#where are these reaches coming from

[stil-lindigo]

an ex-zionist jewish man recently went a bit viral on tiktok for sharing exactly how he sees zionism tie israel to the jewish identity and his personal experience with breaking away from it - I think it’s a really great watch.

He also made a follow up talking specifically about how he learned to humanise Palestinians, and a really integral part of it was his school, which would often bring in Palestinian speakers who’d share their perspective (here’s a link to it).

[otaku553]

New blorbo :)

Also a silly interaction with this piece

[cweampier]

hired is wild you sound dumb all he did was set them up… saw some girl who wanted a boyfriend i presume and said ‘oh denji’! :]

idk people are saying yoshiden wins because of the movie date and are screencapping panels of them together, but later in the same chapter yoshida literally hires someone to sexually assault denji. idk. not rlly feeling the yoshiden win at all, really

[daily-odile]

1,,,, 100 days,,,,,,,,, and 800 followers,,,,,,,,,,,,,

From the bottom of my heart, thank you everyone.........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[ganxiously]

the thing is . . . if i was ga, watching without looking up interviews or anything, kinda like the way I watch the other shows, I would absolutely be expecting them to get back together, right? like just going by the story, it feels like they are getting back together because you ended the breakup like that, made character A spend the whole episode wanting to call and then showed character B typing and deleting a text. is it clowning or going by just how much the ga sees, we were never done in the first place? like the only damning thing about this breakup is what I can find in the interviews

[egophiliac]

Have you heard of the "Crowley is Malleus' dad" theory going around? Where Prince Levan (or whatever his name is) didn't actually die and just went out to get some milk and is now known as Dire Crowley, the silly man? The implications of that theory is absolutely hilarious when you think about it

hold on, we can figure this out, we just need LISTS

PROS THAT CROWLEY IS SECRETLY REVAAN/LEVAN/LAVERNE/WHATEVER:

unspecified fae of some kind, with similar coloring to Mal

the animal masks are apparently a Briar Valley thing

has some kind of big blackmailable secret that was alluded to in episode 4, and then as far as I know never brought up again

(unless this was just Azul bullshitting, which is extremely possible)

based on Diablo, which...maybe means something?

has canonically worn Dad Shorts

CONS:

(gestures to Crowley's entire personality)

NO LISTEN Revaan was the guy they sent off on diplomatic missions and to take care of delicate political situations, and...look, I love this dweeb, but would you trust Crowley to be in charge of negotiating your war treaties

despite my brain insisting on reading his name as "Raven", Revaan's title does imply that he was also a dragon (or super into longan berries, I'm not ruling that out)

currently unclear why Lilia "my closest friend Revaan...he is no longer with us...I used to make fun of him for being kind of a priss about eating jerky..." Vanrouge has somehow not noticed or said anything

Malleus' Aloof Anime ~Aristocrat~ vibe had to come from somewhere, and by all accounts it was NOT his mom's side of the family

???:

turns into a bird in the opening, I don't know if that means anything but it's kinda cool, I guess

all that aside, if Malleus and Yuu are any indication, then the Draconias have...questionable taste in their social choices. so anything is possible!

[phantomchick]

It's a shame the bbc merlin fandom is dead because I'm just a man would work so fucking well in one of those tiktok snippets for both Uther and Merlin.

But when does a comet become a meteor? When does a candle become a blaze? When does a man become a monster?

When does a ripple become a tidal wave? When does the reason become the blame? When does a man become a monster?

[whumpitisthen]

Two whumpees who are scared of each other:

Neither of them want trouble

They are both so afraid of being near the other they avoid each other constantly

They flinch away at the slightest touch like one person and their mirror image

They are strangers, they do not trust each other, they have been burned too many times in the past and they will not be burned again

They stare at each other from a distance, not daring to actually interact

They want to avoid a fight so bad that they won't even say a word

Whumper loves seeing them together because it's amusing how similar they are

Their uneasiness around the other is promptly forgotten when Whumper arrives

Whumpee can't have friends; Whumper doesn't want them to, and we all know what happens when Whumper sees Whumpee doing something they don't like

If hungry enough, they can be bribed with food to spend time in the other's vicinity

Non-human whumpees?! Two puppy boys being very nervous with pulled back ears and big sad eyes hiding behind their owner's legs

One Whumpee lives here and in theory should be more confident than the other one, seeing as they aren't the one in a strange unknown place. That confidence flees as soon as the Other Whumpee takes even a single step in their direction. They do not want to fight, they just want to keep an eye on them at all times.

They flinch back and the other one flinches back too. They cannot stop doing this

Caretaker basically has to pretend with each of them that the other doesn't exist. If they mentioned that their counterpart is in the room right across from them, Whumpee would not be able to sleep.

They sleep as far away from each other as the room they are kept in allows, backs to the wall, staying awake until they can't anymore

I think Whumper should collar them and bind them together with a short length of chain. For enrichment purposes... For me

One of them starts to finally unwind and gently tries to connect with the other. The other does Not react well. They are both scared again

One Whumpee has a lot of scars — must be a fighter -> scary

The Other Whumpee has no scars — must be a Really Good fighter -> scary

Whumpee looks just like the Other — must be just as desperate and unpredictable/their whumper must be just as bad/they must be at a similar level of strength as them, no guarantee to win if fight breaks out -> scary

One whumpee is scared because they have been tortured into perpetual fearfulness — the other has never been tortured, but sees how bad Whumpee has it, and being the newest addition to Whumper's collection has them just as terrified

Whumper forces them to interact. The forceful, scary nature of their meetings sets back their otherwise slow natural warming up to each other by miles, having the worst kind of counter effect. Seeing the other reminds them of that time Whumper made them sit and hold hands for hours with the threat of punishment if they disobeyed

They both escape. They see each other across the street. They freeze and stare, thrust back in time, stuck in their old frightened and cautious headspace. Their caretakers are perplexed.

[horsechestnut]

AU to add to the list of AUs I'll never write: All of the Robins are de-aged to the age they were when they became Robin. Their memories are also reset to that point, and somehow they're in their Robin suits.

So you have a 16 year old Steph, desperately trying to wrangle 4 feral children who look nearly identical and won't tell her their names because "you do know what a secret identity is, don't you Stephanie?"

[achyutapriya]

If you call yourself a Krishna Bhakt but at the same time disrespect the Mahishis (Queens) of Dwarka (this includes questioning the authenticity of their love for him and his love for them in return, comparing their love, putting them down, making abhorrent claims about how their love was not completely pure, claiming how they were jealous of each other and the gopis, making passive aggressive comments against them to even liking and sharing content which promote these kinds of beliefs) in the name of glorifying Kanha's leelas in Braj then it's beyond time for you to touch some grass, read actual scriptures and question your entire existence. *GLORIFICATION CAN BE DONE WITHOUT SHOWING DISRESPECT TO EITHER OF THE TWO GROUPS*

[backpackingspace]

Hey hey do you think Athena almost went to go visit odysseus out of habit because she was bored and wanted someone to mess with, because she found a new move that would be perfect for him, because she had to witness some absolute idiocy and if she has to suffer odysseus does too and maybe after she wants he'll make some dumb joke that'll make her find the whole thing funny, because she misses him and didn't realize how lonely she was until she didn't have his friendship, because she cannot sleep at night and cannot stop replaying their last conversation over and over and over how as he screamed at her he had tears in his eyes and she---

[little-pondhead]

Oops.

While learning to control his powers under the guidance of Clockwork, Danny accidentally curses his own bloodline with the Curse of Sentient Food several centuries in the past. Originally, a witch was supposed to curse his family. Oops. Well, the Fentons were always adapting, and technically, either way, he'd end up battling dino nuggets at three am in his underwear, no matter who the curse came from. So he shrugged and continued on.

Unfortunately, this also means that out of nowhere, the timeline shifted, and some of his very distant relatives are now battling their food into submission at every meal because Danny is ultimately way more powerful than some mortal witch from the 1600s. His version of the curse reached literally everyone he could ever be related to for the last few centuries. Even if they were adopted into the family!

So, returning to the present time after training, Danny is a little startled to see some news clips of people's dinners coming to life and beginning revolutions. Wow, John Fentonightingale really got around, didn't he? He felt a little uncomfortable that now all these random people had to deal with their share of Fenton luck, but from some of the interviews, everyone seemed to be handling it pretty well!

Especially his so-distant-they're-on-another-tree cousins, the Kents, who contacted his family directly, asking how best to prepare a zombie turkey. Their son was coming for Thanksgiving with his new wife and some coworkers, and they just refused to make the guests fight for their lives on a holiday!

They invited the Fentons to join them, of course.

[swan2swan]

....this is fine.

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

An analysis of Alhaitham's egoism in relation to Kaveh

(Update: The essay this is taken from is now uploaded! It can be accessed here and here as as a pdf <3)

Max Stirner's anarchist egoism is speculated to be the basis of Alhaitham's personal egoism, therefore I will be drawing upon Stirner's 'The Unique and Its Property' for this analysis.

Property and power are key principles within this philosophy. The egoist recognises himself as an individual, separate from the general collective of “humanity”, in which concepts such as freedom and property are governed to and over the people, for then the individual is not considered as such, rather they are a part of “humanity”, rather than a whole individual (Stirner, 170). This thinking is demonstrated within Alhaitham’s Story Quest, where he dismantles Siraj’s Hivemind by targeting individuals that compromised the Hive and reminding them of their own beliefs and preferences – the individual in themselves is a whole, and is not a “part” of a system (Stirner, 170).

In this, the egoist governs himself by what he owns and what he wants to own: “ownness is my whole essence and existence, it is myself. I am free from what I am rid of, owner of what I have in my power, what I control. I am at all times and under every circumstance my own”(Stirner, 106). This relates to the concept of freedom, which, for an egoist exists according to having the power to be free of something, for example, being freed of hunger, thirst, or societal expectations (Stirner, 105). This is reflected within Alhaitham’s description: “He lives free – free from the searching eyes of ordinary people,” but also extends to the power to own.

As power is considered something which the egoist owns, property then becomes something which the egoist exerts power over, and in this, can property be made use of by the egoist – all the while, the property remains an independent vessel (Stirner, 162). This is seen within Alhaitham’s view on his vision, in that it is “no more than a useful tool”, as it can be used to serve his own needs, and that since it in his possession, he has obtained it with his own power, it makes no difference to check on it as he continues to retain that power.

In this sense then, Alhaitham has constructed his life around this form of egoism, in that anything he wants, he has, such as his job as the Scribe, his house, the interests he pursues, the people he enjoys. In order to maintain this way of life, he will deal with, or be rid of, anything he deems as "harmful".

With this, the egoist seeks satisfaction in themselves through the satisfaction of another. Ownership, in relation to another person, can become love, which like all things the egoist has power over, is ultimately theirs – as in their love for a person (Stirner, 187), which is given willingly by the egoist, for loving a person is done for the satisfaction that love brings: “But I love them with the awareness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because love is natural to me, it pleases me,” (186).

In loving another comes sacrifice, which the egoist can give into without compromising himself, as he himself sets the “purchase price of [his love]” (187) according to the happiness attributed to the loved one, as in return, the egoist shall also receive happiness (186). To enjoy someone, in an egoist fashion, is to be able to sacrifice all possessions and ownerships without foregoing the sense of an individual, of “ownness”, as the egoist would then lose his objectivity:

“I can deny myself countless things to heighten his pleasure, and I can risk for him what would be dearest to me without him, my life, my welfare, my freedom. Indeed, it forms my pleasure and happiness to feast on his pleasure and happiness. But me, myself I do not sacrifice to him, but rather remain an egoist and—enjoy him. If I sacrifice to him everything I would keep without my love for him, that is very easy… But if I sacrifice others to one passion, I still do not…  sacrifice my particular worth, my ownness. Where this nasty incident occurs, love looks no better than any other passion that I blindly obey.” – The Unique and Its Property, 185

It is relevant to note that just as the egoist receives happiness from a loved one’s pleasure, so does an egoist suffer from a loved one’s despair. Just as the egoist would sacrifice something of their own to provide happiness for a loved one in order to exact their own happiness, so too would an egoist sacrifice something, or act, to eradicate the root problem of a loved one’s misery, as this, in turn, would then resolve their own misery:

“If I see the beloved suffering, I suffer with him, and I find no rest until I’ve tried everything to comfort and cheer him…. It doesn’t follow from this that the same thing causes suffering… his tooth gives him pain, but his pain gives me pain. But because I cannot bear the sorrowful crease on the beloved forehead, therefore, then for my sake, I kiss it away. If I didn’t love this person, he could go right on creasing his forehead, that wouldn’t trouble me; I’m only driving away my troubles. – The Unique and Its Property, 186

The phrasing of “driving away… troubles” is particular to note here, due to similar usages of language used within Alhaitham’s Character Stories, in relation to him acting in accordance with his self-governed rules and serving his own self-interest by: “[acting] on his own will and deals with anything that appears harmful in his eyes”.

Kaveh, however, interprets Alhaitham’s egoism as a detached, pragmatic view of humanity, in which the individual isolates themselves not only as a means of prioritisation, but by elevating oneself over others by refusal to intermingle and to cooperate for the benefit of others. Not only is this a harmful opposition to Kaveh’s view of individuals sharing their knowledge and talent in order to pursue a better society, but due to Kaveh’s experience of Alhaitham’s personal egoism, it is harmful to Kaveh personally. Kaveh refuses to prioritise himself over others because he has seen a negative consequence of egoism, in which he has been “cut to the quick” and it has ended one of the few stable relationships in his life.

By Kaveh seeing Alhaitham’s comment about his altruism as malicious, Alhaitham has elevated himself over Kaveh, since Alhaitham does not have the same struggles as him, and has trivialised Kaveh’s trauma. To Kaveh, Alhaitham’s prioritisation of the self actively harms others as it desensitises the self to the emotions of others. Therefore, Kaveh opposes the egoism which Alhaitham advocates for, since he interprets it through his own lived experience. Hence, by Alhaitham asserting egoism over Kaveh as a means of Kaveh prioritising himself, it only reinforces Kaveh to strive to consider the feelings of others, as well as to not prioritise his own way of thinking if it undermines someone else’s.

In actuality, Alhaitham’s frustrations with Kaveh lie in his belief that Kaveh’s talents are incongruous with his values, and that if Kaveh were to prioritise himself, he would save himself suffering and enable himself to discover his “true self”, unrestricted by others placing labels onto him.

This is a personal frustration which Alhaitham would not compromise himself to assert onto a person he was indifferent to, due to his belief of not getting involved with other’s fates. However, he has been observed to ‘subvert’ his own rules to accommodate Kaveh. Through egoism, it can be seen that rather than ‘subverting’ these rules, Alhaitham adheres to them as an egoist, since he sees Kaveh as his mirror, they offer each other a contrasting perspective he believes they need to have a complete, objective vision of the world.

This is necessary for Alhaitham to consider within his own life, and therefore has extended his house to Kaveh, in order to expand his scope of thinking, and to consider perspectives he otherwise would not entertain. Kaveh’s ideals, his beliefs, and his philosophies explicitly interest Alhaitham, in contradiction with Kaveh believing that Alhaitham is disdainful of his perspectives.

In this way, Alhaitham enjoys Kaveh. He willingly pays for some of Kaveh’s tabs; pays for crates of wine for the two of them; and goes out of his way to pursue interactions with Kaveh. Just as Alhaitham is to Kaveh, Kaveh is an old friend, as unchanged in his beliefs as he was in the past and thus is a constant: “the most unshakable part of one's past is a friend that will never change”’.

Alhaitham strives to act in accordance to his own egoism and therefore assesses what “appears harmful” to him, in relation to these rules, so as to be rid of them. This can be extended to Kaveh, as Kaveh falls under what ‘belongs’ to Alhaitham, in the sense that ownership equates to Alhaitham’s enjoyment.

Alhaitham wants to have Kaveh in his life due to the alternate perspective which Kaveh offers him, thus expanding his horizons and granting him knowledge he otherwise would not obtain. As well as this, Kaveh is seen to be considered part of Alhaitham’s way of life that he wants to protect. In line with Stirner’s egoism, it follows that as Alhaitham enjoys Kaveh, as in, ‘owns’ the contentment Kaveh elicits, he therefore is affected by Kaveh’s self-inflicted grievances. Therefore, Alhaitham sees Kaveh’s altruism at the expense of his own wellbeing as something “harmful” to be dealt with, as this not only causes Kaveh inward misery, but also detriments Kaveh finding his “true self” (Alhaitham Character Story 3), which the egoist pursues above all else.

[suntails]

I’m going to paint you a picture of modern communication, and how it is fundamentally broken.

Let’s look at one friend. You chat pretty much everyday, and mostly talk to this person on twitter and discord, with occasional tumblr DMs. That’s three places you talk. But that’s actually not true, because you also have each other’s priv twitters and talk there as well. That’s four. Now account for, let’s say, one post reply per account per person, in addition to your DMs. That’s eight. But that’s ALSO not true, because not only do you talk in discord DMs with each other, but you’re in a friend group server as well! And you talk in those channels together! That’s nine.

This is one friend.

Now look around you. How many friends, how many mutuals are you in contact with. A few, a handful, a dozen, more? How many accounts per person do you have, how many places can you send each other posts, devolve into separate topics and conversations? How many people text you as well. Friends, family, coworkers? What do you do day to day around catching up, what IRL commitments will rip you away long enough to let the pile build again?

I can’t do it. I cannot live an actual life in the real world and balance this much interaction, it’s crushing. I reply to a friend’s post because I’m interested in the subject, I want to have a discussion! I WANT to talk about it with them, but I immediately kick myself for adding another conversation to the pile. Day by day, I ignore messages for hours on end and watch mountains pile around me, to reply en masse at the end of the night to let the cycle repeat. I wake up to six discord DMs and as I clear the third, the first replies back again.

We weren’t meant to have thirty simultaneous conversations. We weren’t. And you know in your bones that the number isn’t an exaggeration.