#without doing any of the work to make themselves credible

[deservedgrace]

something that i've been struggling to articulate but has been bothering me for a while is how some christians engage and interact with science and what i'm realizing is they have a like... almost love-bombing/discarding relationship with it. and i recognize science isn't a person and that's not literally happening but the christians that i grew up around have this relationship with science where it's real/valid/correct if it supports their side and fake/invalid/wrong if it doesn't. it's this like... engaging with science to get something from it when it can prove their point and condemning it when it doesn't. and this also ties into the belief that you, a layperson with no background in science, are more knowledgeable than actual scientists simply because you have god on your side, and therefore you can use science in whatever way you see fit, which means engaging with it in a way that is ultimately anti-science (but that also doesn't matter because god said it was okay). and it's exhausting engaging with these people for me because it's not that they believe all science bad, it's that they believe most science bad but some science good and they have the authority to determine what is bad and what is good, despite, again, not having a background in science (because what is a "background in science" to an all-knowing god that you have a personal relationship with?). the thing that is so frustrating to me is how these people recognize science is valued and use it to strengthen the validity of their points and to gain credibility while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge the validity of science as a field at all or put in any effort to understand/respect it.

[judaismandsuch]

An Open Letter to Dropout

@dropoutdottv I am disappointed in you.

I know that this will not change your policy, nor will you make a folloe up statement, as proportion wise the number of people you have lost from your last post, vs. the number of people you will lose should you make an apology and walk back the statement are not in any way the comparable.

But you have failed your Jewish audience.

A group of your viewers accused an openly and actively Jewish guest on one of your shows of being Zionist. Despite him not making any statements since the few days after October 7th.

So you made a statement, saying that no one you have had on identifies themselves as such. And that even if anyone did you would give them the room to grow, and learn, and repent from such a horrific view.

That you condemn the genocide. Which hasn't been found to be a genocide by the international court. Which has a death toll of combatants-to-civilians far less than even just the bombing of Dresden of WWII. An event can be horrific without being genocide. But calling it 'monstrous' or 'horrific' wouldn't have placated people.

Though I noticed that you haven't spoken about the genocide (or at least, wide spread persecution and inhumane treatment) of Uyghurs in China. But that may lead to you becoming completely banned in China. Which could impact your bottom line.

You will give more money to PCRF, and you encourage people to donate to UNRWA.

What is wrong with you?

What is it, that an accusation of 'Zionist', which can mean anything from "Israel exists now, and it no longer existing is bad" to the Kahanist definition, requires an immediate response and excuse?

You continue to recommend supporting UNRWA, despite documented proof that UNRWA members took part in October 7th.

In your first milque-toast response to your Discord's meltdown on the subject you supported JVP, and mentioned that there are several equally horrific events going on around the world.

But you haven't supported any of the other causes.

Several of them are far worse than what is happening in Gaza, but you haven't raised a cent for them.

You continue to tacitly support JVP, despite any affiliated Jew saying that they are clearly not Jewish. There practices show that they don't understand Judaism, and their founders and board of directors is mainly non-Jews. They have a page on ADL describing all the Antisemitic acts that they have done. But you still keep a pinned post in support of them.

Why aren't you fundraising for WCK? They do good work in Gaza, and unlike the rest of the groups you platformed, they haven't had a single accusation of association with Hamas.

But, you treat a baseless call of 'Zionist' as if it were a nearly credible call of 'Nazi'.

You make a post on this, the day before the American Election, but haven't even done a single 'go out to vote' post?

What is wrong with you?

Are you afraid that because @samreich is Jewish, if you don't get in front of demands that all obvious Jews you have on demonstrate their alliance with 'the cause', people will start to ask if Sam Reich is 'one of the good ones'?

To be clear, this isn't antisemitism.

This is performing for an audience that doesn't realise that a witch hunt for Jews, demanding that the Jews show that they are 'good jews' is in fact antisemitism.

This is focusing on one conflict to the exclusion of all others. Perhaps Myanmar and Sudan just aren't that important. Afterall, no one is talking about them.

Feeling the need to address baseless accusations thrown on obvious Jews that haven't performed well enough.

You have sent your message.

I am unwelcome.

I hope it was worth it

[genericpuff]

Hey Puff,

I'm someone who has always struggled with how to do research "correctly," but have lurked around the community enough to know RS had a real tendency for… not doing enough. Do you have any recommendations, not necessarily specific to Greek mythos, on how to just do research? Is Wikipedia even a good jumping off point?

Thanks!

Biggest thing, at least for me, is being thorough! The reason a lot of folks tend to side-eye Wikipedia as a "source" isn't just because it's relatively easy for anyone to edit, but also because Wikipedia itself is a library of sources and not the source itself.

Wikipedia can be a perfectly acceptable jump off point, as long as you're actually jumping to the places it can lead to - and you can do that through References.

Let's use the Wikipedia entry for Persephone as an example.

Sourcing "improperly" through Wikipedia would be to simply source directly from one of the sentences listed here and calling it a day. No further digging on where the excerpt comes from, no cross-referencing with other material, just reading the part on Wikipedia that says she was a vegetation goddess, slapping it into an essay or adaption or whatever, and then not confirming it further or picking apart the why of her status as a vegetation goddess through extended research.

Sooo what do we do to find that info? Let's search the word 'vegetation' and see if anything else comes up.

There we go, that has a bit more detail. And from here, we can click the little '19' at the end of the paragraph, which will take us to the References section at the bottom of the page.

Aaaand boom! Now you've got an actual source that you can dig into further, if you so choose. There isn't a whole lot that I can access of this sourced book online, but I was able to find an excerpt where the author sourced Cicero, a Roman poet and philosopher (among other things) who lived during the rise of the Roman empire:

That said, sometimes these sources aren't quite so easy to track down. That's where cross-referencing can help - but that means leaving Wikipedia!

Where this concerns a Greek goddess, let's see what we can find on Theoi, another great resource specifically pertaining to Greek / Roman / etc. deities, stories, and customs.

Though it's not quite as clickable as Wikipedia, Theoi also does a good job at outlining sources in their descriptions. Though Bennett isn't mentioned here, Hesiod and Cicero are, and wouldn't you know it, they're sourced on Theoi as well.

So there you have it! Even though Bennett is from the early 2000's, he did his own work to outline and source poets and academics whose work he was now documenting himself. This means the odds of Bennett simply making shit up are low because he sourced from the preserved works of the era he's speaking on and those works are referenced again through other resource libraries such as Theoi.

What ALL that helps with at the very least - aside from the opinions one could have about the sources themselves (Ovid 😒) - is to legitimize the research. We know without a shadow of a doubt that Persephone was attributed to vegetation and the harvest because there are so many sources across different cultures and backgrounds and generations stating it as such. It thus makes the conclusions a lot more credible, even when they're coming from a more modern source, because that source was built on their own research and sources from the Greek/Roman/etc. documents that have been preserved (and there's still new stuff being found!!!)

Obviously there are always arguments to be made about the material itself, especially when it comes to the debates over translations and cultural contexts, but actually following up on initial searches with referencing and cross-referencing is a lot more reliable and credible than simply taking something from Wikipedia and saying "I read it on the Internet."

As much as the effectiveness of Google and Wikipedia as legitimate research sources is frowned upon, they are incredibly effective, you just need to know where to look and how to find it, and most importantly - how to verify it.

And that's just the online stuff! Libraries are still alive and well! Many universities contribute to search engines like WorldCat which are designed specifically for research papers, published articles, and textbooks! Point is, the world around us is full of knowledge and resources, so the key is to learn how to navigate it so you can get the most out of it!

This is ultimately why it's so important to not restrict yourself to the first Google result - I know it's "easier" due to the convenience of it all, but you're also robbing yourself of the opportunity to really expand your knowledge beyond the summary of a targeted first result, and it runs the risk of sourcing from illegitimate sources or sources that are controlled by Google's own self-interests (protip: have a very specific problem but Googling it just gets you a bunch of automated sponsor posts and completely useless results? add 'reddit' to the end of your search, you'll get human answers from real human beings and there's always at least ONE other person who's had the same problem and posted about it to reddit LMAO seriously this one's saved my skin so many times)

And when you learn to do research the way that works for your brain? It's really, really fun. A lot more fun than public school led many of us to believe. If you learn best from talking and engaging with people, then go talk to people! Participate in groups and forums that are dedicated to the topic you're researching! If you learn best from listening to audio material, then try out audiobooks, they can often be found online through various means (🏴‍☠️) BUT ebooks and audiobooks are stocked at libraries too!

But of course, that leads us to what makes for bad research, and I obviously can't use any other example in this context than Rachel herself, whose "research" is evidently often the first recommended result that pops up on Google. And yes, I can say evidently because we've proven this when she tried to source the term 'xenia' into LO as a definition. Not only was it copy pasted to the point of still containing typos, but it was sourced plainly from a Princeton study guide that is now severely outdated - not the work that that study guide was sourcing from in and of itself.

(notice how she just sourced it as "princeton.edu" and not the specific URL that it came from)

If she really wanted to sound well-researched with the cheeky insert of the definition of xenia linking to a smart-sounding location (we're gonna ignore that it ruins the flow of the comic) then she could have sourced it from literally any of these:

But instead she did the equivalent of an 8th grader copy pasting a sentence from Wikipedia and calling it "research". It's not research. It's a lazy shortcut and it doesn't facilitate any real learning.

This can be seen in other instances as well, such as Metis' design:

As well as Leto, who I kinda think Rachel mixed up with the Full Metal Alchemist character of the same name when googling her because I can think of no other explanation as to why she's a sun goddess in LO when she has zero affiliation with the sun in the myths aside from being Apollo's mother-

(I can't prove that this is what happened but it's hilarious to think about; I'm also low key suspicious that Rachel accidentally mixed in some sources of the Métis people because Metis' design is very... Indigenous-coded 🤨)

^^^ This. This is all bad research. It's not a bad thing if Rachel's interest in Greek myth started through works like Hercules or other creative adaptions, that's actually how it starts for many of us. Where she failed was by trying to sell herself as a "folklorist" and her work as a "retelling", without actually following through in her research. She would often only do just enough to make herself seem well educated on the subject to anyone whose knowledge was as basic - or less - than hers, but not enough that it could actually hold up in a real discussion about Greek myth with other people who are more read up on it than her. Rachel's self-proclaimed "folklorist" title is only validated by the lowest common denominator of readers, who 99% of Lore Olympus ended up being made for in the end, while those who actually understood the myths deeper than their Wikipedia summaries pulled their hair out in frustration every time Rachel tried to make some sly reference to a myth or attempted to speak about it in interviews.

Comparisons aside, the best part is that this research process doesn't have to be exclusive to studying historical stuff! Writing a story that features a disabled character, but you yourself are not disabled and are worried you're going to misrepresent? Search up articles and posts that pertain to the specific disability you're trying to write; I guarantee you that there are people living with that disability offering up that information completely for free because they want to see more representation for themselves in media. Trying to learn how to draw characters of different body types / skin colors / etc. from your own? Seek out the works and advice of those who do have those physical differences and learn from them.

It's about being thorough. It's about opening yourself up to things you may have been blind to before. It's about embracing the learning experience as a positive sign of growth, not a negative sign of failure. It's about taking the opportunity to learn every time it presents itself, even if those opportunities are small and passive. A person who doesn't know is just a person who hasn't learned yet (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و

[pumpumdemsugah]

I don't trust white queer or trans people

What this "woc have higher levels of T" and "Black women don't fit eurocentric hormone levels" ( said by left leaning people ) shows is what many of you take away is WOC, especially Black women are seen as masculine because you think there is a biological basis for this idea and don't see it the same way people see police calling Black men and boys bigger or holding a gun to justify police brutality

White queer people love the " how can you tell someone's hormone levels without a test" until they're presented with a Black woman then they know and they're happy to say whatever unscientific neo-race science shit about Black women they like to prove a point about not making assumptions about peoples bodies but Black women aren't people, we're points, tools and vehicles for credibility so we're whatever your argument needs to work. Tbh i think the only reason many of you even use that line wrt trans people is trans people can be white. If only Black people were trans, many of you would be comfortable pushing ideas you call fascist when conservatives do it. White people always find a way to present themselves as more evolved than the lowly existence Black women occupy because why are you talking about my body and why do i see people claiming stereotypes that DO NOT apply to Black women apply to us like being hairy. At this point many of you view us as an empty vessel to dump and pin any negative idea on. We're literally seen as balded headed. I'm not interchangable with other WOC or other stereotypes

All many of you have taken away is treating Black women like a modern day 3rd gender so OF COURSE we're treated differently, our bodies are problem others need to learn to stomach and taken the focus off the fact we're seen as aggressive because of the legacy of slavery. You can not own people as property and present them as people, you need a justification for enslaving an entire group of people. You lot genuinely think Black women are being targeted because we are different and brutishly made. The blame goes from the people doing this to casting Black women's bodies as a gender conundrum that has yet to be solved. Slave masters were never confused.

Its easier to justify slavery and colonialism when you pretend the people you're doing it to aren't people the way you are as white person, they aren't civilised and many of you have come to this conclusion about us again and don't see the issue of YOU finding a scapegoat to distract from your violent behaviour.

You lot hear " Black women don't fit white femininity" and you think yes, its because they're universally all big Black brutes and you think its leftism because buzzword buzzword and we're meant to see this as solidarity because you got some self loathing Black woman to agree. Black women are seen as masculine as an excuse to abuse and rape us, its not simply some issue of representation or accepting us, its used to justify harm and many of you have taken a discussion of violence against Black women and erased violence against Black women from it. And then have the gall to call it solidarity and not white entitlement when you've ignored our history and suffering

[caparrucia]

There's a very Tumblr-specific grift that I find both fascinating and utterly frustrating in how recurrent it is.

Because Tumblr is a casual social media site, this is rarely the site where professionals and organizations host a public presence. Tumblr isn't Twitter. You pick up a username and use it as a pseudonym and all anyone knows about you is what you say about yourself. To connect someone's personal Tumblr with their wallet name is doxxing and evil.

So you end up with people who are passionate and knowledgeable about a vast array of subjects, but there's not really a structure of credibility behind it. Which is really cool and awesome and allows people to express themselves and keep a private space where they can be themselves without much consequence... but it also opens the ground for this particular flavor of griefter: The Enlightened One.

The Enlightened One is just knowledgeable enough about an obscure or complex subject that a simple Wikipedia search will not debunk them, but fundamentally wrong in ways that people actually knowledgeable on the subject froth at the mouth about, because they're not straightforward or easy to debunk. To explain what's wrong with their shit, you'd need to give a full course on your specialty, which requires time and effort most people don't want to spend in their fun, casual space because it amounts essentially to doing work.

And that frothing rage and frustration is very easily mischaracterized as "jealousy" or "hate" and used to uplift The Enlightened One into a pedestal of prosecution.

See, most of the time The Enlightened One is just a clueless dipshit making themselves seem important on the internet, and while they're incredibly frustrating for the people who actually know what they're talking about, they're easy to ignore. But the worst kind, are the kind that are actively spreading misinformation and often starting panic waves, when their niche of interest turns out to be... you know, a bit more sensitive than say period clothing or ancient poetry.

There's nothing wrong with learning from people who are happy to share their knowledge, even in a casual setting like Tumblr. There's also nothing wrong with people asking for compensation when that sharing of knowledge has become a structured, time consuming effort and it's essentially a curated resorce.

But the moment you meet someone who encourages you to run all your decisions by them? Who wants you to treat their inbox like the google search box? Who answers questions without providing any sources, or all their sources link back to their own posts/content? When you meet someone who insists you can stop thinking and let THEM do the thinking for you?

Run The Fuck Away.

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

Dear anti Zionists

I will try and make this brief and to the point since you often attack me without reading the entirety of my posts :

I’ve seen your recent posts about the trials in Haag, and the mockery you’ve made of the events of October 7th. That’s just disgusting. Freeing Palestine has nothing to do murdering Israeli civilians.

- This war was initiated by Hamas , a terrorist organisation on October 7th.

- You cannot deny that they invaded Israel and then massacred thousands of civilans , raped and mutilated women and children, kidnapped civilians , shot thousands of rockets, destroyed homes ….

There are currently 136 Israeli hostages still held in captivity, for almost 100 days. They’re held in underground tunnels and being withheld medical care and medications. The women are raped and the man tortured.

There are currently also hundreds of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes due to the war.

-I will say it again: Literally every war or operation in Israel’s history was not initiated by Israel. It is always a matter of retaliation to foreign military invasion or terror attacks .

I’m only 22 and I have personally lived through one intifada, 4 wars and countless military operations.

We are all suffering because of Hamas. Once again- my city is often under attack and people I know are dead. And some of you here have absolute nerve to say that I’m privileged????

-Intifadas aren’t cute civilian uprisings. They’re violent terror attacks against civilians. Children’s Buses blowing up, restaurants blown up, shootings, stabbings, running over people…

read a damn book or something before you chant “Globalise the Intifadas🥹”.

-Have any of you here ever spoken to a Palestinian or an Israeli in your life? Do you even know anyone Jewish?

- Please give me actual example of the apartheid in Israel, I’m waiting. My Druze / Arabic colleagues , friends and I literally frequently joke about this claim.

-No, blockades between the West Bank/Gaza and Israel do not count.

There are ISIS affiliated/ Hamas terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza, territories that are not governed by Israel > there are borders check point. Israel has the right to defend itself against terror.

-by the way, Jordan and Egypt both have those blockades btw- I don’t see any of you attacking them? The hypocrisy…

- While I am not questioning the death and suffering of Palestinians , this has to be said:

The amount of Palestinian casualties during the Hamas-Israel war is estimated by unconfirmed sources , and isn’t corroborated by any neutral official organisation.

It was also proven that most of the casualties are terrorists.

The Gaza ministry of health= Hamas .

Al Jazeera= not credible &has been time and time again proved to be biased and anti-Semitic.

Furthermore, It’s been proven time and time again that Hamas terrorists work at UWNRA, and that Palestinian reporters in both Al Jazeera and western media outlets are in fact Hamas members/ supporters.

One of them literally joined the Al Qasam forces in their attack on October 7th, and was reporting rather enthusiastically on the murder of Israeli civilians. As the massacre continued around them.

You would rather believe terrorists & terrorists sympathisers than Jewish/ Israeli victims’ testimonies and the concrete evidence they provide.

-It seems like you’re ignoring what Gazans are saying in your attempts to “free Palestine”.

If Gazans themselves are saying Hamas are to blame for their terrible living conditions and war , why are you defending Hamas?

Why are you assuming that you know better than the people who are actually living this conflict?

-The IDF has been trying every tactic under the sun to alert civilians from incoming strikes. There are whole unites devoted to texting calling Gazan civilians. They have made millions of calls this war alone.

And yes, even the infamous flyers you joke about are used.

Do you know any other army that does that?

God I am so tired of the misinformation, lies and hatred here. So many of you are showing your true colours- ignorance and antisemitism.

[rockofeye]

This is Not Okay.

(I see your asks and I am working through them, promise)

In the last few years, I have generally kept quiet on the amount of unpleasantness that has come bearing the title of Haitian Vodou. I am not the Vodou Police and people have a right to be wrong and make (sometimes terrible) mistakes. Additionally, people genuinely do not want advice or feedback when their mind is made up and they have found what they think is the real deal for them, and that's okay. I don't need or even want to get involved since folks are presumably adults making adult decisions, and I don't need to invite myself to any/every fight where my name is not invoked...or even when it is!

And yet.

Sometimes, it's too much to stay quiet because silence can get people really hurt, or worse. While folks are entitled to their mistakes and entitled not to educate themselves or do due diligence on the people they are granting access to their heads, there's just something that doesn't sit right with me when it's egregious. Long time followers know I have only spoken directly once or twice.

This is egregious, and it's going to get someone killed:

I have received this at least 5 different times today and have had folks genuinely seeking the lwa ask if this is a solid option. I do not know the person behind this and I would hope this is some sort of massive misunderstanding on their part. However, even so, this is awful.

Let's break this down a bit.

Advertising an initiation right off the bat with how many spots you have available says that you are not concerned with who comes in the door or why they are there. Advertising initiation as something to buy is weird even without the bargain basement 'FIVE SPOTS AVAILABLE'. Sosyetes do not need to advertise and recruit; folks come by reputation and general attraction to what the sosyete does.

The fact that there is no information about what sosyete is mounting this is a red flag. No one can undertake initiation alone. It's impossible because the very mechanics of initiation require folks from outside your lineage to come and verify that the work is being done completely and in accordance with the general principles of the religion.

Trying to cast doubt on other places as a way to build credibility is gross, and it is super ironic that they are advertising this as an answer to scams and people who do gross things. Do those things happen? Absolutely. Is this the way to solve it? No. Grift cannot neutralize grift. This is grift.

The big blinking neon red flag sign is the kwakwa/asogwe hybrid initiation. This is not possible and communicates several things, the largest of which is that this person has not received appropriate guidance in either rite because even the most barebones education tells you that this is not possible and could never be done.

Further, this communicates a lack of respect for both rites. The balls it takes to decide that you are going to take it upon yourself to change a religious practice and throw a bunch of stuff in a blender to come up with something new is WILD. This is outright spiritual arrogance that ignores the place of elders, culture, history, and the actual revolution that birthed these things.

Claiming that a person will receive everything they need in one step is lacking in clarity and breaking from the culture of Haitian Vodou, tchatcha and asogwe lineages alike. That is not how initiation works; the process of initiation unfolds over days and weeks and the process of becoming a competent manbo or houngan unfolds over years and even a lifetime. No initiation is a drive through endeavor and should not be treated as such.

'Without the worries of ties to a spiritual house' tells me this person lacks rootedness and perhaps ties to a spiritual house of their own, which is sad. It is not possible to be a manbo or a houngan in any lineage without ties to a specific lineage/spiritual house. It's not possible. Every lineage of Haitian Vodou is based on the lakou, or the compound or yard that a family and community is built around.

What lakou we are associated with tells our stories and gives us our roots, whether we are Haitian or not, or related to our lineage head or not. These stories are vitally important, we cannot function without them and we cannot take Haitian Vodou out of the context that it exists in. We are collectively built from the story that our spiritual ancestors told themselves when they dreamed of liberation and undertook the truly revolutionary action of revolt against French colonizers.

Trying to undo that to package initiation as something unrooted and without community is a slap in the ancestral face and is impossible. It's not Haitian Vodou. We do not stand alone. If you have no community, who will endorse you as a houngan or manbo? How will anyone know you actually are one? I can give you the names of a dozen priests who were active participants in my initiation and can confirm that I have the right to hold the asson. If you have no spiritual community, you do not have that...and you do not have the right to hold the asson.

Learning is different in Haitian Vodou; we learn as we develop and there is no initiation that grants you the immediate access to the inside of your initiator's head. Info farming is not a thing. We learn as we develop, which is why relationships and community are so important. Going through an initiation doesn't give you all the knowledge. Initiation doesn't even teach you things, you learn after because during the process you do not have the right yet to know. Framing all of this as withholding information shows a lack of cultural fluency. Do people withhold in ways that can be harmful? Sure, because there is fault everywhere....but this is not how you solve that, at all.

Most asogwe receive their po tèt; some take it home and some choose to keep it in the temple they were initiated in. Some houses have specific regleman around that, and there are individual circumstances that would keep someone from having theirs but those are instances that people would work out ahead of time. Further, if someone is not comfy with what the lineage they are initiating into does with po tèts, that it something to work out before they initiate, which is why discernment is so, so important.

There are not multiple kolyes given during initiation. In an asogwe lineage, a kolye is made during the initiation process for you specifically and it is large and worn on the body in most places. We do not receive kolye for individual lwa nor are they consecrated in separate ceremonies; this is directly taken from Orisha traditions.

A kwa kwa and a bell are not an asson, and genuinely only a fool would try to bring that to Loko, the progenitor of all asogweman. You cannot mash things together and say they are an asson because you want them to be, or that Loko will give it. I can't even be charitable about this, it's straight up wrong and completely unethical. No one does this. No one.

'Head seals' is wild and someone is going to get hurt. The job of protecting the head is with the lwa, not in the hands of someone doing work. Further, a correct and complete initiation precludes the possibility of problematic possession because the lwa are there to sort that out. Additionally, taking it upon yourself to 'seal' the head a child of Ginen in the name of Ginen is awfully arrogant...are you really going to say you can overstep the lwa and/or do a better job than them?

The work of initiation is incredibly delicate because you literally have someone's head in your hands. People can die when things are done incorrectly, either in the moment or in a long and winding road of calamity. Every single manbo and houngan I know has a story about this. We know what happens when things like this are undertaken because we've either watched the fallout or had people come to our doors in deep suffering because incorrect and inadvisable things have been done to them.

Paying for any initiation through Etsy should speak for itself. That is not how houngans and manbos do business.

What is unsaid in this blurb is that this is undoubtedly happening in the US, because it would never be allowed to happen in Haiti. This says a lot and it's a giant can of worms to open, but when have I avoided that? Initiation does not happen in the US for a lot of reasons. Some folks want to say it can, but it really can't. This is not the post to get into why and I can write more on that later, but that's the long and short of it.

Perhaps finally, my friend Sankofa made a really astute point in another forum: beware anyone in any African Traditional or African Descended religion trying to sell you something ceremonially unique. Our ceremonies are largely the same for big reasons, and an individual saying they are doing something new, like mixing tchatcha and asson or initiating you to your dead ancestors and putting ancestors on your head, is a massive red flag. This is not how culture and traditional religion function. This is not what the ancestors built for us, and this is not what we pass down.

Please, please be careful with your heads. I meant it when I said that people will die because of stuff like this. Please be discerning about who you trust with your head and your life. Take your time and see lots of ceremonies. Pray. Listen for the voice of the lwa which can sound a lot like your intuition. And, for the love of Ogou and Metrès Danto, don't buy initiations on Etsy.

I hope the person behind this post can reflect on what they are doing and re-evaluate their choices. In a perfect world, they would consult with their elders and their mama/papa kanzo for guidance and really, really listen. If they don't have elders and/or an initiator, they should refrain from offering things like this until they do. Different choices can always be made, but spiritual work done out of ignorance, malice, or greed that harms someone can never be taken back.

[homestuckreplay]

Webcomics at Day 100 #2: Penny Arcade

Pages read: 11/18/1998 – 8/20/1999 & 4/13/2009 – 8/19/2009 (including accompanying blog posts); about 180 pages

Reason for selection: Penny Arcade is important. The Gamer Webcomic is kind of the archetypical webcomic, and Penny Arcade is its most famous example. But PA has crossed over into the world of mainstream gaming and nerd culture enough that it’s transcended just webcomics, hosting major gaming conventions, pioneering the medium of TTRPG actual play, and running a successful charity. Their projects are known by people who don’t read the comic itself, and they’ve arguably played a role in normalizing video games as a hobby in broader culture.

Current status: Has updated three times a week pretty consistently throughout its entire run. In 2024 the two main characters are still wearing the same shirts they wore in 1998.

Content warnings: misogyny, sexual humor, general period typical humor including slurs

Overall thoughts: Penny Arcade relies so much on references to real-time video games and nerd culture moments that it doesn’t read well as an archive. I enjoyed the 2009 comics more than the 1998-9 comics simply because I understood a lot of the 2009 cultural references while the 90s ones go right over my head. Without that context, reading it feels like sitting on a bus behind two guys who are having a loud and opinionated conversation about their own lives. Playing the same games and running in the same circles as the creators is near essential to enjoy the work.

Penny Arcade doesn’t do anything with the webcomics medium that wouldn’t be possible in print – they primarily make three-panel strips with text and still images, and since 2002, these have been accompanied by blog commentary from one of the creators. Despite or because of this, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik are the platonic ideal of Guys Who Make Webcomics. Cishet white men in their early twenties (when PA began) who didn’t have any formal training in comics or any previous notoriety, but who had internet access in its early days, a sarcastic sense of humor, and strong opinions that they really liked to share. The first few years of strips have their text written in Comic Sans, and an early strip (‘A VERY Special Penny Arcade!’ February 17, 1999) features Mike (‘in character’ as Gabe) proposing to his then-girlfriend Kara.

These early strips are far better preserved than the average 90s webcomic, and I do think that reading the full archive would be a fascinating case study of how the PA brand was built, and more broadly how a creator develops their skills and grows their audience. The art style has become more exaggerated and distinctive over the years, and the lettering looks like a published comic book. Even though there’s no narrative to the strip itself, there’s this classic American Dream, come-from-nothing narrative to the first decade of the comic’s history that I think is compelling to a lot of people, especially to gamers in the 2000s when gaming is still an often ridiculed hobby.

Capturing this, there’s scholarship on the economics of webcomics that discuss Penny Arcade and how its creators managed to turn the comic into a well-paying day job. I hate thinking about money and can’t stand economics as a discipline so I didn’t read these, but I did read Bryanne Miller’s 2007 Master’s thesis ‘Making “Cents” of Subcultural Capital: The Preservation of Authenticity and Credibility in Penny Arcade Subculture,’ a really fascinating exploration which includes interviews with fans talking about their experiences with the comic and community. According to this, PA fans see themselves as a subculture within a subculture, a particular flavor of grassroots gamer who is skeptical of major games companies and journalism. To them, Holkins and Krahulik are the witty spokespeople for their underdog gamer sect fighting against the mainstream.

The thesis also delves into the major controversies PA has been involved in, where they’ve picked fights with more powerful celebrities, as well as their open resistance to advertising even while participating in it. It also discusses Child’s Play, PA’s official charity, set up with the explicit purpose of changing the public perception of gamers at a time where the ‘video games cause violence’ panic was at its height in mainstream media. I don’t know how calculated vs truthful PA’s image of being against corporations and commercialization is, but I have to give them some credit. PA accepts donations and sells merchandise but is entirely free to read, and always has been. This is in contrast to PvP, another popular gaming webcomic of the 2000s, which has fully paywalled its archive.

Finally, ‘two gamers on a couch’ may be PA’s main mode, but it’s not their only mode. In June 2009 they posted the first pages of Lookouts, a fantasy woodland survival adventure, and Automata, a 1920s noir with artificial intelligence. These are formatted more like comic book pages, with distinct art styles, and both of their first pages are effective at establishing their worlds, which are immediately intriguing and honestly both feel like great settings for TTRPG campaigns. Comparing these to a 1999 strip gives me a lot of hope for how much I could improve at writing and analysis in ten years. Also, ‘No Heart, No Soul, No Service’ is a great line.

Relevance to Homestuck: Without Penny Arcade, Homestuck might not exist – the first MS Paint Adventure, Jailbreak, was originally hosted on the PA forums (as was early Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff). The formal ties go further - Penny Arcade is one of around fifty webcomics linked from MS Paint Adventures beneath the heading ‘No Shortage of Good Websites,’ and Andrew Hussie announced in July that their PA fanart will be featured in the upcoming PA book The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade. I also found this gem in a forum thread from March (s_o is Andrew Hussie) and while I don’t think this directly incited Homestuck, it was definitely prophetic.

Penny Arcade’s writing style, where the writers use unnecessarily obscure and archaic words to suggest intelligence paired with a tone of aggression and self-superior humor, likely influenced Homestuck given that Hussie was a regular, popular user of their forums. I see GameBro magazine as in part a parody of PA’s blog posts and their ‘gamers against mainstream gaming’ perspectives. I wonder if anyone has ever made something like Dave’s GameBro review blog but for Penny Arcade.

Continue reading? I will definitely read more from a ‘learning about internet history’ perspective, but I won’t read this for enjoyment. To be honest, I see enough gamers yelling on the internet without specifically seeking it out in webcomic form. I do think I'll read the short form narrative comics, like Automata, that the creators have made.

[solarwynd]

The amount of hit tweets I've seen gloating about "no payola, organic, no remixes no versions" mannn. Tens of thousands likes stuff

I hate to bring back whatever Jungkook did with his debut in conversations about Jimin cause it was all already been said, god, but this stuff literally, honestly makes me feel gaslighted. It's like a collective amnesia.

And now Diana Ross is apparently praising jk's SNTY, which is sure, fine. But "MJ is coming through all of the moves" -- isn't it a Bit Much? Like, of all things, I personally had thought Jungkook's MJs cosplay was downright offensive. Justin Bieber and Justin Timberlake, yeah, but Michele Jackson? When BTS did MJs hommage in dynamite it was cute and fun and attractive. But Jk's takes himself Seriously and it's just.. not good? He can dance, sure, but all his style is basically highly aggressive tick-tock-hard-edit kind of dance. He lacks fluidity, detail work, ease, all that he compensates with aggressiveness and power.

And he can sing well, sure! But.. is it Anything different in tone and execution from countless other basic male pop artist and k-pop idols?тт And there's nothing bad with any of it! -- at least till you try to mediaplay yourself as This Generation's MJ.

It just makes me feel like, am I missing something? Does the Diana Ross sees something that I don't?

I'm sorry for ranting, I am actually truly enjoying SGMB rn! And I do understand that jk gets noticed because he's being aggressively put by sb in the limelight by all kinds of means and mediaplays. This gaslighted kind of feeling just sometimes gets to me, I guess.

I just really really hope Jimin will get and will keep getting the recognition and praising he deserves) Because I'd honestly (and I say it not because I'm a Jimin fan) name Jimin as the one that can have MJ's type of presence, but he actually doesn't need to name himself the next anything, because he can just be Park Jimin.

It’s definitely not amnesia with armys, it’s just that with Jimin they can say all those things confidently and know that it’s actually true lmao. The funniest thing about it though is how they would attack pjms for saying the same thing they’re saying about Jimin now for LC, because back then it was being shady. And “you can praise one member without bringing down the other.”

And honestly idk how it hasn’t clicked in their heads the clear difference in JK’s “success” vs Jimin’s. And I don’t mean them knowing how they both got it because they obviously know. But I mean finally come to terms with Jimin having more pull (without the tricks) than JK does.

About the Diana Ross thing…

It was random, but not unexpected because I know what their end goal is. I’m not saying that Diana Ross might not already be privy to who BTS as a group and maybe (and that is a hard maybe for any of them) them individually, but you can’t tell me this doesn’t come off as someone asking her to react to him and giving her thoughts on what she just watched. With other celebrities it’d come off as more believable that they brought him up themselves, but her? Nah.

But you see how all of a sudden even though you believe that JK isn’t that great or doesn’t live up MJ’s son title they’re trying to give him at first you’re questioning yourself just because Diana Ross said he was good? They’ve been doing it for a while now. Teaming him up with the big veteran names in the industry to give him credibility as an artist and performer. Obviously if these people have taken interest in him and is giving him all these praises he must be the best. It’s strategy on their end.

At no point during his debut have they ever let JK’s talent or numbers (without the payola) speak for themselves without having to push something into place. So I really don’t feel any type of way about it tbh. If Jimin gets noticed by those same people on level terms then cool, if he doesn’t that’s okay too. He’ll always be talented with or without their co-sign.

[bronx-bomber87]

Happy Saturday Fandom :) Wanted to post links to the last few I know they came over the holidays in case anyone missed them. The master list has also been updated. 4x22 , 5x01, 5x02

We’ve reached our yearning era and I’m here for it. This one may not have a ton but it’s just enough that at we were all dying for more. I was so excited to be an era where very aware of their feelings but couldn’t be together yet. Good stuff. Let us proceed shall we?

5x03-Dye Hard

We jump one month into the future. Because Lucy has gone to UC school. So our couple has been apart for some time at this point. Making that longing extra intense. Lucy arrives home to a surprise party of sorts. She's just returning home from UC school. Tamara and Chris welcome her back with mustaches. I love how excited she is Lucy is back. Always take some cute hugs with them. She tells Lucy the she has to head to school but wants to hear all about it tonight. I love them so much.

Leaves us just the clown and Lucy. Bleh. She asks him how he’s doing? Says he’s doing ok. Typing is still hard but he’s glad to be back at work. Was going crazy on the couch. Tells her there’s something else that’s been helping him more. An online group trying to hunt Rosalind. Kinda like the one she was apart of for Aaron’s case back in 4x16. Lucy doesn’t look excited about this idea. He says they contacted him few weeks ago. They call themselves Dye Hards.

Hence the name of the episode. That their research is actually impressive. They compile all their credible tips in an encrypted document. Called the ‘mother doc.’ Lucy’s face is screaming how much she hates all this. But instead of reading her like he should he presses her further. Because it’s Chris…never respects any boundaries she’s putting up but sure man keep going. Force her to read about the one person who sets her PTSD off like no other.

Just so you can have some peace of mind…grumble….Dislike him so very much. Lucy tells him how not healthy this is. (It really isn’t…) That she’s just a patrol officer. He whines about how the task force is ignoring him. Of course they are ya putz. It's why he’s dragging her into this. I hate this very much. Lucy gives in and says she’ll give his doc a look. That good ole guilt driving her decisions about him some more. Smh.

Roll call starts out with Grey congratulating Lucy. She successfully passed UC school. Telling everyone that is no small feat. Look at Tim ever the proud husband. That look alone says everything you need to know about her crushing it. The soft looks in his eyes. That soft gaze he only reserves for her. *sigh* Oh pining era you are lovely.

Lucy trying to contain her emotions about all of it. Grey calling her out and congratulating her. Tim looking at her like she hung the moon and stars. Couldn’t be more telling if he tried. She can’t even look at him. Just messes with her thermos. Lucy not really knowing how to react to the attention. Especially Tim’s…She just nods and hopes they move on.

Aaron and Lucy come out of roll call together. Lucy is congratulating him on making P2. Lucy also commends him on being a good aide for Tim. Aaron is very aware of Tim and Lucy. Maybe not everything but enough to offer stepping back. Then asks Lucy if Tim said he’s doing a good job? Lucy says no…that she made that last part up LMAO

Reminds me of 1x02 when Wrigley did the same to her. Thinking she got praise from Tim early on. Only to be crushed by the fact that he hadn't...Yeah you gotta really earn that Tim Bradford praise Aaron lol His reaction to that fake news is hilarious. Lucy can't lie and has to let him know no such praise has happened. Sorry my man.

Lucy follows it up with he hasn’t replaced him yet LOL I mean that’s a lot coming from Tim. If he wasn't happy he would've traded him away like baseball card. Lucy adding on 'So he’s…happy.' As happy as one could be without his person by his side sure. This next bit it sticks in her throat a bit as she says it.

Telling him he should stick with him. Obviously killing her to be to be apart from him. To pass up taking being his aide once again. But she wants to keep the distance up. For the same reasons as 5x02. Hurts too much to be around him when she can’t be with him. The pining era is so good for these moments. Aaron asks if she’s sure? Because she doesn't seem sure...

Only they could have such immense chemistry with an intense stare. One that is across the room from each other BTW. The longing is palpable af. Angsty goodness right here. Also those are some smoldering bedroom eyes for Lucy. My god idk how she could function after him looking at her that way. Would make me hot under the collar good god. That man wants her back in his shop. But we know that isn’t happening anytime soon.

So much pining and tension with just one look good lord. His stare does end up affecting her. Her breath hitches a little when they make eye contact. She stammers a little in her advice to Aaron. I love how they find each other those across a room. That magnetic pull only they understand. It’s automatic no matter what’s going on. Lucy rambling on about needing some quiet time anyways..You know for her next steps in her career...

More like Tim thinking time. Let’s be real. I love how the entire time she’s just staring at Tim. Spending most of their conversation just staring right back. Even when he’s looked down. She misses him so much. That is very evident in this moment. When she finally breaks off her longing she notices Aaron looking at his phone ha Not even paying attention to her anymore. Making a sassy comment that he hasn't even heard a word she's said. He apologizes and says he has to deal with something personal.

We start out with Tim and Aaron. Tim feeling extra surly after seeing Lucy. Much worse getting to be that close and not really getting to see her. So Aaron is on thin ice when Tim sees him buried in his phone. He apologizes and says he’s having person problem. Tim saying this is a ‘personal life free zone.’ Ha! Not since Lucy Chen entered your life it isn’t…

Aaron tells him it could derail his career. Tim sighs and that little bit of Lucy’s influence comes out. He asks him what it is? Aaron going on about a dating site. Using a thirst trap LOL Tim’s reaction is too damn funny. ‘I wish I didn’t…’ Look at our softie helping Aaron with his problem.

He goes on to tell Tim he was cat-fished and now the dude is blackmailing him. Tim is confused saying he thought the pic didn’t show anything? We find out this guy has photoshopped something worse. He shows it to Tim and I’m dying. ‘Could’ve been worse…At least he was generous. LMAO Oh Timothy I love you so.

We catch Lucy riding solo. She sees a homeless man go into an abandoned building. Calls it in saying she going to go look for squatters. She calls back in after she’s finds nothing. Saying she is Code 4. That is before she notices a freezer open with wallets in it. The man she followed in traps her in the old walk in freezer. Thankfully it’s out of commission. Unfortunately it blocks her radio signal. Leaving her trapped there with no one to tell she is….You can tell she wants to shout a whole lot of expletives above ha

Aaron gets contacted by his catfish. He wants a PS5 and delivered to his apt. Tim is so funny in this scene. Saying oh good he’s a dumbass LOL Giving up his location and needing something they can obtain on the way. Aaron doesn’t want to give in but Tim makes a good point about the photo. It’ll be in police evidence and he doesn’t want that ha. Aaron says good thing he has a gamer connection in K-Town. Tim shaking his head not shocked in the least about this. Of course he does...

Poor Lucy tries once again to get ahold of dispatch but to no avail. She has to try and talk her anxiety down. I would be doing the same thing to try and relax. Telling herself that at some point there will be a welfare check. (Well Tim will for sure…) She can’t do anything until that point. So she pulls out her phone and starts reading that mother doc the clown sent. Lucy is too funny as she reads these messages.

I love her talking to the smiley face on the freezer LOL She is so adorable I cannot stand it. Then she stumbles upon someone making sense. As she reads it aloud something clicks in her brain. A saying Rosalind told Nolan a long time ago. The 5 star meal comment. Lucy starts to get restless again. Jumps up and starts banging on the door for help again.

They show up to the address and it’s a teenager..he just wanted a PS5. I love how stern and authoritative Tim is with this kid. Saying bad behavior doesn’t get rewarded. Mmm no it doesn’t. Idk why that does it for me with Tim but it does. It’s yum tum city and I am a resident. They get the kid to delete the photo and take down the profile. He says they suck when Tim takes the PS5. Cracks me up he keeps it for himself. I love this man so very much haha

We return to the shop and Tim’s Lucy radar is going off. Aaron’s going on about the kid still but Tim’s mind is elsewhere. He has Lucy on his brain. Has that panicked look he reserves only for her going on. He asks Aaron the last time he heard Chen on the radio? He replies he can’t remember…maybe like hour or two ago? Let me start with I adore him waiting to hear her voice on the radio. Then noticing he hasn't in awhile.

How he keeps track of not hearing from her in some time. Tim knows she’s solo today. You know that man was subconsciously keeping track of her in the back of his mind. Some serious married vibes here my love. This definitely doesn’t line up with the 'moving on’ you were talking bout in 5x02. When Aaron says least 2 hours worried Tim arrives. He’s freaking out something has happened to her.

I’m sure he’s also thinking if she was riding with him this wouldn’t be happening. But she isn’t…Tim contacts dispatch about her. They say it’s been over two hours. Angry/protective Tim also joins the party. Welcome sir nice to see you. Telling dispatch they’re gonna talk about that later. Phew lord. You know that man is going to destroy dispatch over this. Hell is going to rain down on them for not keeping track of her. For now he just wants her location to check on her. Needs to get his worried husband portion to settle first.

Once they’ve arrived he calls out her name a couple times. Lucy finally hears him and bangs on the door. Then comes a DELICIOUS shot of his arms/forearms. My god it’s like they’re trying to make me a puddle. The definition in his arms as he pulls that door free.* fans self* god that man is in shape. Mmm Legit drooling as he pulls on that door. Forearm porn AND biceps shot. I’m a happy girl. Like hot damn that is a thirst trap of a shot above.

He gets the door to finally pop open. Also nice thigh/bootie shot of him as well. I'm not mad about it. Asking her how she is? So very worried about her. Unfortunately Lucy is not in the frame of mind to receive it. Just tells him she has a lead on Rosalind. Not the response he was expecting…He asks 'What?' anyways. She tells them about the message boards Chris has been on. Filled with arm chair detectives. Tim asks her if they found her? She says no she thinks one of them is her.

The Feds get brought in cause Chris’s dumbass has been talking to her. Feeding her stuff about him and the investigation going on. Because well it's Chris. Can’t read Lucy when she’s being obvious af so why would he notice this? Lucy is sweet and tells him he didn’t know. I on the other hand am like dumbass LOL He asks if he should set up a meet. Yes Chris, she’s a highly intelligent psychopath she wouldn’t see through that at all…

Garza saying Cyber crimes is now involved. They’re going to try and track her through her IP address if possible. Chris is feeling like the dummy he is. He leaves the meeting upset. I’m a bad person enjoying this lmao I mean Tim would’ve been Lucy’s real target but he was in Vegas with her. She knows that’s her fierce protector. So he was the next I was gonna say best thing but that’s not true. But closest thing that would rattle her.

Tim and Aaron arrive at the station and there is posters everywhere. Everyone is laughing. Of course Smitty has them and is glowing over it. I mean Tim did pick Nolan over him for union president. So of course he is enjoying this. It's of Tim photoshopped naked with a cupcake covering him up OMG. Tim is seeing red. I don’t blame him. Just when they thought their catfish was over he pulls this. Clearly pissed at Tim for taking the PS5 and lecturing him.

They arrive at Pavi’s house with the felony papers. Tim saying he can file these today. Or he could use his skills for good. James needs someone to teach computer literacy at the center. That if is does this twice a week he’ll shred them. Otherwise he has 18 months to file these. He’s a little snot and throws Tim’s words about electronics back at him. Tim says he’s lucky Aaron believes in second chances. His mom calls him and he says to text him the details. I love Tim leaving Aaron hanging for his fist bump LMFAO. He does tell him they did good though so that’s something. Aaron has to fist bump himself ha.

Lucy gets to join the task force with the FBI. They’re headed to Seattle where the IP was traced. Lucy looks like an absolute bad ass in OP gear. A determined look on her face. They make it inside and find two bodies…sadly the homeowners. Psycho worked out of their house and just left their bodies there as she did. She is a one sick cookie. Lucy sees her message written in blood on the wall. She is long gone.

Not a ton in this one but what we did get was real good. Plus I always enjoy Tim/Aaron time they have a good dynamic. Fun to watch them together.

~~~

Side notes-non Chenford

Intro of Celina Juarez. I wasn’t sure about her at first but ended up adoring her. Just like Aaron. Good job writers haha

Did love Tim tearing Nolan a new one about Celina bad stop. Was sexy af. Maybe shouldn’t have been a turn on but it was LOL

Thank you as always to you lovely readers. Wouldn’t be here without your likes/comments and reblogs ❤️ see you in 5x04 :)

[nonchalantatall]

PRSK Kamikou Phantom Thief/Detective AU

For any issue that gets brushed off by the state, any personal problem too embarrassing to file a legal report for, or anything too small, simple, or mundane to bother paying actual professionals a different business to handle, there’s a member of the White Rock Detective Agency—or R-A-D-W for short—ready to assist you!

(Don’t ask why the letters are out of order, it’s a touchy subject among the staff.)

Explanation of the AU under the cut

All of the relationships are ambiguous, so you can apply your own connotation headcanons as you wish. There are strong mizuan, mizurui, and mizuena vibes lol

The explanation includes mild fic spoilers, but you can read it before the fic if you want and be fine. Although if you want to figure out the mystery while reading, then I recommend coming back to read the explanation after. The plot in the fic is very vague in the scenes I wrote, and I also don't really feel like writing any more, so you may need to come back to get the full picture afterwards

I know I said it's a kamikou au, and the fic itself technically is, but Mafuyu, Shizuku, and Emu are all kinda important to what little plot actually exists in the fic, but they really aren't mentioned by name except for Mafuyu at the very end (K also gets a name drop at one point). I left all of it kinda vague on purpose to emphasize the kamikou characters since it was based on a kamikou event to begin with.

The full story starts with the disappearance of an Aristocrat’s daughter (Mafuyu). This daughter had a fond friend within the aristocracy (Shizuku) who became seriously worried when she disappeared. Shizuku hired a high-class private investigator (Emu) to find her.

But Emu doesn’t work alone. There’s only so much she can do when there's so many people looking at her in high society. She can get away with more than the usual aristocrat, being the 4th youngest in her moderately prominent family, but she has 3 officers (WxS) running more of the dirty work out in public. Emu took the case of Mafuyu's disappearance seriously because she's also emotionally involved like Shizuku is.

WxS quickly realized Mafuyu covered a lot of her bases when she vanished. It was almost as if she never existed at all. It doesn't help that Mafuyu's parents don't want to talk with WxS despite trying to find their daughter. They're lower class, no-name, prying eyes who are sticking their noses in someone else's business where they don't belong.

Despite being backed by Emu, they needed to get access to a detective agency's credibility to go searching in more places for any clues as to where she could've gone all while without giving themselves away to mafuparents who grew to be strongly against WxS' involvement in their daughter's case.

They heard of R-A-D-W (White Rock Detective Agency), a "new" office trying to get its feet off the ground, and they saw an opening. They're posing as rookie detectives there while still investigating the missing daughter on the side and keeping it a secret from the agency owners (VBS).

It's important to me that you know Emu is WxS' sponsor while living on her family’s estate, and Kohane has a real job that pays for VBS's room and board (me, coping with not including them)

VBS... they're just trying to do their jobs man, they had no business getting wrapped up in this but oh well. "White Rock" is a direct translation of An's last name (Shiraishi, 白石). The White Rock Detective Agency or R-A-D-W (please notice how I stupidly rearranged the letters to make it close to rad weekend) is her family’s agency that fell off a few years ago after a tragic loss, but she is determined to restore the agency name to its former glory with a few other aspiring detectives--particularly two young gentlemen who have been helped by R-A-D-W in the past and are determined to repay that debt.

As you can probably guess, Mafuyu is being hidden by Niigo. More specifically, she's being sheltered by Kanade, while Ena makes their money with her art, and Mizuki steals back things Mafuyu used to own. In the months buliding up to her breaking point and running away from her abusive household, Mafuyu's mother took things from her that she deemed to be a distraction as punishment for not focusing on her studies and family affairs. The other 3 are enraged by what mafumom has done to her and will keep Mafuyu safe and hidden from her old life, no matter the cost.

This AU has been a great source of brainrot for me the past few months so if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer 🥹

[stormblessed95]

i get the whole ignoring tkkrs to be at peace but i hope ppl won't stop calling them out for their mistranslations, misinformation, misleading things cause it's been yrs and there are still so many lies and theories that are harmful has came from them and yet the whole fandom uses it without asking for the credibility of it.

The whole "jk hates jm" has came from tkkrs only and now is widely spread in the whole fandom, the "jm sleeps with bangppd and bangppd wants to push jkk to hide tkk" narrative is their #1 theory that they still use and the whole kpop uses that bangpd and jm shit to drags jm. The jikook does fanservice narrative has came from them which everyone easily associates with jkk cause that's what they have been told by the majority of the fandom which is tkkrs.

It's been two yrs and they still say the atomix ot7 dinner was tk date when there's proof of ppl who work at atomix saying it was ot7 dinner after their white house speech. You ask them once to show where did jungkook booked the restaurant and they'll go silent cause they just made that up cause jungkook is always the sugar daddy of every ship and others the sugar baby. There's not a single receipt or proof to say jk booked it but they made a whole au out of it Cause miss mina aka @/dionysustkk and tkklives lives say so.

It's been 6 yrs and they still use tkklives rainbow SS saying gcft was a vminkook trip when the only thing my guy jm did was told both JK and TH that he wants to visit japan. For yrs both jk nd jm has talked about the Tokyo trip nd not even a single time they said it was supposed to a vminkook trip or tae was supposed to be with them. Yrs later in their book which was published THIS yr of 2023 and never in that book there's a mention of tae and Tokyo trip together and mind you the book has been gone by checking through each nd every member so all that said in the book has been approved by all the members.

I have been here for like 4 yrs nd every single time i find a tk moment 95% of them are turned out to be false nd made by tkkrs. They love cropping memebrs out of pictures to make it seem like only tk went somewhere out but you ask someone else nd you'll find other members right there but were just cut out by tkkrs. It's so hard to find a tkkr who doesn't hate jkk, jm nd call don't call them fanservice.

Even now if you go to any of the sns nd see comments under any of the jkk video you'll see atleast one comment saying "jk was forced to join with jm, he wanted to go with tae but couldn't because of his tattoes and jk doens't even have jm's no, jk said they're coworkers" cause just three days back i was watching a jkk video on yt nd out of habit i was scrolling through cmnts nd this was the first comment under the pinned comment.

Whenever someone enters the fandom they get corrupted by tkklives channel with her 500k subscribers where all she does is manipulate shit cause ever since she made that channel 3 days after gcft nd gave them the "Tokyo trip was supposed to be vminkook" she's their mother savior who fills all their DeLuSiOnAls and she just knows how to do it.

Ppl starts hating on jm just over a ship and no matter how many times y'all say "jkkrs nd tkkrs are same" they will never be cause there's a big difference in the number of deranged ppl in jkk nd tk fandom. Yes i agree there's ppl in jkk fandom that are just as deranged as tkkrs but again the difference in number is like earth nd sky. Jkk fandom is not even half in no of tkkrs even lizkook shippers are more worldwide than jkkrs. Jkkrs deluled themselves in their own Little bubble with some 100 people but when a tkkr make a delulu tweet they deluled themselves along of some 10k other tkkrs and that is the number of difference in deranged ppl in both ships. No other shipper has harassed so many brands that work with BTS who has to put Stories about calling out tkkrs, no other shippers got blocked by polyc (their tatto artist especially jk's) nd got put on story, no other shippers has harassed other models or ppl calling them cosplayers cause they couldn't handle to see their fav holding hands with a woman in another country to the point the person has to put Stories after Stories to ask ppl to stop. No other fandom has got made fun of the way Kpopies made fun of hmlvrart and embarrassed armys. No matter how many times y'all say both are same they're not.

not saying ppl should engage in all things tkkrs say but i hope everyone call them out where it's due.

I won't lie to you, I did mostly just skim this because are you new here?

Lol I don't need the lecture about needing to correct tkkrs when they spread misinformation.... Thanks though. Sorry, I've got that covered though!

I get what you are saying though.

[sheydgarden]

Question: I am ethnically Jewish, though not culturally (complicated family history). I read your book on the roots of Antisemitic origins of Solomonic magic and wanted to ask:

If working with the Ars Goetia as entities themselves may be problematic: could reframing and restructuring the paradigms to re-imagine the listed demons and create new demons to work alongside be a better solution? I do enjoy the recent demonological work I’ve started but seeing some of the origins, it makes me wonder if my workings could be adjusted by basing my rituals in values I personally have and reframing it away from the work found in Solomonic Texts.

You had said in your Zine you yourself had worked to strip the Antisemitism from the Solomonic Imagery and parts of the practice and I was wondering if you had any advice on that process because I do find it fulfilling to ritually work alongside entities like this but am wondering how to do it in a better way?

hi! i'm gonna answer this one publicly so that i have something to refer folks to here when they ask me this same question (which i've gotten before), hope that's cool! also, apologies for the length of reply, but that's what happens when you open this particular box with me, haha.

i'm just gonna give it to you straight (and this is my opinion, of course, i know there are plenty who disagree with me! but you asked me) - i don't think there's anything you can do to "Solomonic" magic to render it not antisemitic. the antisemitism isn't a nasty veneer you can scrape off to get at some good stuff underneath - it's baked in. the entire premise of a book about a "powerful Jewish magician" who worked with Christian demons (who themselves are just a mish-mash of names & concepts from various cultures) is antisemitic. in the case of the Lesser Key specifically, we're talking about a book most likely written & distributed by Christian clergy (that's who had access to the education & tools required!) who were at the same time actively contributing to Jewish genocide. it's the foundation of the thing.

when i talk about my sigil artwork that uses grimoire-inspired imagery, i'm talking purely about holding onto an aesthetic, a visual language of lines. i can take out antisemitic visual signifiers easily because i'm only working with an image out of context. i don't think it's possible to remove antisemitism from the concept or the practice of Solomonic/ceremonial magic, at least not without completely altering it at its core - and then why bother basing anything on it at all? (i'm a Jew, not a western occultist, so i haven't tried)

i think really considering what exactly it is you've been getting out of this might make things clearer for you in terms of how you want to proceed. if it's the "Jewish" flavor, there's a whole world of actual Jewish folklore & mysticism, complete with demons of our own - you mention having Jewish ancestry, but not being culturally or religiously Jewish, so i would definitely recommend making a connection to Jewish community & learning a lot before you dive into any kind of Jewish spirituality. if it's just the concept of calling on entities via ritual work - why these? why not your own inventions? the demons listed in the Lesser Key were pretty much invented during the Renaissance, even if some of their names come from older sources. occultists combined, embellished & invented them to fit into a Christian theology, using a faux-Jewish origin story in order to lend them both more credibility (in a time when Jews were literally equated with demons!) and some spicy exoticism. i'm pretty baffled as to why so many folks still want to base a spiritual practice on that, beyond the fact that they're considered cool and/or sufficiently edgy if you grew up Christian.

if i'm being more blunt here than i was in the zine, it's because we're solely in "personal opinion" territory, and my honest opinion is that whatever folks find enjoyable about ceremonial magic could be better put to use in a framework that leaves Judaism alone entirely (and either honestly calls itself Christian - which it historically is - or creates a new cultural/religious system to operate under). i hope this was helpful - thanks for taking the time to read it!

[franki-lew-yo]

---Will delete this if/when I get complaints or fact checked by more legit bloggers than me---

The thing that really grinds my gears about people saying "every Gaza fundraiser is a scam [: Only donate to REAL organization " is how much the insist that you "just LOOK AT THEM-" while they clearly aren't actually looking at the campaigns themselves to double check You can tell by how confidently they'll write:

"No struggling family in Gaza is creating a Tumblr account just to message random people for money-?"

MOST OF THE CAMPAIGNS ARE RUN BY LOVED ONES OF THE PEOPLE IN GAZA, LIVING OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY TRYING TO RAISE ENOUGH MONEY TO GET THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHO ARE STILL STUCK IN GAZA TO SAFETY AND FOOD AND HEALTHCARE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!

No duh they aren't run literally by the families in the middle of evacuating like it's just a twitter update!! You can check this. It will say under their GoFundMe campaign vvvvv

Erin Loften's campaign

and also usually the campaignee will say "copypaste from my friend during one of the last spots where they were able to get Wifi and/or communicated to me through a humanitarian aid"

Huda Alnounou's campaign

Feras Almashni's campaign

Mohammed Ayyad's campaign

Adam M's campaign

Even in cases where the campaignee keeps their Gazan relative's words up without specifying that they are the organizer can be checked via reverse image search-

Ahmed Alanqar's campaign

Wifi and power is fickle it's hard to eliminate completely try as any oppressive government might.

I understand being overwhelmed by people talking to you like they're on TikTok, filling up your inboxes from blogs that haven't been around that long, speaking obviously translated English about how they and they're family are literally dying right now so won't you "please donate!? :emoji: :emoji:". That's all more than a little bit nerve-wracking. I never, NEVER said there could not be scammers in all this.

However, that's also where you ought to put your damn money where your mouth is and CLICK ON THE CAMPAIGN LINK!!! For the love of god just-

Do the work. Click on link -> Look for any "so and so is organizing this campaign on behalf of-" messages+ "Donations Protected" badge+ "this is a campaign for my 'x' in Gaza" disc+ UPDATES which are always helpful.

Copypaste, reverse-image and google names to see what comes up if you're really skeptical.

This part is sad: a lot of non-artist layman are told that AI is a good alternative when they can't hire an artist to help promote their campaign. It's not and obviously makes it look MUCH MORE fake to the rest of us, but that's the problem - basic people who don't know social media/don't know English well and are tacking some free course recommending it will follow the rules given to them with no direction thinking it will help them get their attention. Basically, what I'm saying is: even legit people are convinced to use AI.

As someone who just got TikTok (I don't like it) I can confirm 100% that people who basically live on that app talk that way on all their social media. It genuinely explains so much and why even legitimate accounts 'talk' like that.

Keep in mind, a spammer, a scammer and a scam-bot are NOT all the same thing. Like I just mentioned with the AI folks, layman self-promoters are told by ''credible'' sites what to do to get attention and what they're told to do is FLOOD INBOXES not unlike scammers and bots. And that's terrible.

Check on the tumblr post linking to the campaign for some particular names; 90-Ghost, el-shab-hussein and fairuzfan are the usual suspects but they aren't the only ones. These people know what they're doing and they're good at vetting.

Speaking as a person who's had to self fund with a GoFundMe to help out while my SSI was cut it's greatly disturbing to hear someone presume instant malice from a person asking for help. It's equivalent to looking at a homeless person and going "they're JUST going to abuse the money and use it on drugs", even w said person is doing nothing more than holding up a sign saying "god bless" and wearing old clothes.

And, while we're here would you wonderkids at the back mind sharing your own lists of "real organizations" to give money to INSTEAD with the rest of us? Please. You know, the ones that are "legit" by your standards? In just a quick google I found Red Crescent Society, BuildPalestine, arab.org, healpalestine, there's this thing called the UNRWA commitee here in the states.

---

I didn't do all of this to 'shame' any one or any of you. What I'm sick of is the sheer ignorance and then absolutism in that ignorance. I am DONE hearing "all gofundme's are scams". Even outside of the context of Palestine, it's offensive to me.

All of this is actually really easy to check up on.

If it really matters to you and you genuinely -rightfully- don't want people being scammed in the name of Palestine, Sudan or Ukraine, it's not that hard once you make the time of day for it and use the tools we still have at our disposal to do your fact checking.

[theculturedmarxist]

The labor movement is a capricious friend — it hands out heartbreak as much as it hands out joy. But every once in a while, it is able to wave a triumphant flag and give us all a glimmer of what its potential could truly be. 

The recently concluded UAW strike offered just such a moment. It wasn’t just the contract agreements themselves, which were a material success, but also the union’s public call for movement-wide coordination to build the possibility of mass action around the May 1, 2028 expiration of the next auto contracts. ​“We invite unions around the country to align your contract expirations with our own so that together we can begin to flex our collective muscles,” the UAW declared on October 29.

This could be the beginning of the most exciting resurgence of American organized labor power in a century. Or, it could just be a tweet. What happens in the coming months will determine which of those things is the case.

The general feeling of a labor power resurgence since the pandemic has been fueled by a procession of high profile wins: The Starbucks and Amazon union drives, the massive organizing on college campuses, the friendly Biden administration and its uniquely pro-union NLRB, the historically high favorability of unions in public opinion polls, the periodic mini-strike waves at a variety of fed-up workplaces. This year, we have seen a trio of actions — the Teamsters backing down UPS with a credible strike threat, and the successful WGA and UAW strikes — that show what can be won with the power of strikes at a larger scale.

All of this is encouraging. All of this is evidence of a real shift in public sentiment. All of this, however, does not add up to a robust and lasting change in the balance of power between capital and labor. Right now, what we have are a bunch of discrete occurrences, a bunch of data points that amount to proof of potential. 

There are two things that will determine whether or not this promising moment leads to a true, historic revival of the labor movement. The first is easily measurable: union density. Barely one in ten American workers is a union member today. Despite all of the wins just mentioned, that number has not risen in the wake of the pandemic. The primary thing that unions need to do today is to organize more union members. Without this, organized labor is a walled and shrinking garden, rather than a legitimately expansive force for society-wide change.

The second thing is related to the first, but it offers a broader menu for action: We must see some tangible coordination of action across the U.S. labor movement. It is great when one union wins a contract, or organizes an important new company, but those isolated events will not be enough to take on the combined power of trillion-dollar multinational corporations and their political allies. Not even when they involve tens or hundreds of thousands of workers. Big unions, the ones with the most resources, along with whatever non-union groups want to help them, must be able to sit down and plan and carry out big national campaigns together if we want to have any chance at winning the class war. 

Amazon will never be a unionized company without an enormous, multi-union campaign. Nor will the powerful and wealthy tech industry be organized without an enormous multi-union campaign. We will never achieve the eternal goal of ​“organizing the South” without an enormous multi-union campaign. Nor will we ever pull off strategic general strikes without an enormous multi-union campaign. 

The process of scaling up from some unions making incremental progress to a national labor movement strategically building and exercising labor power wherever and whenever it needs to, all in order to drown the monster of inequality once and for all, will require a whole lot of coordination. That sort of coordination — the sort that happens in service of movement goals, rather than those of individual (and sometimes feuding) unions — really doesn’t happen today.

Ideally, an organization like the AFL-CIO would have begun coordinating such an effort years ago. But they haven’t, and there is little evidence that they will. So unions will have to build these coalitions themselves. And that’s what made the UAW’s public call for other unions to line up their contract expiration dates with theirs so exciting. 

This is not some meaningless fringe group. This is a powerful, national union with more than 400,000 active members, fresh off winning a consequential industrial strike, that is shining the Labor Movement Bat Signal high in the sky and beseeching its peers: Join us! If we get ourselves aligned, in four and a half years, we can really put the capitalists in a headlock.

There is much to love about this strategy. It is both powerful and achievable. Lining up contract dates does not require the blood, sweat, and uncertainty of huge new organizing campaigns. It is a way to make existing unions stronger by drawing their influence together into a single point. (Look at the Culinary Union in Las Vegas, currently threatening to strike the entire Las Vegas strip, for an example of what can be won with this tactic in practice.) 

Doing this not just in one union or one industry but across many unions in many industries can set the stage for a mass walkout. It can make political power brokers pay attention in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t. It can captivate the public, and draw them into the fight even if they are not union members. It is a real world example of scaling up. It is not just one group of unionized workers making a demand for themselves; it offers the promise of workers in general making demands for the entire working class, backed up by the threat of a general strike. It’s not a dream. It can be done. The UAW is exactly the sort of credible organization that can be the launching point.

Realistically, the UAW and its allies need to convince many of their fellow big unions that this is a real goal within the next six months.

What it will take is other major unions taking this call seriously. Most union contracts are three years long, give or take. That means that unions must begin planning for this now. Contracts that are negotiated in 2024 and 2025 need to set their expiration dates for May 1, 2028. Realistically, the UAW and its allies need to convince many of their fellow big unions that this is a real goal within the next six months. There should be furious inter-union lobbying already taking place. The more radical unions, who have an actual vision, should publicly sign onto this plan in the near future, and then they should fan out and try to draw in the less radical unions, by arguing that this action is low-risk common sense. It’s a good argument! 

The bigger this gets, the stronger it is, and the more it helps every union. And the more it helps every union, the more leverage it gives this broader coalition of unions to make larger demands that will benefit everyone in the working class, unionized or not. Union leaders need to be made to see the virtues of this argument soon. The case then needs to be made to individual units, and to individual workers, who will have to decide that they want their own contracts to be a part of this strategy.

There is not a lot of time to waste. But on a more positive note, this is a uniquely plausible opportunity for a historic boost in organized labor power. The path to achieving this goal is very straightforward, and there is no part of it that is not within the capabilities of existing unions, their organizing staff and current members. It does not require finding a huge amount of new resources. It just requires today’s unions to have a little vision, and to be willing to work together. 

Sometimes, ironically, those qualities are in short supply in the labor movement. But there is no reason we can’t stop being our own worst enemy, right now. Big things are on the table. Let’s reach out and take them.

[astrologycharts242]

The astrology marketing scam!!!

The astrology marketing scam!!!

I've been researching the past month observing what astrologers are doing and what their own clients say about them. I've definitely paid for readings in the past so I have my own experiences. I came across a video last night of women accusing sunnymfmoney astrology of many things.

I'm noticing a trend with what some people call pop astrology. The goal is to talk about zodiac signs because this gets the general public interested. They say the most generic or cliche things that can relate to any sun sign.

For example Libras get very angry when they have to wake up for work 😹😹Which obviously gets most people invested. This then inflates the views and follows. Another trick with it is by talking about eclipses, retrogrades, full moons. They'll say stuff like this Venus retrograde Leo signs can experience hardships or breakups in relationships. Then everyone will chime in on the comments saying stuff like "wow I just broke up with my boyfriend last week." Now others will believe the credibility of this source. Even though they haven't even said if someone is a Leo moon, Leo rising, a Leo sun etcetera. Yet somehow a very broad general statement can relate to them personally.

Now they have 100,000 plus followers. This method works mainly on TikTok I've noticed. People see a large following on social media so now they trust and believe everything he or she says. They even are willing to give them money for anything just because the following count gives the illusion that this person has value in what they are saying.

With a big following count now what do they do. They'll provide their followers with readings. Readings of all sorts: synastry, birth chart, transits etc. They even provide course services mentoring and teaching people how to read birth charts.

I remember paying a nakshatra course from krs astrology and I learned nothing from it. I didn't even finished it. Which is ironic because he is very knowledgeable about astrology and his videos helped me become great with this astrology thing. I paid for a navamsa book from him it was useless. I can't even remember one thing I read from it.

Now imagine paying for a course from someone that only talks about Leos, Virgos etc. I don't mind someone doing this if they are an amateur and using it to build themselves up. In my beginnings to this day I regret a lot of the things I was saying. I look back at how I read birth charts and I be like boy I messed up 😹😹. I even be wishing I could apologize to those people but I was very far from bad. I was never one of these types of people promoting zodiac signs. Which made me have lots of potential regarding astrology. I always focused on what the houses represented, lords and house rulerships.

How to spot these marketing scams?

1. You'll see most of them on TikTok.

2. They only talk about eclipses, retrogrades, basically horoscope stuff.

Number 2 is most problematic on this list because they have no basis or foundation in what they're saying. Which shows that there potential with astrology will be weak.

3. They don't use charts especially celebrity charts to give an idea of how they would read a chart. Which is crazy because now you are giving this person your money without validity. You are just going off following count. Instead if they have a celebrity's chart on display you can easily see if something occured in a celebrity's life.

4. How can someone read your transits and they don't even have proof of them making predictions.

5. Watch out for those that provide courses. This is very tricky. The best way you can tell if you should be paying someone for a course is if they don't do things on this list.

When it comes to courses I've seen tons of people complaining about spending thousands on a course. Like the whole course would actually cost a thousand plus. Me personally I paid a course or as he calls it a webinar from Marc Boney. I honestly don't regret it not one bit. What he does is create books and make courses surrounding the contents in a specific book. Which is great because paying for the book first will let you know if a course is worth it or not.

6th. Don't fall for someone promoting the length of how long they have been learning or practicing astrology. Many use it as a promotional tool when it doesn't prove anything.