#sustain our group through all our personal struggles

[cadykeus-clay]

vax, at 3 hours and 18 minutes into c1e39 omens: i don’t know what we’re doing i don’t know what our purpose is anymore, it feels like we’re running into shit for no reason, and I don’t know why I’m working with half these people the chroma conclave, 3 hours and 30 minutes into c1e39 omens: hehe

[sluglore]

Some Thoughts on Karma, the Natural Journey of Ascension, and Why the Ancients/Benefactors were Kind of Wrong

I'd like to address the community-wide misconception that you can only gain karma through "shedding your urges" when both in game and within the text of the game, we see this isn't true! the whole "shedding urges in order to ascend" stuff was only really a thing before the void fluid revolution, as Moon states in the bright red farm arrays pearl. The discovery of void fluid entirely trivialized needing to completely shed your urges by providing a much more natural method of ascension, and we see this play out within Rain World's story and gameplay.

In-game, we gain karma by directly engaging with our urges, whether it be sustaining our hunger, holding treasured items close or just survival in itself. From the beginning we are deeply ensnared within the struggles of living, "caught in the net" as the ancients/benefactors say. However, over the course of our gameplay, (I'm using survivor as a baseline, since their campaign illustrates the core of this) as we learn and grow and become more knowledged, living becomes easier, the struggle is not as harsh as it was before, and surely but slowly we die less and less as time goes on.

Simultaneously, this is reflected in our karma, as by dying less, we now hold higher karma more frequently. This coincides with the natural gameplay loop of rain world; the more we explore and learn new things, the more we grow and learn about the world and our place within it, we tread further and further away from the struggles of life, and become closer to enlightenment.

Ascension is the natural culmination of this journey of enlightenment, the next step on the path beyond. It's not inherently the right or wrong choice to make, its a step into the unknown, in search of something greater, of answers to our own existence, true spiritual self-fulfillment. This is how the ancients/benefactors saw it, but you could say they still got parts of it pretty wrong...

This is treading more into personal headcanon territory now, so bear with me, but I believe the issue lies within the great problem that the ancients built the iterators to solve. They wanted to find a means of evicting all life, material, the entire world from the cycles entirely, eliminating the personal struggle tied to ascension, taking away the choice and the journey that are so unbelievably crucial to it. This is also why I personally believe that a solution to the great problem doesn't or can't exist, as it would go against the fabric of their universe, from which the cycles are built upon. (LTTM describes the group behind this ideology as "triangulators"; they believed a solution was dangerous and had to be inferred rather than solved)

Ironically, in their desire to become effortless, by creating the iterators to make living easier, and to detach themselves from the struggles of the cycles, (just as we do within our own journey to ascension as the slugcat) this could also only be achieved through massive effort, so they even weren't truly "effortless" in the end, as nothing can be. Of course though, the few echoes in-game demonstrate that same ideology slipping through. Those ancients/benefactors became echoes because they hadn't experienced the personal journey paramount to ascension, or maybe they just didn't want to leave, but regardless, they weren't able to let go of their place in the universe and move on, and thus, they stayed behind.

TLDR: The ancients/benefactors were wrong about ascension because as a society they didn't fully recognize how important personal struggle, journey, and choice is for ascension, and sought to remove that struggle entirely.

[magic-astro-fae]

Some notes on Jupiter

Jupiter rules over both Sagittarius and Pisces

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, its placement in a chart will enlarge its expression

Jupiter can represent the grand mother and spouse

Jupiter ruled individuals may have larger/ louder personalities, voices, smiles and laughs

Jupiter rules over our humor

People w significant Jupiter placements may struggle w their follow through

These people maybe considered “jack of all trades master of none” it is difficult for these people to commit to 1 project and see it through

They’re likely to have much knowledge about many different subjects

These types may struggle with addiction/ over indulgence, hedonism, always wanting more

They’re likely to feel ‘lost’ in life, always needing newer experiences and information to sustain themselves

Jupiter ruled people maybe more inclined to falling into spiritual psychosis/ cults/ radical groups and parties

If unevolved a Jupiter placement maybe expressed as arrogant, not wanting others advice. A “know it all”

Whatever planet Jupiter touches will have a greater expression than if Jupiter was not present

Jupiter can represent areas where expression is most required for personal growth and realization

Jupiter can indicate what we like to learn about, and the subjects that interest us

Harsh aspects to Jupiter can indicate reservations in trying new things, taking on new opportunities or considering new ideologies

Jupiter represents our relationship w diversity and people/ things that differ from what we’re comfortable w

Jupiter can represent our experience growing out of our home/ roots, moving away from home

Jupiter brings us inspiration and passion

[mariacallous]

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib had a cold the first time that I reached him on the phone at his home in Pacifica, California, in June. It was the unwanted souvenir of a hectic travel schedule, as amid the war in Gaza, the 34-year-old Palestinian American—who spent much of his childhood there—has emerged as a compelling voice for peace.

Alkhatib’s vision, both pragmatic and humane, as well as his personal story, has made him an in-demand voice in the U.S. and Israeli media. While he is sought out by those looking for an antidote to despair, he is no Pollyannaish peacenik.

“I feel absolutely fucking horrendous,” he said between coughs, approximately 30 seconds into our first phone conversation.

Alkhatib’s rise to prominence began in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, when he began tweeting and writing with an awareness that he had the safety and security to say things that Palestinians living in Gaza or the West Bank could not.

“Ahmed is unique because he does speak out, and he takes a lot of shit for it,” said Gershon Baskin, an Israeli hostage negotiator and longtime ally of Alkhatib’s. “He’s a very clear, sound voice for peace, reason, and logic.”

In outlets including the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and the Times of Israel, as well as appearances on CNN, ABC, and NPR, Alkhatib has outlined positions that would seem self-evident if the discourse weren’t otherwise so profoundly broken.

Hamas, he believes, is nothing but bad news for his people, and he has condemned the group with such ferocity that it has at times earned him a security detail. He has also spoken out about the unsparing nature of Israel’s military campaign while underscoring the need for empathy for both Israeli and Palestinian victims.

“This off-the-shelf messaging came down” in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks, Alkhatib told me. “There was no space, whatsoever, to call for the release of hostages. I was equally horrified by the dehumanization of all Gazans as terrorists.”

Alkhatib describes himself as proudly pro-Palestinian, once spearheading a project to establish a humanitarian airport in Gaza. At the same time, he is a trusted broker among progressive Jewish and Israeli circles. Most extraordinary of all, he retains this clarity even though 31 members of his family have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since the war began.

“He recognizes something that a lot of policymakers don’t recognize,” said Jasmine El-Gamal, a former official at the U.S. Defense Department who now runs a consulting firm focused on empathy in foreign policy. “You won’t have that genuine sustainable peace if people on both sides don’t see the other as human. You’re just not going to have it.”

Alkhatib first came by himself to the United States in 2005, as part of a post-9/11 State Department program that brought young people from the Muslim world to study at U.S. high schools.

At 15, he was placed by the program in Pacifica, a small town on the Pacific Ocean located just south of San Francisco. His host mother, Delia McGrath, was a prominent peace activist in the area who preached the importance of nonviolence.

“That really got through to him and entered his DNA,” said Paul Totah, a Palestinian American from Pacifica who has known Alkhatib since he arrived in the area. “Despite the fact that 31 of his relatives were blown to bits by Israel,” Totah added, “he is firm in his belief that the bullet does not outweigh the word.”

McGrath, a former Catholic nun who later turned to Buddhism, participated in a Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group in the Bay Area. Alkhatib immediately wanted to join. It was in California that he had his first sustained encounters with Israelis and Jews, who until then he had only seen from afar at checkpoints in Gaza.

“We were told that’s anathema to our struggle—we don’t talk to them, we don’t normalize them, and we don’t embrace them,” he recalled.

There were moments of tension as the dialogue group struggled to bridge the largely historic trauma of the American Jewish participants and the ongoing ordeal experienced by the Palestinians.

But over time, hearing from descendants of Holocaust survivors as well as Israelis who had lived through the terror of the Second Intifada—a violent Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule that was marked by widespread protests and attacks that killed more than 1,000 Israelis—Alkhatib had an epiphany.

“This is where I learned early on that trauma and suffering don’t have to be an oppression Olympics,” he said. “Their suffering isn’t less valid just because they didn’t grow up in Gaza or didn’t live under checkpoints in the West Bank.”

Talk of intercommunal dialogue can feel flimsy considering the bloodshed of the past 14 months. But it’s equally difficult to see how a sustainable peace can be achieved without it.

“We need multilateralism as part of the top-down political solution,” Alkhatib said, adding that for peace and coexistence, “we need Palestinians and Israelis to bilaterally work together.”

Scott Fitzgerald is credited with saying that the test of a first-rate intelligence is a person’s ability to hold two opposed ideas in their head at the same time and still retain the ability to function. It is a test that many fail when it comes to the Middle East. Palpably frustrated with the zero-sum debate, Alkhatib brings to mind the American novelist’s maxim and talks frequently about the need to hold multiple truths at the same time.

Irritated by some of Palestine’s supporters in the United States who have advocated for boycotts of businesses with few ties to the conflict, he also has little time for participants in university campus protests who appeared to justify and glorify the Oct. 7 attacks as legitimate acts of resistance.

“We have fucking horrible allies,” Alkhatib said. “I want a vibrant, strong, pro-Palestine movement. I want a movement that’s based on empathy and humanity. That calls out the injustices of the occupation and the settlements, but that acknowledges that Israel is a fait accompli.”

Baskin, the Israeli hostage negotiator, said that Alkhatib has something rare: “He knows how to speak to Jewish audiences, which is a unique ability for a Palestinian.”

I saw Alkhatib do exactly this at a screening in July of Screams Before Silence, a documentary championed by former Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg about sexual violence carried out by the Hamas-led attackers.

Allegations of rape and sexual assault on Oct. 7 have become a lightning rod for some of Israel’s critics, particularly on the U.S. left, some of whom have sought to downplay and even deny claims that have been supported by the United Nations and the testimonies of survivors and first responders.

In light of efforts to minimize these accounts, Alkhatib felt it was important to accept an invitation to appear on a panel following a screening at Los Angeles’s Saban Theatre, which is owned by a local Jewish congregation.

“I can feel empathy for Israeli women; I can feel sadness and horror; I can talk to Israeli hostage families as I have,” he told the audience from the stage of the art deco theater, where he spoke alongside other Muslim American and Jewish peace advocates. “I am also critical of the war and the killing of my family members, children as young as 3 and 4 months old shredded to pieces.”

In opening remarks, the panel’s moderator said, inaccurately, that Alkhatib’s entire family had been killed in the war.

As a child, Alkhatib hoped to one day become a politician or diplomat; his parents were perplexed by his early interest in the news and his preference for sitting with the adults. Today, he is every bit the jovial uncle who loves to talk about politics at the dinner table, barrel-chested with a warm smile and shaved head.

That discursive side of Alkhatib was on show when we met for lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant on Los Angeles’s Sunset Boulevard the day after the screening. Over a mezze platter of Middle Eastern staples, he unspooled the life story that led him to eating hummus, tahini, and an errant dish of guacamole in sunny California—including his childhood in Gaza, where he became a master kite builder, and his journey to study in the United States, where he received political asylum as Hamas violently seized control of the territory in 2007.

He paused briefly during the conversation to flag down the server. “The salad, chopped-up little side salad,” Alkhatib asked, attempting to order a dish while deliberately avoiding its commonly used name.

“Israeli salad?” the waitress asked.

“That one,” he said.

Alkhatib counts many Israelis as friends and allies in his work and recognizes the country as here to stay. But he draws a line at their claim to a salad that is eaten across the Middle East.

“We literally ate this 24/7,” he said in a rare moment of obstinance.

Alkhatib was born in 1990 in the mountainous Asir region of Saudi Arabia, where his father, Fouad Alkhatib, worked as a doctor. The family vacationed in Gaza every summer and spent two years there in the late 1990s before moving back to the area permanently in 2000.

Alkhatib’s father used the money that he earned in Saudi Arabia to build a multistory family home in Gaza City’s al-Yarmouk neighborhood. Each unit of the family—including grandparents and uncles—had its own floor.

“It’s like Thanksgiving and Christmas every day,” Alkhatib said. His mother’s family, the Shehadas, lived in a similar multifamily home in Rafah’s Brazil neighborhood, which takes its name from the barracks of Brazilian U.N. peacekeepers who were once stationed in the area.

One of Alkhatib’s earliest memories is of sitting in the large yard of the Shehada family home. His grandmother, Maryam, had lined the garden with olive, fig, and guava trees, which fed the family year-round.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Maryam’s family fled Hamama, an agricultural village to the north of the present-day Gaza border, ending up in a refugee camp in Rafah. After her husband died, Maryam grew vegetables and sold ducks and chickens to support herself and her six children. Out of habit, she continued to breed them well into her retirement. Lovely but tough with a rural “felahi” accent, she was a living connection to a bygone era in the family’s history.

Alkhatib was 10 when his family returned to Gaza permanently, four months before the Second Intifada began in September 2000. Some 3,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel’s response to the uprising.

Alkhatib vividly remembers Hamas members coming to his school, banging on the windows, and urging the children to come out and protest or go to the border fence to throw rocks at Israeli checkpoints.

“Sometimes there would be buses that would take students to the borders,” he said.

As the intifada raged, Israel responded with airstrikes across the territory. The sound of loitering Apache attack helicopters menaced Gaza City as they homed in on their targets. Fighter jets came with little warning.

On the afternoon of Dec. 4, 2001, Alkhatib was walking home from school in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City when an Israeli airstrike hit a nearby Palestinian Authority building. He ran toward the flames and billowing clouds of dust to see if his friends, Mohammed, Rajab, and Ali—who had been dragging their heels behind him—were OK. Then a second strike hit. The blast wave jolted his young body, causing permanent hearing damage in his left ear.

Confused and covered in ash, Alkhatib ran home, leaping over a passed-out bystander along the way. It was only the next day that he learned that two of his friends, Mohammed and Rajab, had been killed.

Life in Gaza wasn’t easy, but Alkhatib’s memories of the period are also infused with happy childhood staples: summer days spent on the beach and playing video games with his cousins late into the night, which he credits with improving his English.

“I have some fucking amazing memories in Gaza,” he said.

An extended family that ran to well over 100 people served as the bedrock of his social world.

His aunt Zainab, the family matriarch, would regularly host the family for large gatherings at the Shehada home. The smell of her cooking wafted through the air when one reached the front door, Alkhatib remembered, as inside she prepared vast quantities of fragrant chicken and rice in large pressure cookers that shot off steam.

“You never entered her house and left hungry,” he said.

In the wake of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza in late 2023, Zainab Shehada and her brother-in-law—Abdullah Shehada, a 69-year-old retired surgeon and the former director of Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah—opened up the house to those seeking shelter as Israeli forces pushed down through the Gaza Strip, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. Rafah, its southernmost city, was thought to be safe.

Abdullah was well known in Gaza for his efforts to save lives during the Israeli response to the Second Intifada, once using his own thumb in a desperate bid to plug a bullet wound in the chest of a teenager.

Dozens of people were sheltering in the Shehada family home and its backyard when it was hit in an Israel airstrike on Dec. 14, 2023, completely destroying the three-story house.

Alkhatib’s brother Mohammed and cousin Yousef spent days digging bodies out from under the rubble. At least 31 bodies were recovered from the scene, including nine children—the youngest of whom, Alkhatib’s cousin Ella, was just 3 months old.

Five of Alkhatib’s aunts and uncles were among the dead, including Abdullah and Zainab.

“She came out headless,” he said.

The strike on the Shehada family home was examined by Amnesty International as part of an investigation published in early December in which the organization, for the first time, accused Israel of carrying out a genocide in Gaza. The investigation found “no evidence of a military objective” behind the strike.

Foreign Policy submitted an inquiry to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with coordinates, dates, and times of the three airstrikes that killed Alkhatib’s relatives, including the one on the house in Rafah. An IDF spokesperson said, “The IDF’s strikes on military targets are subject to relevant provisions of international law, including the taking of feasible precautions and after an assessment that the expected incidental damage to civilians and civilian property is not excessive in relation to the expected military advantage from the attack.”

Talking about the deaths of his relatives, Alkhatib started to slow down and lose his train of thought.

“What was I saying?” he said at one point during our lunch in Los Angeles, staring blankly into the distance for the first and only time. “I don’t like to do the fucking personal shit.”

He feels conflicted speaking about the strike publicly, not wanting to be seen as using his relatives’ deaths for clout. But there is also another reason. He cited a quote, often attributed to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, that one death is a tragedy but a million is a statistic.

“When the fucking number is that high,” he said, referring to his loss of 31 family members, “it’s hard for people to comprehend and understand and connect with.”

Alkhatib estimates that on Oct. 7, 2023, he had maybe three followers on X (formerly Twitter).

“I lived a good, quiet life that I very much miss,” he said. He had just finished graduate school and was in the process of applying for a job at the U.S. State Department.

He had done a little bit of writing before, publishing with Israel’s left-wing newspaper Haaretz and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, but he had held back on becoming too public out of concern for the well-being of his family in Gaza.

In September, Alkhatib moved to Washington, D.C., from California to take up a new position as a senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Center. He talks about policy with a passion that others might have talking about a love interest.

Policy is “what actually changes things on the ground,” he said during one of our first conversations.

Alkhatib sees a fleeting opportunity to galvanize global outrage to push for a Palestinian state. Last year, Ireland, Norway, Spain, and Slovenia recognized Palestinian statehood, joining more than 140 other countries that had already done so. But if the moment isn’t seized now, he fears it could be gone for good.

Efforts to broker a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that would also secure the release of some 100 hostages held by the militant group have dragged out for months, despite intense diplomatic efforts.

The conflict, Alkhatib believes, is approaching an inflection point. If the war ends now, he still sees the potential to rebuild a better future Gaza. The territory’s most precious resource, he said, is its people and their resilience.

The alternative scenario of a drawn-out conflict and grinding insurgency risks expending that resource entirely.

“Then I’m irrelevant,” he said. “A population with no hope for life—no hope for a better future—is an immensely dangerous population.”

[txttletale]

Apologies for the dumb question and loads of personal information, but..

I have severe moral ocd, and in the past the exploitation has actually caused me eating issues. I’d get intensely guilty whenever I ate anything bc I couldn’t avoid thinking of the exploitation that occurred to get it here and I honestly started avoided eating.

is that what im supposed to do? I know there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism but my sustained existence is reliant on food from the exploitative world of global “trade”, medicine from the oppressive pseudo jails of the psychiatric system, and technology running on copper and cobalt that people suffered to mine. I claim to be a leftist, but my sustained quality of life, god, my entire life, is dependent on the imperial core continuing to extort the rest of the world. Should I just give up?

nah. ultimately if you're a socialist you have to understand that what you do as an individual is--politically speaking--irrelevant. it's good to be aware of the harms that were done in the process of production, but it's both a political dead end and personally self-destructive to then flagellate about that. (and to be clear, if that awareness is impossible for you to maintain without falling into disordered eating behaviours, you don't need to be that aware--again, this isn't about moral duty. genuine socialist politics are never about individual moral duty, or about being a good person. there is no level of Thought or Awareness or Conscienciousness that can become a lever of meaningful political action.)

the harms have already been done by the time the commodity exists for you to access--you're not participating in or exacerbating them by using the commodity. even if you did find a way to live completely without interfacing with the systems of exploitation, those systems would continue unabated. they don't care about you. the idea that if everyone spontaneously individually decided to stop using the goods that are generated by exploitation then exploitation would end is laughable in both premises and conclusion.

you have to look at this on a material level--the 'harm' is not an abstract quality that gets infused into the fruit or the medicine or the iphone, it's not haunted, you cannot show me an atom of 'harm radiation' emitted by an out-of-season banana--the 'harm' is a series of actual events taking place somewhere in the world. and the way to combat that has nothing to do with the personal consumption of individuals--it has everything to do with organized efforts, with groups of people taking collective action to stop that harm from happening.

you're not god. you're not a dynasty warriors character. you vs. united fruit and foxconn is a losing battle. you alone can't change the world in any way that matters, good or bad. the only thing you can do is join your energy to a group, to participate in class struggle. to unionize or join a party or participate in a mutual aid network. class struggle, the marxist analysis of class struggle, the only meaningful vector of political action across myriad forms, cannot be reached or analysed through the lens of 'do my personal consumer choices make me a good or bad person'. i know it is obviously difficult to do when we live in a society that focuses on consumer choice as the be-all and end-all of personal and political and moral expression, but you have to reject that question outright.

socialism is not catholicism--the aim of left-wing politics is not to live virtuously. it is to unite as members of the working class and improve all of our lives. focus on uniting first--find the people around you who you can form organizational bonds of solidarity with--and then figure out how to participate in the class struggle together. that's the only way forward. everything else is a trap, a dead-end, or in this case, pointless self-abnegation. good luck, comrade.

[solar-sunnyside-up]

hey, something i've been struggling with recently is i've been struggling with "finding my people" because i'm a minority in my hometown, and a lot of people... aren't. they don't understand me, and often when i try to get them to understand they seem like they fall back into the old systems they were traumatized with (elitism, classism ect.,). 1/2 -solidarity anon

Im gunna say this at the top, this is so rough and im so sorry you gotta go through this sweetie. We are so isolated and filtered into categories within our current system in order to keep that isolation and to fight solidarity and unity. Now I cannot know for 100% sure what your going through or the extend your suffering. But will say I am from and currently still live in a oil loving, god fearing, anti-LGBT, and very racist city while i was raised wiccan by a poly core family and all my gay aunts/uncles and have been dreaming of an earthship my whole life plus every summer id be stuck in an even more harsh farming community that was so small they gotntheir first street light when i was 9 and the chruch is also town hall (mayor works in a wing off of the building). So there is at least some overlap in the experiences your having.

But that being said, how I got weirdly connected to people and involved in so many projects and stuff might not work for you.

Personally? I just yelled and yelled about the injustice of the system at work, about cool forestry projects and people buying ghost towns to start up Co-loving villages. Sharing discworld and different philosophers with coworkers backed up by their fave hobby. About how terrible the conservative politics are. About how cool transit could be if we funded it. About community art projects and how cool solar glass would make things look. About drags shows and events and did you know there is A SOUP FESTIVAL? I'm autistic and have only really interacted my whole childhood with friends with ADHD so my brain is weird and won't shut up once it starts going.

As a result of my ramblings, I have gotten a lot of responses mostly ones that are positive since if they didn't agree with my absurdist philosophy ramblings or solar project ideas they'd just leave the coffee shop. If they enjoyed it, say they want to join a community garden/event or if someone was as stoked as I was about again UNLIMITED TASTINGS SOUP FESTIVAL than we'd chat about that. The thing is a lot of these things have overlap. Someone who wants to convert their lawn into a pollinators habitate prob also likes little libraries and as a result prob also likes the idea of dark sky street lights. And down the rabbit hole you go.

That being said... my best actual advice is 2 pronged.

RESEARCH and REACH OUT

I personally have done years worth of research on my city. What local events and politics are happening? Even in rural places there is at least garderns, there's engineers, there's usually a LGBT focused club. And from these spaces, you can build a network. Doing research I found out about 5 different organizations in my city (most of which was founded 40 yrs ago??) That where sustainability focused. Doing research made me realize how cool community associations could be and how I could help mine out. It also gives you all those ideas for convos.

Second, I reached out to those groups about weird ideas I had, about if I could hang up posters for them in my local area, if I could buy groups worth of tickets in advance, and than also reaching out to the ppl I already talked to and had these ppl interact. My fave example of this is T. T is an engineer who built a fully functioning solar car during his degree program but specializes in hydroponics (how we ended up talking was over plants) he than gets shown my fave farm near by and now he's building the farms hydro system and Seedling house. Writing in to newsletter ppl and showing off weird layout design. This is ultimately very anxiety indusing. What if I'm bothering them? Why should I be spamming them like this? But the secret here is-

No one will ever be mad about you showing interest in their interest once you find those ppl. They want the interaction just as much as you do.

[tinkerbelle05]

Sully Family Modern AU Headcanons

Characters: Jake, Neytiri, Kiri, Tuk, Neteyam, Mo’at, Lo’ak

Warnings: None :)

Summary: Just some headcanons of what the Sully’s would be like in our modern world

Taglist & Masterlist

Jake

Jake would def be a military dad and sometimes be doing too much but Netyiri always drags him back to earth

Goes all out for his kids’ extracurricular activities. He’s always there with a camera or trying to tell his kids what to do

Sometimes can get hard on his kids (esp Lo’ak) bc he wants to them to not make the same mistakes he did

Runs a nonprofit to help warriors who lost their limbs and/or struggling with PTSD from the first war

A girl dad all the way, he folds so hard when it comes to Kiri and Tuk

Is best buds with Tonowari and is always trading embarrassing stories with him

Much to their children’s dismay

Sometimes they go on camping trips together

Loves to prank his children and embarrassing them lovingly

Finds it hard to talk about Tommy and Tsu’tey but wants his kids to know their uncles so he pushes through

Listens to classic rock and country, you cannot tell me otherwise

Tries (and fails) to get his kids into it

Neytiri humors him at times and would admit (not to his face tho) that some of it is good

Neytiri

She is an instructor at a really good archery school

Loves to drink tea and Kiri always buys her different kinds from her “impulsive drives”

Still does all of the kids’ hair and retwist Jake’s locs for them

Save money and she makes it into a self-care for the person

And the kids do her hair as well

Is a mama bear and not afraid to tell someone off to protect her family

Is really into sustainable to protect Pandora

She mostly listens to podcasts but has a shared playlist with Jake

Teaches her kids self-defense and takes it very seriously

Helps out with fundraising for her kids clubs and schools if needed

But not really involved in the pta unless it involves her kids directly

She respects boundaries but really hates it when her family is in distress and won’t say anything

Goes on walks and hikes with Jake

They have a weekly date night to de-stress from the kids

Neteyam

School President and captain of whatever school team he plays for. Maybe soccer or volleyball

Girls, guys, honestly anyone whoever is attracted to guys def looked Neteyam’s way twice

But all those good looks but no rizz at all

What a shame

Lo’ak said it skipped Neteyam and went straight to him

Into mangas but his taste in them are all over the place. One day reading Haikyuu the next reading The Promised Neverland

Big 180

Similarly, his tastes are the same in music. Some day into indie the next heavy rock. But if asked, his favorite is indie full stop

Would be valedictorian of his school and all the teachers love him

Saved up for his first car and would die before he lets Lo’ak get behind the wheel

Road rage driver and got it from his parents

Is a tutor who does it for money but will help someone outta the kindness of his heart if needed

Feel immense pressure to be the best at everything he does. Which leads to burnout and his family stepping in

That intervention led to lots of hugs and tears

Promises to do better on Jake’s part

Had a Hamilton the musical phase, and sometimes will go back to the songs he really likes

Kiri

Really into crystals, plants, and herbalism

Has a garden in their backyard that is extremely well-taken care of

Into activism for many groups but her main focus would be the environment

Doesn't want Pandora to turn into Earth now

Has a well-known blog dedicated to plants and helps inform ppl about the dangers of greenhouse emissions

Her fashion taste is long but breathable dresses and doc martens

Goes thrift shopping with Neytiri and that's how she met Tsireya and her mom

While their moms had a rocky start the two girls were besties since the beginning

Prolly sapphic if I'm being honest with you

The only one that Neteyam trust with his car

A vegan and convinced her family to have non-meat Mondays

Has been bullied in the past for being “weird” and now has a silver tongue. People think twice before saying something slick to her. Bc it’s either her words or her brothers’ fist

Cuts her own hair. The first time was an impulse but she loves the way it looks so she continued

Has this really calming presence around her that attracts ppl but she prefers to do her own thing.

Lo’ak

Definitely into hip-pop,rap, and r&b (I will not be convinced otherwise)

Wears a lot of street wear style clothes but those Nike techs got him in a chokehold

Always in detention for fighting someone or playing a prank that blows up in his face

Room a mess 24/7 but somehow has an order to it that only he understands

Like Neytiri or Neytam would ask him to find something and he’ll get it within 5 seconds

One of those to joke flirty with a lot of girls but if it’s someone he really like (like Tsireya for example) he get real shy around her

Owns a skateboard and is always at the skatepark. It’s how he made peace with Rotxo after their lil scuffle on the first day of school

And by proxy Ao’nung

When he wants to, he can get really deep and have personal conversations with a person

Will probably play a sport like hockey or something that’s really action based

He got that W rizz on lock, at least that’s what he claims

Into animes like Blue Lock, AOT, Chainsaw man

But can't get into the mangas for some reason

When he was younger a stray dog saved him. Convinced his parents to adopt the dog. Named him Palkan

Tuk

An iPad kid and loves Toca Boca

Also kids bop and the family hates it

She’s a picky eater

Bc the songs are just stuck in their heads

Wants to do every sport and join every club.

Settled on girl scout for the cookies and friends, but mostly cookies

Charges her family extra for boxes

Always gets her way bc everyone is wrapped around her finger

And honestly, Jake and Neytiri gave up on parenting

Definitely called Ao’nung a penis face at least once

After that Jake and Neytiri had a serious discussion around what can and cannot be said around a 7 year old w/ the older kids

Has caught Lo’ak sneaking out on multiple occasions and uses it to blackmail him

Most ppl (at least Tsireya) think he’s a loving older brother. But the fam knows something is up

Is not in charge of packing her own lunch bc it's literally all junk food

Once a month,she, Kiri, and Neytiri have a girl’s day. Each of them can choose what they do each month.

Gets the most money from Grandma when birthdays comes around

She is in love with Starbucks and mainly spend her cash money on getting drinks that sounds or looks good. If she don’t like the drink, then she gives it to Kiri to finish them

Bonus:

Mo’at

Spoils her grandchildren way too much

But there is not much Jake and Neytiri can do about it

Says she has no favorites but it is 100% Kiri

Still thinks about her dead husband and is sad that he’ll never meet his grandchildren or his son-in-law

Has seen and know it all

If the kids are having trouble they go to her for advice but she so wise in all matters

Has traveled the world more than once and would love to do it again

But is still a homebody

Really spiritual and it’s something she and Kiri bond over

For all her loving, she will give her family a harsh talking to if needed

Total badass, where you think Neytiri got it from?

————————————————————————

Like, repost, comment if you wish. See ya in the next one 👋🏿

[mdhwrites]

The Good of Penacony

I said I wanted to make a blog about the positive elements of Penacony and I meant it, especially since I really enjoyed the new content pretty much until after the first new boss. Some of what came after makes it hard for me to still enjoy what came before but there is plenty of good still, even in this main content.

So, of course, Star Rail 2.0 Spoilers ahead.

So a LOT of what's good is centered around Firefly. For as much as in my original blog I railed against her death, she is this bad trope done EXCEPTIONALLY well. Her scene on the rooftop is the best in all of Star Rail, hands down. Not only that but she doesn't feel like a cinnamon meant to die. She has a real personality, can be distrusting, isn't a complete airhead, still had her own secrets until she died and her own motives and desires. As far as Star Rail characters go, she is genuinely one of the best.

It's why her death hurts so much. I see people trying to joke about it and it causes twinges in my chest. I see people celebrating her and feel joy about it. She is a character who I'm really unhappy to have gone. If the writing was truly just bad, this wouldn't have happened.

A large part of what helps in all of this is that during the time you spend with her, the game drops the mysteries, mostly, and drops its pretensions to genuinely be fun. Instead, it is enthusiastic about its setting in a way we haven't been before. Firefly truly, genuinely loves the dream of Penacony and has a good reason to since it's the only place she can truly live now. She makes the biggest argument anyone could for why the dream must stay. Why it would be such a tragedy for it all to collapse.

I think the time with Sampo is really the only lull with the time with her. 'Sampo' isn't bad mind you. Sparkle may be no fun, part of why I don't like her, but while pretending to be a fun character she gives some good chances to snark and some good jokes. She also introduces neat mechanics and while the Tatalov stuff is entirely pointless, it's a fine distraction. It helps sell the absurdity of dreams.

The dungeons help in this regard too. The dreamscape that's being worked on is majestic and the bird's eye view you have to take to traverse it only helps you drink in the grandeur to this new addition to Penacony. The shooting stars like streaming fireworks are awe inspiring and Firefly is just the cutest little thing with each and every one that you do with her. It's honestly the first time that our party has truly helped add to the atmosphere of a dungeon.

This isn't as true for the Child Dreamscape but that's okay as now we descend into the uncertainty and horror of dreams. This is also part of Penacony's strength from a design perspective. I never felt like the Loufu really supported its own themes too well, nor enhanced its storytelling, with its dungeons. You go through too bland, faceless of environments for that. Penacony is entirely different. The enemies, world design and even how you traverse are genuinely trying to work in parallel with what they're trying to go with for the concept of the planet.

And man... Something Unto Death is a masterfully designed boss. My brother and I were assuming that if Sam was the boss that made sustainers shine (which kind of is true. Sam is awkward as far as a boss fight goes and I'm curious what consensus on him will be) then Unto Death would be the boss for multi-DPS teams. That it was anti-hyper carry.

Which, arguably, it still is. It still wants you rocking at least two DPSes but specifically MULTI target DPSes. Erudition isn't completely the king here though. Because they're starting to acknowledge DoTs as still dealing damage, it's really the Nihility boss and I like that there is one in main content that is specifically weakest to that group. DoT teams struggle after all in the current DPS test focused end game content and having a boss that makes them feel more relevant is a great addition.

Also, I will shout out that despite the fandom thinking the era of Hunt is over, Sam currently appears to be best fought against with Hunt characters. Their speed helps them keep up with Sam, their ults chunking so much weakness off of him is extremely useful if you don't want to have to burn down your own health to get him out of his super state and their overall extremely high damage even outside of ults against this single target mean they can make him suffer the hardest. For as much as I think the Sam fight currently feels like a giant slog, and I worry what a phase 2 and 3 will look like with him, I still respect what they're trying to do with him. If arguably Argenti is a better version of the Yanqing fight though, I'm excited to see what the better Sam fight is.

And there's still plenty of other characters I do like. Gallagher was great in his brief appearance. Misha is adorable and I'm sad we're not getting a companion quest with him. Black Swan might be an idiot right at the end but she is the most competent manipulator amongst the cast of manipulators and at least when she tells me that she's doing it for good reasons, I actually believe her. Heck, I even liked when I first met Aventurine. It's genuinely a problem for me that he's being built up to be the super cool hero of this story next to us that makes me dislike him so much because nothing about his previous appearances sold him that way. An idiot who has gotten too much power, too quickly, and is used to relying on his status getting shut down because he's finally having to deal with people with real power and skills though? I was excited for that with his first couple appearances.

I genuinely really want to like Penacony. The fact that so many things took a step up (I didn't even mention how while the elites might be easy, I think their gameplay and visual designs are amazing) is a really great thing that helped add to the possibility space to the writing. It even started trying to ape Shakespeare by trying to tell us how the story would go from the beginning.

It's just... Nothing about the patch has me excited for where it goes except for the potential for Firefly to come back. Not from the main story at least. That's just a real shame, especially after I actually did manage to get on the hype train for Penacony. I don't usually get to do that.

The last note I'll leave on is my theory for Acheron: If she is an emanator, she is the Emanator of Nihility. She brings things to an end but more importantly for this: She herself is constantly being emptied out. Her lack of memory? Her ability to get lost so easily? Those come from parts of her mind literally being consumed by her nature. It would also explain why she potentially might not know she's an emanator (that's speculation) but also be why she reacts to you the way she does. Not enough of HER is there to not be affected and changed by how you treat her and the emotions you put out. Hence the red text that changes for different players.

And I'll admit that I am excited to see if I'm right. Acheron is probably my favorite Penacony character currently who is still alive and I'll still be pulling on her banner (after it took 160 pulls for Black Swan *sobs*). I just hope Penacony improves, leans more into the dream rather than the mystery and honestly that for a while, Star Rail just stops trying to do mysteries because I don't think they're good at it. Ratio's continuance sucked for it and the thin veneer of it here is dragging everything down.

And that's a shame when so much of it is so high.

======+++++======

For those who want to see me being angrier about it, and talking about how terrible both Firefly and Robin's deaths are, you can find that blog over here. That was admittedly done with a lot more emotion than this blog was but I still stand by it for the most part.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[frumfrumfroo]

Are there any big no-no's when it comes to time skips and/or separation in romantic arcs that span multiple entries?

I mean, if you're asking me personally, the no-no is doing it at all. I dislike time skips and separations as a general principle lol.

But as far as telling an effective story, I think it's just a case of making sure that it actually serves a necessary purpose, that it feels authentic both in that it's something the characters would actually allow to happen and in its effects on them, and that you aren't just killing all your narrative momentum by doing it. Because I think that's the main issue with a lot of separations in romance- it can totally destroy the tensions and build up that your audience is there for.

People seem to forget a lot, but romance is in many ways a kind of suspense, and to sustain that sense of anticipation without exhausting the audience is already a fairly delicate balance, so introducing a big separation can be a gamble. You risk losing the immediacy, you risk losing investment, you risk making it seem like the relationship maybe isn't that important to the characters involved or to the narrative arc.

So basically, it has to be justified. It has to feel like an obstacle put the in path of our couple which they cannot avoid but must overcome. When it's something we go through with them, we can be rooting for them and kept invested by their pov and their struggle, but when it's something like we left off at a cliffhanger and the next installment picks up two years later... That, I would say, has to be earned and it has to come at a place in the arc before any romantic resolution has been accomplished.

If you're going to do that, some big shit better have changed when you pick back up. eg: the TLJ cliffhanger is a breakdown in communication after Rey and Ben thought they were on the same page and discovered they weren't, both desperately wanting to be together and having it fall apart because of internal obstacles which manifest as an external space battle. The way to have a time skip is to radically shake up the circumstances so the internal obstacles can be approached from a different angle. We come back to discover the First Order is still using him as a figurehead, but actually Ben's gone missing, we come back to discover Hux has formed a splinter group within the ranks and there's a power struggle, etc.

You don't want character or relationship development of your pov characters to take place 'off screen', ever, because that's the thing we care about. But plot events which leave them floundering or throw them into turmoil, which triple down on their emotional state and position them to address the flaws that put them in the situation we last left them in, those are good reasons to have a time skip.

The big no-no, imo, is the classic bad kdrama time skip/separation, where you take people at the end of their romance arc, who have resolved their feelings for each other but haven't figured out the way forward yet, and are headed into their happy ending, and then randomly waste 1-3 years of their lives for absolutely no reason before then having an anticlimax final episode where they finally actually get together, but it's mid and awkward because all the urgency and momentum is gone. That's just aggravating.

[dailyanarchistposts]

From anti-heteronormativity to anti-capitalism

The vomit performance described earlier can be interpreted as capitalist consump- tion. The ‘top’, or the dominant capitalist ideology, force-feeds products to the receptive consumer or ‘bottom’. As ‘the bottom struggles to keep taking in more than he really can’, as in middle-class debt-driven consumerism, and ‘the top is careful to give him just enough to stretch his capacities’, the same way capitalism stretches our capacities, ‘a dynamic is established between them in which they carefully keep at the threshold of gagging’ against consuming too much. Berlant and Warner figure this as erotic and the vomiting that follows as a sexualized ‘climax’, as the top offers his stomach for the stream of ejaculate/ vomit.

Susan Bordo considers vomiting emblematic of the contradictions between capitalist production and consumption:

In advanced consumer capitalism ... an unstable, agonistic construction of personality is produced by the contradictory structure of economic life. On the one hand, as ‘producer-selves’, we must be capable of sublimating, delaying, repressing desires for immediate gratification; we must cultivate the work ethic. On the other hand, as ‘consumer-selves’ we serve the system through a boundless capacity to capitulate to desire and indulge in impulse; we must become creatures who hunger for constant and immediate satisfaction. (1990: 96)

Consumerism cultivates the construction of the desire for consumerism itself, which extends beyond the desire for products to encompass the desire for a situ- ation of consumption in which there is a secure assumption that you can have everything you could possibly desire. The body cannot sustain these contradictions, however, even as every queer subject cannot participate in a counterpublic that calls for marginalized quasi-privatized gay-village spaces of consumerism predi- cated on public displays of perfect (white male) bodies indulging in capitalist excess. Vomiting is a bodily expression of the unsustainability of capitalism. This takes on a gendered dynamic as well, as Bordo has found. Women are supposed to make ourselves so ‘slender’ that we almost disappear, a disappearance that leads to multiple marginalizations in queer commercial spaces that demand entrance fees (class), are dominated by cis men (sex), are spaces that either reject or exoticize racialized groups (race), and demand specific body images (able-bodiness). Bordo argues that this ‘embodies the unstable ‘double-bind’ of consumer capitalism’ (1990: 99), as well as suggesting the untenability of women’s bodies within mascu- linist, heteronormative, racist, ableist, capitalist systems.

Queer commerce thus cannot empower all subjects. ‘Visibility in commodity culture is in this sense a limited victory for gays who are welcome to be visible as consumer subjects but not as social subjects’ (Hennessy, 1994–95: 32). It is precisely this social subjectivity that is at stake in anti-capitalist queer social movements.

Exhibit B: Projectile zine

In the 1990s my friend Leah and I produced a zine called Projectile: Stories about Puking, containing sections called, ‘Where to puke in Toronto’, ‘The Montreal Puke’ and ‘The Red Puke’ partner puke reviews, and ‘Colour-code yer puke’, with a cen- terfold depicting one of our friends bent forward projectiling a stream of puke from his mouth. Other punk issues covered included band reviews, condom reviews for sluts, the punk Beer Olympics in New York City, squatting, and police brutality. (Jeppesen and Visser, 1996)

We were always puking so we made a zine about it. For us puking was the fullest expression of an authentic excessiveness in a life lived with the kind of intensity disallowed by polite society. Puking at 7:00am after drinking all night at punk clubs and after-hours bars in a subway train full of commuters was the ultimate cathar- sis. Your head heated up, your face started sweating, your body trembled, you vibrated from toe to head, and that surge produced something of you, a kind of self-production, a collectively approved explosion against everything. The com- muters, staring in disgust, reproduced your disgust at society, as you passed the affect of disaffectation back to them.

These moments created and accelerated our passion and self-rebuilding. We were not caught up in surfaces of life, the body, cleanliness, linear time. Instead we lived in urban grit, by crumbling graffitied walls under train bridges, displaying the broken glass edges of our skin, enjoying the feeling of the piercing needle going in welling up our eyes, the tattoo gun drilling down through our skin. Scarification, cutting, branding, vomiting and fucking intensified our lives. Puking was the cul- mination of a night of fully engaged participation in the most intense gruelling enjoyable expressive living. Fucking was the culmination of an intense connection to another person, a letting go of bodily control, a full-on head-on encounter with another being. Both explosive and expulsive, they gave a sense of finality to the proceedings: Now I’m done. I have lived tonight to the fullest extent of my capac- ity, exceeding norms on so many fronts. ‘Where to puke in Toronto’ lists the grittiest corners of the city, back alleys with the stench of French fry vats and dead pigeons, ‘behind Sneaky Dee’s just outside the kitchen (or just inside)’, dark graffitied streets, abandoned houses, gravelly urban parks like the ‘junkie park at Dundas and Bathurst’ or ‘Kensington park in the sex bushes’ (Jeppesen and Visser, 1996). These were places we loved, we marked our territory with sex and vomit. Puking and fucking in public spaces and naming those spaces our own created a liberatory underground culture. This piece de´tournes the tourist guide ‘Where to dine out in Toronto’ turning consumption/dining in public by the privileged classes into production/vomiting in public by the underclasses. Puking was explicitly anti- capitalist, anti-consumerist and anti-spectacle. The two partner puke reviews tell relationship stories through vomit rated by ‘colour’, ‘texture’, ‘sound’, and ‘loca- tion’. What did it reveal about the relationship? ‘I always think of [them] fondly and somewhat pathetically when I’m hungover’ (Jeppesen and Visser, 1996), con- cludes one review. Puking and fucking drew us closer, creating zones of unmediated shared intensities. Vomiting is a sex-like manifestation of the non-normative, the ejaculate/projectile stream is a ‘fuck you’ on the pedestrian sidewalk of society. It expresses only its own intensities. It is the Deleuze and Guattarian body without organs (1983), literally ejecting its own organs, intensely embracing other bodies without organs. Love and intimacy are created in these moments which would be shameful in consumer culture where intimacy is produced in circumscribed places through consumerism – fancy restaurants, expensive gifts and so on. The excesses of affect and intimacy produced by vomiting and sex in public challenge hetero- normativity and its direct ties to capitalism.

Moreover, the boundary between public and private is thrown into crisis, per- haps even evacuated by the eroticized vomit performance and Projectile’s ‘stories about puking’, whereby both create non-shaming spaces as the body’s innards are put on display. Not just the sexualization of the act of vomiting, but the collapse of bourgeois decorum in the act of ‘puking’ are transgressions of boundaries linked to the public/private divide, including non-normative sexuality, public performance of bodily functions, the reinscription of positive affect onto normatively negative acts, an overshare of expressive personal proclivities, an outward display of punk pov- erty through the lack of private space in which to vomit and so on. Furthermore, the zine, as a form of autonomous media, creates its own fluid anti-capitalist autonomous public. Queer radicals have thus become anti-capitalist, recognizing ‘that heteronormative forms, so central to the accumulation and reproduction of capital, also depend on heavy interventions in the regulation of capital’ (Berlant and Warner, 2000: 327). But gay capitalism has been quick to establish norms of homosexuality consistent with consumerism.

[thunderheadfred]

It’s my birthday so as a gift to myself I’m listing all my personal growth from the last few months

Lost 50+ pounds, well on my way to shedding 100+. Did this very simply with zero self-hatred or shame. Intermittent fasting and sugar elimination were pretty much the only requirements. Took time to adjust and a willingness to cook more, but that was the only struggle. In addition to the weight loss, my inflammatory and immune problems have been greatly improved. Chronic fatigue is still with me, but isn’t dictating every second of my day, and I hope CFS continues to diminish as I get healthier. Resources I used are now helping my dad reverse pre-diabetes, which is the cherry on top.

Went through perhaps the worst existential crisis of my entire life (and boy howdy, I’m well-rehearsed) and didn’t die. Didn’t die so hard I actually woke up from decades of numbness and changed my entire life almost overnight. This “instant” change was enabled by several years of work via intensive outpatient, group therapy, 1-on-1 therapy, medication, and deep interior work I’ve done on my neurochemistry and mental health. It feels like foundations were laid for me to finally take a huge forward step into hope and change. I finally let God back in, and have felt vulnerable, humbled, and vibrantly alive in a way I haven’t experienced since childhood.

Started re-exploring my own spiritual health, perhaps the most difficult and intense part of this transformation. Deeply personal, difficult to find words. No labels for it. See re-enrolling in college, below. Much to learn. Adjacent to this, have encouraged Catholic husband to join an inter-faith climate group, which he did. His parish church now looks likely to form their own climate support group in addition.

Re-enrolled in college for fall 2023. Built a 3-year interdisciplinary plan to graduate with a major in Dakota Language and American Indian studies, with minors in sustainable agriculture, art history, and art.

Became involved in local politics; I’ve personally met my senator and congressperson and thanked them for their work. They know me by name and I will continue to keep up with legislation on local and federal levels, vote in every election, and advocate for policies I believe in.

Started educating myself on the policies that have shaped our current situation. This is often overwhelming, and I remind myself constantly to do it in stages, to not burn myself out or get lost in anger and hopelessness. Nevertheless, it must be done. In particular, I’m finding Robert Reich’s free YouTube course invaluable for this, though it has made me cry several times. Labor movements are taking off across the country and this gives me immense hope that I’m far from the only one sharing in this experience. Millions of us are waking up to our own democratic power, and we can change things together, one step at a time.

Also started researching absolutely everything about reducing my personal carbon footprint, increasing self-sufficiency, and having at least some baseline readiness for disaster scenarios, a process that continues. Immediately stopped eating beef and pork (and most meat, actually), stopped purchasing things online and from big box stores (whenever feasible) and started walking to our local grocery co-op several times a week.

Encouraged husband to get involved in our HOA, a goal he’s had since we moved but was unable to make good on because of his work schedule (now blessedly changed) - we will soon be making a concentrated effort to meet all of our neighbors, initiate neighborhood gatherings, and encourage green initiatives in our immediate community.

Joined the local arm of 350.org. Have already done tabling and multiple advocacy campaigns. Husband is on the clean transportation team, focused on bringing electric school buses to schools. I’m on the food systems team, currently working on expanding our state’s farmer’s market SNAP program so more people have access to affordable local produce.

Expanded my patio garden to several raised planters full of herbs that I’ve been regularly using. A few things didn’t work out, but I’m learning what thrives in that location and have grown the most delicious tomatoes I’ve ever eaten, with basically zero effort. Working on a plan to build a small deer-proof Three Sisters food garden in our limited backyard space.

Started my basement cannabis grow tent, have two plants thriving and bringing me joy when I talk to them every day and tell them what lovely ladies they are.

Converted all our household power draw to sustainable wind (this took all of one phone call to our utility provider) and in a few days we will have meters installed on both our hot water tank and our air conditioner, so those are cycled during peak hours for even less energy consumption.

Started fishing together with one of my oldest childhood friends and my dad. Went from zero outdoors experience to learning how to hook minnows without flinching and hold a beautiful emerald-green bass in my hands. An amazing experience that will continue through the season.

[topazadine]

Here talking again

I really don't know how anyone is coping right now except if they are totally, willfully ignorant. I think about almost nothing but Palestine all throughout the day and feel completely ashamed by any minor complaint I have.

I feel bad for every drink of water, even though that it doesn't impact Palestinian. I know the food I eat wouldn't be sent to Gaza, I feel guilty for even having it. Every time I go to the store I compare it to the images I have seen and feel genuinely disgusted that there is so much I could buy.

It's not fair. Not fair at all. It is a heavenly injustice that I, through no conscious effort of my own, was born in a time, place, and race that affords me opportunities, security, and freedom to do just about anything I want.

Every Palestinian, every Sudani, every Rohingya, everyone should have what I do. Even if it takes different forms (which it certainly will), they should all have the right to food and water, to secure housing, to self-expression, to education, to mental health access, to reproductive freedom.

This isn't a radical ideology, no matter what capitalist society will say. In fact, it is capitalism which has taken all those things away from our world as a whole and sold it back to us as a commodity, as a privilege, as something we have to claw back through constant political pressure and, at times, physical violence.

We weren't designed for a world like this. We weren't meant to be like this. We shouldn't have to watch another culture be massacred and scream as loud as we can and for it to make almost no difference, because we're controlled by monsters who don't listen to our pleas.

Genuinely, only three things are keeping me going right now.

The first is the images of my favorite Palestinian accounts sharing their brief moments of peace: meeting other peoples' pets, playing with children, interviewing other Palestinians to hear about their dreams once the massacre is over and they are free.

The second, much as I hate to admit it as a non-violent person, are videos from the resistance fighters. Seeing them repel the invading army through sheer grit and ingenuity is deeply inspiring. I wish they never had to take up arms, but they are doing this for their families, for their friends, for their community. They are doing it to keep their whole culture alive, and that is something very powerful.

Lastly, the third is seeing the enormous groundswell of consistent, continued pressure from people all around the world. I have never seen this much focused attention for such a sustained period in my lifetime, especially as protestors are striking back at the highest echelons of power. The intensity of the protests and direct action is almost unprecedented, especially as it is happening everywhere.

This is the Palestinians' fight, and we are only supporting them as best we can, but their struggle for freedom is going to have lasting reverberations for our entire global society. People are finally awake, connecting the dots, recognizing that we've been betrayed by our governments, fighting back against manufactured consent. It will impossible to put us all back to sleep again; when Palestine is free, we'll continue putting pressure on every corrupt system, standing up and developing a community until we can no longer be silenced.

There is going to be a chain reaction of other groups, both in the United States and abroad, using this momentum to get back their self-governance. We are ushering in an era of neofeudalism, where the locus of power is close to home and we aid other communities but don't interfere. Free communication and respect, mutual aid and solidarity, but a deep and abiding reverance for those who truly love their land.

As agonized as I am by the horrendous, heart-ripping tragedy, I also feel a renewed sense of purpose, a breathless optimism for the future, a surge of energy for a global revolution.

I want this to happen more than anything. I want all of us to be free. We can no longer accept hegemonic bludgeoning and a remorseless hoarding of power. We have never been more connected or more in step with one another everywhere, never been more invested in each others' struggle.

There are many dissenters, of course, who can't tolerate change and who want to cling to their racist, occluded worldviews. But we are stronger, and greater in numbers, and far more dedicated to our cause. Palestine will win. We will win. And this is what makes it possible not to lose myself in despair.

[sunnunderthesun]

"We organized the very last show in 2023..."

Whether to address societal issues or personal traumas of people, forum theatre coupled with psychodrama have been used by NGOs in a number of tormented African nations.

The Brazilian theatre practitioner, Augusto Boal, is known as the creator of forum theatre – an interactive form of theatre in which the audience becomes “spect-actors” when they intervene and change the course of the play. Psychodrama occurs as the actors portray their real-life struggles and explore their anguishes. Spreading messages of awareness and resilience through masquerade and embryonic dramas has been around in Africa since times immemorial. But Boal’s method of forum theatre is now being applied in an effort to unite Africans in regions of tension.

In the book Art and Conscientization (2015), Claus Schrowange writes about his experiences of developing and organising plays with groups in Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo “for the promotion of peace, human rights, and sustainable development”.

According to him, “The ideal Forum Theatre performance is indoor with 20 to 100 spectators, in a hall of the size of one to three classrooms. The larger the audience, the less intense the program. ... Actors should not use microphones, not even during open air performances. Microphones destroy the natural voice which is necessary to project emotions to the audience. ... Our actors only wear uniform T-shirts, most of the time in black and white, with black trousers or skirt. They remove wristwatches, necklaces, earrings and any other item that attracts unnecessary attention. In order to open the senses and energy flow and make better use of their body, they always perform barefoot. ... The play is the heart of the activity. Our goal is to leave the audience astonished, inspired, confused, and enlightened at the same time. We motivate them to become active in their daily lives and within their limited means and powers, to act against all kinds of injustice, violence and Human Rights abuses. ... The actors don’t need to be experts in theatre, but they have to be open to discover themselves and share their real emotions on stage. Actors should act in the language they are using in their own daily life. When it is not possible, more emphasis should be given on the non-verbal expression and the verbal part should be reduced to a minimum.”

However, theatrical attempts to unite different African communities, especially those engaged in decades-long violence against each other, aren't easily welcomed. In areas prone to violence between militant groups and government forces, many adults and children end up becoming soldiers to survive in the absence of employment or education opportunities. The children get drugged and the women and girls are raped by armed men. The forcibly-displaced surviving civilians have deep emotional scars and distrust for NGOs.

“Africa independence was a masquerade, and most of the scourges that devastate this region are consequences of government irresponsibility, and the lack of some politicians’ awareness. They promulgate laws and change them, but they don’t ensure that the entire population has understood them: the first victims of this situation are not enlightened. This is the environment in which our Theatre of the Oppressed group is working,” writes Eliezer Kasereka who, along with his friend, once violently protested against plays organised by Schrowange in Kiwanja because his Theatre of the Oppressed mixed Rwandans and Congolese when there were allegations that Rwanda supported the rebel groups operating in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. But Schrowange and his group were able to influence Kasereka into experiencing “the power that Theatre of the Oppressed has to change minds and heal hearts”.

Since the beginning of 2016, Joseph Tsongo, the founder and CEO of Amani-Institute ASBL, and his friend Eliezer Kasereka, supported by the NGO APRED-RGL, began to use “participatory forum theater in psychodrama style” to help the child soldiers, who had managed to escape from the deadly clutches of armed groups, reintegrate into the society that feared them. They used to host theatre workshops at least once a week in the north-eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Last month, we contacted Mr. Tsongo to learn when the last forum theater was held by him, considering the present crisis in the country. On April 2nd, 2024, he said, ...we organized the very last show in 2023 due to the deteriorating security situation in the region, as well as due to a lack of necessary resources. (His original reply in French: En effet, nous avions organisé le tout dernier spectacle en 2023 et cela en raison de la détérioration de la situation sécuritaire dans la région mais aussi par manque de moyens nécessaires.)

In this regard, worthy of mention is Milo Rau’s solution-driven political theatre, The Congo Tribunal, involving the “victims, perpetrators, witnesses and analysts of the Congo War in Bukavu/Eastern Congo”. It explores the war in Congo – triggered by the West-sponsored Rwandan Genocide (1994) and fuelled by the powerful capitalists’ greed for the country’s natural resources necessary to run the technology of the 21st century – that has claimed the lives of over six million Congolese people. Based on The Congo Tribunal, Rau’s opera called Justice is “the first lyric work on the crimes of transnational companies ever” developed with the victims of the Glencore copper mine accident at Kabwe, aiming to raise funds for them. Justice will be taking the audience "to the heart of the Congolese mining industry", at Tangente St. Pölten Festival in Austria on 30th April, 2024.

However, the Congolese people, struggling with the harsh realities of civil wars and continuous exploitations by the economically powerful nations, need much more international attention than they are receiving now.

[melanieenvs3000f23]

FINAL BLOG: Nurturing a Personal Ethic: My Journey as a Nature Interpreter

As I embark upon the transformative odyssey of becoming a nature interpreter, I am compelled to delve into the profound depths of self-discovery, pondering the intricate ethical framework that intricately shapes my engagement with the natural world. This voyage extends far beyond a mere quest for knowledge; it is a nuanced exploration, a deliberate and introspective endeavor to cultivate not just an understanding but a profound and intrinsic respect for nature. This reflective pilgrimage is driven by a synthesis of deeply ingrained beliefs, a keen awareness of responsibilities, and a thoughtful selection of approaches that collectively mold the foundation of my evolving personal ethic as I traverse the realms of nature interpretation.

Beliefs that Ground Me:

At the epicenter of my nature interpretation ethic lies a profound belief in the intricate interconnectedness that binds all living things. Nature, rather than a passive canvas upon which human existence unfolds, reveals itself as a dynamic and pulsating tapestry of relationships, where every organism, no matter its size, assumes a crucial role. I envision myself not merely as an observer but as an indispensable element woven into this complex system, entrusted with the solemn responsibility of preservation and stewardship.

Moreover, my conviction extends to the transformative potential inherent in cultivating awe and wonder for nature. This isn't merely an intellectual exercise; it's a visceral experience that has the power to ignite a genuine and enduring desire for conservation. As I traverse the realms of nature interpretation, my goal is to forge connections between individuals and the natural world, fostering a deep-seated appreciation for its beauty and marvels. In this shared appreciation, I aspire to sow the seeds of a collective responsibility, where each person becomes a custodian, committed to the protection and sustenance of our planet's precious ecosystems.

Responsibilities that Guide Me:

In embracing the mantle of a nature interpreter, I find myself shouldering a weighty array of responsibilities that form the very bedrock of my journey. At the forefront of my role is the unwavering commitment to being a stalwart advocate for environmental education. This duty transcends the mere imparting of knowledge; it is a sacred charge to disseminate information that is not only accurate but also accessible, weaving a narrative that unravels the intricate tapestry of ecosystems, biodiversity, and the profound impacts of human activities on our delicate environment.

Furthermore, my sense of responsibility extends into the realm of ethical and sustainable practices. Whether I am guiding an enchanted group through a nature walk or leading an interactive workshop, my aim is not solely to transmit facts but to instill the enduring principles of conservation and ecological mindfulness. It is in this immersive and participatory engagement that I aspire to nurture a sense of personal responsibility among those I have the privilege to engage with, fostering a collective commitment to become stewards of our planet.

Beyond the boundaries of education and awareness lies another pivotal responsibility — that of being a voice for the voiceless in nature. The silent struggles faced by numerous species and ecosystems due to human activities demand acknowledgment and advocacy. As a nature interpreter, I aspire to elevate these stories from the shadows, amplifying the narratives of endangered species and threatened habitats. This is not a mere recounting of ecological challenges; it is a call to action, a clarion call to awaken a sense of urgency and a shared commitment to conservation that transcends individual actions to become a collective force for positive change.

In embracing these multifaceted responsibilities, my journey as a nature interpreter takes on a purposeful hue. It becomes a tapestry woven with threads of education, ethical practice, and advocacy, each strand contributing to the larger narrative of preserving the delicate balance of our planet. As I navigate the intricate web of my duties, I am guided not only by a profound sense of responsibility but also by an unwavering belief that through education, ethical conduct, and advocacy, we can forge a sustainable future for generations yet to come.

Approaches Aligned with My Values:

The fabric of my journey as a nature interpreter is intricately woven with approaches that not only echo my values but also breathe life into my beliefs. At its core, I champion the promotion of experiential learning—an approach I hold dear. It is my steadfast belief that the most profound connections with nature are forged through immersion. To achieve this, I orchestrate guided nature walks, facilitate hands-on activities, and curate immersive experiences that invite individuals to not just observe but actively participate in the wonders of the natural world. Through these endeavors, my aspiration is to create indelible connections that endure beyond the immediate moment, fostering a profound and lasting bond between people and the environment.

Moreover, I advocate ardently for inclusivity in environmental education, considering it not merely a preference but an imperative. Nature interpretation, I firmly believe, should be an inclusive endeavor, accessible to everyone, irrespective of age, background, or socioeconomic status. Thus, I tailor my approaches with a deliberate focus on engaging diverse audiences. By doing so, I aim to dismantle barriers that may impede access to environmental awareness, making it a shared experience that transcends boundaries and resonates with a broad spectrum of individuals.

In this era defined by digital innovation, embracing technology is not just a choice but a strategic imperative in my approach. The digital age has bestowed upon us tools that can magnify the impact of environmental messages. I navigate this landscape with a conscious embrace of social media platforms, virtual reality, and a plethora of other innovative tools. Through these mediums, I endeavor to extend the reach of my environmental narratives, bridging the gap for those who may not have immediate access to the wonders of nature. In leveraging technology, my aim is not only to disseminate information but also to inspire a sense of wonder and connection, transcending physical boundaries and bringing the marvels of the natural world to the fingertips of a global audience.

In essence, my approach to nature interpretation is an amalgamation of purposeful experiences, inclusive education, and tech-savvy engagement. Each facet serves as a brushstroke in the canvas of my journey, painting a vivid picture of a holistic and accessible environmental narrative. As I navigate the realms of nature interpretation, I do so with the unwavering belief that by fostering experiential learning, promoting inclusivity, and embracing technology, I contribute to a collective awakening—an awakening that celebrates the beauty of nature and inspires a shared commitment to its preservation.

In drawing the curtains on this exploration of my evolving personal ethic as a nature interpreter, it becomes evident that the tapestry of my principles is intricately woven with threads of interconnectedness, awe, and responsibility. This amalgamation forms not only the guiding philosophy of my journey but also the cornerstone upon which I build my role as a steward of the environment.

At its essence, my commitment to interconnectedness extends beyond a conceptual understanding; it is a visceral acknowledgment that we are not separate from nature but rather integral participants in an intricate web of life. This perspective propels me to view myself not merely as an individual but as a part of a larger ecological symphony. It's an acknowledgment that every action, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, resonates within the broader context of our shared existence. This interconnected worldview shapes the lens through which I interpret and convey the narratives of nature, emphasizing the profound relationships that bind us to the ecosystems we inhabit.

Awe, as a guiding principle, is more than just a fleeting sense of wonder. It is a deep and abiding appreciation for the beauty, complexity, and resilience inherent in the natural world. This awe serves as a wellspring of inspiration, fueling my dedication to share the marvels of nature with others. It is in this shared sense of wonder that I seek to spark a collective consciousness, cultivating a reverence for the environment that transcends mere knowledge and transforms into a heartfelt commitment to safeguard our planet.

Responsibility, the third pillar of my ethic, takes root in the recognition that this interconnected and awe-inspiring world demands not just appreciation but active stewardship. As a nature interpreter, I embrace the responsibility to be a conduit of knowledge, facilitating a dynamic exchange between the wisdom of the natural world and the curiosity of those I engage with. This educational role extends beyond a mere transfer of facts; it is an empowerment, equipping individuals with the understanding and agency to contribute meaningfully to the sustainable coexistence of humanity and nature.

Moreover, my commitment to responsibility metamorphoses into a catalyzing force for change. I see myself not only as an observer but as a catalyst for fostering awareness and inspiring transformative action. Through the narratives I weave and the experiences I curate, I aspire to kindle a passion for environmental conservation, creating ripples of change that extend far beyond the confines of the immediate moment.

In championing the cause of the environment, I embrace the role of a vocal and unwavering champion. It is a mantle I willingly bear, advocating for the protection of vulnerable species, endangered habitats, and the delicate balance of ecosystems. In this capacity, my voice becomes an instrument, resonating with stories often unheard, and rallying support for the preservation of our planet's irreplaceable biodiversity.

As I navigate the diverse landscapes of this journey, I am guided by an unwavering belief: that by understanding, appreciating, and respecting nature, we chart a course toward a sustainable and harmonious coexistence with the natural world. This is not just a personal creed but a rallying cry, a call to action for all who share this planet. It is a declaration that, in the tapestry of our shared existence, each thread—no matter how small—contributes to the resilience and vibrancy of the whole. And in this collective effort, we can aspire to be not just observers but active participants in the flourishing story of our planet.

Thank you so much for joining me throughout my journey as a nature interpreter.

Melanie :)

[chinbiz]

Saw a take from someone who has negative views on polyamorous people as a group. They were saying that all polyamorous people are addicted to NRE and view relationships as transactional, which is certainly a take that one could make. Not a correct one, but a take for sure. I'm going to use this as a moment to discuss what I think about that. Also, just a warning, I tend to be a bit wordy when explaining things.

I'm sure there are polyamorous people who are addicted to NRE or view relationships as transactions, but that also describes a great chunk of the monogamous population, and you don't see people stereotyping all monogamists this way in nearly the same frequency.

Humans are so diverse. Monogamy and polyamory are, to an extent, a result of natural human variation. We're not just diverse in terms of our preferences or how we look, either, though. Everyone is coming to this moment at different levels of maturity and with different problems.

I personally don't struggle with NRE in the way that this person describes. I'm not a particularly social person aside from with people I'm already close to, and it takes a lot for me to want to meet new people if they aren't already connected to me though knowing someone I know. I find NRE to be a pretty exhausting thing to work through at the moment (although if capitalism weren't in the way, I'd probably feel less hindered by it). Overall, I view it as a necessary transitioning phase in which I am learning how a new connection fits into my life, for the more sustainable energy that the relationship will continue with.

A different person, polyamorous, monogamous, or something else, may have a different relationship with NRE, and while that relationship with NRE may be an area of weakness that the person needs to work on, it's still a typical experience among all people, and not the moral failing of whatever group they're a part of.

I'm also very personally fulfilled at the moment despite currently dating one person in a polycule. Despite this, I can and will eventually make other romantic and sexual connections when I have the time to do so. I am actively practicing as a polyamorous person despite currently having one partner.

If I'm so satisfied while dating one person, why am I polyamorous? Precisely because I don't view relationships as transactions for emotional fulfillment (and also because the expectation of exclusivity feels very constricting to me, but that's not relevant to this post. It's an orientation for some people, and I am one of those people). I'm not in romantic relationships to be fulfilled. I'm in romantic relationships because that is the connection that I and whoever I'm in these relationships with wanted to pursue with one another. While feelings of fulfillment can come from being in a relationship, I'm there for my connections to those people, not the feelings that the relationships give me.

Monogamous or otherwise non-polyamorous people absolutely can and do sometimes take this approach to their own dating lives. Like me, those people already feel fulfilled. Unlike me, they don't continue to make romantic connections. Why? They don't want that. Neither of these are superior reactions. We are just different people who have different wants.

To an extent, I think we've lost the distinction between a want and a need. Humans have social needs and physical needs such as food and shelter, for example. We also have wants, such as wanting to date someone or wanting an apple. We need food, but we don't typically need an apple. Just because we don't need the apple, however, doesn't mean it's wrong to eat an apple. On the same line of thinking, while we don't need to date another person to fulfill our social need, it's not wrong to date another person. Indulging in wants is not a moral failing.

Anyway, everyone is different. Everyone has different wants. As long as you're not hurting anybody, do whatever you want.

[desultory-suggestions]

Hello, um, first time I'm actually asking for advice on a blog so I'm very sorry if this is breaking your boundaries in any way.

I've suspected that I've had an eating disorder since I was a teenager due to various reasons, but every single doctor shrugged me off and that it's good that I'm thin. I've known that since I was a child I've felt...self-conscious about my weight, but not in the expected way: I feel too thin. I've known for years my eating habits are unhealthy and there's no one but me to support me through this, with all my friends wanting to become thinner and doctors ignoring me.

Self-awareness in time has allowed me to try and change my habits, try and eat more, and although I struggle I've somewhat consistently eaten recently even if money is hard to come by nowadays. But a few weeks back I had to undergo two heavy surgeries to fix worrying issues with my mouth, and now that I stopped the antibiotics I've been incapable of eating enough due to pain and fear of messing something up and have lost significant weight. I feel ashamed that I feel so thin when everyone around me, especially coworkers I don't know very well, are praising me for looking "healthier" when I can barely communicate and getting back to my usual work routine is still difficult in post-op recovery. It scares me.

Is this actually a thing? Maybe I'm not looking hard enough but I can't find anything on "feeling like I'm too thin with a suspected ED" in my own research. Is it just body dysmorphia?

Hello dear,

It is absolutely okay to ask for advice and support, that’s why I’m here! I’m so sorry that you’ve been ignored for years and years because of others people’s perceptions. Prejudice, fatphobia, and body shaming run so deep in our society and medicine, and radiates into everything we try to do. It is deeply upsetting that those around us equate thinness with health so much so that they would praise our illness.

We often reduce eating disorders to a person becoming obsessed with losing weight. However, there are a myriad of different eating disorders that happen for vastly different reasons. It’s a disorder about eating, so at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what causes the issues. If your eating is consistently disordered, you have an eating disorder. It is not uncommon to struggle with feeling too skinny, in fact many people ask me about the same concern. Body dysmorphia isn’t defined by thinking you are fat, but by having an altered perception of your body. So it is absolutely possible and even common to have dysmorphia surrounding feeling too thin.

NEDA is always a great resource for learning about eating disorders and seeking the right help. Here are some articles that may help:

When it comes to the issue of self perception, it is treated much the same as it would be if you were struggling with feeling fat rather than thin. There is no moral weight, the fear comes from around us and within ourselves. Therapy is incredibly helpful, as are support groups. However, even just small changes in mindset build up. Practicing affirmations to change the mindset around your body and eating is important. You don’t need to eat to gain weight, you need to eat to sustain yourself. Intuitive eating is your friend!

It sounds like your struggles with eating are an ongoing mental health issue, however with your recent surgeries it seems to have been heavily exacerbated. The immediate concern is eating at all. Consulting your surgeon will be vital, ask what is safe and appropriate to eat when and start making a sort of meal plan. The approval of the surgeon may help ease some anxiety. If all you can comfortably get down is protein drinks than so be it! That is still nutrients for your body. However it will be important to practice pushing those boundaries of fear. As someone who just underwent a major surgery, it’s so scary to do anything that could mess it up! But it also isn’t nearly as easy to mess up your results as you feel it is. Trying to gave liquids like smoothies or soups is great, then eating small pieces of food or mashes, then working up to bigger bites and meals. It will take time but it’s worth the effort.

Overall, seeking professional care will be important. It’s not always easy, but there are ways you can find support. I’m here to chat if you ever want to or need some advice! Take tender care.

-Evan