#this is relevant to writing

[soliusss]

Funniest thing I’ve seen on tiktok are those sigma male boys getting mad that American psycho was written by a gay man and going “well I like fight club better” buddy I’ve got some world ending devastating news for you

[no-passaran]

Spain lied about not selling weapons to Israel.

Even after October 7th, Spain has sold more than 1 million € of weapons to Israel. Norway and Finland make it possible.

In January, Spain made headlines word-wide when the government's Minister of Exteriors, José Manuel Albares (PSOE), claimed in Congress and later again in a radio interview that Spain had stopped selling weapons to Israel ever since October 7th. Israel's intensification of violence in Gaza following October 7th meant that, on top of decades of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, between October 7th and January 23rd Israel had already killed 28,000 people and forced 2 million out of their home. In this context, many people were demanding their governments stop arming and funding the genocide of the Palestinian people, and here on Tumblr and other social media sites like Twitter I think we all saw the many posts praising the Spanish government for this.

Well, it turns out it was a lie.

According to Albares, "Since October 7th there are no more weapons exportations [from Spain] to Israel". But in November alone, Spain exported weapons to Israel for 987,000€, as was published on the Spanish Government's official website dedicated to exterior commerce (Comex). A researcher from Centre Delàs (an independent centre for peace studies) found it and published it, and it has also been verified by newspapers such as elDiario.es.

This 987,000€ worth of weapons in November was not the only ammunition that Spain has sent to Israel in 2023. In 2023, Spain exported a total of 1.48 million € in war material to Israel.

All of the weapons sent in November come from the factory of Nammo Palencia (Castilla y León), a corporation that is 50% property of the Government of Norway and 50% owned by a public Finnish business. However, even if the owners are foreigners, the ammunition was sent from Spain and thus it had to be authorized by the an organism of the Spanish Government named Junta Interministerial de Defensa y Doble Uso, whose deliberations on whether a weapons exportation is accepted or denied are kept secret. The only cases where they have denied exporting weapons to Israel have been when they thought that Israel would re-sell these weapons to the Philippines.

Spain has had a close relation with Israel for years. As published by the Spanish Government, Spain has sold 20 million € of weapons to Israel between 2012 and 2022. Spain also buys weapons and military software from Israel (for example, the Spanish Intelligence Service has been using the Israeli software Pegasus to illegally spy on Catalan activists, journalists, politicians and civil society members and their relatives to attack the Catalan independence movement), and Spain has continued buying from Israel and allocating defense contracts to Israel even after the October 7th attacks. It is very difficult to track the concessions of public contracts such as buying weapons, but some contracts have been known. For example, on November 24th 2023, Spain bought 287.5 million € of missiles from Israel. This is not unusual: between 2011 and 2021, it is publicly known that Spain bought war material from Israel for at least 268 million €, but experts say that the real number could be two or three times as much.

Spain has also continued allocating concessions to Israel. For example, on December 15th 2023 Spain allocated a contract worth over 576 million € to Israel for a rocket launcher programme. On November 22nd, Spain allocated another another Israeli company to provide missiles for 237 million € at the same time as the Spanish army bought Israeli inhibitors for 1.4 million €. The very next day, November 23rd, Spain signed another military allocation to Israel for 82,600€. The following week, Spain signed yet another allocation with a different Israeli military corporation for 3.7 million €.

Spain also allows Israeli weapon manufacturing companies to produce weapons through their branches located in Spain. This way, Israeli weapons make their way to markets with which Israel doesn't have diplomatic ties but Spain does, like Saudi Arabia. And since Spain is a member of NATO, Israeli weapons produced in Spain are approved according to NATO standards and access it easily. In the same way, these Israeli weapons manufacturers also access European Union defense funds through their branches in Spain. (source).

As I said, I saw a lot of positive posts around when Albares said Spain was going to embargo, but I haven't seen any post about how they didn't do it. I also (personally) haven't seen anything on international media, and barely anything on Spanish media, which is already busy with the PSOE covid material corruption scandal. So I share this in the hope of helping put pressure on Spain to cut all ties with Israel immediately.

SHAME ON EVERYONE WHO GIVES ISRAEL THE MATERIAL AND MONEY THAT WILL BE USED TO MASSACRE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. SHAME ON SPAIN, NORWAY, AND FINLAND.

[elodieunderglass]

Horror isekai where Perceiving the Weird Eldritch Thing gets you catapulted into a nightmare labyrinth of puzzle-solving.

I.e Those Who Perceive The Hunt of the Goblin King Must Partake In The Labyrinth and Can Only Be Freed If They Complete It In One Day and One Night. By Fae Law. For Reasons.

But the definition of “perception” clearly needs to be updated because some normal guy simply films the Hunt of the Goblin King Behind Arby’s, and puts it on Facebook -

No, not instagram or TikTok, it’s important that it be Facebook -

Because the rules are pretty clear, “the rules are the rules” as is carved ominously in elvish runes above the grim gate, and the Contract is Sealed. and so therefore the guy and 25 of their most random real-life acquaintances must run the gauntlet together. It’s Some Guy, their immediate neighbors, their first partner’s mom, their friends from hobby Facebook groups (oh this poor guy and their hobbies; the elderly birdwatchers from Facebook and the young up-and-coming drag king community), their random teen kid niece, college friends, a dog who also watched the video, a couple consisting of a woman who is the guy’s Facebook friend and showed her husband the video, and the husband doesn’t even know Some Guy, so he’s in the labyrinth and absolutely furious about being forced to be involved, and they proceed to break up over the course of the puzzle.

It’s important that the narrative keeps trying to be a sexy dark horror isekai! but within this the comedic reality of Catherine, 52, the guy’s horse-riding instructor, being passionately involved in escape-room-style puzzle solving and grappling with minor goblins. They are in fact speedrunning the gauntlet.

The Goblin King finally has to say: all right, actually, I only really set all this up to fuck with one (1) guy at a time, thanks for your willingness to participate, but I think all 25 of you can consider the gauntlet fully run.

And the group would be quite hurt by that. The rules are the rules. We have a contract, actually. Let Catherine cook.

[sporesgalaxy]

TWO THANGS

when I say "love" with no descriptors, I don't mean romantic by default

when I say "art" with no descriptors, I don't mean visual by default

[thefloatingstone]

Appleseed PDA montage to save you from reading endless pages of unimportant politics that don't amount to anything

also because I have nothing better to do, I'm bored, I'm moody, my gaming laptop is still broken so no BG3, and it's too late at night to start drawing after doing animation clean-up all day.

[katnissmellarkkk]

suzanne collins : “so in the epilogue of mockingjay, katniss only refers to her children as the girl and the boy-”

people who read with one eye shut : “BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T LOVE HER KIDS AND WAS FORCED INTO HAVING THEM BY THE EVIL PEETA MELLARK?”

suzanne collins probably : “because i couldn’t decide on two names i liked.”

[deerspherestudios]

Hello hello! I'm excited to announce my submission for the Monstrous Desires 2024 Jam: Astronought is out! 🌑🎉

If you're interested, I really hope it's not with the expectations that it'll be similar to MO. I really wanted to try out different things with a new character and had a lot of fun with the process!

Be sure to heed the general warnings, and if you're sensitive to body horror,,, maybe sit this one out hjhs (tbh it's my first time attempting it so it's probably not even that graphic but just a heads up! There will be mentions of fleshy things!)

Anyhoo, I don't know if MO enjoyers will like it, but it's certainly a game I made! If there's any bugs/issues I'll get to them as soon as I can! Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't; I made it, so have it! <3 /aff

[jamietwat]

[hotshotsxyz]

this town is only gonna eat you

(buddie) (s8 spec) (1.1k) already wrote some buck-gets-hit-by-a-car spec, so how about some buck-gets-shot? kept thinking about "take eddie [to the laker's game] and die" and uh... here we are. cw: mass shooting/ gun violence (described vaguely), somewhat graphic description of a bullet wound, blood edit: now featuring a companion piece

Buck is smiling when it happens. Grinning at Eddie like he hung the fucking moon as he points out what must be the hundredth interesting play he’s seen on the court tonight. Buck’s smiling.

Eddie registers the screams before the gunfire. He smells the metallic scent of spent shell casings before he sees the shooter. He tackles Buck to the ground before he realizes he’s already hurt.

Buck was smiling, but now his face is inches from Eddie’s and his eyes are wide with pain and panic.

“Eds,” he says, and it’s barely above a whisper but it’s still too loud.

Eddie shakes his head, a tiny, sharp movement. Buck takes a shaky breath and presses his lips together. He understands. Eddie hates that he understands. Thank God he understands.

There’s something warm and wet slowly spreading between them, and it takes Eddie several wasted seconds to realize it’s blood. He’s almost completely certain it isn’t his, which—

God, that’s so much worse than if it was.

One of Eddie’s hands is still cradling Buck’s head, an instinctive act of protection before they hit the ground. With the other, Eddie slowly begins feeling his way around Buck’s abdomen. His fingers brush against torn fabric and he feels nauseous.

I’m sorry, he mouths before pressing down hard.

Buck gasps in pain. A muscle in his jaw ticks with the effort it must take him to keep from screaming.

“You’re doing so good,” Eddie breathes into Buck’s ear. “I’ve got you; I promise.”

The bullet caught him somewhere along the fifth intercostal space on the right side of his chest. Eddie doesn’t have a way to feel for an exit wound, not without letting up pressure on what he knows is there.

At best, the bullet glanced off a rib and tore through nothing but skin and muscle. At worst…

At worst, Buck is dying beneath him and there’s not a damn thing Eddie can do, not until the shooter is dead or gone. All Eddie can do is pray. Pray and hope like hell that God has forgiven him for his incomplete confession.

Another spray of gunfire echoes through the arena. It’s nearly impossible to identify where it’s coming from, but Eddie’s got a vague idea based on the direction people seem to be running in.

Buck takes a ragged, watery breath.

For the first time in his life, Eddie hopes he’s crying. He draws back, just far enough to look Buck in his eyes. His eyes, which are clouded over in pain but free from tears.

Fuck, fucking goddamn it.

Eddie presses his cheek against Buck’s.

“Slow, steady breaths, okay?” he whispers. “You have to breathe through it, even if it feels like you can’t.”

The tiniest whimper escapes Buck’s chest.

“You have to, Buck, I can’t—” Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and takes a shuddering breath. “I just need you to hold on,” he begs.

A single shot rings out, and nearby, something falls to the ground with a dull thump.

“Suspect is down!” someone shouts. “We’re clear for EMS.”

Eddie carefully extricates his hand from behind Buck’s head. “Hear that? We’re so close, Buck.” He brushes a thumb across his cheekbone, then sits up and raises his hand in the air. “Over here!” he shouts. “I’ve got a penetrating chest wound that needs to be on the first ambo out of here!”

Buck’s eyelashes flutter as he fights to stay conscious.

“Come on, eyes on me,” Eddie says.

With his free hand and his teeth, he tears a strip of fabric from his shirt to wad up and press into Buck’s wound.  The skin there is ragged and torn, almost certainly an exit wound. Eddie curses.

“I need EMS now!” Eddie roars, not tearing his eyes away from Buck for even a second.

“I’m coming to you!” someone calls back.

Buck’s eyes slip shut.

“No!” Eddie commands, rubbing his knuckles across Buck’s sternum. “You’re staying right here with me, you got it?”

Buck groans weakly. His eyes flick back open.

“That’s perfect, you’re perfect,” Eddie babbles. “Just keep—c’mon, Buck, just keep fighting. I need—you have to be okay.”

Buck’s lips part. “Hurt,” he breathes.

“I know,” Eddie says desperately, “I know it hurts, I’m sorry.”

A pained sound falls from Buck’s lips. He lifts one of his hands just high enough to ghost his fingers along the ruined hem of Eddie’s shirt.

Behind him, Eddie hears a gurney roll to a stop.

“Here!”

Eddie turns and find a young woman, no more than twenty years old, wearing a polo that declares her part of a private ambulance service. He doubts she’d weigh even a hundred pounds soaking wet.

“Alright,” he says, turning back to Buck. “I’m going to get you onto that gurney. Let me do all the work, okay?”

Buck’s eyes widen. He makes a strangled sound. “Hurt,” he coughs out again, fingers scrambling uselessly against the concrete floor of the arena.

“They’re gonna give you the good stuff at the hospital,” Eddie reassures. He lets go of Buck’s wound and pulls him into a seated position, then rolls him awkwardly onto his back. “I got you,” he says as he stands.

Eddie staggers beneath Buck’s weight but manages to get him down three rows worth of steps and onto the gurney without the young EMT’s help.

“We’re staged just outside the north entrance,” she says as she begins to push Buck toward a set of doors.

Eddie nods sharply. “He’s got a perforating chest wound, probable pulmonary laceration, and a history of pulmonary embolism. Allergic to naproxen,” he rattles off as he pushes the gurney alongside her.

“Um, okay, that’s—are you a doctor or something?” she asks.

“Firefighter,” Eddie corrects. “We both are.”

The closer they get to the exit, the harder Eddie has to work to keep pace with the EMT. He must be coming down hard as the adrenaline fades. A few spots cloud the corners of his visions. He blinks them away.

The doors to the outside fling open, revealing two paramedics from the 136.

“Diaz, is that you?” one of them asks.

The best Eddie can do is nod.

“Shit, and that’s—”

Eddie’s ears start to ring.

“Diaz, were you shot?”

No, he tries to say. One of the paramedics grabs him under the shoulders, and the other pushes his t-shirt up until—

Oh.

Huh.

He has been shot.

The paramedic in front of him is saying something, but Eddie can’t quite understand it. Over his shoulder, the EMT looks blurry and horrified.

The spots in his vision return with a vengeance, and in his last few moments of lucidity, it occurs to Eddie that the bullet in his abdomen is probably the same one that ripped through Buck’s chest.

Then, the world fades to black, and Eddie thinks nothing at all.  

[prokopetz]

"You should describe how big a character is in terms of height" "You should describe how big a character is in terms of weight" I am going to describe how big a character is in terms of what fluid volume they would occupy if rendered down into goo.

[millenianthemums]

i was thinking about how a lot of horror stories set in one location get the “why don’t they just leave” criticism, but in real life it isn’t usually that simple. even really mild reasons characters might have for not leaving or for going back to the scary place can make total sense sometimes. and i thought about OJ’s “i got mouths to feed” thing, about taking care of the horses.

but then i was like “well OJ didn’t JUST care about the horses, it was also about not wanting Jean Jacket to win. but yeah he cares a lot about the horses, it makes sense. and he’s not the type to make big heroic speeches anyway, he’s not showy like that.”

and then i realized something cool about OJ as a character. OJ not being showy, not caring about spectacle, is what sets him apart from everybody else in the movie. others see the spectacle, he sees the people and animals caught up in it. in his first scene the others want to hurry and film, but he sees the horse is stressed; if they’d listened to him and backed off, it wouldn’t have kicked. he tried to save the motorcyclist who was just yelling at him to get the camera before being eaten. he’s the kind of person who wasn’t around on the Gordy set, who knew when to stop pushing and listen before something bad happened.

He was the only one who realized not to look in Jean Jacket’s eye. He didn’t give in and look up at the spectacle in the sky. He kept his eyes low, and because of that he saw the ones on the ground who were suffering and wanted to help. He SAW the horses, he cared for them and he risked his life to save Lucky. He SAW his sister when their dad broke a promise to her for fame and money.

Emerald was the one who got the “money shot” of Jean Jacket and defeated it. i think that was important and good for her to do. Defeating this thing that had caused her so much pain, that had killed her father, her friends and maybe her brother. And in doing so she captured proof of what she and her friends went through, made sure that suffering wasn’t all for nothing. OJ helped it happen, he was behind the scenes staring down Jean Jacket while she escaped. But Emerald was in the spotlight at the end. She won.

But with all this in mind, I think it’s really beautiful that the final shot of the movie, the REAL money shot, wasn’t Jean Jacket. It wasn’t anything all that weird or spectacular. On the contrary, it was deeply familiar.

It was OJ, on a horse.

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[k0mmari]

Locked and Loaded — Life Support

[earwig5]

it’s kind of crazy that both fallout new Vegas and fallout 4 have the same driving force for the first half of the narrative (find the guy who wronged you and make him pay) but Benny is so much more memorable and narratively interesting than Kellogg.

It’s a matter of a strong character foil versus a weak one, in my opinion.

Benny and the courier are very much alike. They are both ambitious people who are willing to do anything possible to stack the odds in their favour. Honestly, Benny and the courier are the same card, reversed.

The Sole Survivor and Kellogg are also intended to be character foils. The game tries to convince us of this with the scenes in Kellogg’s mind, where we see that he ‘isn’t so different’ from our protagonist after all. But we don’t know anything about Kellogg other than his backstory. How can he parallel the protagonist if we don’t know which traits he has? Which traits the two of them share?

(As a side note, I wish Fallout 4 had touched way more on the ‘Man/Woman Out of Time’ thing. The protagonist being frozen in the past + Kellogg being functionally immortal would’ve been really cool to explore! Especially in the context of grief!)

In the end, I think the reason Benny is a more powerful character foil is that he doesn’t disappear from the world when you kill him. The chairmen can mourn him, House will comment on it, and even NPCs across the Mojave will talk about Benny’s death!

In Kellogg’s case, the protagonist is basically the only person who knows he even existed! Once he’s dead HE’s DEAD! He disappears completely from the narrative! As soon as you leave fort Hagen, the game doesn’t bother looking back.

that’s why Benny is a more haunting force for new Vegas; particularly an independent courier. You are Benny’s legacy because you are what he leaves behind whether he likes it or not. People remember him as the couriers victim. Meanwhile, nobody remembers Kellogg at all. The memory of who Kellogg was dies with you, and you can choose to forget him.

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

*rolls up 15 years late with Avatar the Last Airbender thoughts*

So I've been rewatching clips from the show lately to refresh my memory while I'm writing my Zuko Alone fanfic. And last night I rewatched the clip where Iroh teaches Zuko how to redirect lightning and I have had thoughts about this scene for years so I might as well finally throw them into the void of tumblr.

So, this scene is insane to me, because at the end of learning how he could-hypothetically- redirect lightning, Zuko looks at Iroh and, completely seriously says "okay I'm ready to try it with the real thing now". Like, Zuko, the boy with a massive scar on his face from where his father burned him just looks at his uncle and says, "shoot me with lightning".

And yes, he's 16 and not thinking but that's part of the point because the amount of blind, complete trust Zuko has in Iroh to look at him and say "shoot lightning at me" after the insane trauma he had at the hands of his own father- that is WILD to me. Zuko literally trusts Iroh so much that he just assumes, without even having to think about it, that no matter how volatile and unpredictable the lightning is, Iroh won't hurt him because Zuko cannot fathom his uncle hurting him.

And of course, Iroh's appalled because Zuko's standing there with a massive scar on his face from when his father misused firebending against him and likewise, Iroh cannot fathom hurting Zuko. And since IROH knows how volatile and unpredictable lightning is and how it could literally kill his son nephew he is absolutely NOT going to use it just to let Zuko practice redirecting lightning, but he's so flabbergasted that Zuko would even ask him that that he just kind of splutters angrily that he will ABSOLUTELY NOT shoot lightning at Zuko. (it's also just another layer of how messed up Ozai is because he shot lightning at Zuko without a second thought later)

But I hope Iroh thought about it later and realized the amount of pure, unthinking trust Zuko has in him because ;-; the child didn't even THINK about it. "Okay uncle shoot lightning at me now. I know I'll be safe because it's you." I love them so much 😭😭

[mumblesplash]

[narrator voice] she did not forget