength and healing factor can make up for some of his lack of combat experience, it can’t make up for all of it.

2k3 Donnie has the brawns to back up his brains. (I also might be a bit biased when it comes to 2k3 Donnie because he’s my most favorite Donnie.) Not counting the bo staff, he also works on some heavy machinery. Sure, 2k3 Raph will help him out from time to time, but 2k3 Donnie is the one creating and maintaining all the big “toys”. He’s also strong enough to do things like slam his bo staff into solid concrete, tear robots (and other machinery) apart with his bare hands, take down opponents bigger than him (like that time he KO-ed a triceraton), can lift heavy ruble off of himself and others, throw opponents through walls, etc. And even if he does have scientific pursuits, he doesn’t skip on his training. The only thing that might hinder him a fist fight between his other selves is that out of all the Donnies, 2k3 Donnie is the most mellow and peaceful. So he might hold back or pull some of his punches. (Though I use the word "might" loosely.)

Rise Donnie, like his Bayverse counterpart, has a leg up on the other Donnies because he was also purposefully mutated. So he has greater strength and a healing factor. But even so, he also  has a leg up on Bayverse Donnie too because Bayverse Donnie was mutated as an experiment. Rise Donnie was mutated for war. Also, I think that out of all of the Donnies, Rise Donnie has the most upper body strength because of his equipment. Like before he switched to a regular bo staff, he had a metal one with things like a giant hammer and a chainsaw built into it. Which no doubt made it much heavier than a regular (wooden) bo staff. Then there is his battle shell. That thing probably weighs somewhere between 20 to 50 pounds (or even more). Also, Rise Donnie is a soft shell turtle. Soft shell turtles are highly aggressive and that can be seen with Rise Donnie throughout RotTMNT. Out of his brothers, he’s mostly likely to have an angry outburst. He tends to pick the most lethal choice. And has the most questionable/loosest morals. So he would totally go all out in a fist fight with his other selves. Hell, he might even play dirty too.

Though I do think that 2k3 Donnie and Rise Donnie might be almost neck and neck. 2k3 Donnie does have more training and combat experience than Rise Donnie, but Rise Donnie was made for war and has a lot of natural talent. That, and I think that the fact that Rise Donnie would fight dirty (while 2k3 Donnie would never ever think about fighting dirty) might be enough to give him a leg up on 2k3 Donnie and beat the older turtle. Even if it's only just barely so.

Tl;dr: 2k12 Donnie is the weakest because the 2k12 writers kind of wrote him with the “nerds are weaklings” stereotype. He also has the bad habit of over thinking his attack before attacking.

2k7 Donnie is rusty because while 2k7 Leo was gone, 2k7 Donnie lessened or stopped training to work in IT.

IDW Donnie doesn’t like to fight, so he probably wouldn’t participate in a fist fight between his other selves.

‘87 Donnie is a powerhouse, but like the other ‘87 turtles he isn’t all that serious. So he would probably be more interested in cracking jokes and talking science with his other selves instead of fighting them.

Bayverse Donnie was purposely mutated as a science experiment, which gives him great strength and a healing factor. But he has the least combat experience out of the Donnies and his strength and healing factor can’t completely make up for his lack of combat experience.

2k3 Donnie has the brawns to go with his brains, along with training and combat experience.

Rise Donnie was mutated for war, which gives him great strength, a healing factor and a lot of natural talent. His aggression and loose morals can also help him in a fight since he would go all out and fight dirty.

2k3 Donnie and Rise Donnie would be neck and neck, and 2k32 Donnie could win, but since Rise Donnie is an ass. He would probably fight dirty and do something like fake an injury or exaggerate the pain he feels while getting hit. And with how kind 2k3 Donnie is, he would probably fall for it and Rise Donnie would use that to his advantage and land 2k3 Donnie on his shell, (barely) stealing the win.

I'm redoing this again cuz ain't no way rise Donnie won out of all of them some of y'all are LYINGGGGGGGGGGGG. And also probably because cuz this poll lasted a day and not a week... That's my bad on my part y'all 🥲