#Landing Page Analysis

[optimizeforseo1]

The landing page is the most vital weapon for marketing a business nowadays. Even after the investment of many bucks and labor to set up an online platform for business, many projects fail due to a lack of good analysis of the landing page report.

[techtakesoff]

prospit page of time scratch construct? maybe quest as well. i do already have a land in mind (land of mercury and watches) but im open to ideas (hope this isnt a lot to ask for lol)

The Page of Time struggles with fulfilling the role of their aspect, which is particularly interesting in this case as their aspect is about roles and patterns themselves.

From the elements of their Land I gather that this particular Page may be somewhat fickle, always shifting and trying to fit in different roles like liquid mercury in a jar, and concerned about how much (or how little) time they have left -- obsessively checking a watch that tells them they're always late.

Their quest would be about perseverance, picking a path and sticking to it even when things seem to be going terribly wrong and the Page desperately wants to give up, start over, and forget it ever happened.

I imagine that the consorts of LOMAW are frantic busybodies held to account by the ever-present watches around the planet. They feel like they are watched by the watches, which represent some greater power. The Page's quest is to resynchronize the watches so they all show the same time.

This is accomplished by solving various puzzles and tracking down missing clockwork pieces across the Land. However, the consorts are not pleased with this process. They complain that the Page is disrupting their routine, as the process of resynchronization results in the watches temporarily becoming even further out of alignment, some running faster or slower than they're supposed to.

This is just a temporary phase, and at the completion of the quest all of them will fall into perfectly synchronized time, but the Page and the consorts have no way of knowing that for sure. The Page will have to "trust the plan" and not give up, even when things are getting worse before they get better.

The LOMAW Scratch construct is also a watch -- a pocket watch that plays music. (For an example of the specific mechanism I'm talking about, you can refer to this youtube video: link ) The construct is surrounded by a sea of mercury.

To initiate the Scratch, the Page must break all of the teeth off the mechanism, allowing the plateau gear to rise upwards into Skaia. The Page may struggle to go through with it, feeling that whatever is going on in their session right now can't possibly be worse than the effects of the Scratch.

In the end it might be up to another player to give the Page a final push to get it done, but they can't rely on someone else to take over for them. It has to be the Page who does it, or else their quest is never really complete.

[brenninthetaylorverse]

mitski: a primal listening experience.

(this post was started on january 19th but drafted and not posted until march 22nd :)

so. i've listened to all of mitski's albums. and by all I mean i've listened to

lush

retired from sad, new career in business

bury me at makeout creek

puberty 2

be the cowboy

laurel hell

the land is inhospitable and so are we

so the basic seven that most people think of. I haven't pursued the extended plays yet (I plan on it, don't worry) but this is just like an overall review. so with that, I suppose I should uhm, get into it.

*also please don't read this if you don't care because it's just me rambling lol and also I know nothing about chords or strings or anything so my reviews are based on vibes and lyrics*

I'll start by going in order by release date so from Lush to The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We and just talking about the songs and my overall liking or disliking of the album. Then I'll finish by rating the albums from my favorite to least favorite.

Lush

If I could use one word to describe this album it would be amazing. I heard somewhere that this album was a school project and this is like the musical equivalent to trauma-dumping in an essay like wow. There's so much I want to say about it. My favorite song off of this record is Wife because the lyrics just punched me in the gut the first time I listened to it.

"For if I am not yours, what am I?"

This line almost made me cry the first time I heard it because it's just so heartbreaking and raw. I think the first half of this album comes out swinging and the second half has chilling and stellar lyrics but I think the second half (the second half being from Eric to Real men) are just less impressive then the first half. My favorites were Wife, Abbey, and Brand New City. 9/10.

2. Retired from Sad, New Career in Business

I think that this album was definitely less than Lush. Not that it was bad, just that it didn't particularly impress me that much. I often found myself bored with the songs while listening to the album, though they were all good and they all had good songwriting, most of the record just didn't stand out to me. My favorites of the album were Humpty, I Want You, and Class of 2013. Which I realize are some of the most popular songs off of the record (probably for a reason?) Anyhow, I thought it was a step-down from the banger that was Lush and I don't think I would ever actually listen to the full album again. 7/10.

3. Bury Me at Makeout Creek

Again, not a favorite. I was quite disappointed, especially since I had seen TONS of reviews saying that this was one was one of Mitski's best albums (which is why you don't trust everything you read on the internet.) I actually don't have much to say about it other than the listening experience was average and not very memorable. My favorites were Last Words of a Shooting Star and Drunk Walk Home. 6/10.

4. Puberty 2

This album is impeccable. She really redeemed herself with Puberty 2. I didn't enjoy the first three songs (they remain unliked on the album) but the rest of the album is showstopping. Usually I find myself bored by the second half of the album but I was aware and listening and the overall feel of the album is almost painfully nostalgic in a gruesome kind of way. It recounts first love, self worth, and feeling like a burden. Or just what I got from the songs when I listened to them. I often find myself going back to these albums. My favorites were My Body's Made of Crushed Little Stars and A Burning Hill. 8.5/10

5. Be the Cowboy

I did not like this album. The songs, the production, everything about it did not speak to me. I would like to say more than just that I but I really don't have any thoughts on it, maybe I need to give it another listen but I really just remember the songs not being amazing, I also feel like Mitski's songwriting was just really off on this one and it didn't click with me. Maybe one day I'll come back and edit this review. My favorites were A Pearl and Lonesome Love. 4/10

6. Laurel Hell

My favorite Mitski album. It's so synthy and almost feels like a pop-ish fever dream. It's way too short and I'm kinda sad because I wish it was longer. Her songwriting really shone through on this album and every song makes a new wave of tears come through. Even when you're listening to upbeat songs like Love Me More , there are heart-wrenching lyrics buried under the song's upbeat melody.

"Love enough to drown me out, drown me out, drown me out."

But overall, the sound was fresh and new in a way I really enjoyed. I don't really have anything bad to say about it. My favorites were Love Me More and The Only Heartbreaker. 9.5/10

7. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

I somewhat enjoyed this album. I think we were all excited for a new Mitski album but it didn't really stand out to me in her discography, except for a few choice songs. I would say the album has slight pop elements, maybe even bordering on country-ish. I don't know if that is a bold assumption or not, but either way. I might revisit this project and come back and redo this but yeah, it was the most remarkable thing she's ever made. My favorite was The Frost. 7.5/10

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now it's time to rank them from best to worst (again this is my opinion so shut it)

Laurel Hell

Lush

Puberty 2

The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

Retired from Sad, New Career in Business

Bury Me at Makeout Creek

Be The Cowboy

Okay, that's all folks! Uhm, this was like a 3 month long process of just coming back to this every so often and adding more but I finished it.

Oh and here's my AOTY (Album Of The Year)

[narutomaki]

I always get self conscious when people talk about the amount of thought the goes/went into their art because there is.

there is no upper processing happening when I'm designing a character or background. my hand starts moving and my brain shuts off. I recognize there was probably a point in my life where this WASN'T the case but. like. it's why my art is like. mostly flat and lifeless. my art is never intended to tell a story because when I intend to I get angry/frustrated to the point of wanting to break shit because it's not going right. and I've tried to tell stories with my art both comics and stand alone pieces and it all feels fake or flat or.

idk.

I've TRIED to start and finish a piece where I've made conscious choices beyond "does this look good/right" and "am I being offensive in ways I'm aware of with anything here" but it just. makes me want to scream.

I learned people told stories with their art and I tried to and I stopped drawing for 5 years despite having. before that point been doing art studies for 8 to 10 hours a day for. 2 years.

I mostly just think it's because I have nothing to. say.

I can't add anymore tags to this post??? homophobia.

any way this post is useless idk I'm just sad because people do this thing so easily and enjoy it when it makes me break down crying. I don't get it. every person I've known regardless of neurodivergency has been able to do this consciously to some degree and enjoy it and meanwhile my stupid ass is asked how/why i chose something and I just. shrug. idk

looked nice?

[pallases]

well that was positively disastrous

[mortalityplays]

This is a dangerous sentiment for me to express, as an editor who spends most of my working life telling writers to knock it off with the 45-word sentences and the adverbs and tortured metaphors, but I do think we're living through a period of weird pragmatic puritanism in mainstream literary taste.

e.g. I keep seeing people talk about 'purple prose' when they actually mean 'the writer uses vivid and/or metaphorical descriptive language'. I've seen people who present themselves as educators offer some of the best genre writing in western canon as examples of 'purple prose' because it engages strategically in prose-poetry to evoke mood and I guess that's sheer decadence when you could instead say "it was dark and scary outside". But that's not what purple prose means. Purple means the construction of the prose itself gets in the way of conveying meaning. mid-00s horse RPers know what I'm talking about. Cerulean orbs flash'd fire as they turn'd 'pon rollforth land, yonder horizonways. <= if I had to read this when I was 12, you don't get to call Ray Bradbury's prose 'purple'.

I griped on here recently about the prepossession with fictional characters in fictional narratives behaving 'rationally' and 'realistically' as if the sole purpose of a made-up story is to convince you it could have happened. No wonder the epistolary form is having a tumblr renaissance. One million billion arguments and thought experiments about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that almost all evade the point of the story: that you can't wriggle out of it. The narrator is telling you how it was, is and will be, and you must confront the dissonances it evokes and digest your discomfort. 'Realistic' begins on the author's terms, that's what gives them the power to reach into your brain and fiddle about until sparks happen. You kind of have to trust the process a little bit.

This ultra-orthodox attitude to writing shares a lot of common ground with the tight, tight commodification of art in online spaces. And I mean commodification in the truest sense - the reconstruction of the thing to maximise its capacity to interface with markets. Form and function are overwhelmingly privileged over cloudy ideas like meaning, intent and possibility, because you can apply a sliding value scale to the material aspects of a work. But you can't charge extra for 'more challenging conceptual response to the milieu' in a commission drive. So that shit becomes vestigial. It isn't valued, it isn't taught, so eventually it isn't sought out. At best it's mystified as part of a given writer/artist's 'talent', but either way it grows incumbent on the individual to care enough about that kind of skill to cultivate it.

And it's risky, because unmeasurables come with the possibility of rejection or failure. Drop in too many allegorical descriptions of the rose garden and someone will decide your prose is 'purple' and unserious. A lot of online audiences seem to be terrified of being considered pretentious in their tastes. That creates a real unwillingness to step out into discursive spaces where you 🫵 are expected to develop and explore a personal relationship with each element of a work. No guard rails, no right answers. Word of god is shit to us out here. But fear of getting that kind of analysis wrong makes people hove to work that slavishly explains itself on every page. And I'm left wondering, what's the point of art that leads every single participant to the same conclusion? See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Down the rollforth land, yonder horizonways. I just want to read more weird stuff.

[apexwebzonemarketing]

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[3motionally3xhausted]

Listen Guys..

I've had these designs cooking for ages now (Undergrowth was my nemesis) for an AU/jumble of multiple AUs that sprung up from a larger analysis of the Ghost Zone's more powerful ghosts. The thing is... since Ive had these designs sitting for a minute, Im not happy with several of them anymore :((

So... I don't really feel like explaining my whole analysis + apprenticeship AU, BUT I also didn't want to let these just sit and rot on my computer.

(Now these are sorta top-to-bottom my favorites of the designs but not really & hopefully it's obvious which ghosts each one is based on. or check my tags, they're in order)

And now... my UNDERGROWTH Danny...... I struggled. On the left, I got all the way to competing the character page before realizing I hated it, decided I had to go back to the drawing board, then the final that I landed on.

Also, I think I should say the one with the purple cloak and green wings is based on the Ancients bc its the only I feel isn't obvious enough.

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[optimizeforseo1]

How To Analyze The Performance Of Your Landing Page

The landing page is the most vital weapon for marketing a business nowadays. Even after the investment of many bucks and labor to set up an online platform for business, many projects fail due to a lack of good analysis of the landing page report.

A landing page is the first page a visitor arrives at while visiting a website. The list of all pages a visitor sees first during their session is known as the landing page report. But when you review your website’s landing page report in Google analytics, your field of observation and examination will not remain limited to the landing page only. You have to deal there with all the pages a visitor encountered first during their visiting session.

In the highly competitive field of online marketing, monitoring the landing page’s metrics is one of the most important tasks to do. It keeps a proper track of the traffic demand, which you can utilize while setting up your own business and marketing strategy. The most significant landing page report’s most notable role is visible while working on e-commerce or data cluster type of websites.

Traffic on the Landing Page

The primary metric for landing page visits is the most important before analyzing any other metrics. This is important as it tells you the number of visitors to your landing page. Another help which it does is to track the number of visitors during weekdays and weekends. It gives you the approximate data of the number of visitors to your landing page. Along with this, the next crucial metric analysis is the source of the visitors to your landing page.

Traffic Source in the Landing Page

While traffic is the primary factor in the landing page, traffic source becomes its most important factor. It is indispensable to track the origin of visitors on your landing page. This is important as it helps you chalk out which campaign your landing page is working and which is not. Different traffic source has different outputs. You will encounter visitors from various sources, which includes-

Direct Traffic–

Visitors who have entered your landing page typed the URL into the browser’s address bar directly. Their authority is straight from the browser without using any other link from other websites or message forwards.

Referral Traffic–

The visitors here, click on a link provided for your landing page on some other website. They do not get to encounter your landing page directly.

Social Media Traffic–

Social Media now plays a vital role in landing pages. There are multiples of advertisements that give your landing page traffic. Many of the visitors and users click on a link through those social media posts. Now here, the job is to track down the social network which is providing you traffics.

Search Traffic–

Multiple users search a particular keyword in Bing, Google, and Yahoo and end up landing on your page. It’s also called Organic Traffic.

Email Traffic–

This consists of users who land up on your landing page by clicking a link to the newsletter and the marketing emails.

Pay Per Click Traffic–

The users click on ads in search engines and land up on your landing page.

These six vital traffic sources are significant for analyzing your works, and the campaign has been your best works. You will be able to generate traffic from the best sources only if you know the traffic source metrics. For instance, say the data of your landing page performance metric says that it has gained 89% of traffic for Referral Traffic and 11% of traffic from Pay Per Click traffic, then it will help you work on the best source for your landing page. In this case, the referral traffic shall be the traffic source on which the work is to be done more significantly.

Though, these are not the only ways to analyze your landing page’s performance. It would help if you found out the duration of traffic that stays on your landing page. This is the next metric you need to focus upon.

Session Duration of the Traffics

This metric is about the duration of the average amount of time the visitors have spent on your landing page before leaving the site. However, this metric is only significant if the visitors travel to another page of the same site. The session duration does not work if the visitor leaves the site, whether or not the visitor has spent some or no time on the site.

To track the duration, it is recommended to use Google Event Tracking API to calculate the visitor’s period on the landing page. Once the session duration tracking is done, you need to focus on the rate at which the users leave your landing page after entering it. The metric is popularly known as Bounce Rate.

Bounce Rate of Landing Pages

The Bounce Rate is very vital for evaluating the performance of your landing page. This is related to session duration metrics. It would help if you never forgot the rate at which the viewers, users, or visitors leave your landing page immediately after getting into it through any traffic source. The e-commerce marketers are very keen on the percentage of visitors who leave their landing page without clicking on any other page of their same website. The best is to keep the bounce rate low for your landing page. How will you keep the bouncing rate low on your landing page? It is easy if you pay attention to the content you have on the landing page. You need to make the content enjoyable so that visitors do not just abandon the website but also go through the whole webpage thoroughly, visiting all the pages. Increasing content is one way to keep the bounce rate low. It would help if you encouraged the visitors to not abandon your landing page without visiting other pages. If the volume of bounce rate is high, then the reasons would be-

The page content of the landing page is not valuable.

Page is not compelling enough to the visitors.

UX of the landing page is low.

The message provided on the landing page is misleading and is unclear.

The navigation of the page is complex.

These five factors are why you need to work on the contents of your landing page to keep the bounce rate low.

Ways of Improving Landing Page Performance

Improving landing page performance is essential. Knowing the metrics to evaluate your landing page’s performance is not enough for the landing page’s success. Utilizing the findings is most important for your landing page performance, as you will be able to generate more leads if you have a good understanding. Digital marketers improve their performance by improving their web page performance. It is the same thing for improving the landing pages. Few factors that will help you to improve your landing page-

Catchy Headlines

Have you ever seen the best newspapers making stories? How do they attract you? It is merely by the catchy headlines they provide to their readers. Similarly, your landing page’s profitable campaign needs a catchy headline, which will attract visitors to go through the campaign and visit other pages of the same website through it. This will naturally increase the number of clicks on your page. It is the headline that compels the visitors to enter the page.

Mobile Friendly Pages

Statistics have shown that a page gets most of its traffic from mobile devices.

Removal of Distractions– It is essential to keep away any pop-ups, external links, banners. It generally disturbs the visitor, and they tend to abandon the page at once. Also, it is difficult for the visitor to concentrate on the page. More than 70% of people dislike ads. Hence, eliminating distractions will improve the performance of your landing page.

SEO friendly Landing page

Remember to optimize your page in the search engine. It helps in standing out from your competitors. Also, it helps to increase the clicks on your landing page. The use of unique keywords is the key to success in improving your performance on the landing page. This will help you generate organic searches in the search engine.

These were the few factors that should be ardently followed for improving landing page performance. In other words, you must know the strategies on how to attract visitors.

Conclusion

Keeping it short, do not use landing pages for measuring its performance from time to time. It will lead your campaign to get shaped and converting visitors to leads. All you need to do is follow the factors that will improve your landing page’s performance. Through this, there will be monitoring of the campaign on your landing page. The results will not come overnight, and it will show its effectiveness gradually. So, start evaluating the performance of your landing page today.

Blog Source :- https://optimizeforseo.com/how-to-analyze-the-performance-of-your-landing-page/

[creative-classpect]

The Land of Pyres and Platinum

Smoke covers the sky, blotting out the now dim light of Skaia. Great pyres, formed from shining platinum, covered in ash and soot, litter the world and its wastes. A veritable desert stretches to the horizon and meaning dunes shift and flow with the wind. 

Adventure awaits in LOPAP, the Land of Pyres and Platinum.

LOPAP is an enigmatic world, surrounded by mysteries, both above the desert and buried well below it. The ever shifting nature of the dunes makes mapping it quite difficult, as true landmarks are far and few between. Crumbling archways, monuments, and ancient cities are marked by all manner of strange hieroglyphics, a long lost consort language. While these ruins offer some insight and a sense of familiarity, nothing is as all encompassing and ever present as the platinum pyres.

The only structures freely standing, these pyres stand anywhere from only a few feet to towering, nearly 100 feet tall. They appear to be marked in the same hieroglyphics as the other ruins. These pyres have long since sacrificed and burned whatever they were intended for, and their purpose remains unknown. There is seemingly a correlation between the size of the pyre and the importance of the thing lost there, though evidence is often sporadic. The few pieces of treasure one may be able to find is unfathomably and ludicrously valuable.

This is all to say nothing of the world lost below. 

Down, below the pyres, in the desert of sand and soot, lies a vast tunnel network that crisscrosses and snakes its way across the land. The great burning that ushered in the end of this world produced a truly unfathomable amount of smoke and ash, and with the erosion of the land to time, everything left of the world before now lies deep below, having long since sunk into the earth.

If the mystery of lost secrets and treasure to the ages was not strange enough, there is something very peculiar about the pyres. Still radiating with heat after all this time. This world has burned everything it had to burn, leaving it in ruins. And yet, the pyres hunger for more. They have not been satisfied. 

What could they possibly ask for? And what might they do if fulfilled, if that is even possible? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, as the saying goes… 

The Page of Doom must uncover the lost history and riches of the land, digging deep for the buried treasures of the past, and quelling the all consuming pyres, one way or another.

Denizen: Perses, the Greek titan of destruction and father of the goddess of magic, Hecate.

Features

The Locked Tomb

In this large world positively pouring with mysteries begging to be uncovered, there is only one place that is actually secure. A tomb, some mile or so underground, decorated with glistening platinum, beautifully preserved for centuries.

In all the ruins scattered across the worlds, there are no dungeons, no grand traps, merely a civilization lost to time. Sure, there are traps here and there and dangers are plenty, but they pale in comparison to one, single tomb, sealed away with incredible levels of security.

The Ziggurat

At the center of the world is a ziggurat, tall and imposing. Surrounding it are the largest platinum pyres on the planet, marking it as an incredibly important sight, a place of high honor.

As one might initially expect. In truth, it is the most dangerous place on the entire planet, if not the very session itself. Should the language and messages of the world be deciphered, 

“This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.“

- - -

This post was commissioned by @apogender ! If you want to commission me or support my content, you can find me @ https://ko-fi.com/kesscal or over at https://linktr.ee/Skywhale09 !

[cottonlemonade]

First Kiss

word count: 2292 || avg. reading time: 10 mins.

pairing: post-time skip!Ushijima x chubby manager!Reader (feat. Jackals and Adlers)

genre: fluff with spice

warnings: lots of spoilers, mdni

request: medium papaya lemonade with a slice of starfruit for Ushijima || fluffy-spicy first kiss with Ushijima, as manager

Ushijima knew he was in trouble when Hinata proudly sent him a message with a picture attached, bragging about MSBY’s new manager. In the team photo, you were hard to overlook, being much much shorter than most of the players (even Hinata) and flanked by a beaming Bokuto and a smugly grinning Atsumu, both having a hand slung over your shoulder. The official Black Jackals jacket was half-zipped on your rounded hips, and with an excited smile on your face, you held up a glossy team banner announcing a new social media hashtag. Mindlessly typing, Ushijima somehow landed on the team’s page and scrolled through the posts. The jackals certainly looked like worthy opponents - and unserious goofballs - but his snooping stopped at a short clip with the new assistant manager. He pressed play.

You were introducing yourself in charmingly accented Japanese, laughing whenever Bokuto, who was obviously the one filming, gave you a thumbs up after every sentence. With a little difficulty, you told the invisible audience to look forward to the next game. At the end of the video, the camera turned and Bokuto‘s grin filled the screen, calling in that booming voice of his how great their team was especially with their new addition. Ushijima couldn‘t disagree. The concept of falling at first sight, especially for someone he had never met before was absurd, but he couldn‘t stop staring at you. He played the clip a few more times, completely enamored by your voice and laughter. Rolling over in his bed so he lay on his stomach, Ushijima opened the chat with his old rival back up.

Hinata Shouyou, I have a proposition.

“Just like old times, hey?!“, Bokuto slapped Kageyama hard on the shoulder. The setter rolled his neck but nodded politely. It had taken little to no persuasion to invite the MSBY team to a long weekend of friendly training matches in Tokyo. Ushijima bowed when he saw Hinata jump out of the large taxi, shoulders significantly broadened, freckle-faced from his time in Brazil playing for hours in the sun, and just as excited as ever.

“Ushijima-san.“, he grinned and bowed deeply, “I look forward to winning against you - again.“

The former captain graced him with a small smile and was about to launch into a short speech he prepared when you wiggled out of your seat and stepped onto the asphalt. He had a clear view over Hinata‘s head and didn‘t hide his blatant staring in the slightest. The camera didn‘t do you justice, he thought. You were even lovelier in person.

You called the team to order and they all assembled into a neat row Ushijima wouldn‘t have expected them to be capable of. The coaches both went to greet each other like old friends and you stepped forward with a large box in hand that looked heavy. You held it out with a smile, thanking them for the invitation and Ushijima cut into Hirugami‘s way to accept the gift.

His captain eyed him for a moment, then smirked knowingly and welcomed you before leading everyone inside.

“That‘s an awful lot of staring you‘re doing.“, Hoshiumi plopped down on the bench next to him, taking a few deep gulps from his water bottle.

“What?“

“Yeah, why don‘t you go talk to her?“, Hirugami joined him on his other side, retying his shoes.

“We‘re in the middle of a game.“, Ushijima noted and Hoshiumi shared a look with the captain. Obviously, neither of them had expected that he would so readily admit to his crush.

Apart from that one time when Ushijima was too busy watching you take notes for analysis and let Bokuto serve an ace right next to him, the match went off without further incidents.

Afterward, the teams went out for dinner and he listened to a long discussion between you and Hinata about your favorite movies. Ushijima was grateful when the wing spiker invited him into the conversation. He kept talking to you long after the majority of the others became sleepy from good food and drink. As you excused yourself to the bathroom, Atsumu took your spot across from him, leaned over the table with long steepled fingers, and said conspiratorially, “Little birdie told me, yer crushin‘ hard on our new manager.“

“Are you referring to Hoshiumi this way because his old school‘s mascot is a seagull?“, Ushijima asked genuinely.

Atsumu shook his head, taken aback by this unforeseen display of logic.

“I- no… no! Yer not being very sleek about it.“, the opposing setter‘s cockiness returned, “It was real easy to figure out.“

“After Hinata told you.“, Bokuto added, turning a neighboring chair 180 degrees and resting his arms on the back.

“Bokkun! I was havin‘ a moment here.“

“Sorry. - So, are you gonna ask her out? She isn‘t seeing anyone. I asked.“

Ushijima blinked.

When they met for the next day’s training, Ushijima should have known the others were up to something when they kept dragging you over to him for no apparent reason other than to brag about his accomplishments.

“Did you know he is one of the top 5 aces in the country?”

“He’s left-handed. Diddya notice? Makes him extra dangerous.”

“Do you remember the allrounder setter we told you about? The one who was so good he went to play for Argentina right out of high school? Yeah. He never managed to beat Ushijima.”

“He is so tall, he is like 1.90m! Y/n, look!”

You frowned as Hinata did a little jump to show their height difference.

Despite having gotten used to your team’s antics very quickly, this was a new peak of weirdness. You wished desperately for them to simmer down. At this rate, they’d make it too obvious how much you were crushing on their stoic opponent. Ever since you’d seen him play for the first time in his debut game for the Adlers you couldn’t help but admire his calm determination and ferocity on the court while his clumsy non-existent eloquence during interviews had you squealing with cute aggression into any nearby pillow. You had hoped you were playing it cool enough that the others didn’t catch on, but judging by their parading him in front of you like a juicy socially awkward apple waiting for your first bite, you weren’t too sure.

“How about we make some bets!”, Bokuto suggested, “Whichever team wins the most sets gets treated to dinner tonight.”

“Oh, I like that. How about, whichever spiker makes the most points gets to order extra dessert.”, Hoshiumi said confidently with his arms crossed.

“Oooh!”, Atsumu called, “How about if Omi-omi-“

“Leave me out of it.”, Sakusa grumbled from behind him.

“Fine then.”, the setter looked around, locked eyes with you and Ushijima and a grin that suggested pure evil intent grew on his face, “If Ushijima-san gets five spikes past our defenses, Y/n-kun’s gonna give him a little smooch riiiight on the cheek.”

“Now hold on a moment…”, you began nervously.

“Deal.”, Ushijima said and turned on his heel to join his team in the warmups. You only looked after him, crumpling from embarrassment.

“Oh no!”, Atsumu called dramatically, “That was the fourth spike he got past us.”

Bokuto joined him, laying the back of his hand across his forehead in his best rendition of any over-acted theater play ever, “Whatever shall we do, Tsum-Tsum?”

“How about you play the freaking game?”, Sakusa pressed out through gritted teeth. He couldn’t believe that these idiots seriously tackled him aside whenever he went to block one of Ushijima’s monster spikes.

“Don’t be such a spoilsport.”, Bokuto went to pat him on the back but Sakusa turned away like a pouty germaphobic child, “As soon as the five spikes are through you, Meian and Tomas can block him as much as you want, hm?”

Sakusa raised an unamused brow and turned to the team’s middle blockers who nodded and gave him two thumbs-up each. He scoffed and focused back on the game.

“That makes five.”, Hinata sighed.

Your face was hot enough to fry an egg. If they’d at least pretended to block the spikes any better! Ushijima probably thought you were some chubby dork too inept to get her own lovers.

And now, even worse, you were forced to sit on the sidelines, taking valuable notes with the knowledge that once the game ended, you would have to pay up.

The teams thanked each other for the first match and separated to their respective coaches for water and a game summary. But Bokuto didn‘t let Coach Foster get very far before grabbing your wrist and together with Atsumu and Hinata shepherded you across the court like some kind of offering.

Ushijima lowered his water bottle and looked at you, matching your blush with his own.

“Here.“, Kageyama held up a clean towel to his friend.

When the spiker looked at him imploringly, Kageyama added, “To wipe the sweat off your face first.“

The whole thing was made so much worse with everyone just smirking and staring at you two. You were very grateful when Hirugami pushed his teammate into a bow so you could reach him more easily. Gathering your scattered pieces of courage you stepped forward and gave him a quick featherlike kiss on the cheek. Your lips began to burn and the rest of your face threatened to melt.

Ushijima held your gaze and said, “Thank you.“, watching as you walked back to your bench under the hollering of the chaotic trio.

To cool off while the teams dug into their lunch orders, you offered to fill up all the water bottles. That would keep you busy and out of mischief range for a little while.

You absently filled bottle after bottle, feeling your lips tingle at the memory of how surprisingly soft his skin had been. As the water steadily reached the brim your eyes wandered over the many brochures on the long table next to you. They offered classes for children and seniors, even training camps with the Adlers themselves. You smiled at the thought of Ushijima trying to explain to a grandfather how to spike. And it wasn‘t difficult to imagine a flock of grandmothers swarming around him, all talking up their granddaughters as excellent marriage candidates.

“Y/n-san.“ You almost dropped your current bottle when you spun around.

“Oh hey, what are you doing here? Shouldn‘t you eat with the others?“

Ushijima shook his head, pulled a small plastic box from his jacket and held it out to you. It was a slice of strawberry roll cake. You looked from the cake to him in confusion.

“They accidentally sent an extra dessert with our order. I saved it before the others could get to it.“ He stretched his long arm if possible even further towards you.

“Thank you. That‘s very sweet of you.“ And there you went again, blushing like an idiot. You took the cake and waited in the hopes he would continue the conversation. When he didn‘t, you said, “I‘m sorry about earlier.“

“What do you mean?“

“The-the kiss.“

“Why would you be sorry? I should be the one apologizing. I didn‘t mean to make you uncomfortable.“

“You didn‘t!“, you said quickly, “I mean, who would be uncomfortable being kissed by someone as handsome as you.“

“But I didn‘t kiss you.“, he observed with a frown.

“Oh, right…“ You resisted the ever growing urge to facepalm and instead went to hide your cringing face by turning off the water and screwing shut the last bottle.

When you turned back to him, he still stood there, seemingly trying to think of something to say. Your heart sputtered when he asked, “May I?“

“May you…?“

“May I kiss you?“

“I… you… yes. Please.“

He stepped forward and took the cake from you to place it on the corner of the water fountain, then lay both large hands on your hips and with a surprised gasp from you, lifted you easily onto the table. You saw the appeal, you thought with a silly inner chuckle, not much backbending on his end involved now. His dark eyes searched yours for any protest before he leaned in. The first kiss was gentle, lips curiously brushing each other. He broke away, again waiting for a moment for any sign from you that he should stop but when none came he got bolder. One hand on the table next to your temptingly plush thigh, the other pressed against the wall behind you to steady himself, Ushijima‘s kiss became open mouthed. You grabbed the collar of his jacket and slipped your tongue between his lips. He pushed closer when he felt your legs part and let his hand wander from the table to your waist, to pull you into him. His strong arm wrapped around you, the kiss was needy and urgent, like if you were to end it, the world would stop spinning. You felt him throb against your thigh when your hand went up to grab his sweat soaked hair. Greedy fingers slid under his shirt, tracing his toned stomach and teased the edge of his waistband.

“Y/n-san…“, he groaned against your lips and tightened the grip on your hip, never having known this desperate need for someone‘s touch. You kissed your way down to his neck and God, if you weren‘t doing this in a corridor-

“Do you- hah… do you want to go on a date with me?“

You came back up for air, leaving a faint pink spot on his skin behind. It was safe to assume that he was serious in his question so instead of laughing at the absurdity of even considering a different answer, you simply replied, “Yes, I‘d love to.“

a/n: this officially marks the end of my summer lemonade stand. I am so sorry that this took two months to finish! The next event I have had lurking since May but I won’t take as many requests that time because otherwise we’ll be here til Christmas xD

Thank you so much to the anon who requested this prompt, I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time 🌟

[gin-juice-tonic]

So, for Starters: Book Of Bill Spoilers warning. Another opinion from me below. (Here's my first opinion I shared, if you havent seen it) This new one is about the lost journal pages again, of course.

Originally, I wanted to make a super big crazy essay about all the reasons I think the journal pages in BOB (The Book of Bill’s given name) are fake, and show off my super-cool totally completely sound deductive reasoning techniques in the process.  

Unfortunately, knowing myself I’m not sure I’m actually capable of accomplishing such a feat. You all know how I tend to post things in parts, sometimes out of order, often never finished. However I would like to share something in particular that’s been eating at me that I’ve seen… partially discussed, but only partially. And certainly not the part that I would like to discuss. 

It’s about the rats.

You know, the rats.

I saw these rats being talked about since before I was even able to have a look at the book myself. 

But before I get further into it all, I would like to start off with a joke: 

Why did dead rats, eggnog, a land orca, shrimp colors, It’s a Small World After All, and an Anti-Cipherite Suit cross the road? 

Well, that’s easy. To get to the other side. 

Of the book, that is. 

If you’re anything like me, you probably skipped right to the journal pages upon contact with the book. And if you’re even MORE like me, you were probably left a little confounded by them. Not only did they seem… wrong somehow. But they also felt random. Full of odd choices of subject that didn’t make a lot of sense. Could these pages really have come from journal 3? If so, why do parts of them feel so… completely out of context? 

And this is where the rats come in. As I mentioned before, I saw many people discussing them. In particular, they were noting their connection to this passage from earlier in the book:

Many of the related discussions also felt odd to me. Though I lacked the knowledge to be able to articulate why at the time. UNTIL, I read the book for myself from start to finish. That's when I realized something:  This is not the only time something from earlier in the book connects back to the journal pages. In fact, it happens many, many times throughout the earlier passages. (Here is a small collection of them for your perusal.)

And then it started clicking into place. The reasons the pages felt like they were so abnormally out of context… is because they WERE lacking context!

Now, before you can finish saying “Gin, you’re an idiot.” I would like you to ponder these three questions: 

1) Why, if these pages were taken from Journal 3, should they require context from outside of it to be able to be completely understood?

2) Why is it that this context can be found in what Bill Cipher has been writing in the preceding passages up till now? 

3) If you put food in a mogwai’s mouth at midnight EST but drive it over the CST time zone line back to 11PM before it can swallow, will it still transform into a gremlin? 

Okay, you caught me, that third one is unrelated. But the first two I believe require further thinking. So let’s delve a little further into the idea. Consider this the real third question: 

3) Are we to seriously believe that these, the only pages of J3 still lost to us, just so happen to tie into the new topics from the rest of the Book of Bill over and over like this?  

And since you’ve done so well thinking thus far, I’ll ask a fourth question: 

4) Are you aware of the concepts of Watsonian and Doyalist analysis? 

Assuming you don’t and you won’t google it, I’ll skip to the important part. Watsonian analysis is to analyze a story from within it, as if you yourself were Watson making deductions in a Sherlock Holmes novel.  

Now, from a Watsonian point of view, what happens when we try to answer our earlier questions? Why should it be that the Book of Bill provides so many of these points of reference to the journal pages? 

One possible line of thought could be that Bill wrote the earlier passages of his book *around* the idea of what was contained in the pages, but I think this doesn’t work for a few reasons. For one thing, the purpose of the book is to get the reader to make a deal, not to take a whole novel to set the stage for a 3 day mini Ford adventure. For another, not all of what I described prior is really fit to be called “context”, is it? The rats, the “Small World” cassette, and the Bill-Suit are one thing, but Eggnog? Shrimp colors? Land Orcas? I certainly wouldn’t define them that way. If anything, they’d be better suited to being called “references”. And unlike the more contextual ideas, there’d be no real need for Bill to sneak mere references to the pages into his grand story.  And lastly, there are a great deal of Bill pages that have nothing to do with the content in the journal pages at all.

So what exactly am I trying to say here? 

If we do intend to think of the callbacks outlined above as references, the only logical conclusion within the story is that the journal pages themselves are referencing back to the Book of Bill, not the other way around.

But… how? And why? Something Ford has written in the 80’s shouldn't be able to reference something Bill is writing post-weirdmageddon certainly. 

That’s because “Ford” isn’t referencing it at all!

And as for why… Well, have you ever noticed when you're writing a story on the fly, things you wrote earlier all come crashing back to you as you try to wrap things up? I believe personally that the journal pages are nothing more than a strange endcap on Bill’s crazy train of thought! And the "references" are just fuel that further the pages creation. Almost as if, to quote someone much more knowledgeable than me on this subject…

In the end, all I've described above (as well as other aspects of the pages I've not mentioned here) leave me with the impression the pages are not real.

As I stated only a bit earlier, the idea that these pages, the only pages of J3 purported to be lost, should be so connected to the rest of the book is beyond coincidence to me. Not to mention that in order to take these pages as total truth, you must give credence to several other passages of Bill's book as well. And I'm not too keen on having to trust him that much.

To all who have read this far, even to those who may have scoffed at the ideas in here or think I've only written up nonsense. Thank you for reading and considering my thoughts.

I am not saying anyone must agree with me on this. I know some people have found the pages to be important and meaningful to them, and I do not wish to give the impression that I think my view is the end all be all correct one, or that I think lesser of those who believe in them. I only want to share my own opinions. And to anyone else who found the pages to feel "off" somehow, possibly validate their feelings too.

[xxselenite]

٠ ࣪⭑ Leave behind all of Cupid's arrows and quivers | Jacaerys x reader

modern!Jacaerys Velaryon x fem!reader [no use of y/n] Word count: 2.1k words Summary: You've had feelings for your best friend Jace for a while now and he has agreed to help you rehearse your lines for your theatre play, but things take an unexpected turn. Warning: none, pure fluff. If anything, reader is down bad and a little insecure a/n: The title and the play quoted is Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. It's one of my favourite French plays and I absolutely encourage you to read it! This is also a very self-indulgent fic considering I've acted for eight years, don't mind me haha. English isn’t my first language so I apologise in advance for any possible grammatical and/or lexical mistake! feedback is welcome and appreciated <3 (images are taken from pinterest)

Sitting on the edge of your bed where you could catch the most sunlight, you skimmed through the script of the play until you reached a page covered in highlights and spiderly handwriting. The notes went from deep character analysis to little jokes written here and there and smiley faces drawn by your castmates.

“Alright, act three, scene six!” You declared, handing the paper to Jace who was lying on your bed by your side, his eyes half-open. He let go of the plushies he was playing with to grab your notes. “This is the second most iconic scene of the play, though I don’t have that many lines, so it should be quick,” you added.

Jace sat up and squinted to decipher the annotations on the page, a smile appearing on his face as he read the stupid puns you had found.

“You’re being super professional,” he rolled his eyes.

You chuckled. “You’re being unfair? I joined the theatre club for funsies, I did not expect to land this role.” Your face twisted into a scowl. “Most of the things I write in there are useful though. I don’t want to act like a killjoy so others don’t think I’m annoying, but I still want to prove I was the right person to cast for Roxane.”

Jace lowered the script to look at you and passed his hand in his hair to put it back into place. “You do deserve that,” he told you with a gentle tone and you tried to repress the butterflies in your stomach his praise and soft gaze had created, cursing yourself internally. You had never wanted to develop feelings for your best friend in the first place, you knew it was a bad idea, but it was too late now. Love was there, deeply rooted in the daydreams in which he kissed you during the golden hour, when your bedroom was bathed in light.

Falling in love with Jace was as easy as breathing. Of course, he was handsome, but it was not just a shallow little crush. He was nice, and sweet, and funny. He cared about you and listened to you when you needed to. He gave you good advice but knew when you just needed comfort. He had been there for you when you were at your lowest and no one else was there. He had the cutest smile ever and gave the best hugs. The list went on and on, anything he did was just making you fall a little harder.

But this love, sweet as honey, was also as sticky and sickening. You indulged in the sweet moments when he hugged you or complimented you, but it also made you feel guilty and, well, desperate. You were convinced this love could only be one-sided – Jace was perfect, everyone at your high school liked him. And you were… you. You knew each other since you were kids, there was no way he would ever see you as something more than a friend. And you were relatively okay with this, you would rather keep being this close to him without anything more than risk losing it all.

Perhaps your turmoil of emotions appeared on your face, or it was just Jace’s ability to read you like an open book, but he frowned and asked you if you were okay. You immediately regained your composure to answer in a way you hoped was natural.

“Yes, I was just thinking it must be pretty boring for you to help me rehearse my lines. We don’t have to do the whole play today. We don’t even need to do the whole thing, I can finish on my own.”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t have said I’d help you if it bothered me. It’s fun actually, and you’re a great actress.”

You felt your cheeks heat up and cleared your throat.

“I try my best! Although this is one of the scenes that scares me a bit.”

“Why so?”

“Okay, so this scene is with the love triangle between Christian, Cyrano and Roxane. You know the story, Christian is handsome but a bit dumb, Cyrano is ugly but quick-witted and a great speaker, and they both want Roxane. Cyrano decides to aid his buddy Christian and hides and prompts Christian who talks to Roxane under her balcony.”

“A balcony scene, like in Romeo and Juliet?”

“Precisely. But at some point, Cyrano starts talking instead of Christian and makes a beautiful declaration to Roxane because this is at night and she can’t see him. As I said, Roxane has very few lines but you see her falling for who she thinks Christian is, and I have to make this very clear to the audience.”

It’s not going to be hard to pretend that with you… You thought to yourself, looking away from the boy.

Jace nodded thoughtfully, reading the first lines of the scene again.

“Alright, where am I supposed to stand?” He asked you, looking up again.

“I guess I could get up on my bed and you go in front of me, on the floor? This way I’ll be a bit above, like with a balcony?”

The boy followed your indications and helped you find your balance on your bed. You weren’t used to this angle and seeing his eyes from above made you melt. You knew that they were beautiful, blessed with thick eyelashes you were jealous of, but it was like you were discovering them for the first time.

Once you could stand comfortably, Jace started the scene, changing his voice and attitude for Cyrano and Christian. His way of acting both characters earned a chuckle from you.

“Am I doing this wrong?” He briefly interrupted, shooting you a worried glance.

“Not at all, you’re nailing it! You should have joined the company, it would have been fun.”

“I’m not sure it would have been a good idea if I made you break character.”

“I’m much more professional on a stage than in the privacy of my bedroom.”

“If you say so…” He smirked before continuing the scene, and you thought you’d do anything to frame this moment and keep it forever. The warm afternoon light, the slight breeze, the smell of your vanilla candle, everything about it was perfect, like out of a fairytale.

Your first line, “Who calls me?” came out a bit trembling when you met Jace’s intense gaze, and you forced yourself to look away, reminding yourself that Roxane could not see her interlocutor, let alone lose herself in his eyes. Taking a deep breath, you focused and the following lines went swiftly.

But as the scene progressed and Cyrano’s declarations got gradually passionate, it became harder and harder for you to put your feelings aside. You repeated yourself that it was all acting and that Jace was, unfortunately for you, a very talented actor. Everything, from the tone of his voice to the way he looked at you, made him look like an enamoured boy, and a specific line acted as the final nail in the coffin.

“I love you! I am mad! I am suffocating with love for you! Your name rings in my heart like a bell. When I think of you, I tremble, and the bell shakes and rings out your name! Everything you do I love! I remember every action of yours that I ever witnessed! I know that last year on the twelfth of May, you changed the way you wore your hair. I am so used to taking your hair for daylight itself that, just as one stares at the sun and sees a red blot on all things, when I turn away after looking at you, I see a radiant image imprinted on everything!”

You closed your eyes as he finished speaking and clenched your fists as you whispered your answer, opening your eyes again

“Yes, this is love.”

You knew Roxane was supposed to be in a sort of emotional turmoil at this moment and that your reaction, if a bit excessive, was not out of character, counting on that fact not to attract Jace’s attention. Yet, his gaze softened and he frowned a little to show his concern, but you nodded to tell him to keep going. This was another thing you cherished about your relationship with him; he could understand you without needing any word.

With a little hesitation, he continued the scene, but from this moment on, his eyes did not leave your frame on the edge of the bed, towering over him but looking so fragile. He walked a little closer to the edge of the bed, as if he was expecting you to faint and wanted to catch you.

You reached the climax of the scene a few minutes later. You knew it was coming from the beginning, the moment where Christian, high on enthusiasm to see Roxane fall in love, asks for a kiss. The kiss does not happen in the scene, Cyrano backtracks, but the demand creates an immediate tension in the scene. Yes, you knew it was coming. Nevertheless, when you Jace said “a kiss,” it felt like a punch in your guts. Your eyes flickered down to his lips, God knew what you would have given to kiss them just once, for a second.

Your brain was moving slowly, like it was underwater, and you couldn’t find your next line. No matter how hard you tried to remember it, your mind was blank, all you could do was stare at him in awe. When your eyes left his lips after what seemed to be an eternity, he was looking at you, his face a few centimetres away from yours. You could see every detail on his skin and smell the faint fragrance of his cologne.

You blinked, and when you opened your eyes again, his lips were on yours. They were soft, and warm, and a little hesitant. You returned the kiss without even realising it, lips parting and hands flat against his chest while his own hands found your hips and held you still to prevent you from falling from your bed.

Jace broke the kiss, too quickly in your opinion, but it had been enough to tie the wires in your brain even tighter and the only thing that you managed to blurt out was a pathetic: “This isn’t in the script.”

Your best friend chuckled, still holding you. His touch was gentle but it was enough to send shivers down your spine.

“I really hope the look on your face is surprise and not pure horror.” He said, and you sensed the nervousness behind his light-hearted tone. You hadn’t even realised your eyes were open wide. You shook your head and carefully grabbed Jace’s hands, keeping them between your two bodies.

“Why did you kiss me, Jace?” You made sure that your voice was soft and your question genuine, so that he couldn’t interpret it as a blame.

The boy seemed to be taken aback for a split second and looked for reassurance in your eyes, which he seemed to find as he licked his lips and answered.

“Cyrano’s words. They’re mine. I mean, they’re not exactly mine, they’re way more eloquent than I can be. But what they say matches what I feel. This whole scene, it’s… It’s acting, but it’s not. I mean it.” He started fidgeting with your fingers. “I’ve been feeling like this for a little while now I think, but I’ve never really admitted it to myself.”

“What changed then?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe the fact you joined the theatre club? You’re so radiant when you talk about it, let alone when you’re on stage. You- you shine like a star in the night, and I realised I loved you more than a friend, I was just too scared to do anything, because losing you would be worse.”

You let a nervous laugh escape your lips and Jace seemed startled by the crystalline sound.

“Oh Jace,” you sighed, “we are so ridiculous. I’ve been feeling the very same thing for months, and I was standing there letting the fear devour me.”

“Seriously?” The word slipped out of Jace’s mouth in a whisper which you barely caught and you nodded in the same discreet, almost secretive way.

You kept quiet for a little while, gazing into each other’s eyes. Outside, the birds were chirping in the garden. The rumble of the cars was echoing from the more active parts of the cities. The breeze was causing the curtains to flow at a low rhythm. And you two felt like the only people in the world.

[aronarchy]

A copy of the first reading list, if you dislike clicking on Google docs links:

The liberal news media is working overtime to silence Palestinian voices. As we sit thousands of miles away, witnessing the massacre through social media, the least we can do is educate ourselves and work to educate others. Apartheid threatens all of us, and just to reiterate, anti-Zionism ≠ antisemitism.

Academic Works, Poetry and Memoirs

The Revolution of 1936-1939 in Palestine: Background, Details, and Analysis, Ghassan Kanafani (1972)

Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, Rosemary Sayegh (1979)

Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment, Mazin Qumsiyeh (2011)

My Life in the PLO: The Inside Story of the Palestinian Struggle, Shafiq al-Hout and Jean Said Makdisi (2019)

My People Shall Live, Leila Khaled (1971)

Poetry of Resistance in Occupied Palestine, translated by Sulafa Hijjawi (Baghdad, Ministry of Culture and Guidance, 1968)

On Palestine by Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky (2015)

Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the US-Israeli War Against the Palestinians, Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé (2013)

The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination, 1969-1994, Edward W. Said (2012)

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique, Sa’ed Atshan (2020)

Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel, Andrew Ross (2019)

Ten Myths About Israel, Ilan Pappé (2017)

Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, Christopher Eric Hitchens and Edward W. Said (2001)

Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, Raja Shehadeh (2010)

The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, David Hirst (1977)

Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, Norman Finkelstein (2018)

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians, Noam Chomsky (1983)

Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations, Avi Shlaim (2010)

Politicide: Ariel Sharon’s War Against the Palestinians, Baruch Kimmerling (2006)

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Norman G. Finkelstein (2015)

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, Jehad Abusalim (2022)

Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod (2007)

Peace and its discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East peace process, Edward W. Said (2012)

Three Poems by Yahya Hassan

Articles, Papers & Essays

“Palestinian history doesn’t start with the Nakba” by PYM (May, 2023) 

“What the Uprising Means,” Salim Tamari (1988)

“The Palestinians’ inalienable right to resist,” Louis Allday (2021)

“Liberating a Palestinian Novel from Israeli Prison,” Danya Al-Saleh and Samar Al-Saleh (2023) 

Women, War, and Peace: Reflections from the Intifada, Nahla Abdo (2002)

“A Place Without a Door” and “Uncle Give me a Cigarette”—Two Essays by Palestinian Political Prisoner, Walid Daqqah (2023)

“Live Like a Porcupine, Fight Like a Flea,” A Translation of an Article by Basel Al-Araj

Films & Video Essays

Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight (2021)

Naila and the Uprising (2017)

Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory (2015)

Tell Your Tale Little Bird (1993)

The Time That Remains (2009)

“The Present” (short film) (2020)

“How Palestinians were expelled from their homes”

Louis Theroux: The Ultra Zionists (2011)

Born in Gaza (2014)

5 Broken Cameras (2011)

Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege (2021)

Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 1 | Featured Documentary

Organisations to donate to

Palestine Red Crescent Society - https://www.palestinercs.org/en

Anera - https://support.anera.org/a/palestine-emergency

Palestinian American Medical Association - https://palestinian-ama.networkforgood.com/projects/206145-gaza-medical-supplies-oct-2023

You First Gaza - https://donate.gazayoufirst.org/

MAP - Medical Aid for Palestinians - https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donate

United Nations Relief and Works Agency - https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page/en_EN

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund - https://www.pcrf.net/   

Doctors Without Borders - https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/palestine

AP Fact Check

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-misinformation-fact-check-e58f9ab8696309305c3ea2bfb269258e

This list is not exhaustive in any way, and is a summary of various sources on the Internet. Please engage with more ethical, unbiased sources, including Decolonize Palestine and this list compiled by the Palestinian Youth Movement.

[nyerus]

The Narrative Importantance of Hualian's Sexual Intimacy

This is a repost and minor edit of a thread I made on Twitter yesterday. This is a topic I have always wanted to talk about because of how often it comes up in TGCF fandom, time and time again.

‼️CW: mentions of sexual assault, self-harm, bodily injury‼️

⚠️Major spoilers for the entire novel ahead⚠️

---

Saw a question the other day on what relevance Hualian being sexually intimate by the end of the novel had to either the narrative or Xie Lian's character arc.

In short: it bears significant relevance, especially in context of other themes the novel explores like bodily autonomy.

Throughout the novel, we see time and time again that Xie Lian is often dehumanized by pretty much everyone—including himself—with the sole exception of Hua Cheng. I've talked more in depth about it in an old twt thread, for those interested. @/stalliondany on twt has also made an excellent recent analysis that goes deeper into the specific ways Xie Lian was used as a physical shield, martyr, or scapegoat for others without thought to his humanity or suffering. I highly recommend reading it first!

But to sum it all up: it's important to Xie Lian's character arc to keep in mind that he is used to seeing his own body as a tool to solve problems. And in crucial narrative moments, he is robbed of his bodily autonomy, and either brutalized or violated in service of others.

One of the plot points that ties together all these concepts is actually... Xie Lian's chastity vows. That will be the main focus of this post.

When he was a young teen (or possibly as a child), Xie Lian took an oath of chastity because such was the norm for cultivators seeking ascension in Xian Le. To Xie Lian, even as he grew older, he never had an issue with this because he just never felt sexual attraction to another person, or any desire to be intimate in that way. Even if he yearned for the concept of being loved. And indeed, at first glance, his chastity vows may seem like nothing more than a side note. Or even a funny gag when it comes to Hua Cheng (later).

In reality Xie Lian's chastity vows are not only used against him, but paint a very disturbing picture with regards to his repeated violation.

The Land of the Tender scene is the most obvious example of this. Xie Lian's vows are directly tied to his spiritual powers, and because it affects how his followers see him. They place a high value on his chastity as being vital to his moral character.

For reference, an excerpt from TGCF vol. 3 of the English print translation, page 135:

Xie Lian's method of cultivation required a pure body. Those who worshipped the ascended cultivators who practiced this path were firmly convinced of the transcendence of gods untouched by earthly desires. If they couldn't protect their purity, their following would no doubt collapse and their powers would be devastated. It wouldn't be as serious as plunging from godhood to back to mortality, and there was still the possibility of recovery after many more years of cultivation—but with things as they were now, there was no time for him to sit behind closed doors and cultivate for years!

As a reminder: it is Bai Wuxiang who orchestrated this whole thing. Him trying to compromise Xie Lian in this way is horrific on many levels, yet that's not the main point I want to make here. It's that to preserve his "pure body," the solution Xie Lian realizes is to severely harm himself. To impale himself with his sword through the abdomen.

The juxtaposition of having to maintain bodily purity versus the gruesome violence inflicted on his body is extremely stark.

This grim contrast is no more evident than in the 100 swords scene. Where Xie Lian's body is literally brutalized and defiled to an unthinkable degree. To the point where he, quote: "no longer looked human." Yet he emerges from that temple physically "pure" all the same. His chastity vows were not broken, his body healed without scars. As though he was untouched.... And yet, he was completely destroyed mentally. It left permanent effects on him as a person. It's even worse when the scene is read analogous to sexual assault, as many have talked about before. I think that interpretation actually hits the nail on the head, especially keeping in mind the Land of the Tender scene and all the similarities between them.

Following the 100 swords scene, Xie Lian of course has a complete disconnect between himself and his body. I believe this is part of why he doesn't really feel pain, except when he is with Hua Cheng, who treats him and his body as one. As a person who is cherished, and loved. Hua Cheng is adamant in his adoring treatment of Xie Lian. Small injuries are also something he cannot tolerate because he knows what horrors befell Xie Lian in the past. (He was present at both the terrible moments mentioned above.) He will not let any of that continue, regardless of what Xie Lian says, because he sees it as injustice.

Xie Lian is willing to use himself as a tool to help others no matter the personal cost. He even thinks of it as something he must do, or that he deserves as penance. But Hua Cheng is the one person who asks "what about you?" He's the one that insists "your happiness matters." And it is Hua Cheng that takes issue with Xie Lian's chastity vows as being unfair, unlike everyone else. Regardless of Hua Cheng's reasons for this diegetically, symbolically it means a lot that he is the one opposed to this.

Just thinking about the chastity vows on their own for a moment: Xie Lian can indulge a little bit in stuff like alcohol, which isn't great to begin with for him. But he absolutely cannot engage in "pleasures of the flesh." He can totally have his flesh ripped from his bones, literally, but actually experiencing any kind of sexual gratification? Now that would make him unclean, and lesser.... Why? Because unlike everything else, that's something Xie Lian would do simply for himself to feel good. And what greater crime is there than to ever dare put himself first?

So Hua Cheng—being the one person who puts Xie Lian first above all else—thinking that such a restriction doesn't make sense is important. Hua Cheng being the person who Xie Lian breaks those vows for in the end is important! (Especially because it seems to have been an easy choice for him.)

And of course, the scene with Jun Wu and the Virginity Detector Sword™ has to be mentioned. Again, there's symbolism to be had! The perpetrator of two of the most physically violating moments of Xie Lian's life (both of which were sexual in nature; one literally and one allegorically) being the one to "check" Xie Lian's virginity... oof. Yikes. It's dramatic irony. It's deeply uncomfortable. Especially because Jun Wu probably wanted to know if Xie Lian slept with Hua Cheng, as he already knew Xie Lian wasn't the ghost fetus' father.

So it's once again a stark juxtaposition: of Ghost King Hua Cheng disagreeing with the purity vows, wanting Xie Lian to break them for himself and his own freedom. Versus Heavenly Emperor Jun Wu wanting to weaponize those vows against Xie Lian in whatever way he can, intact or not, to keep control over him.

Naturally, there's something to be said for the real-world problem with such purity vows being used against people, to judge their moral character, societal expectations, etc. Elephant in the room. It's very on the nose, so there isn't even much to say about it that hasn't been said already.

In the end, it comes down to how horrible it is that when Xie Lian tries to help others, it results in immense harm to his body every time. Yet he is expected to continue to bear it, for centuries, by others and also himself. Until he meets Hua Cheng, who helps him rediscover what it means to be happy, and to be loved. So yes, it's absolutely relevant that in the end, Xie Lian decides to break his purity vows to be intimate with Hua Cheng. That he's able to put himself in Hua Cheng's hands, and let himself be treated with affection and desire. It's Xie Lian finally forgiving himself, and beginning to heal.