#kind of how 'western world' is used today

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

[breelandwalker]

Why is Wicca not a preferred way of practice? I’ve read a couple of posts, and Wicca isn’t favored.

Moral puritanism and performative outrage, plain and simple. There's nothing inherently wrong with Wicca or Wiccans. Some people in the community just aren't doing the work and seem to think that decolonizing our thinking begins and ends with screaming BOYCOTT at anything they deem even remotely reprehensible.

Let's do some of the work and dig a little deeper, shall we?

The main complaint is that Wicca started with people who had problematic worldviews and has had some growing pains and issues with racism, sexism, cultural appropriation, and bad actors in the community as it has evolved, reaching into the present day.

But here's the thing - SHOW ME A RELIGION THAT DOESN'T HAVE THESE PROBLEMS SOMEWHERE IN ITS' HISTORY OR CURRENT CULTURE. GO AHEAD, I'LL WAIT.

It's neither fair nor reasonable to judge a religion based on its' beginnings, or to dismiss the ability of a community to grow and evolve over time, or to pretend that the modern witchcraft movement doesn't owe a large part of its' existence to Wicca. Like it or not, if it weren't for Wiccans, we wouldn't have the kind of organization or recognition that we do, nor would we have had certain landmark legal cases that led to pagans being able to claim the protection of law against religious discrimination in the States.

(And because someone somewhere is going to demand the encyclopedia answer - This is not to discount the contributions of other groups, but the historical fact remains that the people responsible for the foundations of Wicca kickstarted the movement in the UK and subsequent practitioners brought it into public view in a positive light during the counterculture movements of the 1950s and 1960s. And it was Wicca that was first pagan religion in the US to be recognized and therefore included under the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. This does not change the CULTURAL AND SOCIETAL response to witchcraft or paganism, or the problems that witches and pagans still face in other places, only the presence of civil rights that were not there before. And that has, in fact, contributed to an increase in wider normalization and acceptance. We may not owe EVERYTHING to Wicca and Wiccans, but we would not be where we are as a movement or a community without them.)

Not to mention, Wicca hasn't even been around for a whole century yet and already it's being judged like it has the same kind of cultural and political clout that, oh say, Christianity does in much of the Western world. And it's no coincidence that a good number of the criticisms leveled at Wiccans are the same ones flung at Christians.

Wicca DOES have a strong influence on modern witchcraft, because Wicca and Wiccans were such a big part of the foundation of the movement. Furthermore, many of the published works viewed as standard beginner texts were written by Wiccans or heavily influenced by Wiccan ideas and concepts. Admittedly, there was a tendency for quite some time to think of Wicca and Wiccan tenets as the default for modern witchcraft, and now that we're moving away from that and discovering just how much of our thinking relies on that framework and the ideas present within it, there's backlash happening.

It's important to try and decolonize your thinking as much as possible when it comes to witchcraft. But that involves more work and more effort than just pointing fingers and broadly condemning anything remotely problematic or anything that's ever been touched or influenced by people whose moral and ethical codes don't pass muster under a modern lens. We cannot and should not expect people from 50+ years ago to toe the line when people living today can't even do so reliably.

So to wrap it all up - there's nothing wrong with Wicca and there's nothing wrong with being Wiccan. We are none of us completely unproblematic and until we address the fact that issues with racism, sexism, manipulation, cultural appropriation, and so forth exist in MANY parts of the modern witchcraft and pagan community, we don't get to tar and feather any one group. A bit of critical thinking and self-reflection, and a great deal of Knowing Our Own History, is the key to moving forward here.

Because until the people voicing these complaints most loudly can realize the head-splitting irony of condemning Wicca in one breath and celebrating the Wheel of the Year or venerating a Maiden-Mother-Crone-model goddess in the next, we're not actually getting anywhere.

Anyway, I hope this helps to answer some of your questions. For more information, I highly recommend reading Margot Adler's "Drawing Down The Moon" and Ronald Hutton's "Triumph of the Moon" for a more comprehensive overview of the history of the modern witchcraft movement. Both are written from an outside scholar's perspective and are presented as research rather than rhetoric. Part of knowing where we are and deciding where to go next is knowing where we started and where we've been, after all.

[kebriones]

Hey just letting you know that @/margaretkart is a racist and apparently some kind of modern greek supremacist. She plays the victim and acts as if Greek people are an oppressed minority in the world and refuses to acknowledge that race is a post colonial construct. Race as we know it did not exist during ancient times. She for some reason also is convinced that the worst thing in the world is having a person of color play a fictional Greek mythological character. God forbid the “purity” of Ancient Greek mythology becomes sullied by—gasp!—a Percy Jackson show. The Ancient Greek gods were the gods of all the people on earth like come on. That includes people of color.

1. What is the point of this ask. To inform me? It could've been done privately or out of anon. If you have issues with someone, block them or talk to them about it. Do not do this. Also why mention this person when there are many greek people on tumblr who hold very similar opinions? If you wanted to talk about the issue in general it would've been better to not mention one specific person. I haven't even seen this person mentioning this topic, but I have seen it before by other greek people here.

2. I've argued about this topic with fellow greek people publicly online here, in private talks and in real life. I am a firm believer that actors who play in movies as well as theater do not have to match anything from age to gender to appearance to origins of the character they're playing. Have I still complained that helen in the movie troy looks way too german? Yes. So do I understand where this sensitivity stems from? Yes. The systematic approach of ancient greek culture being a free for all for western countries while ignoring modern greek identity and how, for better or for worse, tied it is to the ancient culture, is an issue. I still think it's up to us to put ourselves in this narrative rather than complain that foreigners aren't catering to us.

3. I feel like describing someone as a racist and a "supremacist" over this is a little bit in bad faith. I have not had talks about this topic with this person, I don't care to have extensive talks about this topic in fucking general anymore because it's stupid and I know other people who feel that way and I'm not some morality police to go out of my way to go call them out. When the discussion reaches me, and when I'm talking for myself, I will say what I think. The way the discussion of race is online is so weird to me anyway. It's all way too saturated by current convoluted US ideas and I am not equipped to help detangle the mess for others.

4. Do I think that it's way more realistic for a movie about, say, classical era greece to have a character that looks to be of african origin than a character that looks Scandinavian? Absolutely. Did the actor that played Achilles in Troy:Fall of a city bother me? No, it's an actor playing a role, of an imaginary character no less. What bothered me was that he didn't have long hair, because hair was a very significant cultural element at the time, and his hair is used in the story. The same exact issue that I had with the actor that played hector in that series, who also didnt really look like a person from that area realistically, but who was otherwise very good at his role.

5. As for playing the victim and oppressed minorities: while i would not go so far as to use "oppressed minority" for the greeks of the diaspora, it's very real that modern greeks have been looked down at by westerners, historically. Do I think this justifies or has anything to do with being bothered about what actors who play ancient greek mythology characters look like or come from, in a foreign piece of art no less? No. But it's still a thing.

6. I am extremely stressed out and busy today but I still took time to answer this because i need to say again, please don't do this. If you want to help people to see things differently and maybe move away from biases, talk to Them. Just because I'm following someone or interacting with them online, it doesn't mean I'm endorsing or agreeing with or even KNOW everything they think and say and believe. I avoid reading posts from fellow greeks that are complaining about these things because i think it's an overreaction and I think we need to tackle deep and actual cultural problems that WE have ourselves and not care too much about what some Hollywood movie is doing. Whatever. Tired discussion.

7. Percy Jackson sucks and I do hate that it's based on anc greek mythology but I just don't interact with it. The fact that it is a generation's first taste of anc. gr mythology and thus has had an impact on their perception of it is true and important though. The same way it bothers me when all people know of the odyssey is epic the musical. But still, whatever. Some greek people might be more bothered by it all and need to talk about it online and I think that's perfectly okay and valid. I do my petty complaining now and then too.

8. "The ancient greek gods were the gods of all people one earth" you can say that of other mythologies that have an origin of the entire human race as part of their myths, that's how religions usually go. These gods were worshipped in specific areas in a specific time and the mythology was created by specific cultures of specific areas. This is a major complaint that greek people have, which I mentioned before, that this specific ancient culture's mythology is treated as a thing detached from the actual culture, the ancient one, and from its inheritors which happen to be the people that live here and/or have this specific cultural identity. I don't think this cultural identity has anything to do with the appearance of people, and we all know the greek identity has absolutely nothing to do with race and that's a very fundamental part of it.

9. I would try to make myself even clearer but I don't have time and I didn't want to leave this unanswered even though I also kinda wanted to because this type of anon ask does nothing good for anyone and I encourage you to engage with others in a way that is understanding and comes from a place of wanting everything to be better and kinder. And there's so so much you will disagree with, on fundamental levels, with other people online, if only because we all come from very different cultures with different values and upbringings, despite how it looks like we're all in a US-based melting pot. You have to make peace with that, and it can be difficult. I've had American friends that I deeply disagree with on important stuff, and I had to face the discomfort and take time to let myself understand that our cultures are different.

Anyways. I apologize in advance if anything i said makes no sense or is insensitive or condescending. I admit i was upset when I started my reply but if you want to discuss this further we can absolutely do that. I cannot reply privately to anon asks otherwise i would have. I hate call-out style stuff like this because they do nothing good.

[max1461]

This has mostly disappeared from my corner of the internet over the last few years, but it used to be the case that every once in a while some story would go around about a corporation or a government doing some fucked up shit in pursuit of their self-interest, and people in the comments and reblogs would act utterly aghast that said government or corporation would do such a thing.

This was always baffling to me, and I have only ever been able to interpret it as a sign of profound naivety. Of course, I too think it is awful, sad, and unjust when people are exploited, killed, abused or so on by the institutions of our society. But "aghastness" is not synonymous with these things, to be aghast is to be (or present yourself as) in some sense surprised. And surprise is wholly unwarranted here.

I suppose this is part of my worldview that feels very fundamental, it feels deeply obvious, and I struggle to figure out how to talk productively with people who did not get the memo: exploitation and abuse of others in pursuit of self-interest is in some sense the natural behavior of agents in any kind of competitive context. It requires a lot of effort and coordination to mitigate this behavior. We do not feel "aghast" when someone is bitten by a dog. Dogs bite people, idiot! And corporations exploit their workers, lie, cheat, and steal, unless you work very hard to prevent them from doing so. And governments exploit and neglect their citizens, and go to war and kill and maim, unless you work very hard to prevent them from doing so. Individual humans, as members of a social species for which cooperation is paramount to survival, have quite a lot of specific programming whose purpose seems to be to discourage us from doing these things (empathy, loyalty, etc. etc.), and yet very often we still do them!

I have relatives who have a hard time believing in US atrocities abroad, on the grounds that "Americans are the good guys, and the US just wouldn't do that". This is very stupid! Do you think the US got where it is today without cracking some eggs? Bullshit. There's never been a government or a military in the history of humanity that "just wouldn't do that". I sometimes see posts on here from tankies, defending Chinese or Soviet atrocities on the grounds that these things must be Western propaganda, a socialist government just wouldn't do that. Again, I find this so obviously false as to be essentially beneath engaging with. We don't live in a just world! Often, a very effective strategy for achieving whatever it is you're trying to achieve will involve treating people like shit. It is what it is.

I'm not trying to play defense for injustice here. Obviously I think we should do as much as we can to prevent these abuses. But I think that doing so must start with basic recognition of the following: it is the nature of institutions—being as competition between them is essentially unavoidable, and being as their decision processes are unavoidably removed from the face-to-face social context which is so load-bearing in motivating respectful treatment between individual humans—to abuse people in pursuit of their (perceived) self-interest. This behavior is mundane and expected. It can be mitigated in various ways, ideological and structural, but it will probably always be with us to some degree. To look at it and express shock in any capacity suggests a completely misguided understanding of how the world works.

This is the first and most important thing I ever learned about politics or society.

[aroaceleovaldez]

you're like the first blog i thought about ranting on this to but it drives me up the wall that some people treat any criticism aimed at tsats2 as being anti-ship or avoidable via just "not reading it". i dont think they realize that we're talking about a bigger issue of soulless commercialization and heavy quality downgrade of a franchise, not like. about an indie author publishing a fan book lmao

'i'll read it anyways haters gonna hate' crowd likely largely funding richard's mediocrity is sad.

I think part of it may have to do with a.) a lack of distinction in recent fandom culture between "Fandom" and "Audience" (alongside other recent fandom culture attitudes as well) and b.) so much of Rick's brand is built up exactly on parasocial behavior that a lot of fans get caught up in it. [under cut cause this got long:]

Re: The first, more recent fandom culture tends to treat "Fandom" and "General audience" as wholly equivocal. Because of this, the concepts tend to bleed into each other in a way we haven't quite seen before fandom became mainstream, and as a result we get a kind of Worst Of Both Worlds situation - a bunch of very passionate fans who have no community, create little to no fanworks themselves (only consume), and only engage at a surface level with the source material. Their only "fandom" community hub is the source material and official social media and they don't have a concept of how to exist outside it, unlike folks who are more used to older fandom culture and are self-sufficient. They have the passion and identity of classic fandom, but none of the depth, and so threats to the source material feel like threats to their community as a whole. They also just don't seem to understand that different subsections of the deeper fandom community are engaging with the material on an entirely different level, or they don't understand why they're doing that. They see no need to because they're never actually engaging with the community or source material beyond a surface level. Functionally they don't have a community. And mainstream media is actively encouraging this because it's profitable for them - they're reaping all of the rewards of fandom, minus the fact that because of the lack of actually community and support structures the entire "fandom" will only have a shelf life the same length of the source material. But at the same time this means they don't have to worry about quality or etc, because this extremely passionate side of their audience will just take anything thrown at them and it'll phase out almost immediately. It doesn't need to be good, it just needs to elicit some kind of reaction on social media. Any publicity is good publicity type stuff.

This lack of true community plus the parasocial emphasis the RR company has tends to make these types of fans double-down. Rick and co. are explicitly advertised as being both part of the "community" and integral to it. And when they've built Rick (and co) up as this moral paragon critical to both part of their identity they're very passionate about and what little of a community they have, any attack on him feels like an attack on themself. Particularly when so much of the publicity and marketing surrounding Rick right now is about his alleged activism when a lot of the criticism about him and the series is actively calling that into question with his unaddressed internalized bigotries. Acknowledging that what Rick is saying and promoting himself as versus his writing and actions don't always line up and pointing out the bigotry present in his work forces people to acknowledge and think about performative activism, which can make a lot of people very uncomfortable! It's forcing them to acknowledge "Oh, even if I'm saying all the right words and calling myself an ally, I am not immune to being bigoted if I don't address my internalized biases. My actual behavior matters." and that especially can feel like a personal attack. Especially in today's western landscape of media consumption being viewed as a moral act in itself.

I suspect this is why a lot of the retaliation against criticism of Rick and the franchise right now is "Why can't you just have FUN? You're just trying to hate for views. Don't take it so seriously! It's not that deep!" - they not only have no interest in engaging deeper in the material, but don't understand why others would, and doing so jeopardizes the foundations of what they consider the fandom. They can't fathom anybody legitimately having these criticisms (particularly not anybody who would ACTUALLY consider themself a "fan" - because their perception of "fan" is themself) because they're so resistant to digging deeper into the media/source material or the concept that anyone would for any legitimate reason (because as long as they keep it as "it's not that deep!!! it's just fun! just enjoy it you wet blanket!!!!" and take things at their word, they can feel secure in that performative aspect and not have to unpack it), and acknowledging that those criticisms exist and are valid means they have to acknowledge the franchise is flawed and imperfect, so they presume the claims are entirely superficial and the individual has ulterior motives rather than, yknow, doing what fandom does: diving deeper.

[whoiwanttoday]

Here is Nonsummerjack in some festive apparel. I like her Christmas stuff because it is unique, which likely comes from being from a place without a Christmas tradition that matches ours. It leads to looks that are Christmasy for sure but somehow feel just a little different than I would see from a Western Cosplayer. Which makes sense, Japan has some fascinating Christmas tradition. The one I have always been really blown away by is that everyone gets KFC. Like, for real, there are lines around the block, you have to order in advance, and apparently Christmas accounts for something like 30% of all of KFC's sales in japan. Coke gets some weird credit and blame in Europe for corrupting Santa Claus (a blame that I feel is not entirely accurate but American mega corporation makes for a fun punching bag if you feel that Santa has supplanted your more traditional options of Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas or whatever, given while we use them interchangeably I promise you they are not the same) but man, convincing a country that a bucket of fried Chicken is the most Christmasy thing a person can do is just amazing. It all started with one guy who just wanted to sell more Chicken and he convinced an entire country that "Kentucky is Christmas". I am glad that dangerous level of charisma wasn't directed at something truly evil or he would have taken over the world. Anyway, what I am saying is a Japanese Christmas looks different than what I am used to and it's kind of nice to get a different look now and then. I am not sure how I would feel about Nonsummerjack cosplaying as a bucket but who knows. Today I want to fuck Nonsummerjack.

[oneforthemunny]

switching it up |dom!brat tamer!eddie x sub!brat!reader|

prompt: "go pick a switch" with mean!dom!brat tamer! eddie. based off a horny hours ask from my old account :)

for those who don't know a "switch" in this is referring to a small, thin branch that's picked and used (typically and in this case) for discipline. sorta like caning.

contains: mean!hard!dom!brat tamer!eddie, sub!bratty!reader, spanking, dom/sub themes, oral fem receiving, p in v sex, minors dni 18+

"Go on, now, baby." Eddie nodded from the steps, leaned up casually against the metal, rusted railing of the trailer. He inhaled deeply, cigarette crackling and ash falling by his feet, eyes trained on you, deep and dark.

You fidgeted in the grass, only a few paces away from the steps. Eyes cutting around you, looking to see if anyone was around, praying they weren't. Hoping that they wouldn't see the slow journey you were making to hickory bush, long and overgrown at the end of the gravel drive, scissors behind your back.

"Don't make me wait, sweet thing." Eddie blew the smoke out, eyeing you carefully. "Or I'll take that switch to ya right out here." He smirked at the threat. How your spine went rigid, cheeks flushed a deep crimson when you looked back at him, but you quickened your pace to the dreaded bush.

The idea had come to him while watching TV a few weeks ago. Some old, western movie from the fifties, he'd been too stoned to change it. Plus, he liked those kind of movies, reminded him of when he first moved in with Wayne as a kid.

The gruff male lead, mean and stern with the female lead, grabbed her arm, threatening to "take a switch to her hind-end" if she didn't obey. The threat made him twitch, cock stirring even in his drug induced haze. He was always looking for new things to try, new ways to get you embarrassed when you bratted, put you back in your place before fucking you relentlessly. You'd been taking the cane so well lately, he figured a little switch would be nothing.

"What's a switch?" You'd asked, nose crinkled in confusion when he presented the idea to you.

Eddie gawked at you. "You never heard about kids having to go pick a switch?" He blinked at you with a small smile. You shook your head. He laughed. "We came from different worlds then, baby." He pressed a kiss to the side of your head, and pulled you to the window so you could see the bush, long, thin branches that he explained you cleared the branches and leaves off before it was used on you.

"Kinda like the cane." Eddie grinned, hands rubbing up and down your waist, excitedly. "But you have to go pick it, cut it, clear it. Whole thing before you ever get spanked with it." What he didn't say was the before process added to the embarrassment of it all, a fact that he knew you loved- a sort of embarrassing foreplay that had you dripping before he ever even touched you. You grinned, agreeing to try it, thighs clenched in excitement.

It wasn't until today, nearly a month after the conversation, that Eddie actually used the threat. He always did that, waiting until you thought he forgot or changed his mind to act on it.

You'd been huffy all morning, a little whiny and snappy, like you always got when you wanted him to ruin you. Get you crying and your ass aching until he relented and fucked you stupid. He'd told you before you could just ask, he'd always oblige, but where was the fun in that?

"Hey, you better watch it," Eddie warned, snapping a finger at you after your third eye roll of the day. "Keep it up, and I'll take a switch to you."

Your eyes lit up, cheeks heating and tingling at the threat- the promise. Eddie bit back a grin, staying stern and stoic though he wanted to laugh at how excited you got. You got even more bratty, just like he expected, until he finally turned you over his knee. He took to spanking you with his hand, scolding you about being a naughty brat, until you whined and begged him to stop. A part of you thought he might have backed out of the initial threat, rubbing your ass and pouting. Until he crossed over to the kitchen, scowling at you sternly. He grabbed the scissors, shoving them in your hand and telling you to go pick your switch, that you'd earned it.

You fished through the scratchy branches and leaves of the bush, thankful it was overcast and chilly or the entire park would've been out, kids riding bikes and adults tending gardens- all to witness you cutting a branch, retrieving it and bringing it back to Eddie for his inspection. Fetching and retrieving back to your master like a dog. The humiliation of it all was enough to get your cheeks tinging pink, pussy throbbing and nearly aching.

You looked around when you walked back, tiny, limp branch in your hand, quick paced when you brought it back to Eddie. "Here," You muttered, holding it out with a furious blush.

Eddie scoffed, bumming his cigarette into the ash tray. "Baby," He tutted, taking the small, pitiful excuse for a branch. "You really think this is going to work? Look," Eddie lifted the branch, it was limp and blowing in the small breeze when he pulled his hand back, cutting it through the air with a small, whistling swish! before promptly snapping in half.

Eddie gave you an unimpressed look, arms crossing over his chest. "Go, try again," He nodded towards the bush.

You huffed, stomping down the stairs. "Hey," Eddie snapped, hard and gruff.

You didn't turn, continuing on to the bush, knuckles scratching through the rough branches until you found a better one. Sturdy but not as thick as some, enough for some movement and a nice swish.

"How's this?" You pouted, holding the second branch back up to Eddie.

He took his time, rolling the branch between his hands, inspecting it carefully. He swung it in front of him a few times, relishing the way you jumped, thighs clenching and squirming with excitement.

"Is it good?" You asked, gaze lifting to his, rounded eyes desperate for approval.

Eddie hummed. "I dunno." He sighed, lips twisting. He stepped back, swinging it behind you before he snapped the branch down, suddenly on your sweatpant clad ass.

You yelped, jumping at the sting of the hit, even through the thick cotton. "Ow!" You hissed, glaring at him, hands furiously rubbing the sting. Your head whipped around, scanning to see if there was anyone out who could have saw, cheeks red with embarrassment at the thought, but you were pulsing between your legs.

Eddie grinned. "What do you think? Is it a good one?" He asked, cheekily. The little shit.

"It hurt." You pouted, rubbing your already sore cheeks, still sensitive from the spanking he'd given you only a few minutes prior.

"Hm, seems like a winner then." Eddie smirked, grabbing the scissors from you. "Go inside. In front of the couch. I'll be there in a minute."

You pulled the screen door, watching him click and clean the leaves and spare branched away. Your tummy flipped, squeezing and rolling with excitement, heat shooting from your heart down to your core. You scampered in front of the couch, kneeling in front of the middle cushion that Eddie always favored.

The squeak of the screen door's hinges followed by the clatter of it closing came soon, Eddie's heavy steps coming in, spinning the branch in his hand. His eyes were excited, darkened with his domineering demeanor.

"You ready?" He asked, tilting his head to the side, you nodded eagerly.

Eddie grinned. "I'm gonna have you bend over the back of the couch. That sound alright?" He asked. You stood, hurrying to bend over the couch by him, his hand stopping you. "Pants down, baby."

You shimmied out of your sweatpants, kicking them to the corner. Cotton panties, thin and bikini cut, a little faded with countless cycles in the wash that made them irresistibly soft. Eddie's mouth watered. There was a reason he made you keep them at his trailer, "just in case", he told you, and you pretended you didn't notice them in the dirty hamper from time to time, covered in his release.

"You know, maybe this will teach you to not be such a bad little brat. What do you think?" Eddie hummed from behind you, pinching the hem of your panties and bunching them up, so they rode further into your crack, exposing your cheeks.

You shivered. "I don't think we'll know unless you try." You snipped, looking over your shoulder, thighs rubbing together for some sort of friction.

Eddie smirked, swishing the branch through the air so it whistled, taunting. You squirmed with anticipation, excitement building in the pit of your tummy. "Hm," Eddie hummed. "Eyes forward." He snapped.

You straightened your posture, focusing on the small hall towards Eddie's room. You felt the branch, scratchy and hard rubbing across your cheeks, splotchy and red from the assault of his hand from earlier.

"I think ten to start." Eddie suggested, looking down at you carefully. He lifted a brow, scanning your features. "That good?"

You nodded, legs bouncing and squirming. "Just do it already, Eddie." You huffed.

Eddie scoffed, walloping your ass with his hand so you yelped. "Keep it up, baby," He warned, tapping the switch across your throbbing ass. "I'll take you outside. Make you bend over, grab your ankles, and really take this switch to ya." He grinned when your thighs pressed together.

He tapped the branch to your cheeks, lining up his first hit. He pulled back, sending the branch forward and snapping into the meat of your ass. Not as hard as he would with the cane, he was unsure with this and didn't want to hurt you. You yelped anyways, back recoiling at the hit, fisting the blanket in front of you.

Eddie paused, looking down at you carefully. "How was that?" He asked softly. This was pure play, a fun, adventurous thing for the both of you. Sure, you'd bratted earlier to get your way, but when didn't you.

You groaned, low and throaty. The switch stung, worse than the cane, which was saying a lot. It was surprisingly rougher than you expected, you didn't think you'd be able to tell the difference, but the sting across your cheeks told you otherwise. A sharp, nearly itchy type burn that had you desperate to rub the irritation out, attempt to soothe it.

"I'm good." You sighed heavily, back relaxing back into an arch, toes curling into the mesh carpet. You tried to not focus on how painful the throbbing was between your legs, pulverizing heat that left your head spinning.

Eddie grinned, lifting the branch back up. He aimed lower for the next two, quick snaps against your lower cheeks, hitting close to your core. Your legs shook, crying out at the pain, feet stomping into the carpet. He watched the way you writhed, crossing your legs tight, rolling your hips to try and relieve some of the ache in your pussy.

"I think you'd like that if I took you outside," Eddie brought the switch down on the top of your thighs, right where the meat of your ass curved into them. You howled out at the sting, far more uncomfortable than you expected it to be.

"I think you'd like the idea of someone seeing what a bad girl you are." Eddie purred, barely giving you a chance to register his words before he brought it back down harder this time.

Tears flooded your vision, hands clenched tight, your nails biting and digging into the palm of your hands. Eddie rubbed the ragged bark on your ass, taunting and mean, you squirmed. He brought it down again, unmerciful, relishing in the way you cried out, back arching with the hit.

"You like the idea of someone seeing you get put in your place? Yeah?" Eddie mocked, pulling his arms back, the switch hissing through the air, high pitched almost as a warning of the searing pain that was to come milliseconds later. "Or do you just like it when I'm a little mean with you?"

You sniffled, blubbering through the tears that ran down your throat, down your face and into a damp puddle beneath you. "N-No." You shook your head. "I don't li-like it." Your breath stuttered, thighs clenching at the sizzle of your skin.

"No?" Eddie challenged, mocking. He brought the switch down again, making you wail, before his hand was between your legs, pressing onto the cotton fabric of your panties, your slick arousal wetting them easily.

Eddie hummed. "Well, something's got you all turned on, baby." He snickered, tapping the switch to your red cheeks, furious at the assault. He brought it down again, this time towards your center again, making you jump, whining in protest.

"Do you just like it when I treat you like a bad girl?" Eddie mocked, laughing at your small whimpers. He moved so he was leaning over you, lips near your ear. You could feel his curls on your cheek, your neck, tickling you and making you shiver. "I think you like it when I put you in your place. When I make up new ways to punish you when you've been a brat. Isn't that right?"

You shuddered, stammering breaths that hitched and caught in your throat. He was right, and he knew it. He could tell by the way you were grinding into the arm of the couch, so desperate for any type of release on your aching core, you'd do anything.

Eddie's free hand swatted your bottom, not enough to be punishing, but hard enough to get your attention, reigniting the fire on your cheeks and making you cry out. "Isn't that right?" Eddie repeated, a low growl that had you whimpering.

"Yes," You croaked, eyes cutting over to him. Eddie smirked. "Yes, I like it." You admitted softly, squirming against the couch, hips rotating softly.

Eddie snorted, softly, though his eyes were dark like they always were when you played. "Last one." Eddie warned, switch tapping against your lower cheeks.

You braced yourself, brows pinching while he toyed with you, tapping and rubbing the branch, pulling it back just to watch you flinch and laughing at you when you did. You heard the ominous whistle of the switch catching wind before you felt the final blow, thin lined and scorching, sending you forward on the couch.

Eddie grinned when you heaved, a sob muffled into the cushions of the couch. You were grateful when he set the branch down, hands rubbing down your abused skin, easing some of the burn. You knew you'd be struggling to sit for at least a few days, burning skin that would reignite when touched.

"Good girl, you did so good." Eddie whispered, dropping to his knees in front of you. His hands kneaded the flesh, warm and buzzing in his large hands.

You were limp, ass still elevated over the couch, body slumped into the cushions, crying at the sting and release. Eddie grinned, tongue running over his lips when he pulled your panties down slowly, eyes widening at your slick lips, peaking out from between your thighs.

"I think you deserve a reward baby, for being such a good girl." Eddie cooed sweetly, fingers running between your sopping folds.

You sniffled, turning your head to the side. You couldn't see him, knelt and hidden by the couch, but you could feel him. You could feel the small kisses he pressed into your skin, pressing one particularly sloppy, lewd kiss into your aching center.

"What do you say, hm? Want me to lick you, baby? Show you what a good girl you've been? Let you cum on my tongue?" Eddie asked, hands spreading your red cheeks apart, drooling at the sight before him. He was trying to restrain himself from devouring you right away, the sight of your clenching hole when he asked you nearly making him wither.

"Please," You croaked so pitifully and sweet that Eddie was sure his heart would melt.

He didn't waste time, no teasing or mocking. He licked you furiously, lapping at your clit like a man starved, nose buried in your tangy scent, eyes rolling back when you squirmed, pushing your hips towards him.

"Oh! Please, Eddie, 'm so close!" You cried out, toes clenching beneath him. His hands stretched the hot skin, making it burn and sting, only aiding to your rapidly approaching orgasm.

You wiggled, the tip of his nose nuzzling into your sopping hole while you whined, high and desperate. His hands squeezed the fat of your ass, abused and raw after his switching, tongue swirling around your clit, moaning loud into you. The vibrations from his throat made you clench, abdomen tight and eyes pinched, gushing over him, wetting his face. He didn't stop, not until you calmed, no longer thrashing and gasping out his name, hands reaching back to push him away.

Eddie fucked you hard after that, furiously humping into you, hands on your hips as he grunted loudly, slapping skin and sick squelches filling the trailer. You were glassy eyed already, whimpering at the sensation when he pulled out two more orgasms out of you.

Eddie finished his cigarette later, the thick smell of sex still linger in the air and mixing with the smoke. You were still ass up in the couch, glazed eyes and his release leaking down your thigh. Your cheek was squished the the cushion, drool and tears drying beneath you.

Eddie inhaled slowly, picking up the switch he'd thrown across the room. He turned it in his hands, inspecting it like he'd done before. "I think we should put this somewhere," He grinned, smoke clouding out of his nose. You blinked up at him, too fucked out and tired to fully engage. "Keep it somewhere special. A little keepsake, don't you think?"

He placed it on the TV stand, behind the framed photos and trinkets that littered it. A little reminder of your fun you'd had today, and a reminder to you to behave or he'd make you pick another one. Of course, that never deterred you much.

[etz-ashashiyot]

So what’s the modern interpretation of the laws about keeping slaves? I’ve heard that said laws where a lot more kind to slaves then the surrounding nations but, like, it’s still slavery?

Hi anon,

With Pesach coming up, I'm sure that this question is on a lot of people's minds. It's a good question and many rabbanim throughout history have attempted to tackle it. Especially today, with slavery being seen as a moral anathema in most societies (obviously this despite the fact that unfortunately slavery is still a very real human rights crisis all over the world), addressing the parts of the Torah that on the surface seem to condone it becomes a moral imperative.

It's worth noting that the Jewish world overall condemns slavery. In my research for this question, I came across zero modern sources arguing that slavery is totally fine. I'm sure that if you dug deep enough there's some fringe wacko somewhere arguing this, but every group has its batshit fringe.

Here are some sources across the political and religious observance spectrum that explain it better than I could:

Chabad (this article is written by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a wonderful rabbi whose words I have learned deeply over the years. He is one of my favorite rabbis despite not seeing eye to eye with a lot of the Chabad movement)

Conservative (to be clear: this is my movement; it's not actually politically conservative in most shuls, just poorly named. We desperately need to bully them into calling themselves Masorti Olami like the rest of the world. It's [essentially] a liberal traditional egalitarian movement.)

Conservative pt. 2 (different rabbi's take)

Reform (note that this is from the Haberman Institute, which was founded by a Reform rabbi. Link is to a YouTube recording of a recent lecture on the topic.)

Chareidi (this rabbi is an official rabbi of the Western Wall in Israel, so in a word, very frum)

Modern Orthodox

I want to highlight this last one, because it is written by the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Chovevei, which is a progressive Modern Orthodox rabbinical school. They work very hard to read Torah through an authentically Orthodox lens while also maintaining deeply humanist values. As someone who walks a similar (if not identical) balancing act, this particular drash (sermon) spoke very deeply to me, and so I'm reposting it in its entirety**

[Edit: tumblr.hell seems real intent on not letting me do this in my original answer, so I will repost it in the reblogs. Please reblog that version if you're going to. Thanks!]

Something you will probably notice as you work your way through these sources, you'll note that there are substantially more traditional leaning responses. This is because of a major divide in how the different movements view Torah, especially as it pertains to changing ethics over time and modernity. I'm oversimplifying for space, but the differences are as follows:

The liberal movements (Reform, Renewal, Reconstructionist, etc.) view halacha as non-binding and the Torah as a human document that is, nevertheless, a sacred document. I've seen it described as the spiritual diary of our people throughout history. Others view it as divinely inspired, but still essentially and indelibly human.

The Orthodox and other traditional movements view halacha as binding and Torah as the direct word of G-d given to the Jewish people through Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses) on Mt. Sinai. (Or, at a minimum, as a divinely inspired text written and compiled by people that still represents the word of G-d. This latter view is mostly limited to the Conservative and Modern Orthodox movements.)

Because of these differences, the liberal movements are able to address most of these problematic passages by situating them in their proper historical context. It is only the Orthodox and traditional movements that must fully reckon with the texts as they are, and seek to understand how they speak to us in a contemporary context.

As for me? I'm part of a narrow band of traditional egalitarian progressive Jews that really ride that line between viewing halacha as binding and the Torah as divinely given, despite recognizing the human component of its authorship - more a partnership in its creation than either fully human invention or divine fiat. That said, I am personally less interested in who wrote it literally speaking and much more interested in the question of: How can we read Torah using the divinely given process of traditional Torah scholarship while applying deeply humanist values?

Yeshivat Chovevei does a really excellent job of approaching Torah scholarship this way, as does Hadar. Therefore, I'm not surprised that this article captures something I have struggled to articulate: an authentically orthodox argument for change.

[astraystayyh]

it’s actually so much worse. so this one press editor made a public post calling for the cancellation of refaat. because he made a joke about the fake rumours of baked babies (she framed it as if he was making fun of real incidents and even when it was pointed out that the story was fake and refaat was being sarcastic in order to mock the story, she still didn’t take it down). refaat was known to make jokes and meme and make fun of idiots. so it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to mock fabricated lies that discredited and dehumanised his people and their resistance. but this woman. and many other writers and reporters in western media have continuously tried to smear his reputation.

and that kind of put a target on his back because a lot of crazy zionists and idf soldiers follow these people (especially bari). and sent refaat death threats.

and today… his sister’s home i believe, was deliberately struck, killing refaat and his family including his children. it was a targeted attack.

and yeah also because he was an outspoken poet and academic. they killed him to silence his voice that was reaching so many people across the world.

and now many pro zionists are celebrating refaat’s martyrdom and spreading the same fake story about the “baked baby” even though the truth is that the baked baby story is from the deir yassin massacre where israeli soldiers baked a palestinian baby in the oven and made the father watch.

i am so angry. i am so heartbroken.

these are the first and last pages of his book, light in gaza:

please read his words. share his story. and the message he’s left the world with. don’t let his murder be in vain.

i feel so heartbroken "how many palestinians are enough?" apparently 16.000+ Palestinians aren't enough for our world. 75 years of colonization isn't enough for our world. our humanity bleeds dry before our eyes, every myth of democracy and international law and accountability and punishment is dispelled. it isn't real if it doesn't serve the interests of the west.

israel is actively targeting prolific writers, academics and journalists because they KNOW their words have an effect on people. on us. if Israel wasn't so threatened by the power of us speaking up they wouldn't have purposely killed the Palestinians who share IDF's crimes with us. please don't stop talking about Palestine, please it's the least we can do. the very fucking least

[jewish-vents]

first - i just want to say thank you for making this blog. it’s so important to know that we aren’t alone in the many things we’re experiencing and feeling right now, especially when so many of us have become painfully isolated as of late.

i apologize for how long this one is going to be.

i’ve been feeling so, so alone recently. my tumblr dash has been cut down to just a handful of jewish blogs that i can trust to be kind and understanding and nuanced, but it means that the majority of the content i see is about antisemitism and the war. after a while, it becomes draining to scroll through what feels like endless sadness. i turned to looking at fandom tags instead of following fandom blogs, but it makes me feel equally as insane to click on a blog about race cars and immediately see a post with 60k notes calling what’s happening in gaza “the new holocaust”. i started going back on twitter, but fan accounts on there too are only safe for a day or so before the account owner shares some awful antisemitic tweet from an account known to be an anti-jewish extremist. i went back on instagram briefly, but i was soon afraid to look at people’s stories for fear i’d see something terrible and lose yet another trusted person from my life.

in person, i have to walk by signs saying “zionism = genocide” and hastily scribbled palestinian flags with the colors in the wrong spot on my way to class every day. a wall across from my apartment says “BDS” in giant letters. i haven’t opened my curtains in months because of it. a “protest” of about 25 people stood in the center of campus and yelled and waved their fists in passing students’ faces, so jewish students didn’t go to class on any of the days they gathered. i only have one non jewish friend left at school - the rest abandoned me because i either called them out on antisemitic rhetoric or refused to go along with the idea that anyone, palestinian or israeli, muslim or jewish, is less than human. i had taken several of them along to our hillel’s seder in the past. i don’t know who i can safely go with this year. i have a few jewish friends, of course, but i love bringing goyische friends with little connection to judaism along to experience how joyful and loving jewish holidays can be.

it feels like there is no escape from this fucking war. it sickens me that it’s the only thing people pretend to care about - where is the attention for sudan, ukraine, armenia, uyghurs in china, syria, guyana? how is putting an emoji in your twitter bio or putting a translucent overlay of the palestinian flag on your tumblr icon any sort of real activism? how have we gone from “antisemitism is wrong” to “(((zionists))) control the world media”? it seems like the war is a fandom to these people. it seems like nobody cares enough to fully read and think critically about what they share, let alone do real research beyond looking at an infographic somebody shared on their instagram story. they’ll add on “don’t forget your click today!” to an unrelated twitter thread that went viral, flip the bird at the local starbucks, and put “won’t you free my palestine” on their instagram stories. they’ll anonymously tell a jew online to commit suicide. they’ll feel secure in the knowledge that they’re the perfect leftist, that this is somehow “good trouble”. all this praxis, and nothing to show for it but massive surges in hate crimes against jews. good job, guys! you singlehandedly saved every innocent person in gaza!

it’s isolating. it’s scary. jews can’t mourn. jews can’t be angry. jews can’t disagree. jews can’t suffer. jews can’t be whole, complex people with diverse beliefs and experiences. suffering is a game, and the goal is to hurt the most, scream the most, die the most, all to appease western leftists whose closest connection to war and violence was reading the hunger games in middle school.

i’m tired of it all. i want a peaceful and just resolution to the war. i want the mindless hatred everywhere to stop. i want to be able to scroll through social media and see nothing but fandom. i want to walk through campus with my magen david showing and all the friends i lost by my side on the way to the hillel seder. i want to open my curtains again. i know the experience of one diaspora jew is nothing compared to what people living in israel and palestine are currently going through, yet i still need this all to end. i don’t think any of us can go on like this, but we must, because we have. for thousands of years, we’ve gone on. that still doesn’t mean it has to be this hard all the time.

all i can think is “now we are slaves. next year may we be free.” now we are slaves to hatred and violence and suffering. next year may we all be free. next year may we all be in jerusalem.

.

[dcdreamblog]

Roy Raymond's book about the history of PIs has a chapter on PoC PIs and he mentions a native American private detective who went by "Pow-Wow Smith"; I seem to recall that this was a nickname occasionally used for Sheriff Ohiyesa Smith, the Western Hero (which he hated for obvious reasons); was this a descendant or just someone using it for name recognition or...?

Yea that one's a...I mean I'm sure it was progressive for the time. So to back fill some information for those not in the know. We're talking here about famous sheriff Ohiyesa Smith of Elkhorn, Nebraska.

(Smith's official portrait from his exhibit at the National Cowboy 7 Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City (can you tell they're my best source for shit like this?))

Yes that was the name he went by, only about half against his will. It is how he is recorded for posterity and while I do not enjoy it, his actual relationship to the name and his own legacy during life was...complicated to say the least.

He was born on what is now the Red Deer Valley reservation to the Santee Sioux, a band of the Eastern Dakota in Nebraska and went out to learn about the "white man's world" via the nearby town of Elkhorn. He was a skilled tracker, fighter and shooter and so was made deputy sheriff in short order and eventually promoted to sheriff full stop.

The name "Pow Wow" was given to him by the townsfolk in what by all accounts seemed to be a genuine attempt at affection. Yes, Ohiyesa made it clear, especially in his early career that he would have preferred going by his "Indian name" (his words, not mine) but as the town continued to insist and as he integrated himself more and more with that community he made his peace with it calling it, from his own diaries... "The people of this city blessing me with their approval. I cannot fully remove the part of me that is proud to here the name "Pow Wow" spoken proudly by my people and with fear by bandits and outlaws" Make of that what you will, he was a Sioux man who had gained some measure of status and even acclaim in the late 1800s. While he was to many respects a trailblazing and radical figure I can't find it in my heart to condemn him for picking his battles and making his peace.

He was even granted US citizenship directly by an act of congress (Because no one is allowed to forget native americans were not given automatic citizenship until *1924*)

He eventually married another SIoux woman named Fleetfoot Smith and they had many children, who in turn had children, on and on until we get to today's subject. U.S Marshall Ohiyesa Smith the Second.

(Cropped newspaper photo of Smith from the Gotham Gazette)

Yes, Smith is indeed a direct descendant of the famous man with whom he shares a name. He is also on the rolls as a member of the Santee Sioux of Red Deer Valley. By all accounts he is a U.S Marshall in VERY good standing with a sterling record (as I was told very directly (and loudly) by a government source (I have those now) who assumed I was investigating him out of some kind of assumption of misconduct.)

If there's an award that a U.S Marshall is eligible for, Smith has one it thrice over and everybody I spoke to had nothing but decent things to say about him. Though he's probably most famous outside "true crime"-esque circles for an utterly bizarre caper he was wrapped up in that involved an old fashioned shoot out at the derelict Gotham Gulch amusement park.

[skinteresting-enough]

I watched all episodes of The Grimm Variations, which released on Netflix earlier today. Here's my ranking, starting from the bottom:

6: The Elves and the Shoemaker. Setting is modern day Japan, which I'm not particularly interested in, and there aren't that many fantastical elements. The characters are pretty boring too.

5: Hansel and Gretel. This one is more due to the fact that I feel it diverges too much from the source material, particularly the ending. It feels like it could stand on its own, away from this anthology, but someone decided to tack the names Hansel and Gretel onto it, just to make it fit. Does earn some points for its sci-fi setting though.

4: The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The animation is pretty, as expected from a director who used to work for Ghibli. I do feel it loses some of that Clamp edge, though. The piper himself is an interesting character, and Maria is probably the best protagonist of the bunch. On the other hand, that teacher is probably my most detested character out of the entire anthology. Creep. The setting is a medieval village where fun is basically outlawed, and with that I'm sure you can guess how the piper lures Maria away.

3: Cinderella. The setting is Japan from I'm guessing from when it had just opened its borders to the western world? Not modern-modern, but not ancient either. Kiyoko (Cinderella) herself is a very strong villainess. I also like the outfits that the stepsisters wear. This story is probably also the most effective at the "what if [main character] was evil?" You can see why most people believe that Kiyoko is not evil, but considering we mainly see things from the stepsisters' point of view, Kiyoko's evil does become pretty obvious.

2: The Town Musicians of Bremen. On the surface, this one probably diverges from its source material the most, what with making the main characters humans instead of animals. But beyond that, it sticks to the story pretty closely. I like the character designs from this one the most, and the setting is interesting, kind of a sci-fi wild west pastiche.

1: Little Red Riding Hood. I like the setting from this one the best, a far future where the lines between reality and the virtual are blurry. The wolf, Gray, is an interesting villain for very much favoring the real to the artificial, which is usually what you'd expect for the heroes of these settings. Though it seems Scarlet also prefers the real to the virtual, so it doesn't feel like it's making a moral judgment on those darn kids who can't live without their phones or whatever. (Also Scarlet can stuff my stomach full of gemstone-lookalikes anytime.)

And there you have it! Feel free to reblog this to add your own ranking of these episodes, or just talk about the series in general.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Identification in the Wizarding World

I don't remember how I got to thinking about it, but wizards in Harry Potter don't seem to really have IDs... like no license cards or social security numbers, and that kind of begs the question of how you prove you are who you are. So I went to the books to see if it was ever answered, and to my surprise — it was.

Wands are their IDs

I'm gonna explain where in the books it's written and how it seems to work since I just didn't really see anyone mention it, and I found it curious. I'm not sure if it was just me who was a bit dumb and didn't notice it or what, but I do want to write about it.

“Madam Lestrange!” said the goblin, evidently startled. “Dear me! How- how may I help you today?” “I wish to enter my vault,” said Hermione. The old goblin seemed to recoil a little. Harry glanced around. Not only was Travers hanging back, watching, but several other goblins had looked up from their work to stare at Hermione. “You have . . . identification?” asked the goblin. “Identification? I-I have never been asked for identification before!” said Hermione. “They know!” whispered Griphook in Harry’s ear, “They must have been warned there might be an imposter!” “Your wand will do, madam,” said the goblin. He held out a slightly trembling hand, and in a dreadful blast of realization Harry knew that the goblins of Gringotts were aware that Bellatrix’s wand had been stolen.

(Deathly Hollows, page 452)

So, I'll start with this scene in Deathly Hollows, in which a Gringott's Goblin outright says a wand can be used for identification. The Golden Trio here shows the disadvantage of such an identification method, as wands can be stolen. And besides, how would a wand even work for identification? Like, how does it prove you are who you say you are?

Well, I think I know how wands are supposed to function as identification, and it's not as bad and easily fakable as it may seem. I'm not saying it's perfect, but if implemented correctly it isn't the worst they could come up with.

After all, everyone has a wand (at least in the Western Wizarding World) and everyone carries their wand with them everywhere and at all times. Not only that, but wands are unique enough to work as an ID. Wand description is broken into 6 components of its making: wood, core, flexibility, length, the wandmaker, and how long it's been in use, making each wand unique to the specific individual wielding it. Therefore a wand is something reasonable to use to identify individuals.

So, how is it supposed to work?

“Wand weighing?” Harry repeated nervously. “We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they’re your most important tools in the tasks ahead,”

(Goblet of Fire, page 303)

Wand weighing.

In GOF, the wand weighing is shown to tell the characteristics of each wand, and if we jump ahead to Arthur Weasley's and Harry's arrival in the ministry for Harry's trial in OOTP:

“Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.”

(Order of the Phoenix, page 126)

“Wand,” grunted the security wizard at Harry, putting down the golden instrument and holding out his hand. Harry produced his wand. The wizard dropped it onto a strange brass instrument, which looked something like a set of scales with only one dish. It began to vibrate. A narrow strip of parchment came speeding out of a slit in the base. The wizard tore this off and read the writing upon it. “Eleven inches, phoenix-feather core, been in use four years. That correct?” “Yes,” said Harry nervously. “I keep this,” said the wizard, impaling the slip of parchment on a small brass spike. “You get this back,” he added, thrusting the wand at Harry.

(Order of the Phoenix, page 128)

We see exactly how wand weighing (the brass scale Harry describes) is meant to identify. This device prints out the makings of the wand when it was sold, and probably more information than Eric at the security desk reads out. He then asks Harry if it's correct because wands don't have their making and when they were bought written on them. This means only the wand's owner would supposedly remember all the details of the wandmaker, make, and when it was bought, then by asking about it, it can be revealed if the wand was stolen or not.

It's not a great method, but it's something.

It's not any dramatic revelation about the Wizarding World, I just didn't really see wands being used as IDs in the fandom and I found it interesting. I just really am interested in the Wizarding World as a culture and how it works. IDs are just part of it.

[fizziepopangel]

A Fizziepop Take: Let's talk about Blitz's new look at Stolas

Ok, so in the past, I’ve talked about how the incident at Ozzie’s put more strain on an already fragile relationship, thus solidifying the idea a certain imp had in his mind that he was essentially beneath Stolas in every way he possibly could be and therefore unworthy of love. This ideology made the relationship between the pair appear strictly transactional since Blitz wouldn’t let it be anything else because he himself feels that that’s how it should be; that it’s all it could be. Now don’t get me wrong, Stolas isn’t completely innocent in making the whole relationship feel more like a transaction than a relationship, but in this instance, we’re gonna focus on Blitz and what I believe his turn around will be based off this newest episode because I believe that it could be a game-changer for their relationship and Blitz’s own character development. So let’s get into it!

As I’ve pointed out previously, Blitz has felt like he’s been used as a glorified sex toy since the beginning of their relationship. And given the hierarchy of the demons, Blitz is already pretty low on the totem being an imp while Stolas sits somewhere on top…. We can see that Blitz understands that when he’s tripping balls in “Truth Seekers”, but because of this, it seems that Blitz got it in his mind that Stolas was less than ‘human’ (for lack of a better term). Because of the status difference, Blitz always just assumed the other demon was unfeeling, uncaring, and essentially indestructible; building this image of the demon prince in his head that is a romanticized version of him that truly was worlds above where Blitz sees himself. And until “Western Energy” came out today, this is really the only version we’re shown of Stolas because we seem to be seeing the man the way Blitz does. Is he whiny? Sometimes. But do things hurt him? From Blitz’s point of view, no. 

We as the audience see maybe two or three times where Stolas is truly vulnerable but it seems to end just as quickly as it starts. Blitz doesn’t see that side of him. Granted, I believe Stolas does want a relationship with Blitz where he can be vulnerable in ways he never was able to before and because he has a preconceived notion of what their relationship is, Blitz shuts down any attempt Stolas tries to initiate intimacy… But I think in the imp doing this and Stolas just blindly going with it to try to appease Blitz has given the image of someone made of stone… And being so used to the abuse from Stella, Stolas doesn’t see that he’s almost restarting the cycle with Blitz by allowing the imp to be as mean as he is to him; even going as far as to tell Blitz through text that he can be mean to him if it’s what he wants. I think this genuinely leads Blitz to believe that Stolas can't be hurt in any way, emotionally to physically.

In all honesty, it’s interesting to look at Blitz in this light where he seems to unintentionally be another abusive relationship that Stolas is trapping himself in because you can see that the imp does genuinely care for the owl, even if he thinks he shouldn’t. That is why the incident at Ozzie’s was such a big deal to him, because after some time, I think Blitz was slowly trying to open himself up to Stolas and whatever little progress he made was pretty much crushed when Stolas basically refused to acknowledge the fact that he’s out with him in public when confronted. For someone like Blitz who struggles with communication and bases their self worth on how others view him, Stolas not wanting to be seen with him in public but being kind to him when no one else is around would have destroyed every sense of security he may have been starting to feel with the other man. Like just shredded it. Which in turn, is going to cause a rift that Blitz will rationalize as just him not being worth anything more even though he is actively contributing to the rift by refusing to communicate.

Now, the interesting part: in the newest episode of Helluva Boss, Blitz actually has a chance to view a more humanized idea of Stolas. It sucks that it took Stolas being damn near murdered and hospitalized for Blitz to see him on a different level, but it does happen. I think this in turn may give us a more freely feeling version of Blitz down the line. We can already see small fragmented moments when Blitz is genuinely worried about Stolas, genuinely cares about him, but he still keeps himself distant…. Seeing something bad happen to Stolas does open the man up a little, prompting him to text the man while he’s in the hospital to let him know that he hopes he feels better. Despite how minor that may seem, I think it is a step in the right direction, and I do think he’ll see a more personified version of Stolas which could prompt him to want to be closer to him, meaning he would have to stop pushing his feelings down to allow himself to wander into this territory of emotional vulnerability he may have seen but never experienced.

While I trust Vivzie completely in this journey she’s taking us on, this is definitely a route I really hope she takes because I truly do want to see the two men get a happy ending of some sort whether that’s at the end of the series or it advances their storyline together through the rest of the series.  But this is just a Fizzie take on things so far. I would love to hear what your thoughts are on how Blitz and Stolas’ relationship seems to be going.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

A recent study (sorry, some stuff I can only find in Hebrew, this is one of those articles) shows 83% of Israeli kids are experiencing psychological distress since Oct 7. Among the kids of the south, (the area which was hit the worst, and where even communities that were not massacred by Hamas, were evacuated following this massive invasion), the percentage is even higher, 93%. An important note is that the study sampled both Jewish and Arab kids based on the size of these populations (Arabs make up 21% of Israeli citizens).

The IDF published aerial footage of Hamas stealing humanitarian aid from regular Gazans, and beating them up. If there's a blog that claims to be sharing pro-Palestinian info, but doesn't share this kind of news, they're not really pro-Palestinian, they're just exploiting Palestinians as an excuse to be anti-Israel.

The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is believed to have escaped from the northern Gaza City to the south, to Khan Younis, in a medical convoy. Just take in the cynical use of medical and humanitarian protections, to do anything which would prolong the fighting, no matter how many Palestinian lives it would cost. I'm trying hard to remember any other (real) liberation movement that was directly responsible for the deaths of so many of the people it seeked to liberate...

Five Israeli soldiers were pronounced dead yesterday, four were killed in Gaza, while one was badly wounded on Oct 7, and after over two months in hospital, passed away. The number of Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting in Gaza so far is 97. Up until number, the bloodiest battle Israel has had to wage in Gaza since withdrawing from it, was operation Protective Edge in 2014, with 70 Israeli soldiers killed.

The Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister said, when discussing plans for Gaza after the end of the war, that Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian mosaic, and that dismantling Hamas is unacceptable to the Palestinian Authority.

Yesterday, an American base in Iraq was attacked by Hezbollah forces. You absolutely should ask yourself why the terrorist organization calling itself the "defender of Lebanon" has units in Iraq, and how is attacking American forces there helping Lebanon. Just a side note, Iran funds Hezbollah.

Also yesterday, the Yemenite terrorist group known as the Houthis announced that instead of going after Israeli ships only, they will target any ship that is headed for Israel through one of the most important naval routes in the world, and which is Israel's only connection to the far east. Essentially, it means they're placing Israel under a naval blockade. I'm looking forward to people condemning Yemen for occupying Israel. Just a side note, Iran funds the Houthis.

Today, it was published that in Cyprus, two Iranian political refugees, who entered the country with a fake passport, were arrested for collecting intel to carry out a terrorist attack against Israelis there. Just a side note, these refugees were in touch with Iran's political militarized force, IRGC. Stop me when you notice a theme here...

On the first even of Hanukkah, 138 hanukkiot were lit at the Kotel (the Western wall), one for each hostage. Since then, two of the hostages have been confirmed as murdered.

Following the Congress hearing where three presidents of prestigious universities couldn't explicitly say that a call for the genocide of the Jewish people constitutes bullying and harassment, UPenn's president resigned. That's good, but I wanna point out that, as their answers were obviously coordinated, down to repeating the exact same terms, there is no difference between UPenn's president and the ones of Harvard and MIT. They all need to go home. And the universities still have the burden of proof that this will be more than a cosmetic change in leadership.

I watched a TV interview with two married Israeli Harvard professors, who recounted how they went out and celebrated when Claudine Gay was elected as their university's president, and now they've chosen to leave Harvard and the US, to return to Israel, because the campus has become an environment that's just too toxic. I think if the amount of Jews who are moving to Israel, while the country is in a state of war, isn't a wake up call for the west, then nothing will be.

On the left is 25 years old Gal Eizenkott, the son of Israel's former Chief of Staff, and current minister, who is a part of the war cabinet, Gadi Eizenkott. I wrote about Gal in previous daily updates. Something I can add is that his father happened to be in an IDF command center, when they got the news of the incident in which Gal was killed. It took several minutes for the info to arrive at the command center, that one of those soldiers injured mortally was Gadi's son.

On the right is 19 years old Maor Cohen Eizenkott. Maor is Gal's cousin, and was a soccer player. He was killed a day after Gal, when an explosive device planted in a Gaza mosque blew up. Maor was buried today. May his memory be a blessing.

This is 53 years old Eitan Levi.

He was a taxi driver, who on Oct 7 took a lady to one of the kibbutzim on the border of Gaza. On his way back, he called his sister, telling her about the rocket barrages into Israel, and that he was scared. She stayed with him on the line as he was driving back from the south of Israel, but then he was stopped, his sister heard Arabic, shouts of "Allahu Akbar" and shots. Later, his phone was detected in Gaza, and he was considered kidnapped. Then Hamas released a video of its terrorists abusing a body. It was beyond recognition, but based on some accessories, the army finally determined it was Eitan, that he had been murdered on Oct 7, and it was his body that was kidnapped to Gaza. His sister watched the vid, but as the body is unrecognizable, she said in an interview, "He's the only family I have in this world. We don't even have a body to sit Shiva for. Until such time, I'm going to keep hoping he's alive, kidnapped and just injured."

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

[yggdraseed]

An Incomplete Analysis of the Sukunadome

I stress the point that this is an inherently incomplete analysis. It's getting late, I'm tired and unhappy, and… well, the fight isn't over yet, so there's no way this analysis could be complete even if I felt like it. However, it's on my mind, and I feel the need to start exerting myself more on these things. Sometimes sweat is the better medicine. I know this is a long one and doesn’t have any pictures, but if we all support each other, we’ll get through it together.

Full disclosure, I wish more people had gotten filtered by this fight and just stopped talking about Jujutsu Kaisen by now. Like yeah, I think it's great different people see things in different ways, but let's all be honest with ourselves here, most of the people criticizing this fight are not doing so with any sort of literary or artistic perspective or good faith. Most of it is Gojo fans who are still crying, seething, vomiting, pissing, and shitting over the fact that the character they attached their ego to didn't win Jujutsu Kaisen like they wanted. If this describes you, well, this post will probably do you some good, but I'm confident nobody who takes the stance that Gojo should have won would have the space in their mind for what I'm about to say about Sukunadome.

Because that's what I'm calling it. "The Sukuna Cycle" was maybe a little funny for a week or two, but like most memes about this series, it wasn't really based on the story so much as it was on an agenda. Kusakabe was part of the fight since Yuji and Higuruma entered, and up until Miguel, we knew all the combatants who would be tagging in were there. We knew Yuta was off dealing with Kenjaku and would return, we knew Maki was in play, and there really weren't a lot of switches. Just Choso leaving and coming back, Ui Ui retrieving Higuruma's and Gojo's corpses, and… you know, actually, I think that's it. Sure isn't as much as the "Sukuna Cycle" memes made it out to be, huh?

Okay, if you haven't noticed yet, I'm a big JJK fan and a big JJK fandom hater. I think JJK has the worst Western internet fanbase I've seen in a long time, with only a few oases scattered across the internet where you can find intelligent life. Like it's insane what kind of bullshit a person can convince themselves of.

However, I'm not analyzing JJK's fanbase, I'm analyzing JJK. Someday we'll litigate whether or not Lobotomy Kaisen was really funny enough to justify how badly it ruined this fanbase's ability to objectively, productively engage with with one of the most competently written and culturally impactful manga to come out this century. Today is not that day.

So Sukuna's got four arms and knows how to use them. He's got four eyes and so much sass one mouth wasn't enough for the amount of trash he's got to talk to the youths of today. Just on a basic level, having four arms would be such an insignificant power in any other Shonen as to almost be a joke. Yet with how jujutsu sorcery functions as a power system and how adept Sukuna is at using every possible advantage at his disposal - even going so far as to take what probably should be disadvantages and twist them to work for him - having the ability to make hand seals while fighting hand-to-hand, and being able to chant without interrupting his breathing, are inseparable from Sukuna's godlike fighting ability. I love how something seemingly so mundane is such a huge x factor for Sukuna.

We continually see how Sukuna is a complex, but fundamentally vile antagonist. He has a very rich, detailed view of the world, but one that fundamentally reduces every other human being to be his playthings and food. It's just that Sukuna says, "Don't like it? Then get stronger." It's a very Social Darwinist, late stage capitalist view to be coming from the Heian Era, and I think that maybe it's intentional. Shitty people are shitty in mostly the same ways, it's just they find new things to be shitty about or to use to be shitty with.

Like if that were all it is, it'd make Sukuna so effective as a villain to hate and would slot so nicely into Jujutsu Kaisen's overarching social and political commentary. Cruelty within suffering, selfishness as a strength and a weakness, the unfairness of how the strength to pursue one's agency is unevenly distributed and how the haves don’t realize how easily they could have instead been have-nots, it's all there.

But there’s this inherent charisma to Sukuna that I think is intentional. He has this noblesse oblige where he’s so inherently aware of his greatness that he doesn’t have a problem with giving credit where credit is due. Like he talks all the trash when he’s fighting Jogo, but where Gojo’s insults come across as puerile and blunt, Sukuna’s always displaying this wit to him. And when the battle’s over, he acknowledges that even though Jogo wasn’t as strong as him, he was stronger than most and could have gone even further if he hadn’t held himself back. He starts off belittling Gojo in their fight, but by the end, he expresses a profound respect and gratitude towards Gojo. Like it’s a very warped form of those sentiments, but I think it’s sincere. Even with Ishigori, when Sukuna fails to cut him the first time, he just acknowledges it was disrespectful to hold back and that he’ll give it full force the next strike.

Something to keep in mind is that everything Megumi warned Yuji about when it comes to ancient sorcerers applies to Sukuna as well. They’re not treated as uniformly, unambiguously evil anymore than anyone else in JJK is, and are acknowledged as having fundamentally different world views about violence and the value of human life. Kashimo, for instance, seems to value his life only because he’s able to risk his life and lay it on the line. They’re people from an era where children died so young that parents often gave them numbered names so as to not get too attached until they’d see if their kids actually were going to make it or not. If you didn’t give your whole life over to a goal, you probably wouldn’t achieve it. Whereas modern sorcerers, modern people, have all these complex and sometimes contradictory views and needs, ancient sorcerers show a tendency to shave everything away except their one singular conviction because that was what you had to do in an era of much shorter life expectancies and peril on all sides. You’d be very lucky to accomplish one life goal, let alone as many as people of today set out to achieve: graduating high school, graduating college, getting a job, starting a family, and hopefully having one or two passions on the side. Fundamentally different worldviews from fundamentally different periods of history.

And Sukuna is no different. His goal is simple: partake in the many colors and flavors of humanity through mortal combat in the arena of sorcery. Sukuna’s love for sorcery runs deep. He’s always curious about different cursed techniques, even ones that are pedestrian to a sorcerer of his level, like Nanako’s smartphone-based technique. He reminds me of a quote from Baki: “Someone who works hard can never beat someone who enjoys himself.” Sukuna has clearly put forth great effort to master sorcery, but clearly doesn’t see it as work. He sees it as just doing what he enjoys and is good at.

Unfortunately for everyone else, he enjoys killing and is extremely good at it. Sukuna is the ultimate ethical heat death of the “live for yourself, cherish your own agency, don’t let yourself be controlled” mindset that is the ideological starting point of JJK. It’s a very dark, extreme interpretation of Buddhist non-attachment, where even compassion is an attachment to ultimately shed. Sukuna lives perfectly freely, including being free from guilt or compassion.

Naturally, there’s an exception. All things seem to have exceptions. In Sukuna’s case, that would be Uraume. I’ve been fascinated by their dynamic since we first learned of Uraume’s allegiance to Sukuna during Shibuya and I still can’t wait to know more. Suffice to say, Sukuna dotes on Uraume, forgiving their mistakes and seeming to enjoy their company not just because of their service to him, but because their existence makes him happy. I’m reminded of Power in Chainsaw Man, how she was seemingly incapable of empathy or mercy until she met Meowy.

Honestly, Sukuna reminds me a lot of a lot of characters in Chainsaw Man. People who are trying to climb from this state of misery, of struggling just to meet basic desires, and learning to be human. Yet Sukuna is so strong he never needed to learn to be human. He never needed to cooperate with others to survive — or at least, doesn’t seem to believe he did — and so he never saw the value in it. And so he’s basically brute forced his way around having to undergo an arc like Denji’s, and has instead ended up a hedonistic black hole devising all these complicated philosophical arguments to justify what is, really, a very simplistic, predatory desire to only satisfy his basic material wants and creative interests and nothing else for anyone else.

But like, it’s not that simple. If you give to others, you get something immaterial in return. I can’t quantity it or define it, but I’m sure most of you know what I mean. The happiness that comes from taking care of others’ needs, and the deeper levels beyond that happiness. Like I do believe that’s the subtext behind Binding Vows as metaphor: that you almost never give without getting in return. You might not get the same thing back, in the same form, but being changed by the act of putting the needs and wants of others before your own even temporarily still is part of the exchange. It’s part of becoming complete as a human being.

Sukuna has defied that exchange and broken the cycle, and I don’t think it’s inherently for his own benefit. There are some thing about being human that you don’t just get to opt out of, no matter how much you claim you’re more than or less than human. Even if Sukuna doesn’t think he’s lost something of value, he has. And that something of value is inherent to the whole point of this final battle.

Jujutsu Kaisen is basically working on two big problems. There are lots of ideas at play in the series, but there are two fundamental problems for which every fiight, every character arc, every turn of the gears consitutes part of the calculus to solve one or both of those problems.

The first problem, a thematic and philosophical one: “How do you love and fight for something when you know you’re going to die?”

The second problem, a metatextual one: “Is there any artistic and social value left in the Shonen formula as it stands in the modern day?”

And this fight is, ultimately, where GeGe is showing their work. It’s where Yuji has to defeat Sukuna, if not in terms of out-boxing him, then in terms of prevailing over his beliefs about humanity and the world as a whole.

GeGe has stripped Yuji of everything that is supposed to determine the worth of a Shonen protagonist’s victory. He’s not fighting alone, he didn’t go off and train all by himself, he trained with a lot of powerful, smart people who helped him. And Yuji is arguably not even the most important participant in the fight. So why should we care if Yuji wins?

The answer is so simple it’s easy to lose track of it. Yuji is risking his life to rescue someone, his friend, from being exploited, and to save the people of Japan from being exploited. Even after everything that’s happened, Yuji plants his fucking feet and takes a stance that no, shithead, there is such a thing as the right thing. Maybe it isn’t obvious all the time, and it sure as hell isn’t always easy to know what it is, but he knows now with certainty what it isn’t: to exploit others or to destroy yourself. We can find our answers somewhere in-between.

Sometimes we can’t resolve our problems with a tidy solution that makes everyone happy and sometimes we have to carve a piece of ourselves out and give to something we won’t be sure to see the fruition of, but that’s just life. It doesn’t mean we have to throw away all hope for things to get better. Even if the world won’t become utopian, it can still become better, no matter how many nihilists hide their own inequities behind assertions that there is no point.

Nihilism is not a solution to the problems of life, it is the choice to run away and hide. To give into nihilism is to give up the fight even while other people are still fighting all around you.

So that’s the fucking point of the Sukunadome. Nobara already said it better than anyone else has before she made Mahito look like the bitch he was and always will be: “Sometimes you need to fight even when you know you can’t win.” Because you won’t always win and you won’t escape death, nor will you know what lies beyond death. However, you can still live according to your principles and fight for the things you see as meaningful even if other people don’t.

That is why so many characters have come and gone from the fight. All gave some, some gave all. Nobody is truly useless — even if Miwa self-deprecatingly jokes about being useless, she still was the one thing standing between Maki and Malevolent Shrine’s eviscerating hellscape. Even Amai’s sweets-conjuring joke technique saved Hana from a would-be fatal fall and helped to supply sugar to the brains of people using reverse cursed technique in Shoko’s triage. Larue couldn’t do much, but they caught Sukuna’s eye at the perfect time for Yuji to land a Black Flash, and that means something. It all means something.

Given how deeply GeGe clearly respects Hunter X Hunter, I want to end off by citing one of the quotes in Hunter X Hunter that has been the most impactful for me and I suspect has been about as impactful on GeGe: “It seems small things… infinitesimally small things… are needed to build the entire universe. The size of a thing has nothing to do with its power.” We always seem to direct our senses to the superlatives. The largest, the oldest, the loudest, the things that hit the hardest. But while it would be wrong to throw those out, we often lose sight of how many little, important things there are in the midst of those huge, important things.

Seeing someone’s smile when you remembered something they said that showed you were listening to them. The feeling of a warm breeze on a summer morning. The smell of honeysuckle on your walk home. Waking up to rain on a Sunday. The taste of watermelon. Getting married. Having your heart broken. Songs that make you smile, songs that make you cry — songs that do both, and songs that make you feel things you can’t describe. When you’re always looking to those immense, monolithic things, always comparing your seemingly small, seemingley meaningless life to them, you lose sight of just how meaningful all of it is.

Just because it doesn’t have cosmic, absolute meaning doesn’t make it meaningless. Every little thing that means something to you is worthy of being cherished. The people around you, the things that bring you happiness, even if that happiness is going to ebb and flow. It’s all worth fighting for and living for. It just takes bravery and conviction to keep fighting and keep living with authenticity and love. And if there’s an artistic value, a greater meaning to Shonen, now and always, it’s the unerring, unabashed belief that there’s a reason to aim high and not give up.

Because sometimes, life hurts. But if it’s just pain, Yuji Itadori will never stop. We’ll see what I have to amend, reconsider, or elaborate on when the fight is finished. I hope this gave some of you a new way to look at it.