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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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Rhetoric has a history. The words democracy and tyranny were debated in ancient Greece; the phrase separation of powers became important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”

This language isn’t merely ugly or repellant: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster displayed a drawing of a louse with a caricature of a Jewish face. The slogan: “Jews are lice: they cause typhus.” Germans, by contrast, were clean, pure, healthy, and vermin-free. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and the purity of our blood.”

Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. In my files, I have the notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, during which one of them called for a struggle against “vermin activities” (there is, inevitably, a German word for this: Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of the regime’s critics. In this same era, the Stasi forcibly moved suspicious people away from the border with West Germany, a project nicknamed “Operation Vermin.”

This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”

In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.

Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics. Even George Wallace’s notorious, racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, his inaugural speech as Alabama governor and the prelude to his first presidential campaign, avoided such language. Wallace called for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But he did not speak of his political opponents as “vermin” or talk about them poisoning the nation’s blood. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps following the outbreak of World War II, spoke of “alien enemies” but not parasites.

In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. Trump blurs the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants—the latter including his wife, his late ex-wife, the in-laws of his running mate, and many others. He has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. “I haven’t read Mein Kampf,” he declared, unprovoked, during one rally—an admission that he knows what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether or not he has actually read it. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric,” he told an interviewer, “if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen.”

His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity.

These are not jokes, and Trump is not laughing. Nor are the people around him. Delegates at the Republican National Convention held up prefabricated signs: Mass Deportation Now. Just this week, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan: Trump Was Right About Everything. This is language borrowed directly from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted a photograph of a building in Mussolini’s Italy displaying his slogan: Mussolini Is Always Right.

These phrases have not been put on posters and banners at random in the final weeks of an American election season. With less than three weeks left to go, most candidates would be fighting for the middle ground, for the swing voters. Trump is doing the exact opposite. Why? There can be only one answer: because he and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the “bloodbath” that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents—none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics.

But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics. Several generations of American politicians have assumed that American voters, most of whom learned to pledge allegiance to the flag in school, grew up with the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion, would be resistant to this kind of language and imagery. Trump is gambling—knowingly and cynically—that we are not.

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moonlightmagical · 6 months ago

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god i really hope the rat grinders get revived and in doing so, purge the toxic rage shit from their systems. like those are kids. they got power-levelled by authority figures who they thought they could fully trust and now are caught in the middle of a divine scheme and war made to benefit one bad and selfish man and his twink boy-toy.

truly i don’t believe the bad kids had any other way to succeed other than killing them—and they were threatening to rip apart the world, manipulated or not—and of course death means something different in a world with revivify, but while they might have been maybe a bit dickish before they rage-revived, the rat grinders had their whole lives to change and realize that maybe a stupid high school feud isn’t worth that amount of energy. i mean i don’t particularly love her, but kipperlily was literally in therapy before this all started. there was a path forward for her, and i’d like to believe a path forward for all of the rat grinders.

and now they’re going to die.

#idk where this came from y’all #their deaths are just kinda tragic #dimension 20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fantasy high spoilers #fh #fhjy #d20

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cyb3rtarot · 9 months ago

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Pick a Pile: Nature Messages

Disclaimer: In this PAP I'm reading my homemade nature-based oracle with tarot and other oracle decks. There’s general messages and advice. Readings are not replacements for professional advice! Take what confirms you and leave what confuses you.

pile 1 ❀.ೃ࿔ pile 2 pile 3 ❀.ೃ࿔ pile 4

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Pile 1:

Rushing Water

[Healing (King of Emotion), Receptivity (Queen of Emotion), Uncertainty]

Hi pile 1! This pile has gone through a major healing period, or you might be in the tail-end of it. This could have been intense or fast—like a whirlwind of purged emotions and memories. Mental energy that was stagnant for a long time was suddenly swept away, and not painlessly. Now you’re a clean slate. You understood the importance of exfoliating these old mindsets, and there’s an inner child ready to look at everything with wonder again. Roles you have been forced to play dissipate. You can decide who you are instead of only reacting to an idea of yourself. There’s a sense of starting again and freshly taking in the world.

Beauty

[Experiencing, You Can’t Go Back to Yesterday, Ordinariness]

You have opportunities to appreciate the moment. You might be leaving a door open for things from the past, or you feel anxious about where to start with your new self. Be in the present! The beauty of life is coming through the routine and mundane—appreciating existence even when nothing big is happening. Finding joy in just being and the small things can help rebuild yourself. Appreciation will help you feel more connected and aware in the grand scheme of things. But, it’s harder to be open to this beauty if you’re still holding old expectations over yourself. Physical activities rather than mental ones may be especially helpful at this time, such as walking or gardening.

Cactus

[The Tower rx, Impossible Things rx, Achievement (Sun in Capricorn, 10th house)]

Your defenses are up. Many of you have constant worry as a backdrop to everything. You’re waiting for something big to happen or to blow up in your face. Some are waiting for a dead situation to revive and putting your defenses up to everything else. Part of healing is trusting yourself to manage even when you don’t have all the facts. Waiting for something to happen can function as a way to ignore your present life or procrastinate, and you might end up ignoring lovely things. There’s irony here, having skepticism about good possibilities but not being skeptical about the worst possibilities. Not every day can be a tower moment. Many days are regular and will slip into time, which is why the opportunity to experience and steer it now can be a gift. Remembering this will create a strong foundation for later.

Advice—Bonfire

[Consciousness (Ace of Mind), Nothingness, 7 of cups]

The only mental suit in your reading is in your advice, and it emphasizes not overthinking. Awareness is needed to find yourself underneath your stressors, otherwise you may treat those as inherent parts of your character and life. This awareness can be found in joys of the mundane, letting your inner child out, and celebrating. Do things that bring you out of your head and into the physical. Or, activities that join reflection with sensory experience, such as meditating with candles & incense. Don’t waste your new self seeking those who can only accept past versions of you. If being present means taking more time with just yourself, that’s okay. Purposeful alone time is very helpful right now, especially during night if you can make time. You have a vast abundance of potential in and around you that can sprout anything, but you won’t truly understand or appreciate the extent of this if you don’t live it. Slow down and appreciate the warmth that’s already available. Also, don’t beat yourself up for progressing slower.

Extra Details: coastal areas (coves or hills, golden sand), the beach at night, yellow stars (star shaped lamp?), working with friends/partner (especially if you left), The Office, gratitude practices (affirmations, journaling, etc), greatly increased intuition, or increased feelings of connection to Source/God/Higher Self/etc—you felt the connection was strained before? There’s awareness of something bigger than yourself, even your emotions or soul. xxxHolic, healing heart & throat energies, blue, water Sun & Moon, water N. Node (especially Cancer), Venus dominant, Venus-Moon natal aspect, heavy Cancer placements, feeling hopeful about career/finances or taking steps in that area (even slowly), trees/tree-hugging, taking care of plants, feeling like you’re given or gifted things & opportunities (but maybe you don’t care for whatever these are lol), shooting stars/meteor showers, comets, making a wish (or you feel very hopeful at this time), starting a new solo project or career, waiting for an ex (partner or friend), deer in headlights, lotus, feeling alone especially at night (you may want to try setting aside peaceful time if you’re usually busy at night or do something to purposefully wind down). If you were already drawn to pile 3 it may resonate

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Pile 2:

Hope

[Innocence, Nothingness, Awareness]

Hello pile 2! There's a very new and wonder-filled energy. An old version of yourself is dying so to speak, and you’re entering a different headspace. You might feel like a kid again, or life is prompting you to give your inner child power. Some of you are worried that means making bad decisions or indulging in things you shouldn’t? But this is about the innocence in your inner child’s perspective—and you still have knowledge and experience to express this part of yourself wisely.

With Nothingness + Awareness, I feel you’re already embodying this, but some of you have anxiety that’s stopping your enjoyment and hope. There may be shame with past relationships. Like how you may have gotten used, or you’re angry at yourself for things you didn’t notice. This is a good time to revisit activities and places you loved in your childhood. They can help integrate the experience you gained with your inner child. Time alone with yourself and nostalgia, becoming reacquainted with yourself & life (finding healthy ways to engage with nostalgia is important for you). Things that were blinding you have passed and you've been made anew. Lay down the last self-judgements so you can be fully aware of life’s present potential. If you already felt drawn to pile one, this “clean-slate” vibe and huge energy of potential is very similar. Or, you might have friends that embody the energy of pile one.

Organization

[Friendliness, Manipulation (Jupiter in Scorpio, 8th house), All in the Golden Afternoon]

In terms of divine timing, there's a time and place for everything. What doesn’t make sense now may be a key piece of a puzzle later or an important shift. Many of you are having a faith or emotional crisis. You may feel strained with the grand scheme of things or a higher power, wondering why things happen the way they do. This is linked to that clean-slate energy, as this transformation of self/beliefs is having a profound impact on your inner world. These strong emotions (especially if you’re angry or indignant) can fuel your investigation of life, your new beliefs, and in creating.

You could be experiencing things emotionally & spiritually you never have before, especially in relation to a major loss in the last 6-9 months. Some of you got some blessing or achievement related to this time and you may feel conflicted about it. Regardless, balancing socializing with alone time is important for you. Interacting with others will help you make sense of the world, can inspire you, and can also help you work through grief both of you may be experiencing. The phrase “checking in” comes to mind; both you and your loved ones can benefit from being more there for each other. This doesn’t extend to people who no longer have a healthy space in your life. Some of you are punishing yourself or caging yourself in loneliness by not seeking healthy social interaction. Intentional alone time is good, but not as a way to punish yourself.

Underwater

[Clinging to the Past, Keep Your Temper, Discovery (Mercury in Sagittarius, 9th house)]

Positive outlets for emotions and restlessness are very important. Strong emotions have come out twice. You may feel like you’re drowning in feelings or confusion. You could have an explosive or blinding temper right now that you’re suppressing. There’s anxiety & fear about how fast or strangely things are moving in your life—especially if any kind of intuition, spiritual practice, or similar things have developed. But the fear you feel is not reflective of your abilities. Loss, change, and learning curves ARE scary. I keep getting this self-punishment or self-“inflammatory” (?) vibe. Like when too much emotion or confusion builds up, you become your own target (especially in anger). Your emotional capacity is not the enemy. Always seek professional emotional help or stress management if you need it; don’t take it out on yourself when life is hard. Your emotions are powerful when directed into something non-destructive. That’s easier said than done, but the bottom row of your reading really emphasizes self-discoveries, creative ideas, and new perspectives your emotions can lead you to. Healthy ways to manage your explosive side will help you tap into this. For example, travel keeps coming up. Going somewhere to clear your head and get away from stifling energy could help, especially if you can travel somewhere special to you. Even going to a new place locally can shift energy. A lot of you are experiencing this because of grief or because rapid changes are pushing you to the familiarity of the past. You may look at past people with rose-tinted glasses or long for innocent times. This can be another form of self-punishment—making yourself obsess over what once was (or never was) instead of loving present you. You are braver than you let yourself feel.

Advice—Decay

[Impulsiveness (Mars in Aries, 1st house), the Lovers rx, Page of Swords rx]

There’s an important ending; this could be part of the grief mentioned if you’re now trying to feel alive again. You’re clinging to something that’s gone or leaving, and this is fanning the flames of emotion. All things naturally reach endings, and there's more on the other side of the transformation. What steps can you take that signify a new mindset? It can be as simple as trying a new activity.

I am picking up a lot about communication with another. Maybe a relationship is coming to a close or not on good terms, or you’ve been thinking about communicating with someone from the past. Maintain a wide and objective perspective; very high emotions may cloud your communication skills. It’s not so much about regret, but you may not be satisfied if you speak while upset. For those that resonated with this, you may also resonate with the message below (I channeled it before I wrote this part).

Specific message: please be careful of overindulging, especially drinking! This message is so important, it came through in my dream before I pulled your cards. Your guides or whatever forces you believe in are really, really wanting me to stress about not overdoing it in this department, especially if you tend to think you’re more sober than you are, or go from 0 to 100? Be very aware of your pacing because there’s something about easily going overboard without realizing, and potential communication in regards to that such as drunk confessions. This is 200% so if you’re hosting or going to a party/get-together, or socially drinking. If you’ve been drinking more this is fueling your past regrets and nostalgia.

Extra Details: restless/excited energy (& anticipation/anxiety), transitory period, anxiety in your chest, blocked heart/throat/third eye energy (may feel an imagination block; journaling can help). Great Red Spot, starfish, suddenly feeling very intuitive, confused about spiritual/religious beliefs, Jupiter as an important natal planet, Sagittarius + Scorpio placements, fire Moon and Mars, water & fire as dominant elements in inner planets & Jupiter, death of someone that changed your life but you weren’t close or on good terms (already happened), rehab, wanting to host a party/get-together, angry or confused with God/universe, putting on an "okay" attitude for others’ sake, nostalgic dreams, feeling stagnant, questioning or leaving a music career (singing, gospel/spiritual music?), veggie tales?, gardening (maybe in childhood), wanting to break no communication or text an ex/new crush, finding online communities, “Are We Moving Too Fast?” by Malibu 92, feeling like you’re in a dream/ infatuated with a dream version of someone, love songs, Kyoukai no Kanata

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Pile 3:

Changing of the Seasons

[The Lovers, Abundance (King of Material), Sharing (Queen of Action)]

Hi pile 3! You guys are embodying a new energy much like the other piles. Your cards show having so much to be shared. With the King of the physical suit, this is likely material blessings. Some of you have been struggling with past regret/vendettas, and deciding to move on has shifted the energy. Or, some of you are starting a new faith? This is a very fulfilling time and it reminds me of Summer, with all the abundance and “sunshine-y” energy (maybe a significant season for you). Wholeheartedly embrace however this manifests; matching the effort from the Universe/higher power/etc will increase your success (I also heard “manifold;” there could be many things happening at once).

Let go of lack, scarcity, and insecure mindsets; there’s enough to go around. This Lovers card speaks of how people mirror each other and how love evolves into compassion. Embracing compassion—and trusting that it’s okay to feel safety and joy—will allow abundance to overflow. This can even just be uplifting yourself and those around you with positivity. This extends into your community, uplifting the “village”. It goes the other way too. If people would like to support you in a healthy way, let them! Don’t be afraid of people expressing their love to you as assistance. Effort from you OR those in union with you will help increase good things that are already going (like how the land grows fruit regardless, but farmers can multiply it drastically). Seasons come and go so make the most of a fruitful one!

If your success/wellbeing is heavily tied to someone close, this could be a great time for both of you. The increases one of you experiences will be very positively mirrored or appreciated by the other, especially for happily married people. You may want to share more, help & be helped more by the other at this time.

Resourcefulness

[Ace of wands, 10 of wands sideways, Publicity (Jupiter in Leo, 5th house)]

Get your hands into the new opportunities life is throwing your way. Have a direct experience with life. This pile might use manifestation methods where you mostly sit back and allow it to come to you. Or there’s a similar approach of watching + waiting, not really getting into things too much as you wait for what’s meant for you to present itself. You might also always keep manifesting something, like even as your manifestations appear, you go after something else instead of interacting with it. You’re highly encouraged to get INTO whatever life has to offer right now, to actively co-create and experience the world. I heard “recognition;” that may be what’s in store if you exert effort. How can you make the most of the present, the fertile ground? Idk why there’s so many farming metaphors but they represent your situation, how the “land”/life is there for you to work and multiply the natural blessings. Even in a shared blessing, you can make it work especially for you—if you’re willing to get your hands dirty (metaphorically, not promoting corruption or shady behavior lol). This could be work but it feels more like creativity, passion, faith.

There’s also something about working too hard with the 10 of wands sideways. Maybe you’re used to working and grinding hard all the time. These opportunities prompt you to view “hard” work more creatively and openly. Especially if you've struggled materially—and maybe that’s why some of you have passive manifesting styles. Adapt—as all nature must to make the most of the situation—don’t bring old approaches forward that don’t serve the present. What helps you survive Winter may not be beneficial in Spring.

Faction

[3 of wands, Justice rx, Belong to Your Own Dream]

This seems like energy from someone around you rather than you. What I’m getting is a group or partnership of people that’s so heavily tied, something happening to one affects all. Someone around you has gone through a transformation that’s changing the dynamic of a group. I heard “undercurrents” and “hidden,” so I think this isn’t apparent yet. Not everybody knows about whatever this is, but it’s a shift that affects you. This could be you too since this is a group reading, but for most here I think not.

What I picked up is someone coming to terms with an identity or self-expression. I also picked up on power dynamic changes, so this could be someone getting materially blessed and it having a ripple effect. Below in the details, I picked up on a baptism which may be related. There’s literal baptisms, but it could also be someone feeling initiated into a new group, organization, or identity. Regardless, being heavily tied to others has responsibilities and consequences beyond our control. We sacrifice some freedom to share our compassion, ups and downs, the blessings too. Some people and blessings will ONLY be in our lives for a season, and some people are only a certain version of themselves for a season. Make the most of the present because the future is changing & moving, and staying in the past sacrifices what you currently have.

Advice—Abundant Harvest

[Power (Moon in Scorpio, 8th house), Impossible Things, Exaltation (Moon in Taurus, 2nd house)]

Idk what to tell you because the whole reading really, really emphasizes that there’s so much good stuff here to “reap the rewards” of 😭. I know we talked about this all along but it came out again. Idk if you guys are very hesitant to accept good things or make the most of them and maybe this is why it’s being emphasized so much lol. I channeled a food forest that feeds the whole community for free, that may describe this energy for you and your people. Or, may describe your role soon.

There’s a message about having gone through a profound inner transformation, having “repositioned” yourself in the world. For example, some of you always viewed yourself as a servant and now you’ve shed that? You may still do it, but you’re not only this one thing, and it’s in a way that empowers you. There’s something about relating to the world as yourself in a different, unique way, and this having a huge change on power dynamics. You may not outwardly appear this way, maybe others don't understand, but you’ve empowered yourself greatly somehow, & if not this is a change to embody so you can reap the most of the blessings. I keep wanting to say reap—there’s energy of good things already fruited, especially with this Moon exalted in Taurus. So much security + comfort is laid in your path right now, please tune into the version of yourself that can multiply BUT ALSO enjoy this!

Extra Details: nature as significant in your faith, promotion for someone in a duo/close group, forgiveness, homemaking (recently switched to/out of it because of changes in finances or beliefs), worship of a masculine + feminine deity (or recognizing feminine + masculine qualities in a gendered deity, or yourself), Cave In- Owl City, getting into nature + water, caves/coves, orange, beach towns, hopeful, end of a dark night of the soul, weddings/unions, Christianity, finding someone/ community with similar beliefs, baptisms, moving up in an organization, new clothing or style, shift in power/money in relationship, parable of the sower (the actual parable). Scrying, divining signs, charm casting. Coming out, changes to beliefs about gender expression & roles. Healing the relationship with a specific part of yourself. Going back to school or studying a new topic (astrology) (some of you want to go to a religious university?), legal situation ending (divorce, suing, etc). Dragging out your words. No longer thinking you need someone to survive or complete you, Single Ladies- Beyonce, moving on from toxicity into new partnership or friends. If you were already drawn to pile 1 or 4 they may resonate

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Pile 4:

Underground

[6 of cups, The Creator (King of Action), the Hanged Man rx]

Hi pile four! The first thing I heard is “sharing is productive, sharing is compassion.” A lot of you have been doing your own thing, developing yourselves or a project behind the scenes. There’s something about your life or inner landscape others are not privy to. Expressing yourself—or sharing this part of yourself where appropriate—will be “productive,” I hear. You can also be an example of whatever it is. Maybe there’s some knowledge, beliefs, or world perspective that could be a positive influence to those around you? You could feel like you have a mission to bring these ideas or something else to your community, but you’re not sure how to start. Showing people who you are through your self-expression, ideals, words, mannerisms, and how you interact with others can be just as impactful as explaining something. Your style may also have an impact if you’ve changed it recently or if it’s different from those around you. It’s important to do all this from a place of compassion for the best impact (I heard “best outcome” & “best product;” some of you are part of a project or group goal where this is relevant?). You are no longer only preaching at people or trying to get end results when you move with compassion & understanding. It also allows you to remain grounded when disagreements occur. Compassion is the point.

Nurturing

[the Fool sideways, I Want to Be a Queen rx, Judgement]:

You may have transformed very quickly or changed some fundamental beliefs, and now I hear you feel you’re on a different “momentum” and “speed” than those who’ve been in your life, especially those who’ve been around for a long time. Maybe you feel you’re outgrowing them. You could have lost interest in a project or relationship you invested in, or could be moving away. There’s conflicted feelings about a new lifestyle at the cost of the things left behind. This could refer to a childhood/past dream you’re unsure about pursuing.

It’s not about picking the “right” thing, it’s about if you’re willing to nurture the energy and accept those consequences. Staying with the past, doing something new, being in the middle—each has its own set of consequences you must face. There’s an emphasis on that with the judgment card next to the Hanged Man rx—whatever you invest your energy + thoughts in, you’ll experience what follows that choice. Some of you feel like you’re hiding from life by not moving forward or postponing something, but that's also a choice.

Old and new are inherently neither good nor bad; what are you willing and able to do to nurture the life you choose? Can you do this with compassion and discernment? Your life is your choice. That decision is only one part of a much larger picture: the life you continuously create (and what you choose to associate with). When you act with wisdom and discernment, you learn more about yourself, what’s really calling for you and not an illusion. You can be honest with yourself, not only about what you want but what is right and good for you. Compassion allows you to create with love (including self love). It reinforces your ability to live honestly, in the moment—and not only do things for results.

Friends

[Two of wands rx, Going with the Flow (ace of emotions), You Are Rare and Free]

I know “friends” is not necessarily nature-based, but it’s what came out. "Going with the flow” talks about allowing yourself to be moved with life instead of fighting against it or staying stagnant. Again, many of you are holding onto something familiar or ignoring something to avoid change. This card talks about detaching from ego-based ideas and expectations. So many of your cards throughout the reading speak of looking back or nostalgia—6 of cups, 2 of wands rx, Hanged Man rx, even the Fool is not fully upright, but yet you have Judgment too. Judgment is a reminder that reckoning comes for everyone and everything; life continues even when we cling. Contemplate what you want and what action this entails. This pile is taking paths of most resistance; something you’re doing or thinking is making things complicated. It seems related to friends or family. Caring about them a lot is making the decision harder, or you might have some kind of investment/entanglement with them. Remember who YOU are and stick with that. You can enjoy and share with other people without it being at the expense of yourself. You aren’t necessarily a people-pleaser, but you may hold yourself to what old versions of you wanted or thought. It’s okay to change, it’s unavoidable. Fighting a change in yourself may feel easier than dealing with the effects, but is it really? You may avoid facing others, but you’ll always have to face yourself.

You might really try to hold onto control (especially for timing) as a substitute for trusting yourself. Decisions and change feel so monumental because you don’t know if you can make it through what comes afterwards. Build trust in yourself and applaud your skills that help you make it through day to day.

Advice—Practices

[Defense (Mars in Taurus, 2nd house), Follow the White Rabbit rx, the Chariot rx, 8 of swords rx]

Set up little actions and routines that will help you make steps towards what's on your mind. Your cards suggest the goal, move, or decision you’re interested in might not see forward movement right now. You might feel like you meet resistance, but this might just be because you need to build a routine, discipline, or set of steps before you can see progress. This period is needed for the discord to clear in your mind. This’ll be a time of mental transformations more than physical ones, but this is the foundation of the tangible changes later. This doesn’t have to all be boring. I keep hearing “reverence;” blending spirituality with your goals will be very helpful. Or, anything that adds fun & peace to productivity. Example, time in nature (being outside at all) can be uplifting as well as brainstorming time.

Extra Details: freelancer, work that doesn’t feel like a job (because you like it or it’s not traditional), thinking about life goals (large/collective ones like helping humanity), supervisor or manager (or similar group leader role), taking responsibility for power and influence you wield with others, fashion scene or niche artistic local community like DJing, culinary, food service, cooking shows, “the time will pass anyway,” choosing between a childhood dream/community and a new one, unsure about medicine or another lucrative field. Walks or solo activities where you can sort your thoughts are very beneficial. Guilt about an ill/injured loved one (wanting to do something where you won’t be able to see them?), divination routine, There's a lot of emphasis on food as a passion or because you need to eat lots of fruits and veggies, tea (dandelion tea?), Kate Bush. If you already felt drawn to pile 1 it may resonate. If you already felt drawn to pile 3, the resourcefulness and faction sections specifically may resonate.

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lordgrimoire · 9 months ago

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So, the following is a record of a conversation between Clockwork, The Flash, and Wonder Woman. Transcript Begins.

CW:Ah, Diana of Themyscira, an Honor, and Barry Allen, An Honor, to finally meet one of my bigger headaches, heh.

WW:Kronos, you know my name. And yet you call it an honor?

CW:That is my name no longer, but I will accept you using it. Yes, it is an honor, for before my madness by my own father I was a hero as well, those are not my duties any more, no I must look after the new heroes, from Young Phantom, to your Justice League, and specifically the Flashes.

The Flash:So wait, your in charge of the Speed force? I have so many questions.

CW:And I have no answers, instead I have these.

[Distortion, Grade IV opening, 6.7 Second duration]

CW:These, are Flashes, or more accurately Flashes out of time, who died to the speed force and were revived as well.

???:(Groans and coughing)

Flash:Are those-?

CW:Relatives yet to be born, those lost to the past, kinsfolk and other speedsters lost to the speed force. But not yours.

Flash: Come Again?

CW:Timelines are a strange thing, in another time, another place even, these Flashes would have come to occupy your life later in life, here? Not so much, they will need new names, they may tell you theirs if they want, but know this, in that Timeline the Infinite Realms, the Ghost Zone, was never discovered by any mortals. So keep that in mind.

Flash:Thank you, I’ll take care of them.

CW:I have my utmost faith in you. Diana of Themyscira?

WW:Lord Kronos?

CW:Simply Clockwork works dear, I have a gift for you.

WW:A Pocket Watch?

CW: Should you ever need guidance, simply twist the crown, twice left, twice right, you should have at least one godly relative in your corner, even if it’s little old me.

WW:…Thank You, Clockwork.

CW:Think nothing of it dear, I am the keeper of time, but I’ve retained my other rolls still, Grandfather, Mentor, Hero, in those most desperate of times. Now, I must return to my tower, relax, take your time, and worry not, Amity Park has sturdy defenders.

WW:Take care Clockwork, I’d best go save Flash from his Family shouldn’t I?

CW:The Flash would do with some assistance, take care Diana.

(TRANSCRIPTION ENDS)

(Begin Censor? Y/N)

(Y)

(CENSOR BEGUN, ALL PERSONAL OR IDENTIFYING DATA BEING PURGED)

(Make Copy? Y/N)

(Y)

(#?)

(3)

(Recipients?)

(Battalion Clerk, Town Clerk, Justice League Clerk of Illinois)

(Submit? Y/N)

(Y)

(Submission Begun, thank You Staff Sergeant William Hale, CBRN Platoon, 1st Amity Park Support Company, 1st Dimensional Support Battalion)

#Grave Guard au #diana of themyscira #wonder woman #kronos #clockwork #clockwork is kronos #the flash #barry allen #dp x dc #danny phantom #dc x dp #danny fenton

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perkwunos · 17 days ago

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Throughout the campaign, Trump has proven himself obsessed with two ideas: exerting personal control over the federal government, and exacting “retribution” against Democrats who challenged him and the prosecutors who indicted him. His team has, obligingly, provided detailed plans for doing both of these things.

This process begins with something called Schedule F, an executive order Trump issued at the end of his first term but never got to implement. Schedule F reclassifies a large chunk of the professional civil service — likely upward of 50,000 people — as political appointees. Trump could fire these nonpartisan officials and replace them with cronies: people who would follow his orders, no matter how dubious. Trump has vowed to revive Schedule F “immediately” upon returning to office, and there is no reason to doubt him.

Between a newly compliant bureaucracy and leadership ranks purged of first-term dissenting voices like former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Trump will face little resistance as he attempts to implement policies that threaten core democratic freedoms.

And Trump and his team have already proposed many of them. Notable examples include investigating leading Democrats on questionable charges, prosecuting local election administrators, using regulatory authority for retribution against corporations that cross him, and either shuttering public broadcasters or turning them into propaganda mouthpieces. Trump and his allies have claimed unilateral executive authority to take all of these actions. (It remains unclear which party will control the House, but Republicans will be in charge of the Senate for at least the next two years.)

Ultimately, all this executive activity is aimed at turning the United States into a larger version of Hungary — a country whose leadership and policies are regularly praised by Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts.

...

While the form of subtle authoritarianism pioneered in Hungary was novel in 2010, it’s well understood today. Orbán managed to come across as a “normal” democratic leader until it was too late to undo what he had done; Trump is taking office with roughly half the voting public primed to see him as a threat to democracy and resist as such. He can expect major opposition to his most authoritarian plans not only from the elected opposition, but from the federal bureaucracy, lower levels of government, civil society, and the people themselves.

This is the case against despair.

As grim as things seem now, little in politics is a given — especially not the outcome of a struggle as titanic as the one about to unfold in the United States. While Trump has four years to attack democracy, using a playbook he and his team have been developing since the moment he left office, defenders of democracy have also had time to prepare and develop countermeasures. Now is the time to begin deploying them.

Trump has won the presidency, which gives him a tremendous amount of power to make his antidemocratic dreams into power. But it is not unlimited power, and there are robust means of resistance. The fate of the American republic will depend on how willing Americans are to take up the fight.

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dailyadventureprompts · 10 months ago

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Villain: Mavros Arator, Voice of the Ascendant

The demagogues seem everywhere these days, putting their words to the tune of the populace's nebulous worries: this week it's the impiety of the realm's leaders, last week it was the barbarians infringing on the borders, before that it was the decaying morality of the youth. It's the same old song, just with new lyrics to fit with the times. No one's sure just when the crescendo will hit or how, but everyone who's been paying attention know they're going to try to bring the whole house down when it does.

Setup: A charismatic figure has risen to prominence channelling discontent in the wake of an unfavourable war. As a gifted orator and veteran of a conflict remembered for being more "glorious", the words of Mavros Arator carry weight with both the military and common people. He agitates on behalf of those who resent the diplomatic capitulations used to secure peace in a losing war his own rulers started, and argues for a revival of "national spirit" to strengthen the homeland so it does not allow such a disgraceful defeat to happen again.

What separates Mavros from any other blowhard protofascist is the fact that he's looking to summon a demon to purge his homeland of those unsympathetic to his cause. Scoured clean of all those unwilling to fight and die and obey, he and the other true believers will form an unstoppable army that will march out under the banner of conquest to settle at spearpoint every historical grievance in the realm's long history.

It's up to the party to stop this instigator and the hatemob he's made of their neighbours before he enacts his plan and ends up ascending to full dark lord status.

Background: Mavros loved his homeland, as a young man he went to war to defend it, spent decades bleeding for it, and that love endured even after his homeland spat him out with nothing but a soldier's pension and a lifetime of traumas he had no words to explain.

That was the point of course, empires are built on the back of men like Mavros, shaped from their earliest days to believe that their homeland is singularly great and beset by threats on all sides, or that war is the measure by which a son may prove his faith and loyalty rather than an enterprise made to expand the holdings of the powers that be.

The problem for those powers is that Mavros didn't die like he was supposed to, he soldiered on driven by a manic dedication that persisted despite his comrades getting scythed down around him. When he was too old for soldiering he turned to having a family, raising four boys and feeding them one after another into the waiting jaws of his nation.

A man less ardent in his love of home, less firm in his faith might have wavered when they brought the first of his sons' bloody helmets back in lieu of a body. He might have seen how his virtues, his loyalty, had been abused by those above him, made him question the justness of the wars and conquests and pain he had been apart of. instead that loss, made him open to change. Instead Mavros's convictions deepened, and by the time of his third son's death he had become so entrenched in the pit of his beliefs that he had unearthed a new truth: He loved his homeland, it was just being held back by the people who didn't love it enough.

It was deep in that pit where Mavros first heard the whispering of Diridaxx, the fiend known to diabolists as "He who claws from below". In ages past the demon was said to prey upon the weak, wicked, and impious, before clashing with an ancient hero and being struck down with a blow so divinely empowered that it not only buried the fiend deep underground but reduced him to ash along the way, depriving him of the strength required to ever escape. The depths of Mavros's despair and his own desire to see those "less thans" cleared from his home formed a connection between man and demon: first dreams, then visions, then a pact. Influence in exchange for escape, followed by victory in exchange for slaughter. The fact that the hero of the old myth happened to be one of the founders of the realm that handed Mavros's own homeland its recent defeat was just icing on the cake.

Adventure Hooks:

The party is likely to encounter Mavros's influence long before the man himself, as thugs, opportunists, and grifters look to take advantage of the post-war unrest to raise their place in the world and make good on his words. A troop of discontented soldiers may be shaking down travlers on the road as an unofficial "toll" to repay their service , while an enterprising merchant might stoke xenophobia to turn townsfolk against a competitor of forign origin.

It'll take more than speeches and random acts of violence to summon Diridaxx from the pit, it will take sacrifice. (un)Luckily for Mavros, he's been sacrificing all his life, and all that is required is a bit of occult-recontextualization to turn the deaths of his sons into a ritual years in the making. With fiend's magic his follower's resources at his command, it's only a matter of time before he gathers the bones of his three dead sons (and their haplessly dutiful surviving brother,) from their resting place in foreign lands and cremates them, suffusing their pyresmoke with Diridaxx's own noxious essence.

If you want to add another big bad to the mix and given similar themes of would be tyranny and xenophobia, consider checking out my genocidal fallen angel villain: Insiyah who could be very easily be using Mavros as her agent, or working alongside him to bring about his vision.

Also consider checking out my writeup on how d&d tends to mishandle matters of morality in it's game, and the simplistic way it views evil. Writing that inspired me to write a villain who was a very human sort of evil who utilized magic, rather than the all too common magical evil around which most campaigns are based.

Art 1

Art 2

#villain #villain warlock #warlock #villain politician #politics #irl politics #fiend #mid level #random encounter road #encounter town #warfare

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iheartbrink · 2 months ago

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it will rain — chap. 1

⠀ ── ⠀ pair: pastors daughter!stewie x oc

⠀ ── ⠀ warnings: extremely heavy religious talk, religious guilt, talks of conversion camp, all the things, this is wordy and too long.

⠀ ── ⠀ a/n: my brain is fried from writing this.. not proofread whatsoever.

Breanna knew what she was doing was wrong. Every fiber of her being screamed it. She knew that by crossing this line, she was damning herself. Damning herself not just in the eyes of her parents, her church, or her peers, but in the eyes of God. The teachings she’d grown up with were clear: girls like her were not meant to love girls like Madison. They were meant to confess these urges and purge themselves of these sinful desires. Yet, here she was, on the precipice of something that could never be undone.

She knew, with bone-deep certainty, that if her mother—let alone her father—ever found out about what she was doing, she would be sent away. There would be no forgiveness, no understanding, only punishment. Maybe she’d be shipped off to one of those camps. Or perhaps they’d try to “pray the gay away” during one of the church’s all-night revival sessions. Either way, Breanna wouldn’t be allowed to stay.

She would be sent away.

Sent away from the one person who had ever truly seen her. Sent away from the only person who made her feel as though she wasn’t walking through life with a mask on, pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Sent away from her first love, her real love. The one she’d never expected, and yet couldn’t deny.

But what if she wasn’t sent away? What if her secret remained? Could she live with it, knowing it defied everything she had been taught? What would it mean for her, and Madison, if they managed to keep this under wraps? Would the love they shared be worth the risk of eternal damnation?

⠀ ── ⠀

Rosewood, California, wasn’t exactly a place for people like Breanna. Not for a queer girl growing up under the suffocating expectations of the church. Certainly not for the daughter of Pastor Stewart, who led Rosewood Catholic Church with an iron grip on morality. In this small town, Breanna was not just Breanna Stewart. She was the Breanna Stewart—church princess, moral compass for others, and the girl who seemingly had it all figured out.

But no one knew about the unrest raging beneath her exterior. Not her father, her mother, or even Lucas—the boy she was supposed to be in love with.

Lucas was a nice enough guy, she supposed, but Breanna couldn’t help the gnawing emptiness she felt whenever he kissed her. There was no spark, no fire, only an odd sense of obligation. She tried to convince herself that this was just how things were meant to be. That she should feel lucky to have a good guy like Lucas, but deep down she knew it was a lie.

Because whenever she looked at her best friend, Madison, her heart surged in a way it never did for Lucas. The way Madison laughed, the way her hair fell in waves over her shoulders, the way she smiled at Breanna like she was the most important person in the world—those things ignited something within her she could not deny.

Breanna had convinced herself for so long that she wasn’t gay. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be. After all, being gay was a sin, and Breanna Stewart didn’t sin. At least, she wasn’t supposed to. But the feelings she had for Madison were impossible to ignore. She could push them down, try to hide them away, but they always resurfaced, stronger each time.

And tonight, they were about to come to a head.

⠀ ── ⠀

Breanna knew that coming to this party was a terrible idea. She knew the moment she stepped through the door that she should’ve turned around and gone home.

She had told herself she would stay for an hour, just long enough to show her face and then leave before anything went too far. But somehow, she found herself drawn into a circle of friends playing Seven Minutes in Heaven, a game she had heard about but never dared to play. Not with Madison sitting right next to her, her best friend, her not-so-secret crush.

Now, she was about to enter that dark, claustrophobic closet with Madison. Seven minutes. Alone. With the one person, she had forbidden herself from ever thinking about this way. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she stood up to go inside, the air in the room feeling thick and oppressive.

“This is a bad idea,” Breanna thought, over and over again. But her feet kept moving, carrying her forward. She told herself it was just a game, just an innocent little game. She could kiss Madison, prove to herself that it wasn’t all that. Prove to herself that this was nothing more than a phase.

“Kiss her once, show yourself how horrible it is. Then you’ll never crave it again,” Breanna whispered under her breath as they stepped inside the cramped space together.

But the moment Madison’s arm brushed against hers, doubt crept in. The warmth of her skin sent a shiver down Breanna’s spine. The familiar scent of Madison’s perfume filled the small closet, making it hard to breathe.

What if this wasn’t as bad of an idea as she had convinced herself? What if kissing Madison wasn’t a mistake, but rather, the thing she had been denying herself for so long? What if, instead of pushing her further away, this kiss brought them closer together?

She swallowed hard, torn between the pull of desire and the fear of losing everything she had built with Madison.

“Just a quick kiss,” Breanna murmured, the words barely a whisper, her voice unrecognizable to her own ears. Madison’s eyes widened in surprise, searching Breanna’s face for any sign of uncertainty.

“Are you sure?” Madison asked, her voice soft but filled with concern, her breath warm against Breanna’s cheek.

Breanna nodded, her heart pounding in her chest. “Yeah. Just this once.”

Madison hesitated for a moment, and then leaned in. Their lips met softly at first, a gentle touch that sent a shockwave through Breanna’s entire body. Her breath hitched, and for a second, she thought about pulling away. But something deeper took over, and before she knew it, the kiss deepened.

Time seemed to stop. There was no party, no game, no world outside of this kiss. There was only Madison. And as their lips moved together, slow and tentative at first, then more confident, Breanna felt something ignite within her that she hadn’t known was there.

When they finally pulled apart, both breathless, Breanna knew in that instant that this wasn’t just a moment of weakness. This wasn’t a mistake to be buried and forgotten. This was the beginning of something far bigger, something she could no longer ignore.

It wasn’t a sin. It was love. And love, no matter what they said, couldn’t be wrong. Could it?

#♡︎ — erin’s works #breanna stewart x oc #wnba x reader #wbb x reader #wbb x oc #wnba x oc #lgbtq #breanna stewart x reader

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felixcloud6288 · 3 months ago

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All descriptions taken from TvTropes.

Cantarella:

Cantarella is a fantasy manga about the youth of Cesare Borgia, warrior, politician, and second son of Pope Alexander VI. Only here, he's possessed by demons, with a Red Right Hand to prove it.

Death Note:

In the land of the dead, a bored Shinigami named Ryuk decides to create some entertainment for himself by dropping a Death Note into the human world.

Light Yagami, a brilliant-yet-disillusioned Japanese student, sees the notebook fall into his world and picks it up. On a whim, he tries out the instructions held within its pages, and discovers that he can kill whomever he wants, however he wants, by writing their name and (optionally) cause of death into the Death Note.

While initially horrified at his actions, Light rationalises that he can use the Death Note as a force for good by purging the rotten and corrupt elements of society, thus creating a world free of crime and violence. A cult following soon arises around the mysterious assassin killing off criminals across the country, christening him "Kira". Kira's actions soon attract the attention of the international police community, now with grave concerns about the vigilante killings, and the world's greatest detective, an enigma of a man known only as "L".

L becomes determined to solve the mystery of Kira and his impossible killing method, employing increasingly aggressive and risky strategies to get the information he wants. Meanwhile, Light spirals into madness as he becomes consumed by both his egomaniacal "Kira" persona and his desperate need to stay one step ahead of L's investigation. It's a cat-and-mouse game neither man can afford to lose — and both of them want to win at all costs.

Dungeon Meshi:

In a fantasy world of dungeon exploration, guilds go out on expeditions to raid dungeons, hoping to find the mysterious Golden Kingdom claimed to be the ultimate treasure of a particular island dungeon, said to be created by a Lunatic Magician after sinking the Kingdom below the ground. Human knight Laios Touden and his adventuring team are saved from a Total Party Kill by a fearsome beast, the Red Dragon, when his sister, Falin, sacrifices herself to teleport them all out of danger. Now she's in the dragon's belly, and it's only a matter of time before she's digested and it's too late to revive her. Laios and his friends must delve back into the depths to recover her remains — but there's not enough time or resources to buy enough rations for the trip. His solution: take advantage of the sprawling ecosystem of the dungeon itself by cooking the various monsters within into delicious, wholesome, dungeon-sourced meals.

Fruits Basket:

After the death of her mother, young Tohru Honda has been secretly living on her own in a tent. Her life changes forever when she stumbles upon the secret of the estate she is living on illegally: the land is owned by the Sohma family, who are afflicted by a Hereditary Curse that changes thirteen members of the family into animals of the Eastern Zodiac (plus the Cat, an animal who would have been part of the Zodiac but was left out) when they are hugged by someone of the opposite sex that is not also a Zodiac member. Oh, and the family is a hotbed of horribly abusive parents and children with enough emotional issues to make a shrink very wealthy.

Upon being discovered and taken in by the Sohmas, sweet-natured Tohru becomes embroiled in the dysfunctional family's various crises, bringing the outside world to the closed-off family while also having to confront some issues of her own.

Goodnight Punpun:

Goodnight Punpun (Oyasumi Punpun) is a supremely bizarre Seinen manga by Inio Asano about the title character, Punpun. Punpun is a young, innocent, and naive child, who, in some kind of strange stylistic choice, is depicted as a simplistic sketch of a bird despite everyone outside of his family looking like a normal human. He has no real dreams, his father is an abusive deadbeat (at least, he appears to be), and his mother is a drunk who regrets having him, but Punpun has one thing: a pretty girl named Aiko whom he fawns over. Well, her, and an afro-clad and slightly useless god he can summon by chanting 'Dear God, dear God, tinkle hoy!'

The story begins as a Slice of Life comedy, following Punpun through his childhood as he deals with his family life, his school life, his social life, and his budding romantic life. While noticeably dark, it also contains a hint of child-like innocence. However, as the series progresses, it develops into an extremely dark Coming of Age story, with all innocence being wiped away. While the humor remains, it takes a backseat to experiences of Punpun, his family, and his acquaintances as they deal with the hardships of adolescence, adulthood, and life in general. The story is split roughly into four arcs: Punpun's life in elementary school, middle school, high school, and as a young adult.

Running concurrently with Punpun's story is a very odd side plot about a cult-like movement trying to (apparently) save the world through "good vibrations", which some of Punpun's classmates end up involved in. It's possibly even more weird and unsettling than anything going on with Punpun, as it's never quite clear if it's real or the mad ramblings of its leader.

Haikyuu:

In junior high, Shōyō Hinata gained a sudden interest in volleyball due to seeing a match on television, which featured a star player nicknamed "The Little Giant", and yearned to follow in his footsteps to become a volleyball ace despite his short stature. Hinata starts his own volleyball club, which no one joins, and practices rigorously by himself. Eventually he convinces enough people to make up a rag-tag team consisting of a couple of members who haven't even played volleyball before just so he could compete in a tournament. His team is quickly annihilated by Tobio Kageyama - "King of the Court" - and his champion team. After suffering a miserable defeat, Hinata vows to defeat Kageyama and surpass him as a volleyball player.

Upon entering Karasuno High School - the school "The Little Giant" attended - Hinata learns that he's now on the same team as Kageyama. The two must learn to work together so they can restore Karasuno to its former greatness.

Ouran High School Host Club

Welcome to Ouran Academy, a distinguished school that provides education to the children of the rich and powerful. Only the wealthiest families can afford to send their sons and daughters to the academy. Thankfully for those whose bank accounts aren't nearly as inflated, Ouran does offer a scholarship program to any hopefuls who wish to attend.

Enter Haruhi Fujioka, one such scholarship student who dreams about becoming a lawyer like her late mother. Unfortunately, her plans to study hard and keep to herself are destroyed when she happens upon the Host Club. This unusual high school club entertains female students through a combination of flirtatious banter and roleplaying, with each of its six members catering to different tastes in boys; there's Takashi "Mori" Morinozuka, the tall and stoic type; Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka, the bubbly and sweet type; the Hitachiin twins, Hikaru and Kaoru, a pair of tricksters who pretend to be madly in love with each other; Kyoya Ohtori, the cool and aloof type; and Tamaki Suoh, the princely type and the Host Club's leader and founder.

Flustered by her discovery, Haruhi's attempt to leave Music Room 3 ends with her accidentally breaking an incredibly expensive vase. Mistaking her for a boy at first, Tamaki declares Haruhi their errand boy, only knocking "him" up to host status when he sees Haruhi's potential. It isn't until after he gives Haruhi a customer quota that Tamaki discovers she's actually a girl.

Before she knows it, Haruhi is swept up into the Host Club's eccentric world as well as the private realms of its individual members. As their school life unfolds, both Haruhi and the rest of the Host Club will affect each other's lives in ways none of them could have imagined.

Please Save My Earth

Alice is an Ordinary High-School Student and Friend to All Living Things. One day, as she's serving as the Badly Battered Babysitter to the neighbor's trip-and-a-half of a boy, she has a chance encounter with two guys from her school class, and in the course of the discussion, it comes out that they've all been having dreams about being alien scientists on the moon studying earth, all in precisely the same continuity.

Eventually, all seven of the scientists at the base are found to have been reincarnated as Japanese teenagers. Their base — and all its weapons — is still operational, and the seven of them must find a way to balance their obligations from past lives with their new lives on Earth…

Tsukihime:

After being involved in a major accident, the young heir of an affluent family, named Shiki Tohno, awakens in a hospital to find parts of his memory are missing and he can see glowing, pulsing red lines covering everything in his sight, from inanimate objects such as his bed to the living doctors and nurses treating him. Furthermore, he discovers that by tracing something along these lines, whatever they're on will fall apart with frightening ease. Growing increasingly unstable staring at a world that could literally fall to pieces with a mere touch, Shiki attempts to escape the hospital, only to come face to face with a self-styled "Magician", who teaches Shiki about his condition, tries to instill in him the beauty and value of life, and as a parting gift gives him a special pair of glasses that hide the lines from what the Magician calls his "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception". Finally able to somewhat recover, Shiki is soon sent away to live with a branch family of the Tohnos, while his sister is made the new heir in his place.

Years later, Shiki is now a high-school student and living a normal life — that is, until he receives some devastating news: his father has died, and he must return to the main Tohno household at once. As Shiki settles into his new home and altered school life, and attempts to reconnect with his estranged family, he happens to cross paths with a strange blonde-haired girl with piercing red eyes on the street. Seized by an overwhelming, unknown desire, Shiki follows her into an alley, and by the time he has regained his senses finds he has cut her into 17 distinct pieces for no apparent reason before passing out in shock… only to then wake up in his bed at home. Was he dreaming? What force could possibly compel him to commit such a horrifying act? Is this somehow linked to his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, or his family's rumored occult past? And… hang on, did that red-eyed girl just show up again claiming he murdered her? Despite looking no worse for wear? And… does she have a crush on Shiki?!

Umineko no Naku Koro Ni:

Umineko: When They Cry is a kinetic sound novel by 07th Expansion that takes place primarily on October 4th and 5th, 1986, on the island of Rokkenjima. The rich Ushiromiya family is gathering in order to discuss what will happen to patriarch Kinzo's inheritance, since he has been ill in recent days. The protagonist, Battler, has returned to his family after 6 years of rebellion and is eager to reunite with his cousins.

While the arguments about the inheritance ensue, a typhoon traps all 18 people on the island. The family then finds a mysterious letter from a person claiming to be Kinzo's alchemy counselor, the Golden Witch, Beatrice. Beatrice claims that she has been summoned by Kinzo to claim the inheritance, as the family has been deemed unworthy of it. Unless someone solves the riddle of the epitaph on her portrait before 24:00 hours on October 5th and becomes the family successor, Beatrice will claim everything that the family owns, including the ten tons of gold that Kinzo claims will be given to the successor. This is only the beginning of the strange and shocking events that will occur on the island during these two days. Panic, reasoning, romance, heated confrontations and TONS of Mind Screw ensues.

Wolfs Rain:

The Earth sits on the edge of death; years of war between greedy Nobles have reduced the world to a handful of high-tech, Giger-esque cities amidst a barren wilderness. Only a single, small hope still remains: an old legend which says that in civilization's last days, wolves will follow the scent of lunar flowers to Paradise. It sounds promising, but no one has seen either a wolf or a lunar flower for centuries… or so they think.

The world's remaining wolves learned how to project illusions that make them look and sound human in order to protect themselves. Four such wolves — Kiba, Tsume, Hige, and Toboe — meet up in one of the decaying domed cities after noticing the scent of lunar flowers in the air. They soon discover the source of that scent: Cheza, a mysterious young girl genetically bred from a lunar flower by a group of Nobles who want to open a gateway to Paradise.

When a Noble by the name of Darcia kidnaps Cheza to use her healing powers to help his ill fianceé, both the wolves and the feuding Nobles behind Cheza's creation chase after him. An obsessive wolf hunter named Quent complicates the feud, as he knows exactly how wolves protect themselves and works tirelessly to kill them at all costs (with the help of his loyal dog, Blue).

#original post #poll

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possumcollege · 8 months ago

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NOBODY needs to be defending these people. Major publishers, studios, streaming services, Tesla, Apple, Adobe, Amazon, social media companies- there isnt a single altruistic bone caught in their teeth. Profit from the output of exploited and captive labor IS their product now. When their contacts look like the one in question, the company is clearly stating that shareholders are the customers, not us!

Why else would it be anything but a stupid idea for Amazon to just nuke the majority of Comixology's self-published titles when they consolidated their services? If our experience was really foremost in their minds, why would they repeatedly purge, censor, demonitize, bury, and delete popular accounts with robust followings if not to allay the moral brainworms of shareholders and investors?

Forfeiting rights to our IP is not a "shitty deal," it's surrendering any potential ability to make money off of your own creative work. It's selling your property to a board of accountants to pitch into a portfolio. It's theirs to trot out as long as it's profitable and bury the instant its projected profit dips too close to the cost of maintenance. Hell, we've seen services drop popular series just because their projected profits started to flatten out! Mothballing it also has the added bonus of removing it from the market to further minimize potential competition. Like how there just weren't spider man movies for ages because the owner of the property didn't think it was worth developing but worth too much to sell.

They will make more money from suing you for trying to reclaim IP they mothballed than you did selling it to them in the first place. I guaranteee their budget for lawsuits is a lot deeper than the one they pay their "original" artists from.

By virtue of being a big, profitable, corporation, "their" IP is going to have an astronomically higher value in a court of law than any individual creator. The financial "damage" will be higher for infringing on their copyrights than any amount you can claim on your own. When it becomes theirs, their connections, their infrastructure, their reputation makes it an asset with much more value than you or I can possibly claim. So if you try to steal a bite back from them it's a bite of a *potentially* multimillion-dollar series. In their eyes, they bought the totality of your work, which you agreed was worth the price they gave you. It's value becomes more dependent on who owns it than whether it's even good.

You may not have the same potential to become flash-in-the-pan, short-term succesful without their resources, but you will still own your rights to distribute, alter, preserve, promote, and negotiate your share if you still own your work. That is worth everything as a creator who is passionate about what you've made and committed to protecting it.

The most effective power we can exercise as artists is our ability to say, "no" when someone else wants to pay us a disadvantageous fraction of our worth. You may lose potentially lucrative opportunities but "opportunities" presented by companies like Facebook or Twitter, whose real product is a platform for ads and data collection, with content as bait, are not opportunities to thrive on as independent artists. This specifically is an opportunity for the company to acquire property.

The myth that the publisher's strength is something for us to exploit, without them getting the lion's share is a trap that they feed from at will.

People like the poster up top are opportunists who see the process as a pipeline towards trading low-investment content for financial treats and maybe a share of ad revive. They're stalking horses for companies to exploit more talented but less experienced artists who are facing a daunting and overwhelming market where their work becomes harder and harder to show, let alone sell. A quick deal may feel like a win but it's selling the cow to save money on bottling the milk. Artists like this serve the publisher by making it seem like signing away your rights are just a necessary part of the game. However it's a game they are playing with exceedingly cheap stakes that weren't going to succeed on their own merit. So what if Mr. Business Perspective loses rights to his sexy Mario Bros. parody to a huge company? The point was always to unload it because it's a product, a bartering chip, a trinket. He's a Business Man, so he sees tactics that maximize profits to the business as maximizing their ability to buy whatever shiny tripe he cranks out. The business is his customer, not the reader. The business is his ally, not the creative community. Fuck him and fuck anyone who tells you the exposure is worth a damn if you don't retain rights to your work.

#comics #rant

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jellytamalies · 27 days ago

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you know what would be a cool au

so there’s the idea Arthur is like merlins’s other half magically, like he has his own sort of magic as a result of being born from magic

but what if it was the opposite. What if Arthur destroyed and stopped all magic around him.

If Merlin is the source of magic/magic incarnate then Arthur is a magic void. Enchantments don’t work around him, spells fail, magic creatures die

which could be heartrenching seeing as Merlin kinda is a creature of magic

Okay imagine: Uther just started the purge. He’s been exterminating all magic around him. Then he’s summed by the Disir. Maybe he fears them, or maybe the cause a couple plages to force him, but Uther goes to revive judgement. They question him on the purge and Uther claims that “magic has harmed his family enough. So he will protect his son by exterminating it all from the land” (this is kinda bs but whatever) so the disir and like: okay man, you want magic away from your son. Then let it be so

So Uther goes home. And Arthur is fine. life continues, eventually Arthur gets sick or hurt or something, and Uther, being a big fat hipocrite, tries to get a sorcerer to help him. But it doesn’t really work. at first it’s very small things, enchantments and potions don’t really affect Arthur. But as he grows older it gets worse.

anyway he meets Merlin. Yada yada gay shit- whatever.

Merlin’s job is a little easier. Arthur can’t be enchanted or assasinated directly with sorcery, but there’s still regular ass people who want to kill him. A knife to the face will kill you regardless of whether or not it’s magic.

Arthur legalizes magic. Yay. But as it seems the golden age is near, things start going wrong. People who try to show Arthur sorcery, good or bad, just can’t. Magical creatures flee. Enchanted forests wither.

Merlin is able to overcome with curse with sheer power at first, but eventually it grows too strong even for him, and worse it starts making him sick whenever he’s too close to Arthur. They look into it and find out the real curse:

Uther , by rejecting the natural order by creating Arthur, has cost him dearly. Arthur has been stripped of his destiny. He cannot futill it without his other half, magic. So they have been forced to separate.

Arthur rejects it at first. He doesn’t need a destiny to be a king. He brings peace and creates a good kingdom. But as the curse spreads, its range of influence does as well. It comes to the point that Arthur and magic cannot co-exist is Camelot.

the ending after this is up to you I guess. Either the curse does some shit like kill Merlin or whatever. And Arthur goes crazy or he just runs away from Camelot which falls into ruin. 0 destiny fulfilled

or Arthur trains an heir, abdicates the throne, and goes to live in his farm in the middle of nowhere and Merlin bothers him via letter, while Gwen and the knights visit him

#Merlin #Merlin bbc #bbc merlin #arthur pendragon #BBC Arthur pendragon #Merlin emrys #jamstuff #anywya I just think it would be neat #I got this idea from the wide awake princess lol

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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The great fault of the global left is not that it supports Hamas. For how could Western left-wing movements or left-inclining charities or academic bodies truly support Hamas if they were serious about their politics?

No one outside the most reactionary quarters of Islam shares Hamas’s aim of forcing the peoples of the world to accept “the sovereignty of Islam” or face “carnage, displacement and terror” if they refuse. You cannot be a progressive and campaign for a state that executes gay men. An American left, which includes in its ranks the Queers for Palestine campaign group, cannot seriously endorse lethal homophobia in its own country. They will turn a blind eye in Palestine, as we shall see, but not in New York or Chicago.

Finally, no left organisation proudly honours the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the fascist tradition that Hamas embraces with such sinister gusto, although in a sign of a decay that has been building on the left for more than a generation, many will promulgate left-wing conspiracy theories which are as insane as their fascist counterparts.

No, the problem with the global left is that it is not serious about politics. It “fellow travels” with radical Islam rather than supports it. The concept of “fellow travelling,” with its suggestions of tourism, dilettantism, and privilege, is well worth reviving. The phrase comes from the Bolsheviks. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 they looked with appreciation on Westerners who supported them without ever endorsing communism. Artists, writers, and academics who were disgusted with the West, often for good reason, I should add, were quite happy to justify Soviet communism and cover up its crimes without ever becoming communists themselves.

Leon Trotsky put it best when he said of fellow travellers that the question was always “how far would they go”? As long as they did not have live under the control of communists in the 1920s or the control of Islamists in the 2020s, the answer appears to be: a very long way indeed

W.H. Auden said, as he looked back with some contempt on his fellow travelling past, if Britain or the United States or any country he and his friends knew were taken over by a “successful communist revolution with the same phenomena of terror, purges, censorship etc., we would have screamed our heads off”. But as communism happened in backward Russia “a semi-barbarous country which had experienced neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment”, they could ignore its crimes in the interests of seeing the capitalist enemy defeated.

You see the same pattern of lies and indulgence in the case of Hamas. Journalists have produced a multitude of examples of fellow travelling since 7 October but let one meeting of the Oakland City Council in the Bay area of San Francisco speak for them all.

A council member wanted the council to pass a motion that condemned the killings and hostage-taking by Hamas, who, in case we forget, prompted the war that has devastated Gaza, by massacring Israeli civilians. The motion got nowhere

According to one speaker Hamas did not massacre anyone, a modern variant of Holocaust denial that is becoming endemic. “There have not been beheadings of babies and rapings,” a woman said at the meeting. “Israel murdered their own people on October 7.” Another woman said that calling Hamas a terrorist organization is “ridiculous, racist and plays into the genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media.” Hamas was the “armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance” , said a third who clearly had no knowledge of the civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

“To condemn Hamas was very anti-Arab racist” cried a fourth. The meeting returned to modern Holocaust denial as a new speaker said the Israeli Defence Forces had murdered their own people and it was “bald propaganda” to suggest otherwise. A man intervened to shout that “to hear them complain about Hamas violence is like listening to a wifebeater complain when his wife finally stands up and fights back”.

Anyone who contradicted him was a “white supremacist.”

Of course they were.

Now if theocrats were to establish an Islamist tyranny in the Bay area, I am sure every single speaker would scream their heads off, as Auden predicted. They can turn into fellow travellers as there is no more of a prospect of theocracy threatening them than there was of communism threatening readers of the left-wing press in the UK and US in the 1930s.

A serious left would have plenty to complain about. Consider the Israeli position after the breakdown of the ceasefire. The Israeli state is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a catastrophe of a prime minister, who left his people exposed to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. His war aims are contradictory: you cannot both wipe out Hamas and free the hostages.

Worst of all, the Israeli defence forces are to move to the southern Gaza strip where two million Palestinians are crammed. Just war doctrine holds that a military action must have a reasonable chance of success if the suffering is to be permitted. How, reasonably, can the Israeli army expect to find guerilla fighters hiding in a terrified population? According to leaks in the Israeli media, Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of state, was warning the Israeli government that, “You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there.” But he was ignored. A radical movement worth having would surely be putting pressure on the Biden administration to force Israel to listen to its concerns.

The radical movement we have will not engage in practical politics because compromise is anathema to it. Any honest account of the war would have to admit that Israel has the right to defend itself against attack. It is just that the military position it finds itself in now may well make its war aims impossible and therefore immoral.

You can see why practical politics has no appeal. Where is the violent satisfaction in sober analysis, the drama in compromise? Where is the Manichean distinction between the absolute good of the Palestinians and the pure evil of Israel?

Meanwhile, ever since the Israeli victory in the Six Day War of 1967, you have been able to say that Jewish settler sites on the West Bank were placed there deliberately to make a peace settlement impossible, and ensure that Israel controlled all the territory from “the river to the sea” forever.

A serious left might try to revive a two-state solution by building an international consensus that the settlements must go. Once again, however, that is too tame an aim. For the fellow traveller watching Palestine from a safe distance, satisfaction comes only by embracing Hamas’s call for the destruction of Israel. Some progressives try to dress up the urge to destroy by pretending that Jews and Palestinians will go on to live together in some happy-clappy, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state. But most must know they are advocating a war to the death. What makes their position so disreputable is that, if they thought about it calmly, they would know it would be a war that only Israel could win. It is the Israelis who have the nuclear weapons, after all.

The worst of the global left is dilettantish. It advocates a maximalist position which has a minimal chance of success - just for the thrill of it. David Caute, a historian of fellow travelling with Stalin and communism said that the endorsement of communism by fellow travelling intellectuals in the West “deepened the despair” of Soviet intellectuals. “In their darkest hours they heard themselves condemned by their own kind”.

The 2020s are not the 1930s. I am sure that, if I were a Palestinian in Gaza, my sole concern would be the removal of Israeli forces that threatened me and my family. I would either not care about demonstrations in the West or I would receive some comfort from the knowledge that people all over the world were protesting on my behalf.

Nevertheless, a kind of betrayal is still at work. By inflaming and amplifying the worst elements in Palestine the global left is giving comfort to the worst elements in Israel, which are equally determined to make a compromise impossible.

The New Statesman made that point well when it ran a piece by Celeste Marcus. She came from the Zionist far right, and was taught doctrines that dehumanised Palestinians. She grew up and grew away from the prejudices of her childhood and became a liberal. But after she moved into her new world, she “recognised immediately that progressive leftists feel about Israelis the way radical Zionists feel about Palestinians: these are not real people.”

The result is that for all its power on the streets and in academia the global left is almost an irrelevance.

“To influence Israel,” she writes, “one must be willing to recognise it. Since leftist leaders cannot bother to do this, they cannot be of real use to Palestinians. This is a betrayal of their own cause.”

The dilettantism of fellow travelling always ends in betrayal and denial for the reason Auden gave: terror is always more tolerable when it happens far, far away.

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