#book overviews

[leroibobo]

when the homes in the depopulated palestinian village of lifta were originally built is impossible to tell and most likely varies from house to house. the area's been known since ancient times, including having been written about in the hebrew bible. it's retained multiple different names throughout history - lifta by romans, nephto by byzantines, clepsta by crusaders, then lifta again by arabs. in more recent times, the area saw battle in the early 19th century, when it saw a peasant's revolt against egyptian conscription and taxation policies. (egyptian-ottoman ruler muhammad ali had attempted to become independent from the ottoman empire, and sought to use the area of "greater syria" which palestine was apart of as a buffer state.)

the village was predominantly muslim with a mosque, a maqām for local sage shaykh badr, a few shops, a social club, two coffee houses, and an elementary school which opened in 1945. its economy was based in farming - being a village of jerusalem, farmers would sell their produce in the city's markets. an olive press which remains in the village gives evidence to one of the most important crops its residents farmed. the historically wealthy village was known for its intricate embroidery and sewing, particularly of thob ghabani bridal dresses, which attracted buyers from across the levant.

lifta also represents one of the few palestinian villages in which the structures weren't totally or mostly decimated during the 1948 nakba. 60 of the 450 original houses remain intact. from zochrot's entry on lifta:

israel's absentee property law of 1950 permits the state to expropriate land and assets left behind, and denies palestinians the right to return to old homes or to reclaim their property. it's estimated that there's around 400,000 descendants of the village's original refugee population dispersed in east jerusalem, the west bank, jordan, and the palestinian diaspora.

like many depopulated palestinian houses, some of those in lifta were initially used to settle predominantly mizrahi immigrants and refugees, in this case 300 jewish families from yemen and kurdistan. the houses weren't registered in their names, and the area generally saw poor infrastructure and no resources including water and electricity provided by the government. most left in the early 1970s as a part of a compensation program to move out people who'd been settled in depopulated palestinian houses - if they didn't, they were referred to as "squatters" and evicted. (holes were even drilled in the roofs of evacuated buildings to make them less habitable). the 13 families which remain there today only managed to do so because they lived close to the edge of the village.

in 1987, the israeli nature reserves authority planned to restore the "long-abandoned village" and turn it into a natural history center which would "stress the jewish roots of the site", but nothing came of it. several more government proposals on what to do with the land had been brought up since then. this culminated in in 2021 when the israel land administration announced without informing the jerusalem municipal authorities that it issued a tender for the construction of a luxury neighborhood on the village's ruins, consisting of 259 villas, a hotel, and a mall. since 2023, they've agreed to shelve and "rethink" these plans after widespread objection.

the reasons for the objections varied significantly between the opposing israeli politicians - who see the village as an exemplar of cultural heritage and "frozen in time" model of palestinian villages before 1948 - and palestinians - who largely see the village as a witness of the nakba and a symbol of hope for their return. lifta is currently listed by unesco as a potential world heritage site, a designation netanyahu has threatened to remove several times.

many palestinians who are descendent from its former residents still live nearby. like with many other depopulated palestinian villages, they've never ceased to visit, organize tours of the village, and advocate for its preservation.

[communistkenobi]

actually one thing that has been very elucidating while reading academic scholarship on anti-vaxx movements post-Covid is that a lot of seemingly “apolitical” or non-fascist participation in anti-vaxx and vaccine skeptical protests/demonstrations/social media activity is the result of decades of neoliberal governance - everyone is a ‘critical consumer citizen,’ a subjectivity that produces a public who is deeply invested in ‘shopping for alternatives’ and ‘getting the best deal,’ meaning that mass vaccination programs and mandates, even when universal and socialised, are viewed with suspicion by the public. These people are then primed to listen to the fascists who lurk among these movements, even if they’re a minority. I think one of the larger, more devastating takeaways of the pandemic is that our current situation in North America - low vaccination rates, high infection rates, lots of Covid variants - is the direct result of decades-long neoliberal projects to gut public infrastructure and turn everything into a privatised consumer product. Public goods like universal vaccination programs are therefore seen not as such but as authoritarian, anti-competitive disruptions of a free and open marketplace. To call it a PR disaster would be massively underselling it, but the public appears to have disappeared, replaced instead with an infinite mass of individuals in a market who all have to come to their own decisions about every aspect of their life, even at the cost of everyone around them. what a miserable place we’re in

[difeisheng]

so presenting at friend group powerpoint night in a hijacked lecture hall went well

[manuscripts-dontburn]

[stuckinapril]

i love anthologies. anthologies are so sexy

[pencilofawesomeness]

What is Twisted Wonderland and how would you sell someone on it?

Ohoho. Ohohohoho. Anon. You have activated my trap card >:D

(I'm about to be soooo annoying/unhinged and I'm sorry. I'm not.)

Alright, so:

Twisted Wonderland is a Disney mobile game made in Japan and co-produced by Aniplex. (Yes, that Aniplex.) I'm not here to sell you on the game, so much as the story, but it is a sort of story-book rpg with turned based fights and rhythm games, where you build character units from a gacha pull. As far as gameplay goes, it's very simple, and most of the emphasis lies on the characters and the story. And it's wonderful.

The on-the-box description of this game doesn't do it justice, per se, but that might be because Disney has a little bit of influence on it and they suck at knowing who their target audience is. It is about a high school based on classic Disney villains—but no, not in the way you're thinking, because I once made that mistake too. It is not a villain school. Rather, the world of Twisted Wonderland is its own entity, with characters built as sort of nods or foils to classic Disney characters. The world itself is somewhat built with these films as its past, and history has become so twisted (ha) that modern society views some of these classic villains as the heroes or supporting characters of their stories, and respect them as The Great Seven. (The seven in question being the Queen of Hearts, Scar, Ursula, Jafar, the Evil/Raven Queen, Hades, and Maleficent. None of them are remembered by name, though.)

The game takes place in the modern era, a society with both technology and magic. Specifically, it takes place in a magic high school called Night Raven College, an all-boys dormitory prep school where the only requirement to get in is a magic mirror that peers into your soul and determines whether or not you can a) do magic and b) kin the Great Seven. And, of course, the player character is a regular-ass human who gets isekai'd in and gets stuck with a talking magic cat direbeast named Grim.

Now. That is the general synopsis. I, on the other hand, affectionately call this the Mental Breakdown game.

See, here's the kicker. The magic system is pretty nifty; while it's functions as a standard magic-is-magic sort of soft system, it has ✨consequences✨

Magic has this byproduct called blot. It's this icky stuff that builds up when you a) use too much magic and/or b) are emotionally distressed. But less so in a "I'm panicked right now" sort of way and more so in a "I have chronic depression and/or anxiety" sort of way. And, when a mage is powerful enough, and sad boi enough, and then goes and uses way too much magic and sad boi juice in one sitting, this amazing phenomenon occurs called "overblot"—which is pretty much a super-powered evil form that turns the mage into the darkest form of themselves and then uses magic until they die.

Naturally, this happens in the game. A lot. The formula is pretty much that each "book" of the story, there is an overblot. One for each of the seven dorms, which are based off of the seven villains/the movies they come from. (And "based on" is pretty loose. Yes you can see the similarities, but these are dumb teenage boys with their own hopes and aspirations, and, sometimes, the game completely lies to you about what character they emulate the most. The guy who's Jafar? Well yes but he's actually just a really stressed out Genie stand in. The Hades guy? Whoops that's Meg. Is that a card soldier or the White Rabbit? Doesn't matter, he's got problems.)

The characters are so well written. I could gush about them forever, and they are the driving points of this plot and it means everything to me. They are some of the most traumatized and messed up individuals, but also, they are dumb teenage boys who do dumb teenage boys things. It is all incredibly well balanced and startlingly realistic for a game that amounts to beating the emotional constipation around people. Mostly because it cannot be beat out of them. The blot can, but they have to deal with their emotions with their own two hands, with varying levels of success.

And the shenanigans!!!! Oh, the shenanigans. I call this the Emotional Trauma game but I have once laughed so hard someone heard me through the floor. It's not all doom and gloom for sure. Sometimes you're watching your friend fall apart because his toxic mother instilled debilitating perfectionism and slowly start making enemies of everyone and sometimes you're sending three of the most gremlin students plus one cinnamon roll to infiltrate a gala that a bunch of weather fairies are throwing in the greenhouse because they stole your temperature regulating magestone to be shiny jewelry and you want it to stop snowing inside your dorm room. And sometimes you can have the exact same character who experienced losing his little brother right in front of him gush about a magical girl sledding anime and all of his gacha games. It is the best of both worlds.

And, that's not all! No, no. We get amazing character interactions. Not just pre-determined friend group interactions, but also random interactions. Yana Toboso (the writer/artist) really likes to stick names in a jar sometimes and make them interact and it is the best thing ever. Every single one of these characters I hold in my hands. Every single one of them gets to have their moment to shine. You can emotionally invest in all of them and be rewarded for it.

The game itself is free and pretty easy to get into. There's not really a bad power creep so you can get through it with what you got. Of course the fun part of collecting cards is that there are stories attached to them that you can watch, and those are also sources of joy. (And it's well documented, so you can find things online pretty easily to catch up and see more.)

I just think it's neat. (Read: I accidentally became wholly obsessed with this game and its characters and they are all blorbos to me.)

You should definitely fall into this rabbit hole with me :))) It's so worth it :)))

[markantonys]

one of my earliest WOT book-related memories is reading the brief wikipedia summaries for each book and getting to one of the slog books that mentioned "perrin continues searching for his wife" and i thought "damn, he still hasn't found her yet?" little did i know

[the-mononoke-facade]

Waaaaaaait if I'm understanding this setup right it might have some major implications for how Kusu moves through the world holy shit

[magic-swords-art]

About my worldbuilding: the Tega'si

The Tega’si are a species of aliens from the planet Tega. Tega is almost completely covered on water, and Tega even means “water”—“Tega’si” means “from the water.” Tega’si live both on land and underwater, and as a result have both gills and lungs and have better night vision than humans. A lot of what’s edible to Tega’si on Tega is harmful to humans, but Tega’si cannot have dairy—they’re all lactose intolerant.

Some more interesting things about them: Tega'si are born with no legs and no working lungs. Instead, they have a tail and must be kept underwater until their lungs fully develop around 1 year of age. (They can be taken out of water for short periods of time). Their legs also grow in around the same time, and their tail continues to shrink until they reach anywhere from 8-13, and it drops off. They live around the same length as humans. 

Some of them are also born with markings--like these jellyfish rings.

They also have the possibility to develop magic, either aethermancy (light magic) or umbromancy (shadow magic). Each type of magic has their own subset of abilities, which magic users can choose which ones they specialize in—or dip a little into them all! (I'd talk more about the magic system, but that would take it's own post)

[essektheylyss]

I JINXED MYSELF I opened a book I wanted to read and then my third course site got published and there's an optional book to read THERE AS WELL THAT SOUNDS SUPER INTERESTING THAT WOULD PROBABLY GO REALLY WELL IN TANDEM WITH MY CURRENT BOOK, FUCK

[spurgie-cousin]

ok i know i've been talking about Robyn a lot lol but I'm prepping for a deep dive video on her and I think I've finally figured her out:

Her mom was the secondary wife from the time she was 8 or 9, and secondary in the sense that her (step)dad didn't even claim her mom's family publicly. Likely under the guise of "I can't be public about being a polygamist or they'll throw me in jail" (which has been used to justify a lot of abuse in the fundie mormon community).

Anyway so she grew up being part of the less important family, which from everything I've seen *so far* is something she seems to justify publicly. But something like that has gotta do a number on anyone right, like imagine your dad not publicly acknowledging you until you're in your 30s (she was actually the exact age I am now)? Her stepfather though, who she considers her dad, was very very conservative and from everything I can see, he really drilled it into her head that polygamy was the most holy way to go, and that his actions were for the good of the entire family.

So like Christine has pointed out, she has never actually lived in a plural marriage setting where multiple moms and kids have to negotiate every day life, and that apparently wasn't something she was interested in learning or that Kody required of her when she married him. Despite that, she is an adamant advocate for plural marriage and basically all evidence points to the fact that she really does want to be considered a sister wife.

And lastly (and I say this objectively not hatefully) Robyn is a compulsive liar. She twists details about the past to fit a certain narrative in her head and this may be a hot take, but I don't really think she does it consciously or to be *knowingly* manipulative. Like in the last episode, she tells a blatant lie about Kody not wearing the gold ring Meri gave him when they first started dating (if you don't know that story let me know bc OOF is it a doozy). There's thousands of hours of video that proves her wrong, but if the ring story is true the way Meri, Christine, and Janelle tell it, the narrative of her not being responsible for the tremendous shift in the family dynamic can't be true.

So I really think her trauma response to her upbringing was to ignore, suppress, and reframe a situation until it resembles something that is not so painful, just like she did with her childhood. That's not to justify her behavior because as adults, it's our responsibility to be introspective and heal ourselves as much as we can, but I don't know why else someone would lie so often and so blatantly when they can be so easily proven wrong. Lying is like taking a Tylenol for a headache if the headache is painful truths about her life that she can't reconcile.

I think she really did want to live polygamy but the part of her she suppresses was definitely going to take advantage of any opportunity she got to be the primary wife. And not just for ego reasons, but maybe to avoid some of the pain her mother experienced. Almost like she was owed it bc of her past, and I think she dismisses the other wives legitimate concerns because her mom was "happy" and devoted to her husband and she had it way worse.

Anyway sorry to rant about Robyn Brown on a Tuesday lol but I'm mostly just thinking out loud and trying to organize my thoughts for my deep dive. If you have any Robyn thoughts or lesser known stories/pieces of info let me know‼️‼️😊

[jakeperalta]

in hindsight it is amazing that I managed to get two literature degrees because I am terrible at remembering any details of any book I read

[alliluyevas]

I've been reading the newly released American Zion: A New History of Mormonism by Benjamin Park, which I would definitely recommend. I had a bit of a hard time connecting with it at first because it's a historical overview and especially when it comes to 19th century Mormon history I already had read about most of what it covers in more depth, but a) I think the target audience of this book is someone with less historical knowledge about Mormonism than I have b) I think it does provide a very solid and nuanced overview of the material for that person who is not willing or able to read 20 different books about 19th century Mormonism c) now that we're in the 20th century, which overall I know much less about in terms of Mormon history, a lot of this is new to me or has details or analysis I didn't know.

[yotd2009]

oh yeah. the reason why i decided to reread tbhk (and thus it was able to hit me like a truck this time around) was actually not bc of mitsukou going canon but actually bc i maybe accidentally started a tbhk book club w my kids at work and wanted to check the contents of it justttt in case before i put the books in their hands

[manuscripts-dontburn]

[migrationtothenorth]

Article on Kissinger's role in propping up Pakistani General Yahya Khan's military crackdown on East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971, which led to the Bangladeshi Liberation War. The Pakistani crackdown resulted in a genocide of students, intellectuals and the Hindu minority population in the area, and it is estimated that 200000-400000 (or even more) Bengali women were raped by the invading forces by the end of the war.