#dispossesion

[immaculatasknight]

The great unseeing

[ffverr]

I may not know the full story yet,,,, but the Star fam has the potential of being marvel's cuntiest family. Can I pitch a 54 issue run?

[harpygon]

If I get 1 more fucking Finanzguru ad I will break into their server‘s and rip out cables from them with my hands and teeth like a rabid animal and I will do it laughing.

[vamppeach]

emotions don't count past 10pm emotions don't count past 10pm they d

every night when I get sad I am overcome with delusions of getting a job with my goddam degree before remembering I don't think I want to do that but what if I DO want to and I'm just lazy and the year of daily dread during my practicum was just a fluke

like it could have been a fluke. i had a lot going on.

but it's sure telling that I only ever really have these thoughts when I'm already miserable haha. Anyway. does anyone want a househusband. I'm a mediocre cook and I won't have sex with you.

[bueongi]

call me le guin the way i'm left-handed

[piesa2]

i got a plant on sale and a book and dummy by portishead on cd :)

[alicearmageddon]

"For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think."

-Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossesed

[etz-ashashiyot]

If you are upset about Jews living in Israel, first ask yourself: What factors led to them being there in the first place? Was my family complicit in these atrocities? What have I done to address these historical wrongs? How do my answers to these questions inform how I view other refugees?

If you are upset about Jews moving to Israel in the present, first ask yourself: What have I done to make my area a safe place for Jews to live in the present? How have I stood up to antisemitism here, now? What guarantees against future violence have I worked to put in place?

If you are upset that nation-states exist and want Israel to be disbanded on that premise, first ask yourself: What have I done to dissolve my own country's nation-state? Who is likely to be hurt in the ensuing chaos of this dissolution, and what can be realistically proposed as an immediate practical substitute so that it doesn't devolve into rule by brute strength? If your goal is to start with Israel, why Israel over any other state, given that there are numerous countries that are committing atrocities on a much wider scale? Why do you object to Jews having a state more so than all other peoples with states?

If you are upset about land theft from Palestinians, first ask yourself: Am I living on land I am not indigenous to? Is it somewhere that the native population was violently dispossesed of? If so, have I devoted even a tenth of the time, effort, and emotional energy to rectifying these local historical wrongs as I have to this conflict in an entirely different country? What is my responsibility to do so? Is this cause just a way to "atone" for the original sin of the settlers in my country without changing anything about my own life?

There is a conversation to be had here, but until you can answer these questions earnestly and thoughtfully, you are not a serious enough person to have these conversations with.

[heyimboredtalktome]

suffice it to say i can never watch ofmd again without feeling like im going to throw up lol

here's the fucking letter

nothing about a ceasefire, nothing about the 5000 palestinians killed, almost 50% of whom are children, the carpet bombing, nothing about the 150,000 palestinians killed since 2008 out of which 30,000 were children, nothing about the surveillance, apartheid, dispossesion, racism, rape, murder and ethnic cleansing that the palestinians have been subjected to for decades by their beloved genocidal regime israel, also the FUCKING LIE ABOUT THE BEHEADED BABIES that even biden himself admitted that he hadn't actually seen which pretty much assures you that it's a lie because if there was such a thing you can be assured that it would be plastered 24/7 on cnn bbc because obviously war crimes committed by the hamas are somehow much more illegal than the war crimes committed by israel because the palestinians are inherently "HUMAN ANIMALS" and must be dealth with as such. they're basically saying "thank for giving israel full freedom to commit genocide and war crimes ❤️"

[fipindustries]

the first lesson

"belief" chuckled the old man as he turned a delicate glass that contained some opulent limonchello "let me tell you something about how wizards trade in belief"

he was bald, with wild curly hair growing to the sides like the branches of a bonsai tree. he was also rather fat, not in a way that made him look flabby but rather round as a whole. his body could be easily drawn as a circle from which his head poked out, if some leeway for stylization were allowed to the artist. he wore a dark suit and dark round glasses as well as a simple goatee.

"do you lock your doors at night with a key?"

"uh... yes, teacher"

sitting in the small round table at the bar, across from him, was his student. a nervous lady, taller than him and far thinner, with a suit similar to his, dark and antiquated. they looked like undertakers. maybe they even were.

"wise thing to do, given your residence"

The student pursed her lips at this but made no comment. for reasons she could not understand her teacher was fond of making fun or criticizing her economic situation. and for sure there was a lot to complain about, she would do as much regularly, but her teacher seemed to be weirdly fixated on this. he would drop comments about it, cheerfully and casually and she would not respond to any of them and little by little the grains of sand would keep accumulating in the back of her head.

"so every night, before you sleep, you lock the front door of your room with a key, you put the key in the locke and you turn it once, and then twice, and you make a habit out of this, so much so that you do it unconciously, it is an automatic gesture with no thought put into it at all. you dont think to yourself 'now the door is locked', is just a truth of the universe, unacknowledged and yet all the same internalized"

"is this a story or is this your speculations about my life?"

"everything is a story if it's not meant to be literally true, maybe it is true, but that is not my intention"

"very well continue, teacher"

"so the next day, when you wake up and need to step out into the world, before doing that you unlock the door. now this is very important, you don't have to take a few moments to collect yourself and wonder if wether you locked your door last night, you dont have to take stock of your memories and recall that indeed you put the key there before going to sleep and locked the door tight, you just unlock the door because it is a deeply accepted truth that the door is simply locked"

"and the only way to unlock it is with a key"

"the only way indeed! very good!"

she didnt need to add that comment, and if it had been simply up to her whim she would have remained silent and let the man continue his lecture. but she had learned that her teacher enjoyed these interjections, however superfluous they might be, he always recieved them with joy and enthusiasm, as if she had solved a mystery or shown a deep insight. this was another of his weird quirks that she entertained simply because they seemed to make her interactions with him more frictionless.

"and now," he continued "imagine one day you go to a party and drink copious ammounts of alcohol, quantities large enough to make you dispossesed of your wits, not that i suggest you would actually do such a thing, at least not on the regular" the teacher gave her an unwanted wink "so your friends carry you back home and you stumble your steps up to your front door and once inside you are so out of sorts that you simply forget to lock the door, after which you fall into your bed and go to sleep"

"is this something about how my compromised state makes me believe for one night that ill be safe even though i havent locked the door or something?"

"not at all, you sleep soundly all night without being attacked, who knows, maybe burglars and robbers were busy in other houses or other parties, getting themselves merry and drunk, whatever the case may be you wake up the next day with no memory of last night, with quite a hangover, sadly there are no pills or medicines that can aid you with your malady at your home, so you will have to go to the corner drugstore to get something to let you handle your headache"

the student pursed her lips once again. there was a drugstore at the corner of her street, so this story not being about her seemed just a fraction less likely, but then again, there were drugstores at the corners of many streets.

"so you unlock your door and step outside, it's a lovely day with the birds singing and the sun shining and you go to the farmacy and buy the medicine you need to handle your hangover, end of the story"

"but how could i have unlocked the door if the door was already unlocked?" she said mechanically, knowing that this was the obvious question the story was baiting.

"exactly! very good my student!"

an overstated praise for a trite question. maybe her teacher just enjoyed being humored.

"for you see, to you it was not a matter of assuring yourself that the door was locked, to you it was simply a truth of the world, as profound and unquestionable as that things fall down"

"i see, and that is the level of belief i have to master in order to do magic?"

"more or less, yes" said the teacher sipping the limonchello.

"seems difficult to achieve without extensive use of manipulation, doublethink, brainwashing or psychodelics"

"hmm? what do you mean?"

"that...to internalize a belief that profoundly, seems hard to do without a lot of mental effort, without a rather strong amount of self deception and psychological trickery"

"i really dont know what you're talking about, you just have to believe, is the easiest thing in the world"

"it's... not, it's very much not, to believe, to truly believe, to actually thoroughly change one's mind about the nature of reality, against proof, against evidence is basically impossible"

"is that what you believe?"

"is-" oh, that was the trick. she had to internally stifle a groan. her teacher had pulled another of his dumb rethorical tricks. he seemed to be just as delighted when she failed to catch on as he was when she stated the obvious.

"that is the first belief you have to change, indeed is the first belief that all wizards have to change when they start" he said, chuckling again.

"that is the first spell that every wizard casts" she said, completing the thought.

"now" said the teacher, pulling out a small box with a large lock on it from his cape. he placed it on the small table, in the middle of the glasses, and then he pulled a key from a pocket. he put the key on the lock and turned once, and twice. then he put the key back into his pocket. "i want you to open this box"

the student looked at the box. so that was her challenge, to find the way to believe in her heart of hearts that this locked box was actually open. no, not even believe in hear heart of hearts, not even to know, really. this had to be something that trascended awareness.

she took a big gulp from her beer. she was going to fail the test so she wanted to steel herself to be embarassed.

obviously it was impossible for her to rewrite her brain right there and then and she was not even going to try. there was going to be no clapping while saying that she believed in fairies. that was just not how actual beliefs about the world were formed.

if it was a trick that all wizards had to master, she didnt have the instruction or the tools for how to do it. she looked at the box a little more. her hands hovered over it, hesitating. the moment she placed her hands on it and failed to open it, the test would be done and she would have failed and the was no circumventing that. she just wanted to delay the pie to her face a little longer.

of course, because she was her, she couldnt help but actually pause and still try her best to find the answer to the conundrum. she covered her mouth with one hand and scratched her mane of curls around her head with the other, like she did whenever she was deep in thought. her brow deeply furrowed with concentration.

And then she realized the true nature of her test. how dissapointing. it was a dumb trick of course. she placed a finger on top of the box and said "abracadabra"

She then opened the box.

"marvelous! marvelous! exceptional! very good my student! not even i did better than that when i was faced with the test!" exclaimed the teacher while clapping enthusiastically.

She was well and truly tired of her master's condescention.

"you didnt lock the box when you put the key in, you unlocked it" she said, rolling her eyes "the box was unlocked all along"

"exactly! precisely! the box was unlocked all along, just like the door in my story was locked all along!"

"no! no that is not the same thing!" insisted the student banging the table with her fist "in your story, someone believing that a door is locked changes reality retroactively to make it so that the door was always locked, but in my case the box was actually unlocked all along!" the ruckus made one of the waiters show up with a confused look in his face

"well yes, that is the point, that is what changing reality retroactively is supposed to look like, like it was unlocked all along" the teacher turned towards the waiter "thanks for showing up, what is the cost of these beverages, garçon?"

"that would be 30 in total"

"ah! very well, now you see i am a magician, so allow me a bit of flair" said the master waving his hands around in a very theatrical way "your fee is inside that box being held by my lovely assistant, my dear girl would you hand the box to our waiter?"

She rolled her eyes and gave the box to the poor confused man. who grabbed it and tried to pry it open. but he couldn't.

"um... is the box closed?" asked the waiter, out of sorts.

"oh? it should be opened, try again" said the old man.

the waiter struggled a little more but he could not open the box in any way. finally he turned to the teacher with forlorn expression.

"i give up, what's the trick?"

the old man reached behind the waiter's left ear and pulled out the key.

"here why dont you try with this"

"that is a really old trick" said the waiter while he unlocked the box and pulled out the money from inside it. he returned the box by forcefully pressing it against the old man's chest.

"what i nice lad!" said the teacher, while putting the key into the lock again and turning it once and then twice again. "anyway, where were we?"

the girl was just looking at he teacher, a mix of confusion, annoyance and a little bit of fear on her face.

"ok, how did you do that" she asked.

"i didnt do anything, you did, you opened the box"

"no, that... that was a trick, the lock is a clever mechanism or something"

"you are thinking like a magician, and i am asking you to think like a wizard, you opened this box, my dear girl, because you believed that it was opened, you already did this trick once, now all you have to do" said the man, placing the box back into the table "is do it again"

she hesitated.

"this is still a trick, right? you rigged it somehow so that if i try ill be able to open the box?"

the teacher laid back on the chair, very satisfied with himself. he crossed his fingers over his belly. she somehow felt that this, out of everything he had done that night, was his most sincere display of pride in her.

"what do you believe?" he said

she reached for the box.

[enby-axels]

svsss deconstructs the roles of protagonist and scum villain to reveal that they (bingge and the original shen qingqiu respectively) are one and the same. so i can understand why people who read svsss first think that the same theme applies to mdzs' protagonist wei wuxian and antagonist jin guangyao. but imo mdzs deconstructs these roles completely differently. wwx and jgy do have meaningful similarities, but at the end of the day they're meant to be foils, not identical parallels.

like it's always "wwx is morally grey and exactly the same as jgy" this or "all violence is the same akshually" that, but never "what makes certain acts of violence socially acceptable? whom do you point your sword at: the dispossesed or the gentry exploiting them? when enacting so-called justice, which parties' interests are excluded?"

it matters that wwx's necromancy was accepted during the sunshot campaign, but he was vilified when he protected the wen clan's remnants. it matters that none of the righteous clans care about the sex workers and prostituted women that jgy killed. it matters that wwx only gets a second chance at life because nie huaisang a.k.a. "the head-shaker" wanted to avenge his brother. it matters that jgy died because nhs tricked lan xichen into thinking he was going to kill him, not for anything he actually did. it matters that lan wangji is beloved by the common people for appearing wherever there's trouble, unlike other cultivators. it matters that luo qingyang left her clan, not just because she was disrespected, but because she lost faith in the cultivation world. it matters that wwx understands the necessity of violence to protect the powerless, and laments the self-righteous violence of the powerful.

mdzs isnt a deconstruction of how toxic male power fantasies arbitrarily determine the roles of hero and villain; it's criticizing how those already in power decide who's disposable

[tess-talks-inc]

Dispossesed, a DDVAU fic

It was warm, when Grian fell asleep.  The break room always was warm, even in the cooling winds of fall that cause the trees to shed their leaves.  The window was an especially a warm spot, with the sun beaming through the glass panes in a way that would put even the most caffeinated teachers to rest beneath its warm beams. 

It was warm, so maybe that’s why he jolted when he felt like he was dunked into a layer of ice.  His mind jolted, at least.   It felt the same as waking from a nightmare, the same dread, the same sharp vision as every sense of his body felt it was on high alert.  However, there was no rushing heartbeat, if he could feel one at all.  No matter how much his mind screamed for it, his head did not rise from its position of looking.. down towards a growing mold, barely illuminated by a sliver of light.  He was… standing? Why was he standing?

“Oh hello love.” The voice, his voice, called out to the darkening room. Or he hoped it was the room,  he couldn’t tell.  It was so dark, he could barely see, and that sliver of light was slowly being eclipsed.  It shouldn’t be this dark, he thought a bit dumbly.  it wasn’t even noon yet, I don’t sleep for that long-

“You’re not meant to be up quite yet.” His voice noted, finally looking up and walking towards a further end of… the hall? It was lined with mushrooms, caps barely luminescent as his feet beat an unfamiliar pace, but the length, the tile… he was in the hall.  Why?

__________________

I sincerely needed to write a fic based on the most recent chapter of @kitsuneisi 's and @xmaruu11 's DDVAU, because I'm obsessed and Mother Spore is Everything To Me!!! I cannot draw so I offer my measely writing skill as offering and apreciation :D

[leroibobo]

khan al-umdan (caravanserai of the columns) in acre is one of palestine's best-preserved caravanserai, a type of inn historically common across asia, north africa, the caucuses, and southern europe, especially for travelers along trade routes like the silk road. it was built in 1785 on the order of ottoman governer ahmed pasha al-jazaar (who also has a mosque named for him nearby). the clock tower was added in 1906 to celebrate the silver jubilee of sultan abdul hamid II.

khan al-umdan served as more than just an inn - due to its proximity to acre's port, it also served as a spot for merchants to store and sell wares. it also gained importance to the baha'i faith, as it served as a site where baha'ulla (founder of the religion, he was imprisoned in acre later in life) received guests, and held a baha'i school. many palestinians found refuge inside the khan during the nakba, but were later forcibly expelled and evicted up to the 1980s.

it continues to be used for events today, but not as often as it used to be. despite being a popular tourist attraction and designated as a world heritage site, the caravanserai has also been facing further neglect due to gentrification and has also been in danger of being dispossesed for quite some time now.

[fatliberation]

Dr. Caleb Luna @chairbreaker, on fat embodiment & divesting from constructions of health

Culturally, we are taught that we can control our health based on our individual choices, including eating habits. As part of this, body size gets conflated with or becomes a shorthand for health, with thinness becoming synonymous with good health and fatness with poor health. To control this, we are taught that eating a particular diet and regular exercise will automatically produce a thin body, and, with that, health.

This is false, for a few reasons:

1. There is no universally healthy diet. People have allergies, preferences & individual needs based on unique conditions. Some people need to eat more meat, some are allergic to nuts or berries, some bodies can’t digest lactose. Food is also culture, & the compulsion to standardize our diets into one model flattens human difference and imposes white supremacist foods & eating habits as the standards the rest of us should ascribe to. 

2. There is no diet and exercise regime that is guaranteed to make you thin. Diets have a 95-99% long term failure rate. Exercise has many benefits, including increase in strength, mobility, stamina, flexibility, stress relief, connection to body, and more. But the conclusion it will make you thin is a lie from the diet industry to aspire to white supremacist beauty standards. It fuels the diet industry to make people feel like failures when diet & exercise don’t produce the thin bodies we were promised. 

3. Illness is innate to the human condition, & many people who structure their lives around diet culture will still contract viruses, develop cancers & other conditions. There is no diet or exercise regime that is guaranteed to prevent illness or injury.

4. Body size is largely genetically determined. It can be influenced by food intake, but bodies hold what is called a set point that is nearly impossible to change long-term, without extreme & unhealthy measures. Our genetics also determine how we are racialized. Body size is one of many factors in this process, which includes skin tone, body hair patterns, height, body shape, and sizes & shapes of eyes, nose, & mouth. This is all race science; ascribing to these metrics of health through diet and fitness culture is also white supremacy. 

There are steps we can take to take control of our individual holistic health, based on whatever goals they may be, but the idea we have complete control over our health is false. The notion that we can & should take ownership of our health comes from Enlightenment thinking that separated body from mind and man from nature. This epistemology teaches us that our bodies are projects that can and should be controlled and shaped through our actions in order to demonstrate our cultural values (allegiance to white supremacy). This is used to organize society into good subjects, who ‘take care of themselves,’ and bad subjects, who don’t. We don’t have dominion over our bodies; we are in relation with our bodies, and with each other. 

In the U.S., we live in a deeply unhealthy society founded on anti-Blackness, Indigenous dispossesion & settler colonization. This is bad for the health of all of us. The emphasis on health as the result of individual choices that can be evidenced through the body is a distraction used to pit us against one another as good and bad subjects. Fat, sick & disabled bodies are viewed as failures of the project of self care and, as such, less deserving of resources. This also shifts responsibility to take care of one another, or for the State to take care of its citizen subjects. This is white supremacist & colonial thinking. We are all in relation with one another; we all have responsibilities for one another’s well-being. 

Finally, disabled people have let us know that we can become disabled instantaneously through accident or illness; in fact, it is a part of life. If we live long enough, we will eventually become disabled in some way. The emphasis on health devalues disabled people, whose bodies will never achieve these standards. This construction of health is a value of white supremacy, colonization & capitalism: we are expected to be healthy under colonial metrics only to be productive workers for longer. We need to divest from settler formations of health if we want all of us to truly be free. 

[charlesoberonn]

the adventure story concept you just posted really reminds me of the dispossesed by ursula leguin :0

So I've been told.

That book has a similar structure but afaik it's not a Hero's Journey type adventure story.

Project Hail Mary also has a similar structure, with the protagonist finding himself in space with amnesia and slowly remembering how he got there.

[argyrocratie]

Strangeness and familiarity: in every movement of the Terran's thought Shevek caught this combination, was constantly intrigued. And sympathetic: for Ainsetain, too, had been after a unifying field theory.

i had forgot that Einstein was mentioned in the dispossesed