#there are a lot of other things but this is the gist of it

[hyperpotamianarch]

Hello. Today, I'd like to make some random anecdotes about Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra - poet, commentator, linguist, mathmatician, probably not too bad at chess and cursed to be poor for the entirety of his life.

After a cursory look at his wikipedia page, I must admit I didn't really know much about his life: only that he was born and raised in Spain, went travelling, had terrible luck with everything, wrote his commentaries on the Torah for money (which I think didn't help with the "cursed to be poor" thing), befriended Rabbenu Tam in France, possibly married the daughter of Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi and promptly died... somewhere... oh, and also wrote lots of poetry in the middle.

Historically speaking, he lived at the end of the Golden Age of Judaism in Spain, around the 11th-12th centuries CE. This puts him right after Rashi - which allows him to snark at everything he thinks Rashi was wrong about, but before Rambam - which means he doesn't get to snark at everything Rambam got wrong. His commentary on the Torah leans a little towards the linguistic side, though he has a couple of other things going on as well, like roasting people he disagrees with (Ben Zuta is the only friend a bull has, anyone?) and dancing around verses he thinks were added later to the Torah, like every time it says "to this very day".

He also wrote one of the first math books in Hebrew - Sefer HaMispar, he wrote a poem about chess, one about how whatever he'll work at he won't get enough money. And generally, he wrote poems. Quite a lot.

I suppose at this point I should mention something: Hebrew linguists were, at the middle ages, predominantly Sepharadi. I mean, sure, there could be a non-Jewish Hebrew linguist, but for some reason I don't hear much about those. And there probably were Ashkenazi linguists, but there weren't many of them. Rashi does deal with linguistics - but half the time he does, it's using the books of two famous Sepharadi linguists. The Sepharadim, living in Muslim lands as they were, simply had a better background with learning Hebrew, since they were surrounded by speakers of a closely related language - Arabic. And Ibn Ezra's deep understanding of Hebrew led to him loving linguistic riddles, which I can never figure out - and I was reading an eddition with footnotes! Though maybe I didn't make enough effort or something.

But no, the reason I wanted to talk about Ibn Ezra was the impossible standards for poetry, as set by Sepharadi poets. You see, Jews were always influenced by their surroundings, in multiple facets. and poetry is definitely one of them. So, the influence from Arab poets includes strict rules for rhythm and - and this is what I actually wanted to talk about - rhyming.

The rythm thing is bad enough. Only once in my life have I tried keeping up with that. It was very, very hard. It's probably because I'm not used to this, but no song I write can keep a consistent rhythm and meter, and that's without trying to apply the standard Sepharadic rules. So trying to have such a strict meter... didn't work well for me. I guess I'm the frenchman from

וּמִי הֵבִיא לְצָרְפַתִּי בְּבֵית שִׁיר,

וְעָבַר זָר מְקוֹם קֹדֶשׁ וְרָמָס;

וְלוּ שִׁיר יַעֲקֹב יִמְתַּק כְּמוֹ מָן,

אֲנִי שֶׁמֶשׁ, וְחַם שִׁמְשִׁי וְנָמָס.

which was actually written about Rabenu Tam, but I'm a distant relative of his so this might still be applicable. Besides, as far as you know my name is Ya'akov, just like Rabenu Tam! (Sorry for not providing a translation, the gist is "how dare a frenchman trample all over poetry?!")

But rhymes. Oh, the Ibn Ezraic rhyming standards.

According to Ibn Ezra, one must always rhyme with the entire syllable. So no, just the last sound isn't enough. In Ibn Ezra's book, rhyme and dime don't actually rhyme - though I don't think he'd care about English at all. For the Ibn Ezra, shor and ḥamor can't be rhymed with each other; shor can rhyme with Mishor, and ḥamor can rhyme with har hamor, but you can't rhyme any other pair of those with each other. And I can't stay up to this challenge. It's nearly always impossible for me to find proper words to rhyme even without the extra demand for the rhyme to be the entire syllable. With English I don't think I even bothered or ever will. You have too many weird syllables for me. But with Hebrew... I do try with Hebrew, really. But I can't keep this up. And the most frustrating thing? It doesn't appear other Ashkenazi writers had this problem.

Now we get to the interesting part. I have been trying lately a new possible format for my very-anticipated-and-definitely-not-only-I-want-it Jewsade fanfic: introduction, preface and Haskamot to books. I just really enjoy reading prefaces for books, and one of my recent favourite pieces of writing is the conclusion piece of the Vilna edition of the Babylonian Talmud. If you're interested - it can be found in most editions of the Talmud at the very end of Masechet Nidah. The piece describes the trouble they went through to publish this edition of the Talmud and it's very interesting. Another favourite piece of mine is the preface of the Levush, a slightly obscure Halachic book from the time of the Shulchan Aruch. If you've ever seen me talk about the race to Halacha - this is my source for that, because the poor author was upstaged about three to four times by other people doing exactly what he planned on doing. I highly recommend this piece as well, though I don't know how easy it is to find. And the Levush - Rabbi Mordechai Yeffe - is a nice Ashkenazi guy. So he must be more lenient with his rhymes, right?

Well, I guess I didn't establish that part. Yes, the preface to the Levush starts with a poem. It's fun. It's great. It's also up to the Ibn Ezraic standard, while my attempt to write an equivalent is... not.

Huh. This post is oddly rambly. Ah well, maybe someone will like it. Anyway, the preface portion that really takes the cake is actually one from a fairly recent obscure book - like, this one was written barely a century ago. I only found it because one of my favourite singers, Aharon Razel, made a song out of it, but the song doesn't really capture the hilarity of the piece. Do ask me if you want to hear more, this one's great.

Signing off with a "darn you, Ibn Ezra! Why must you set such high standards!"

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Alright, so people want to learn more about this strange game they're watching while hoping for a peek at Stranger Things.

It's far too complex to explain it all in one post without getting too boring.

The long and short of it is this:

Two teams of 11 players at a time try to score by moving the ball down the field to the opposing "end zone." They do this by either running the ball or throwing it to a designated receiver. They can only throw the ball forward while behind the "line of scrimmage" where the ball starts on each play (it shows as blue on TV). The defense has to try to stop them by either tackling the ball carrier or knocking down or intercepting passes. If a team fails to gain 10 yards (reaching or passing the yellow line) or score within 4 plays ("downs"), they turn the ball over to the other team.

They have four 15 minute quarters to do this, with a 12 minute halftime between the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The team that received the opening kickoff has to kick off to the other team to start the second half regardless of who had possession at the end of the first half.

Reaching the endzone is called a touchdown and is worth 6 points regardless of whether it's by running or passing. Kicking the ball through the goalposts (a field goal) is worth 3 points. After a touchdown, a team can go for further points by kicking it through the goalposts for 1 extra point or by running another play into the endzone for 2 points. After that, they kick the ball off to the other team. It's also possible to score points by tackling the ball carrier in their own endzone. This is called a "safety" and is worth 2 points, but it's relatively rare.

That's the gist of it. There are a lot of rules and nuances, but this is enough for someone to have a general understanding.

Feel free to ask any specific questions you may have.

[lemon-lime-behavior]

Yes please!! Explain more! I’m so invested in the story and kids!!!!! Also thank you for being kind 🩷

No problem!!

welp, okay, put extremely simply and probably just a little bit wrong too because its been a hot minute and I have the memory of a goldfish, here’s the gist of it:

Sanji was born the prince of a kingdome called Germa (though it’s really more of a glorified mercenary group with delusions of being a kingdom) in the North Blue, the third of four quadruplet sons. His father king judge fancied himself a scientist and wanted to make his children into supersoldiers (via genetic modification) that could lead his armies and destroy his enemies. He wanted them to be super strong, fast, have impervious metal skin, be totally obedient and have basically no emotions. Perfect soldiers!

His wife Queen Sora was not stoked about this, especially after seeing what it looked like in their firstborn daughter Reiju, so when Judge tried to pull the same thing with the quadruplets she drank a special syrum to counteract the conditioning. Unfortunately it only worked on one of the princes, Sanji, and the other three (Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji) came out modified and were trained by their father into being perfect little monsters that made Sanji’s childhood a living hell. Sora was super sick fter all that and eventually died when the princes were very young. Long story short Sanji eventually escaped with Reiju’s help, got picked up by Zeff after Tragic Backstory 2: Starvation Rock Boogaloo, and eventually joined the straw hat pirates. Fast forward some more and there’s this whole *thing* that happens with his birth family trying to blackmail him into a political marriage blah blah blah blah he’s eventually rescued but now he’s very worried that due to certain circumstanced, his genetic modifications might have just been dormant and are now awakening within him, and eventually he’ll turn out just like his siblings, which is like, one of his worst nightmares. It hasn’t fully happened yet, but who knows!

So that’s all what happens in canon. What I’m doing in my own little fankids au is imagining that the genetic mutations are in fact dormant in Sanji and while they never fully materialize in him, they do pop up in one of his children, because genetic. So Kuina has black hair (because the mods include hair color changes and if Sanji was fully modified there’s evidence his hair would’ve been black) and she has unbreakable skin and enhanced physical abilities and she has… I guess what can be described as an empathy disorder? Like she experiences emotions differently and isn’t great at understanding/mirroring emotions in others. However, I don’t believe that makes someone a monster. Sanji’s brothers are absolutely terrible people because they were raised to be that way by Judge, who is absolutely a monster himself, entirely of his own volition. Reiju is not as bad as her brothers, because she had some positive influnce from their mother Sora. Kuina is gonna grow up absolutely surrounded by love and a lot of very honorable moral conviction, so while there will be ups and downs, I think she’s gonna be all right.

[nastasyafilippovnas]

hi! do you mind sharing what ts did? i don’t follow her much but have been a casual fan and want to know if that’s something i don’t want to associate with anymore

Hi, so, it's a lot of things coming together that make me really question the kind of person that she is.

It all started back in November when I went to the first one of her shows in Rio, here in Brazil. The weather conditions were extreme, the heat was unbearable, hundreds of fans fainted and/or felt bad (my sister threw up, for instance), and one fan died. TS wrote a half-ass message on her stories on instagram on how she was "devastated", and that was it. The girl wasn't from Rio and her family had to start a crowd founding campaign to get her body home, and only managed to due it due to fan donations. Taylor didn't help the family with anything. Next week, on the last one of the São Paulo leg (because the story still hasn't died here in BR and people were appalled with her behavior), she took some pics with some long-lost relatives of the girl and this was all we got in terms of accountability or acknowledgement of what happened.

Meanwhile, in the US, she was using her PR relationship with Travis to keep herself on the spotlight and kill any mentions of the dead fan (there were a bunch of articles about their relationship exactly at the same time).

A lot of people tried to find reasons for her behavior and defend her, saying it wasn't her fault and it was all due to the company that booked her shows. No one thinks it was her fault what happened, but she couldn't throw a few bucks to help transport the girl's body home? It really felt like she doesn't give a damn about Latin American/Global South fans.

On top of that, there's a genocide going on and she hasn't said a word about it, even though she has a huge platform and we've been seeing artists with a lot less visibility manifesting and actually getting fired/dropped because of their position on Palestine.

But okay, she doesn't "have" to talk about it. She is a singer, not a politician. Fine, that's her prerogative. Does she have to act so aloof and out of tune with everything, though?

In the grammys, she not only managed to make everything about her by announcing a new album, but also dragged her ex down again, by making the title a reference to him. Her ex that, not only never said a bad word about her, but is out there supporting Palestine while being bullied by her fans. Again, she can talk about her relationships all she wants, but, to me, it feels very wrong to keep throwing shade at your ex while being supposedly in a happy relationship. Especially considering how rabid her fans are and how they keep attacking him.

Last straw, today she donated a hundred thousand dollars to the victim of the Kansas Chiefs City parade shooting. That's awesome, except...she never gave anything to the Brazilian fan that died on one of her shows.

Idk, it might not seem like much, but I feel like her only priorities are making money and being on the spotlight, and that she doesn't care about anything else, especially not international fans or using her voice for something good. To me, she is coming off as petty, vindictive, aloof and simply out of touch with anything besides her rich life.

[possamble]

i wonder if you have any thoughts about how marcille always seems to dislike it when falin wears men's clothing ( i bet she wears it out of its comfiness rather than because she prefers masc style tho, although i hope both lolol) and super short hairstyle

I wonder if it's just her interest in cute feminine fashion in general or maybe there's something more

For the clothes, at least, it's like... Marcille is probably more horrified by the clothing being actually made for and marketed to men than anything else. I bet she'd be fine if Falin wore the exact same things but they were in the women's section, or at least, branded unisex. She would be so so silly about arbitrary stuff like that in a modern setting.

The hair I think is a tangled issue of Falin's resemblance to Laios getting a little too obvious for Marcille's mental health, and Marcille's own very intense relationship with how (female) mages should treat their hair. Also, since it's mostly a joke doodle, I kind of took it as a flanderized Bad Taste Marcille being horrified by a woman with short hair because she buys into gender norms. Some people are... weird about what women do with their hair and unfortunately I can fully see how Marcille can be weird like that in a vacuum joke setting.

(there's also something to be said about how this kind of femininity policing could also be used as plausibly deniable homoerotic subtext. like, girl, why do you care that much about how cute another girl looks? hm?)

[nattikay]

A few favorite tracks from various Avatar media!

[imashittalkingmushroom]

Okay, here's some notes for my Batjokes Hannibal au to go with the art

They'd still be working cases with the FBI-- Bruce is still an orphan. He still has a strong sense of justice. And more so, he is still very angry and very hurt about his parents murder. Him wanting to kill matches something closer to the comics, of wanting both that sense of control and revenge against crimials

And Jack, similarly, will be Bruce's psychiatrist.

His history, I think, is less murdery than Hannibals. One, because I think joker would care more for having his patients snap over 'one bad day' rather than ya know, killing and cannibalizing people

(So, like hannibal, he has a history with patients who are prone to violence) (He winds them up and watches them go)

And two, because I love the idea of Batman being Jokers becoming. Comics, is the acid vat, so in this AU, it's Jack meeting Bruce that pushes him to kill-- jack becoming obseesed and wanting to see Bruce understand him in a way no one else has, while also working behind the scenes to see if he can get Bruce to snap

It's about Bruce killing Jack, tho. Instead of them killing together like will and hannibal, the ending would be Bruce killing Jack. Because. In the comics. Yeah. you get it.

Like, can you Imagine? Jack: How would you do it? Bruce: ... with my hands. And Jack is sitting there with stars in his eyes because that is a confession of love right there

its basically an AU where Joker gets bruce to snap.

Also, joker interfering with the few times Bruce does decide to kill a criminal because he wants to be Bruces First. because your first time should always be special.

my other thing only has five notes but I am begging people to see the vision here

[vaguely-concerned]

some more rye ingellvars! b/c I have fineagled. I have tweaked. we are getting ever closer every time I heave a big sigh and walk up to the mirror of transformation once more to put in my daily penance of moving the jawbone angle slider microscopically one way or the other

my boy... my son. the Most Profile Haver champion thirty-four years running <3

this one is mostly because lucanis standing there fully like the ben affleck smoking meme as big time necromancer drama goes down might be The funniest thing I've ever seen actually. PROS of falling in love with a Watcher: Bae :) CONS of falling in love with a Watcher: Bae's extended family feat. whatever the hell vorgoth is and megalomaniacal distant ex-aunts hellbent on world domination. well. to be fair I guess you also have to deal with illario so we're probably even

so determined so handsome so fierce and so "a decade plus on fantasy HRT and most people's go-to word to describe you would still be 'boyish'. but at least you wear it well" (rye is in their mid-thirties but is frequently mistaken for quite a bit younger on initial acquaintance. good genes absolutely no sun damage until recently and a certain youthfulness of mannerisms will do that to a motherfucker.)

he looks like a kid who's won a medal at some low-level sporting event and has been made to pose for a picture against his will and the photographer is taking a while <3 I would die for him

ah yes... ellaryen 'rye' ingellvar the tl;dr version (this conversation unexpectely fucked me up tho an emotional ambush I was not prepared for)

[iwanthermidnightz]

The thing I found most interesting was the origin of the name:

“The Ladder’s mailing list was an attempt to formalise the whisper network. Over sixteen years, the Ladder’s editors and contributors grappled with the tensions between the demands of privacy and security, and the desire to build a national lesbian literary community.” (x)

“The magazine was “a means of expressing and sharing otherwise private thoughts and feelings, of connecting across miles and disparate daily lives, of breaking through isolation and fear.” (x)

The magazine was written 1950s through 1972 and the writing very much reflects that. Most of the issues are the sharing of thoughts on social issues, interests, literature and poems.

Link to the internet archive for The Ladder magazine 👇

Scroll to the bottom of this link for a video featuring members of the Daughters of Bilitis

(gif source) this post is a continuation of (x)

[beneaththebloodylake]

「You're thinking 'people from Kansai are stingy' aren't you. ... Actually it's just me who's personally stingy.」

literally me but with uk/europe/whatever distinction americans decide to assign me

[soshinee]

i really have loved being in japan in general so far but most of my students are so fucking mean to me 😭😭 like they’re just so so sooo mean they parrot and mock me when i call someone’s name and laugh when i talk in general and it’s like how am i supposed to curry their favor or gain their respect when they are openly making fun of me from the second i walk into their classroom for the first time💀

[memorandum]

heads up! the next post will be another comic (I'm very, very excited to share it :D), but it'll take me a while longer to share it :']

I fear a lot of my actual work (administrative, very tedious) has stacked up with december approaching... I will probably take a brief break for the remainder of this week to focus on that, and finish up the comic! as warm-ups, I will also prepare a few of the other smaller answers with it so I can catch up easier next week! 🫶

[itsalwaysdark]

i just fucking hate having ptsd all of it. so many stupid fucking things send me into fucking hysterics it sucks and i hate it and i dont want itttt anymore i dont want it.

[tyrantwombat]

There is a lot happening right now, but the authorial decision to relay this to the reader by putting Song Taewon, Han Yoojin, and Sung Hyunjae alone in a room together had to have been The most chaotic way to go about it.

Case and point: Song Taewon heard 'possibility of double suicide' and didn't think twice. Sung Hyunjae is lovingly feeding them personally baked goods while nearly actually vibrating with the desire to absolutely murder both of them. Han Yoojin - the man who walked into this building prepared to blow it up with a bomb as an expression of disgruntlement - is currently the acting voice of reason as he desperately tries to referee this shit with a gun.

Some highlights:

SHJ: I'm still trying to decide if I should kill you.

HYJ: *oh free juice!* Officer Song, sit down please, he said he's still thinking about it.

---

STW&SHJ: *very literary showdown scene, very dramatic**you who are better than I at stripping away the monster and swallowing it whole-* *pst use looting* *pst I got it*

HYJ, in background: *staring into camera like he's on the office are you seeing this shit*

--

HYJ: You know you could die, right?

STW: I'm fine with that.

HYJ: Of course you are.

---

HYJ: WILL YOU BOTH JUST SHUT UP NO ONE IS DYING THIS TIME

---

STW:

STW: why

STW:

STW: why is there a child?

---

HYJ: okay but hear me out...

HYJ: what if you could kill me?

[mariyekos]

My brain is. Absolutely buzzing with fic ideas right now and last night I started on a new one because I felt like i had to at least get the premise down before I lost it, but now I'm nearly 6k words in and oh no I don't have time to get another longfic wip going.... I'm 140k words deep into two other longfics right now 😭 I want to get into it, but I have too many stories fighting for attention in my head and this won't end well if I hop between them all bc I want to finish something for once. Ahhhh!!! Darn you limited time.

[tea-and-secrets]

I am genuinely obsessed with my friend and I don't know how to cope with it. I spend all day thinking about them at school, drawing them in the corners of my books, namelessly talking about him to my other friends, when I think about going home I just think about talking to them.

Then of course when I get home we'll exchange a few messages and he'll leave to talk to their other friends, so then I'm upset he doesn't want to spend every possible moment with me. But instead of just doing something else, I put on some music and just wait for him to get back, because I don't have any hobbies or anyone who'll want to talk to me or really any actual life outside of my friends.

I've realized they spend a lot of time on amino, so I've made an amino account to watch them talk to other people with. I know its wrong and weird but I feel empty without him and what they don't know can't hurt them, right? I'm a fantastic friend otherwise, always there for them and interested in what he has to say. They're really nice to me but never gives that back in return, though I can't bring myself to be mad at him most of the time.

I sleep at 2am to say goodbye when they go to school, and wake up at 7am to greet him when they get back. I make them gifts and tell him I love him. I'd tear up my entire life for them (not like there's much to tear up anyway) I feel like my only worth is being useful to them

This is half vent and half cry for help please does anyone know what I can do. Anyway anyway byeeee have a good day

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