#palestine isn’t even on the fucking map

[nothing-but-glitter-and-lashes]

yes so im meant to be taking a break from tumblr right now but i want to highlight something that i noticed today

in my geography classroom there’s a world map that covers the whole wall, it’s big enough for you to see all the major cities and stuff

so im looking at it during class and i can see Gaza marked on the map but there’s no Palestine

Gaza is in Israel on the map

for context this map must have been in this classroom for many many years cus it was there before i joined the school

Palestine is just not on the map at all?

i mean fuck

[aloneandforsakenbyfateandbyman]

So tired of Israel pushing nauseating war propaganda talking points for weeks on news and media outlets while slaughtering innocent civilians and committing an outright genocide, so I put together a list of common lies which are so easily debunked and just annoying to see at this point:

1. “Palestinians don’t exist! Palestine never existed historically etc”

Meanwhile they’re literally trying to oust Christians living there since the 4th century and Muslims there since at least the 7th century, not to mention the Palestinian‘s relation to the biblical Philistines.

2. “Israel isn’t racist and white supremacist in nature, they love ppl of color!”

And then minorities and immigrants are treated like garbage in Israel and forcibly sterilized.

3. “Israelis don’t want to steal land, they just want to live in peace with Palestinians!”

A simple map disputes that claim immediately. Zionists have given up even the pretence of the two state solution.

4. “There was nothing in Palestine before Israelis arrived!! Israelis built everything”

Meanwhile just view photos of Palestine pre-1948 and you see a vibrant and illustrious people trying to free themselves of brutal British colonial rule.

5. “Israel isn’t a genocidal settler colonialist state it’s Palestinians who are violent!”

It was literally the demonic white supremacist British colonialists who stole Palestinian land and then served it to Zionists on a silver platter when they had no right to do so.

6. “Palestinians are all racist, Muslim terrorists and Israel is kind and tolerant! Only Muslims can support Palestine, no one else.”

Such a fake claim when almost 1 out of 10 Palestinians is Christian and Muslim Palestinians live together peacefully.

7. “Israel is a friend of the USA and has American interests at heart”

And the reality is that if a Muslim country was guilty of killing US soldiers like during the 1967 USS Liberty incident, they would’ve been nuked immediately.

8. “Why don’t Muslim countries take in Palestinians then, Muslims don’t care about Palestine etc”

They already HAVE taken so many Palestinian refugees in with compassion, but not every Palestinian wants to leave the land that belonged to their ancestors.

9. “Palestinians are evil terrorists who are all Hamas members that kill children etc”

And then you look at the stats and Israel is the one mass murdering literal children everyday. Half the population in Gaza is a child and the average age is 19. So fucking disgusting fr to murder innocent children and then lie about it.

And I could go on but this is just a short list. I’m begging ppl to do their research on the atrocities that are happening in occupied Palestine rn it’s so disturbing but it needs to be spoken about. So nasty how many ppl are silent and complacent when their voices could do a whole lot to change the discussion to a fact-based and logical one. I’m praying to god everyday for this genocide to end.

[zucchinimalfoy]

I don’t know how any actual people, with actual brain cells and an actual functioning mind look at what is happening in Palestine and still say ‘I stand with israel.’

Like are you fucking dumb or just plain ignorant?

No, like for real, actually someone explain it to me. Explain to me how the fuck israel is the victim. Explain to me that what is happening in Palestine isn’t genocide, and ethnic cleaning, and settler colonialism, and a massacre. Try and persuade me to think that israel isn’t committing war crimes, and that what is happening isn’t a crime against humanity.

I used to be filled with heartbreak at every video I saw about the tragedies in Palestine, but now it fills me with rage.

If you’re staying silent, or if you’re ‘neutral’ you are fucking disgusting because you are siding with the oppressor.

Simply look at a map of Palestine from before 1948 and now and that literally is enough evidence. Never mind factoring the thousands slaughtered and millions displaced.

Never mind looking at the apartheid, where there’s streets in occupied Palestinian territory that Palestinians aren’t even allowed to walk on. Never mind the use of white phosphorus, or the bombing of apartments, and hospitals, and churches. Never mind the murder of THOUSANDS of Palestinian CHILDREN. Never mind the fact that Gaza is the largest open-aired prison in the world.

The map alone is evidence enough. Adding all these atrocities in just goes to show that regardless of what is happening, the West still stand with genocide.

Enough is enough. There needs to be a ceasefire. Aid for 2.2 million people needs to be let in. There needs to be an end to the occupation of Palestine.

There’s no ‘two-state solution’; the only solution is the complete eradication of the settler colony israel (the ‘state’, not the Jews before anyone tries to call me anti-semitic) and for the land to be fully claimed as Palestine once more.

And when that day comes, because it will, the Day of Judgement will be upon us Insha’Allah, and everyone will answer to Allah SWT for their role in the slaughter of Palestinians.

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[barzfrommarz]

I’ve been seeing a lot of discussions/discourse on tumblr and twitter surrounding kamala/voting for kamala so I want to put my two cents in as someone who will have no actual influence towards the outcome of the election

(important parts with be in bold)

Let’s look at the hypothetical that trump wins because the vote was split or people simply just refused to and kamala didn’t gain enough votes to win.

In the scenario, I want every person who decided it would be better not to vote or vote for a random third party candidate who has no shot at winning who only comes up during election years to say all of the “not like the other guys” talking points to explain to not just me but every queer, trans, disabled, non white, AFAB person who is now at severe risk why you chose to not vote to help them have rights. I want to see your explanations if trump wins. you also cannot use Palestinians suffering to make yourself seem better than you actually are

My point is that if trump wins because your delusions lead you to believe that you can single handedly change the way elections work in this country by “sticking it to the dems” and trump wins and we become a facist state, I want to hear what you have to say when we all start loosing rights and palestine gets wiped off the map

“Well we won’t let that happen” Good fucking luck. In project 2025 im pretty sure there is a section about how we basically won’t be able to protest anything anymore, not only that im also pretty sure trump has talked about deporting pro palestine protesters specifically!

You cannot be a single issue voter in this election and in many elections to come. Change doesn’t happen overnight and you need to wake up and realize that kamala will be the start of actually getting more progressive candidates and policies even if it’s not enough right now at this very moment. We all have to actually start putting in the effort instead of sitting around on our asses complaining

If we get kamala in, we won’t have to worry about our country becoming a facist state therefore we can worry more about palestine and putting more pressure on the dems than there already is. That should be a no brainer to some of you

This post isn’t praising kamala or trying to idolize her in anyway, always be critical of politicians. This post is more of a message to the preformative leftists on tumblr and twitter who have zero knowledge on how the US government works.

It’s kamala or trump this november. We cannot change that less than 100 days away from election day

Should I repeat myself? I hope you can understand that.

I’m not trying to bash anyone for continuing to put pressure on kamala and the dems for being complicit in bombing children. That’s not who my post is about like I already said

I think that all the protests outside of the DNC are especially important because it shows we have not forgotten and will continue to put pressure on the dems to do the right thing for once

but like I already said, it’s kamala or trump. Third party candidates are either grifters who only are there to get money and trick gullible leftists or candidates who have never been in any lower level political positions who think they can automatically garner a shit ton of support to win when they can’t. Your other option is to not vote which is arguably worse

I’m not trying to be the one to change anyones mind but I hope this post can help you reconsider your options and start facing the reality of this election

You have an important choice to make this november. I hope you can make the right one

edit: im not trying to beg anyone to vote for kamala or make anyone who is against her because of her handling of Palestine vote for kamala, especially if you are Palestinian yourself. Im not trying to make anyone feel bad about it either. Thats not the point of this post. The point is that change needs to happen now and this election is a perfect start to do so. We cannot have good change under a second trump term. I know im just repeating myself at this point but I want to put this out there incase I come off wrong or offensive. Also, I dont like the dems at all. I dont align with their party but you shouldnt even care abt what party I align with most. Im not a pro activist whose been in the game for 10+ years, im just a trans boy who has essentially been forced to pay attention to the shit going on in the country because of who I am even though it shouldn't concern me nearly as much as it does.

second edit: check out this tiktok and this persons other tiktoks abt palestine and kamala

[nyctophilic-rose]

bro i just saw someone say that zionism was landback and decolonization….

what are y’all on over there huh??? do you even know what landback means??? do you even know what decolonization means??? jesus fuck this isn’t an you being jewish it’s about the government you support MURDERING PALESTINIANS IN AN OPEN AIR PRISON JESUS CHRIST

for those who want more information on landback, here is the landback movement manifesto

the isreali government is ravaging the land that palestinians are living on. that is very much not fucking landback.

the israeli government is destroying documentation of palestinian history. that is NOT landback

the israeli government is trying to completely wipe palestine off the map. that is NOT landback

what it IS is settler colonialism funded by the US government. and let me remind you that the US gov is the epitome of settler colonialism.

how DARE you use the words of indigenous people and their fight against bigotry to excuse and hide your support for genocide. ESPECIALLY if you are a zionist living in the US.

FUCK YOU

[disco-cola]

ok i need to rant again. when i was actually ON THE TRIP almost exactly 4 years ago (again, it was an educational trip organized thru a berlin based socialist youth organization) I literally had NOOO IDEA about palestine, like yeah I have heard the name before sometimes but I thought it existed CENTURIES AGO like no fucking joke I will admit this. in Germany they don’t teach you about this in school or in the media, ESPECIALLY due to germanys history, world war two and the holocaust you carry a sort of blame that’s passed on from generation to generation - it’s only been like 80 years too it might sound long ago but it really isn’t. you think oh israel is the jewish state and it has to be right after all germany did to jewish people, no further questions asked. before i never ever educated myself bc when I got old enough to watch and understand news that did involve Palestine, like in 2k14 i remember Gaza was big on the news with violent images and I was horrified just believing everything i heard and saw i distinctly remember googling where is Gaza bc i saw footage on the news and being scared but downright relieved when i saw its not close to germany (dumb) and I just believed the reports on tv. i didnt really use the internet then as much, i had no social media except Facebook and this blog at that point. Man I was 17 and in high school i didnt care for anything outside my small bubble bc I didn’t have to, being a privileged western child. So fast forward to late 2k19 in the project i was still hanging out at at the time we got the offer for the „israel travel“ and a lot of people wanted to go and I literally just succumbed to peer pressure imma be so honest. Everyone wanted to go so I did too, i didn’t wanna stay home. i just thought ohh i have not flown since 2003 and 300 euros for a two week trip i can actually afford this too for fckn once and there were too many people interested and too little spots so there was a Tombola and my name got drawn so that was literally the reason I went. And i usually pride myself with very good memory and recollection but those two weeks are honestly a BLUR to me like idk if it was the stress and excitement of the traveling itself but i wish i sometimes had listened more carefully, had already known what I know now and been able to ask more questions and watch and listen more closely. we did stay with Arab guest families in tamra for a week of the trip, the other half in Tel Aviv (i got wasted with the hostel staff after having to be freed aka 2 doors kicked down in my room the first evening we were there bc the doorhandle in the bathroom broke i was in trauma and then was mutuals on ig with the hostels chef until 2k21 when israel bombed gaza and there were also rockets from Gaza to Tel Aviv in response and he turned out to be Zionist so I unfollowed then) and then for the last few days we were staying in two air bnbs in jerusalem. We celebrated new years in haifa with a Christian Arab family that invited us. we did visit a kibbutz on New Year’s Day bc someone from our groups grandma was living there since 48 (yep back then i just thought oh wow that’s amazing now I would view this a lot more critically) which also got us an exclusive guide around the kibbutz which was just on the border to lebanon and seeing the bunkers was eerie but I understand it now that I got into the history involving Lebanon too. we visited several museums like ghetto fighters and yad vashem. which dont get me wrong im glad we did, it’s an important part of history. it was a „both side“ experience and I literally didn’t even realize there was a Palestinian side to it then. Like genuinely it wasn’t really made clear how this all came to be Israel. They showed us a map pre-1948 vs. now but how did it get so big i didnt know. What zionists are. What settlements are. What the IDF is (by now let’s just call it IOF) I just remember the second day in Tel Aviv someone told us israel has only existed since 1948 and I was like lol what like baffled how new it actually is. Dude it’s the first time I heard about that.

It was only a few months after the trip that i one day randomly started to read up on the history, like literally starting out on kids websites bc growing up i only ever just heard „it’s complicated“ making it seem like the „middle east conflict“ as they liked to call it was sooo hard to understand and you had to be sooo smart and diplomatic to have an opinion on it. and after reading up suddenly stuff I saw but didn’t question on the trip started to make sense. The huge checkpoint we went through going into jerusalem, our car full of Germans basically being waved right through without any control while i saw other cars being emptied out completely by heavily armed soldiers. We took a teen girl from Tamra to Jerusalem with us bc she liked to come along and then there were problems suddenly with BOTH our air bnb apartments and we asked the staff if we could accommodate our suitcases somewhere and just go explore the old city instead of waiting around blocking the entire lobby. first they said no you have an Arab with you (I didn’t even understand what they meant by that) then came around and let us do it after all at least. Dude she was literally a 15 yr old like 5‘3“ teenage girl. Why one of the guys from our group was detained and questioned at the airport for like 3 hours because he was born in Syria (had a German pass tho but anyway). And when we wanted to travel back the group guide prepped us for questioning and made sure we all had straight answers which I also didn’t understand the reason for - I wasn’t one of the people being asked questions but someone did truthfully tell Airport staff what we did during our stay and that we spent a week with Arab guest families and after that several suitcases SEEM to have been rummaged through (and I know bc I packed mine soooo neatly bc I bought baklava on the market the day before to bring my family and it was smashed like flattened) we did get into a storm when changing flights in Istanbul so idk maybe the suitcases really were just thrown around but for real it wouldn’t surprise me if they did control us after that.

Anyway I posted stories throughout the trip to my ig back then and just went with the first location tag that was suggested to me and looking back now, it’s all „…, israel“ when i was actually on occupied land (tel aviv jaffa haifa akka…) and I HATE IT ☺️ I can’t change it back now obviously. I don’t wanna delete the stories from my highlight tho, even tho it does make me feel kinda guilty, bc i see it as part of my journey. Quite literally. I honestly wish I could teleport back now being more educated about the situation and ask more questions, talk to more Palestinian people (like the guest families). Would I do such a trip again? Not as long as the destination on the ticket is called only israel. I genuinely hope I can visit Palestine again tho someday. But this time for real real.

[isanyonetoknow]

so you want to write a middle eastern character...

aka a splurge of things me, as someone whose family is from the middle east, would like people to know when they’re writing middle eastern characters. 

just as a note, so you know my background: i am persian and i was born outside of iran (but also outside of the current country i reside in). i’ve visited iran a few times, and the majority of my family lives there. i also grew up/am living in a predominantly white community where the middle eastern community makes up a very, very small percentage of the nonwhite community. 

so essentially, specifics will be more persian/farsi centric, as well as from the pov of someone from an immigrant family. 

also capitalization is something i pick up and abandon at various parts during the post, so do not expect it to be consistent.

oh yeah here’s the link to a google doc for possibly easier reading.

some really basic stuff

1. the “middle east” isn’t really that defined as a region

i kind of wish it was because it’d make my life more convenient but depending on what source you look at, who you listen to, and what maps you look at, different countries are in the middle east. 

There are some countries that are always included in the region (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iran are countries I’ve seen without fail) but after that, it varies. Sometimes Pakistan and Afghanistan are included. Sometimes Egypt’s included. Sometimes various countries across North Africa are squished in and it’s not Middle Eastern, but Middle Eastern/North African. Sometimes the other -stan countries are included (like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). Sometimes Turkey’s there. Sometimes Armenia is there too. it gets worse when you’re talking to individual people, because someone the other day thought India was a part of the middle east. 

so if common sense isn’t enough to tell you that you can’t take a general middle eastern aesthetique and count that as rep, this should. like obviously, some of these countries do not count as the middle east at all (like india), but outside of that, it honestly depends. 

so slapping “middle eastern” on a character and adding some aesthetics really isn’t going to cut it. and if you aren’t willing to do research to represent the target group properly, you shouldn’t write a middle eastern character.

(also don’t @ me like “who the fuck would include X country? I’ve never seen that before!” because the examples i listed are literally all things i’ve seen across the years. not all are common, but they do exist.)

edit from later: this post is a good example of how the middle east is NOT well defined at all. the map doesn’t use “middle east” because honestly, the term isn’t that great (i don’t know extensive amounts about its origins but uh. not great - i use middle east just for the simplicity and understanding of this post and because it is in common usage on like, official forms). this map shows the division of western asia and southern asia between iran and iraq, but i’ve literally never seen iran counted as western asia before this post. i’m not discrediting it, and imo that post is a great post, but region boundaries are not fixed esp around the middle east so do not rely on that. 

2. “from the middle east” does NOT inherently mean muslim + a few notes about islam

yes, a lot of countries in the middle east are muslim majority countries, but even so, there are other religions practiced there, like christianity, zoroastrian, judaism, and other minority religions. 

also guess what. some people don’t practice religion! not everyone residing in the middle east is religious and certainly not all middle eastern immigrants are religious either. 

now you might be wondering why i’m hammering in this point, and not just leaving it as just the title. well first, it’s really bad to generalize groups like this. but also, islam has been and is still being used in some areas a controlling tool. such as in iran, where my family’s from. this really simplifies the matter, but essentially, it’s very, very irking to see automatic assumptions regarding islam and middle easterners since my family (as well as other people i know) has been negatively impacted by the religion. (not to say that my family’s experience with islam is the only one that all persians have. this is my experience as well as the experience of people i know)

i’m not going to go more in detail on this now because there’s a reason this is about middle eastern characters and not muslims or middle eastern muslims specifically, but yeah. i just really want people to get that not all middle easterners are muslim. not all muslims are from the middle east. having a non muslim middle eastern character is FINE. 

now, because i don’t trust this site, i just want to say that what i’ve written does not mean that islam is inherently bad. this is not an excuse to be islamophobic. this does not mean that the harm that people have used islam to commit is comparable to the harm “other organized religions” (aka christinaity) has been used to commit. 

let me repeat, since i know reading comprehension on this site is horrendous: do not use the vague criticisms of islam i bring up to either group islam with christianity in terms of harm (something that is just factually incorrect since christinaity has done a WHOLE lot more widespread harm) or use it to justify your hatred and bigotry towards muslims. if i see anyone acting this way or starting to talk about why organized religion is bad or any of that shit, i’m blocking. 

one last note about islam: islam is (obviously) not a monolith. for starters, there’s sunni and shia islam. the majority of muslims in the world are sunni (i believe the percentage is around 80-90% of muslims practice sunni islam). so if you pick a country with a predominately muslim population, chances are a lot of them are sunnis. iran and iraq are the two major countries i know of that have major populations of shiite muslims. you can easily find the differences between the two practices if you do a bit of internet searching.

3. right so yeah, even if your character is not muslim, islam likely has some sort of an effect on your character’s life. 

look, the choices here aren’t “you’re muslim and are impacted by islam” or “you’re not muslim and touch nothing that was influenced by islam.” 

if you character lives in a muslim majority country, then this is fairly obvious, but this is also can be the case with immigrant characters. 

some general ways islam has effects (not all are because of the religion -- quite a lot of the effects deal with the perception of the religion)

even if your character doesn’t practice Islam, their family might. 

islam has been present for a really long time in the middle east, it has had an effect on the different cultures of the region and different cultures have had their effect on it. the art is a big one, and values from the religion can be passed down if the parents are/were religious.

language is a big one too. like i say inshallah and mashallah even though i don’t practice islam. (that might sound like a stupid example, like “of course if you say something that mentions god, you’re not automatically religious!” but you’d be surprised. also the key here is to use these words correctly. apparently some people are just throwing inshallah about because of the finding nemo post (inshallah they will find him, or something along those lines) but words have actual meanings. like i know inshallah and mashallah because those are two common words used in farsi and majority of my family speaks the language. i would not use a word like alhamdulillah because i don’t know what it means). 

islamophobia. because even though not everyone from the middle east is muslim, a lot of people have that perception! and they can act according to it!

but also just the general assumption that middle eastern = muslim leads to people wishing you happy ramadan even if you aren’t muslim. and don’t be picky and say you can wish people happy ramadan if neither of you are muslim/maybe the person telling you was muslim. cause in the instance i’m referring to, the person received it solely because she’s middle eastern. 

and then there’s also the relation to terrorism. i was lucky in that the only comments i received relating to it was stuff like “is [the middle east] safe?” when i said i went over to visit family. i’ve heard from other kids in literally neighboring school districts mention that they were asked if they were terrorists because their family’s middle eastern. 

4. ethnicity time

the ethnic groups that make up the majority of the population in the middle east are arabs, persians, kurds, turks, and azeris. none of those groups are the same as each other. there are also various minority ethnic groups in the region. none of them are the same as each other. various groups can be similar or very similar but that doesn’t mean they’re the same. 

now you may be scratching your head because you thought everyone there was arab or confused because you thought that nationalities were an adequate way to refer to the ethnicity of a person. which i get can be confusing, because nationality is an adequate way to identify a person and is used very often (and sometimes, nationality is used to refer to ethnicity). it’s one of those things that’s a whole mess but ethnicity does not equal nationality. and yeah. not everyone in the middle east is arab. 

also, with ethnicity comes the great “are they white” debate. honestly it’s not a great debate or anything, but i’ve seen some people debate if middle easterners are white. even official forms (in the US at least) don’t know what to do with us. 

sometimes you’re white in surveys. sometimes you’re in the middle eastern/north african category. sometimes you’re in the middle eastern/north african/west asian category. and sometimes, you’re in the middle eastern/north african/west asian/pacific islander category. yes those are all real things either i or someone i know has seen. 

it becomes a whole mess when you go to less official things, because I’ve seen Middle Easterners counted as Asians. and yeah, technically the Middle East is in the continent of Asia and yeah, it’s more intuitive to mark that as a category instead of white (which i did once when i was ten because i didn’t know what to put and ha aren’t i a genius iran is in asia so i must be asian) but i’ve only seen that classification in unofficial surveys so it’s not anything standard. 

sometimes people get more specific, like if you're arab, you’re a poc, but turk/persians/kurds etc. aren’t people of color because technically some of them come from the caucasus mountains so TECHNICALLY they’re caucasian. or turks are caucasian but everyone isn’t. opinions within the community differ too. 

For a solid period in my life, my parents were like “we’re white.” like i boasted to them about the marking myself down as asian incident cause ten year old me thought i was clever, and they were literally like “azizam, we know you thought you were being clever but… you’re white.”

and like. to a lot of people i do look white (or i look slightly off but they can’t tell exactly what i am. my last name always tips them off though lol) and i have a bunch of privilege that comes with that. there are darker skinned middle easterners who don’t have that privilege.

anyways like i said. it’s a whole mess. so my advice is not to focus on who’s technically counted as white or nonwhite, but to focus on the different, individual cultures. and also realize that not everyone is arab.

also a note: when i say “not everyone is arab” or earlier, with “not everyone is muslim,” i do not mean to imply in the slightest that there’s overflowing rep for either group. because there certainly isn’t and the rep there is… isn’t always that great, to say the least.  

5. languages

the main languages are arabic, hebrew, turkish, and farsi (aka persian. i personally don’t like using persian to indicate the language, so i’m using farsi). these languages... different. Obviously, linguistically, there are overlaps, but i just want everyone to not mush these languages together. i think most people are aware that hebrew is different from the other three, and i don’t know anything about turkish/haven’t met any turkish speakers, so i can’t speak on that. instead i’ll focus on farsi and arabic cause i think they get confused fairly often. 

now i, as someone who understands farsi fairly well, can only understand a few words of arabic (aka the words that farsi also happens to have). the alphabet is also different and you can usually distinguish farsi from arabic even if you can’t really read either (i’m illiterate but i know the basic alphabet and thus, can usually tell if something’s farsi or arabic). there are also letters in farsi that arabic doesn’t have. so you know. differences. they’re not the same.

some other tidbits (mainly farsi centric; sorry, but i am persian):

there aren’t many good resources to learn farsi (there are a few more resources for arabic but i haven’t tried them). so your (immigrant) characters may only understand and speak fluently, not read or write fluently. 

your characters, if they speak farsi or arabic at least, will probably drop harmless non farsi or arabic words on the conversation if speaking aloud in public (if not in a place that speaks farsi or arabic).

i know for farsi at least, there isn’t a standard romanization. so when you want to write the characters in latin characters, there are a variety of ways that this can be spelled. which makes it very interesting. 

i know that one of the biggest linguistic influences on french is arabic (cause the french colonized a hell of a lot) and that farsi has quite a lot of french loanwords (which is apparently because of some student trend but idk). and obviously there are loanwords from arabic in farsi and vice versa. 

i think there’s been a recent push to bring back the farsi words for things, rather than using the arabic or french terms. do not quote me on this, because my mom mentioned this once at dinner with only a few words, but just another nuance to be aware of if you choose to write, for instance, a persian character. 

farsi is a fairly metaphorical language. ex (and note that romanization isn’t constant and i’m sounding these out, so don’t expect the following to be an official way to write this and also some letters are almost completely silent so i may miss them): delleh-man tang shood. it means “i missed you” but very literally, it means “my stomach was tight (for you)” and a bit less literally, it means “my heart was tight (for you)”. Chashm is derived from cheshm, which means “eyes”, and it refers to putting things on your eyes to show that they’re of the highest priority (according to my mom). in practice, if someone tells you to do something, then you’d be like “chashm” to indicate that yes, you are going to do this. this is unconfirmed, but to blow out (like to blow out a candle) is “foot” whereas a way to say someone has died is “fout” and they’re spelled virtually the same apparently, so my theory is that they’re connected (cause the candle’s flame dies… a person dies…) 

I know arabic can also be very metaphorical (from what i know based on poetry at least) but I don’t know enough of its usage to confirm. 

the above is all to say, even if i was more fluent in speaking farsi, telling me to just translate something into it is HARD. so your characters, if they can speak farsi, probably won’t be able to do that easily. 

character creation time

so the first question is whether to have a character be from an immigrant family/be an immigrant, or to have them in their land of origin or whatever the term is for it. 

honestly, if you’re not from the middle east/haven’t lived there for a while, i would strongly advise that you do not write a story that is completely set in it. there are many different cultures and nuances that you will completely miss and if your main exposure to the middle east has been through the news, your unconscious biases will definitely jump out. 

so yeah, you should probably write immigrant characters or first/second/etc gen kids over characters still in the land of origin.  

for writing immigrants: ok, first, if you’re not an immigrant/from a family of immigrants and you’re writing from the primary pov of an immigrant, you should really be willing to put in the research and get sensitivity readers. if you’re writing about what the Immigrant Experience is like and you’re not a part of the group and an immigrant, i would just tell you to stop. 

anyways, considering the post is how to write middle eastern characters, i’m assuming that most people actually looking to this for advice aren’t middle eastern. so for you people, i’d recommend that your character be first or more gen. or if you really want to get farther from the immigrant experience, then have your character be from a family that’s been in the country for generations. cause surprise surprise, middle eastern families are not entirely composed of recent immigrants. an example off the top of my head is an American poster or something from the early 20th century that was listing the groups of people who wouldn’t be allowed a room, and among those were persians and armenians. that poster would not exist if there were no persians or armenians around at that time. 

but a thing to note that even living in a place for generations is not always enough to be accepted as a part of that place. and culture would still be practiced*. so if you’re writing a character that’s been in the area for generations, you can’t just ignore these things. (* there are people in all groups who assimilate and might try to erase culture but uh. if that’s your only rep. hmm. perhaps don’t? because unless you’re going to delve into the feelings that arise from assimilation, you are essentially just making a white character. i suppose you can have some side characters assimilate, but if you don’t even marginally have that experience, i’d really recommend you don’t.)

cool! now comes names, what the land of origin actually is, any other important background things like that!

this part is fairly straightforward and depends a lot on the specific background of your character. like if your character’s family has lived in the area for generations, there’s a possibility that they may be mixed. that’s something consider, and definitely plays in with names. i’d first focus on land of origin and if the character is mixed at all. 

i don’t really have tips for deciding land of origin, but i would say to question yourself on why you’re choosing the country you’re choosing. you might have biases against some of the countries. 

also question yourself why when choosing a reason for immigration. like if you look at a war that a country experienced and choose that to be the land of origin so the war can be the reason for immigration, or you have a woman character flee an area where women’s rights are essentially nonexistent… check yourself. both things happen, but why are those the backdrops for immigration? did your mind jump to those things for reasons, because if so, maybe you should check yourself. 

there are plenty of reasons for immigration, and they can be related to conflicts. they can also be related to education and jobs. i know someone who immigrated from the middle east because they wanted to see more of the world and see other cultures. 

for names, it can depend on various factors. like a third gen kid could have a name that fits the country they were born in, rather than the country of origin. also names don’t have to be strictly relegated to one region. my birth name is apparently hebrew in origin. there are plenty of persians who have arabic names. also anyone who has searched up names should know that sometimes names span various cultures. like i just searched up one of my cousin’s names, and in addition to being persian, it can also be a japanese name. 

which is just to say put effort into names, because there patterns to follow, but don’t stress over them excessively. this is a link to a pdf that has really general naming guides, including for a couple of places in the middle east. should be enough to get you started. 

and other things you should decide in the background of your character is religion, personality, and really all the other things you would do for any other character. you have to develop your middle eastern characters just as much as your white ones lol. 

some quick things

look this post is long enough already and there’s still a bit to go, so i’m going to cut things really quickly and generalize now. if you want me to expand on something, just lmk, but these are all fairly general things when writing any marginalized character.

1. don’t fall into tropes/stereotypes. here is a very noncomprehensive list. you can search up “middle eastern stereotypes” to find more. 

terrorist.

there are various ways in which this plays out. first is with literal terrorist characters. please do not do that. just do not. 

next is the fantasy/scifi equivalent of the above. X comes from a place that has been plundered of its resources (bonus points if the resource is oil or something that parallels it) and now the place is war torn or its people are starving or it’s just in terrible shape, and X is now essentially a terrorist because they’re either fighting for that place, trying to prevent what happened to their home in other places, or they’re like “fuck this establishment, i’m crazy now and taking everyone down around me!” now i’m tired of this because it (and the general variations of antagonist or villain characters fighting against injustice with violence) is fairly prevalent. do not pull what i think is called an “mcu” -- AKA giving your antagonists/villains perfectly justifiable criticisms and reasons to distrust the system and then tearing them down by making them do something irredeemable to make their whole argument null and void. it’s especially terrible in this circumstance because the problems that fantasy/scifi terrorist has parallel those in real life.

ambiguously middle eastern muslim. it’s just. cultures are different and we’re not all muslim (as mentioned previously, muslim rep is important, we don’t have enough of it, much less enough good rep, but i hate it whenever people are like middle east = muslim and vice versa). also the muslim rep in this stereotype tends to suck. 

strict parents, backward/nonprogressive views. can tie in with the above. i’m not saying that middle eastern countries are pinnacles of human rights, but just stop with this, because they’re usually the only ones made to look backward/not progressive, so the message the consumer takes away unconsciously is that people from this region act this way. 

more of a fantasy variant, but the “trope” of the middle east = desert. it’s really not, so please stop having your middle eastern coded characters be all from ~the desert~

stop with the merchant/criminal middle eastern coded characters in fantasy. you know this stereotype. the merchants are either just merchants (who are usually suspicious), swindling merchants, or just criminals.

hey. middle eastern men can smile and laugh and sing and dance, you know :)

the allure of the ~veil~ or ~anklets~ and oooo ~belly dancing~ (aka most things that sexualize middle eastern women) 

this exists for all marginalized groups, but “killing off the marginalized character to give your non marginalized lead tears and development or whatever”, closely followed by “only having a marginalised character for another character’s development”. the first is also tangentially related to “having this one marginzalied character be the Good One whereas the others of that group are undeveloped and Bad, and then the Good One is killed off.”

2.as mentioned in the character creation time section, you do need to add more to your character beyond just their background and name. any marginalized character you’re creating is more than just brownie points for diversity. and if you’re just doing this for brownie points… just don’t. stop. one way to make sure that your characters aren’t just supporting others/they actually have depth is to give them a character arc or have them make their own decisions/do stuff unrelated to a character they also support in the text. 

3. if you have an immigrant character, don’t write out the accent. it’s a pain to read, it’s othering, and honestly, there are other ways to indicate things like accents than sounding it out. for example, using a slightly different sentence structure (one that matches their native language), or slipping up and using words from the native language. search up how to write multilingual characters for how to do this effectively.

and here are things i’ve experienced that your characters might experience and that could give them more depth

since there isn’t a large middle eastern or persian community nearby, the stores that have food for meals aren’t that close by. meaning that day-to-day, we substitute parts of our cuisine with equivalents. some examples:

tortillas instead of lavash (and one of the meals we make with lavash is samosas) 

these noodles my mom picked up at daiso instead of the normal reshteh (they’re a specific kind of noodles) for ash-e reshteh

speaking about food: at least where i’m at (it’s likely different in areas that are more predominantly middle eastern), some of the food just doesn’t compare to how it is in the respective middle eastern country. for me, american pistachios have nothing on iranian pistachios. the tuna here is a lot drier too. and like, part of the reason we use a variety of noodles for ash-e reshteh is because we don’t have actual reshteh in the area. 

i’ve been more connected to kids of color/kids of immigrants than the white kids whose families have been here for a bit. i have plenty of white friends who are good people and friends, but there’s just been an extra level of understanding i’ve had with the kids of color, especially if they’re also the kids of immigrants. 

similar to that, i have a middle easterner radar in which i can usually figure out if someone is middle eastern and that has served me well in places where i know no one, because i end up chatting with a fellow middle easterner. it’s fun. 

very possible that your character won’t have complete fluency in their mother tongue if a gen kid. like i’m really good at understanding farsi, shit at speaking it, and i’m utterly illiterate if it’s not romanized. this can give your character a lot of guilt. totally not speaking from experience. 

haha microaggressions time:

intentional butchering of middle eastern names (almost always last names and sometimes first names). note that this isn’t exclusive to middle easterners; it often happens to anyone who has “foreign” names.

similar to the above, but “where are you from?” which, once again, many nonwhite groups experience. i personally like (ok not really, but it’s funny) this one, because i was born in a european country, so i just respond with that and people get so surprised. 

“is it safe there?” “isn’t [the middle east/specific middle eastern country] where the terrorists are?” and things of that kind. very annoying. there’s also referring to a middle eastern person as a terrorist or implying that terrorism is just everywhere in the middle east. like you’ll turn the street and boom, terrorist. 

the lack of knowledge about geography. i say i visited the capital of iran, and the guy next to me thinks i’m talking about baghdad. 

thinking/saying foods smell bad/are disgusting (i’ve been lucky in this regard since the people i’ve eaten lunch with always wanted to try the food i was eating)

everything that results from the only knowledge of the middle east being from the news. 

also it’s possible this was for another reason and the guy didn’t clock me as middle eastern, but i play the viola and the case is a kinda bulky, black plastic one, and this guy passed me while i was walking with it and was like “that’s not a machine gun, is it?” so.

 also very possible that people will try to place the race of your character and fail. i’ve had a kid ask me if i was white or not because she wasn’t sure, and i’ve had people think i was hungarian and indian. people i know have been mistaken for hispanic. other times people are just like “white.” it’s often unwarranted. the guy who thought i was indian heard my long last name and was like that’s an indian name, isn’t it? no comment had been necessary, mister.    

examples of media with middle eastern characters

to be completely honest, there’s only one (fictional) book i can think of with a middle eastern character done well, and only a handful of other media that i remember that deals with middle eastern characters (explicitly or coded) at all. (i’m excluding the media i consumed when inside of iran, because 1) it’s not much and 2) not sure if they have translations; and i’m also excluding memoir-esque stuff like Persepolis, because those aren’t characters, those are real life people.)

“wow, you’ve written a whole, non-comprehensive guide on how to write middle eastern characters and you haven’t even searched for more media with them???”

answer to that: a lack of representation in contemporary/realistic fiction leads to me losing interest in contemporary/realistic fiction as a whole, and i’m personally reluctant to deal with fiction with real life elements that deal with the prejudice marginalized characters face. so i ended up reading mostly fantasy and or scifi, and even though i’m more willing to read contemp or realistic fiction now i simply do not have the time to read. 

anyways, my favorite representation of a persian character specifically (aka the only book i’ve read with a persian protag alksdfjalskd) is Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram. This book made me cry so much not because it’s sad at times (though it is a bit) but because i really understood Darius and his situation. The book follows the main character, Darius (who is half persian, half white), on his visit to Iran and deals with culture, mental illness (since Darius has depression), family, and also what’s going on in Iran (Darius’s friend’s family’s Zoroastrian). There’s a sequel coming out soon I believe and I just adore this book so much because this made me realize why exactly representation is so important. (like i always knew it was, but i never really got what it felt like to have a character you related to so much.) 

anyways that’s it for recs lol. i can’t say more for specific books, but booktuber withcindy has a storygraph reading challenge for her asian readathon (which is in may), and the challenge page, linked HERE, includes authors from the middle east and separates them by nationality. so i think that’s a good place to start out when looking for books either by middle eastern authors or characters featuring them. 

and since this post is over 5k, i’ll wrap it up at that! it’s very non comprehensive, but i hope it’s enough to at least get you started. 

if you want an expansion on a section (because i really did breeze past a few things), or if you have any clarifying questions, feel free to ask them. if you have more specific questions about how to write middle eastern characters (like relating to a specific culture), i probably won’t be able to help you. like i mentioned, i’m persian and live in a predominantly white community, so i don’t have the experience or knowledge to be an authority on this. i wouldn’t even call myself an authority of persian culture because i did not grow up in a persian community. so i can try to point you in the right direction, but i certainly won’t have definite answers. 

also other middle eastern people are free to add on their own experiences or expand if they want to! since, for the millionth time, my experience is fairly limited and this is not comprehensive. 

and here’s tagging the people who said they wanted to be tagged:

@mperialscribe , @brightbluesubaru , @quartzess , @ambiguouslyvague @phoenixmakeswords , @carminasolis , @ink-flavored

[nerajaana]

Bitch, you know nothing, please look at a fucking map omfg lmaooo, okay you headcanon the Martells as white, but North African and West Asians countries have coastlines on the Mediterranean sea: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Palestine.

What's next, Caucasian means “white” ?? 😂🤣😭

Idiots who can’t read telling ME to look at a map lol

Exactly what part of “…….Mediterranean (that too only southern europe, no matter how much the clowns like to say the Mediterranean includes even the Northern Africa and west asia- newsflash, it doesn’t, not according to the writer)” in my post did you have difficulty with understanding? It’s one thing if English isn’t your first language, but if not, boyyy I wonder how you manage irl. Actually, no, nevermind. I don’t wanna know. It’s bad enough I have to tolerate you wankers in this fandom space.

I’m the one who headcanons Martells race? You really wanna die on this hill? B r u h.

In case it wasn’t clear enough, dude legit said only a particular few countries in the Southern Europe are considered a part of the Mediterranean region. Also, he said his fc for Ashara Dayne is Liz Taylor. so very pro-diversity of him, claps. Hate to be the one breaking it to you but GRRM doesn’t do one to one comparisons for aspects of his books inspired by real events and places, you’re barking up the wrong tree here.

No really, let’s talk more about headcanons. I headcanon every single bleeding ASoIaF main as a desi, but you won’t see me calling it canon because, duh, it ain’t. I’m about as (in the words of a neutral) “book purist” as one could get when it comes to fandom discourses, unlike you lot who hate almost everything about this series and shove your idiot “woe is me” historical romance inspired self insert fantasies down the fandom’s gullet and call it ✨canon✨. I have a pretty good clarity on what’s canon and what isn’t, alas. Go be mad about it.

As for your last point, Jesus fucking christ make an effort to at least go through the blog you’re sending hate to. Caucasians? you absolute clown you really wanna talk about it? i’ve been raging about the trash of this fandom calling targs “evil” and equal to Aryans…..as if it’s exclusively hitler’s disgusting political idealogy, as if it doesn’t hold any cultural significance to the south asians. And how Caucasus isn’t exclusive to the whites and that not everything revolves around them. Might as well ome into my damned house and say “what next? Arya’s too far gone to be functional in the society” or “what next, Arianne will die?” to my face

[regina-del-cielo]

Immortal Siblings AU | Four, then three, then four again

I mentioned that the bulletpoint post describing how the Guard from the Immortal Siblings AU found Joe had totally run away from me. It has, in fact, become a study on them grieving over Lykon and then finding Yusuf. 

I have, somehow, reached a sort of natural end to the amount of bullshit my mind can add to this list/fic draft. So, if you want to give it a read... grab a snack. It’s long. I’m sorry.

Warnings for Wikipedia levels of historical accuracy - I added links to the relevant pages when quoting historical events, but since I was just trying to work out a timeline (famous last words), the research wasn’t extensive. There’s a lot of hand-waving.

By the end of the 11th Century, I think Andy, Quynh and Nico haven’t been in Europe for a while, not really. They moved south, and then east, after the sack of Rome of 410 CE. Seeing the great cities fall has become hard for them, especially for Nico, who is a nomad at heart but has a soft spot for cities, together with Lykon, the true city boy in the group. He’d seen it happen to Athens, he wasn’t sure he could deal with seeing Rome wilt.

For reasons I cannot fathom, my mind is settled on them having been in India when Lykon dies (possibly sometime around the middle of the 6th century, in the mess that was the crumbling of the Gupta Empire???)

Seeing him die destroys them, and they take a break from any battlefield to grieve their friend and brother. They wander, occasionally helping but almost never raising their weapons, too leery of injuries and of losing each other.

(Quynh, who was the first to notice Lykon’s wounds, has nightmares that make her cry in her sleep. Andromache holds her so tight Nico can feel the tension on her muscles against his back. He and his sister barely sleep, scared of the open spaces of Asia as they’d never been before. Lykon was the youngest of them and he died, what if they stop healing too?)

(If Nico stands guard over his sisters and feels an ache in his chest seeing how they hold onto each other, he’s never going to say it out loud. His Mache deserves the love she shares with Quynh. But sometimes he wishes he had someone to hold him like that, one he can call his heart.)

The first time they go to battle again like in the old days it’s almost the end of the 10th century, and they’re helping Quynh’s lands gain independence from China. They have a reason and a specific side to root for, and it’s the kind of cause Lykon would have approved of. They find purpose again.

They are distantly aware of how things are holding up in the west – they know Constantinople has crowned itself capital of the Roman Empire (what is left of it anyway); they know of the new religion, Islam, and how it was brought further east with the armies conquering Persia. They met the Varangians on the Northern Plains of the Rus’, when Andy insisted on going back to their steppes for a while.

They acquire new swords, repair the old weapons, make improvements on their bows. They travel, and help, and listen. They learn new languages. They heal.

They’ve just spent the winter in Samarkand when they hear merchants newly come from Constantinople talk about the Frankish armies that took Antioch and making their way further into Palestine. 

The words ‘freeing Jerusalem from the infidels’ make Andy sigh in exasperation and twist Nico’s guts. The three of them don’t really understand the point of going to war for a god, but Jerusalem is old, and she’s been coveted by many throughout their long lives. Things like this never end well, they know it intimately.

But they’ve been away for a long time, centuries at this point. Things are very different from when the Romans had the power. They are less eager to throw themselves into the battlefield now, and there’s much they don’t know about the dynamics of Europe and the Levant. Still they’re worried, and decide that they’ll move west to see if something can be done, for the civilians at least.

At first they travel slowly, keeping an ear out for gossip spoken by the caravans coming from the west. Things radically change, however, when they dream of a new immortal (a man, with a curly black beard and shining dark eyes) dying on the walls of Jerusalem and reviving to an unprecedented slaughter – said man is, obviously, absolutely terrified and they feel it.

He’s also woken up surrounded by living enemies, with high risk of being killed or injured multiple times, and of being seen.

They are still too far away to do anything more than hope that the new guy is clever enough to keep himself alive until they can reach him, but now Nico is all for moving west at full speed to get him out.

“What the everloving FUCK is happening over there?!” is the common theme in their thoughts; nothing about this war they’re walking towards is making any sense.

Yusuf al-Kaysani is, in fact, clever enough to keep himself (and a few other civilians to boot) alive and get out of Jerusalem when it becomes clear than no matter how many Franks he kills he can do nothing to stop them alone. (It’s a fucking carnage, and he’s so tired). He walks away from the battle and tries to reach some sort of safety in the desert.

When he’d decided to stay in Jerusalem and fight instead of escaping the siege, Yusuf had considered the possibility of dying. He had not accounted for waking up from a fatal wound with no sign of having been hit in the first place.

And then there are the visions. Or dreams, he’s not sure. They don’t seem to make any sense? Who are those people?! Is his mind so addled by the war that he’s conjuring scary warrior women and a stupidly handsome man, armed to the teeth and camping in the desert?

(fantasizing about handsome men in his sleep isn’t exactly news for him, but there were never women in those. And none of his usual dreams involved weapons. Something is definitely off)

For the following days, Yusuf makes sure to stay away from human settlements while putting as much space as possible between Jerusalem and himself – the last thing he needs is to become a potential target for any invader that may cross his path.

But he’s alone, having nightmares, constantly on edge, and in a body that suddenly doesn’t feel like his own anymore, since he doesn’t even have the scars to prove that the injuries he sustained were real to begin with.

After a couple of weeks, the appearance of the strangers in his dreams starts feeling safe and comforting; they seem to operate like a little family, and God knows how much he misses his own.

(should he try to go back home? Would news of the siege reach his family before he does? Would he be able to go back to his previous life in the state he’s in? Could he keep this secret from them? Would they still love him or think him a monster?)

Despite their impressive warrior appearance, they feel... kind. And gentle. Sometimes, it feels like they’re trying to reassure him, even. Especially when he dreams from the perspective of the man.

The sensation those dreams leave on his skin is like a cape. You’re not alone, it whispers. Wait for us.

Andy, Quynh and Nico have just left Baghdad when the dreams change, and not for the better - Yusuf was passing through a village when a band of marauding Franks started harassing the locals. He moved to defend the villagers, but was overwhelmed and what’s worse, the Franks saw his wounds close too fast. Their reaction was vehement: they called him a demon, incapacitated him and then brought him back to their garrison, with every intention of ‘properly getting rid of him’.

Nico wakes up screaming and Andy has to sit on him so he doesn’t just sprint ahead without actually knowing where the fuck he’s going.

“We can’t just raid every single Frankish encampment in a twenty mile radius around Jerusalem, Nico!” “TRY ME” *Aggressive Sibling Bickering follows* *Quynh doesn’t bat an eye and just rolls out a map of the area she purchased and starts mapping out the fastest routes*

Yusuf is having a Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week at the hands of his captors, who are getting disturbingly creative in their tortures, but whenever they let him fall unconscious he sees the people of his dreams travelling much faster than before, looking Royally Pissed Off, and the surroundings are... starting to look familiar too? 

If he tries to pay more attention to the conversations his torturers are having with each other outside of the tent he’s in and hoping the dreams go both ways, so the maybe-real trio can find him easier, now that’s nobody’s business but his own.

(spoiler: it works)

When they are in sight of Jerusalem, the immortals find a drunk “pilgrim” boasting about his band capturing a ‘pagan demon’ while coming back from their victory at Ascalon, follow him back to his camp, and as soon as it’s feasible they attack.

(Andy will later gripe that Nico didn’t leave her anything to do because he just paved his way through the Franks like he was harvesting wheat.)

seeing the Stupidly Handsome Man of his dreams standing in front of him covered head to toe in blood, with a double-bladed axe in one hand and a sword in the other, staring intensely at him as if to peer directly into his soul is... an experience for Yusuf.

(he may have composed a lot of poems about that first vision of Nico through the centuries. The words ‘avenging angel’ have been used quite profusely, too)

The protective instinct that Nico has felt for the newest immortal since the first dream clutches at his throat when he finally sees him, chained to a pole and so thin his clothes barely cling to his body, but with the softest dark eyes staring back with a glint of recognition when he comes closer.

(he could cry with relief at the knowledge that he’s not scared of him. Nico has seen the faces of the men that were keeping him captive, he knows he looks a lot like they did, and that he paints a gruesome picture.)

“Are you alright?” Nico asks first, in Greek. (He knows, from the dreams, that his captors prayed in Latin. He wants to make sure that the other knows that he’s not like them.)

“You were in my dreams. You came.” Yusuf answers back in the same language, although his sounds much newer than Nico’s.

“Of course. We’re not meant to be alone… and no one deserves to be in a cage”.

Nico uses the axe to break the chains, and by the time he’s done Andy and Quynh have reached them and his sister throws the keys at him to open the shackles.

“Couldn’t take a moment to get them yourself, little eagle? You wanted to show off your skills to the new one?” Quynh teases, just to see Nico blush. Andy stares at her brother and their new companion for a few beats, before finally asking his name.

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Al-Kaysani, known as al-Tayyib” he answers, letting out the first smile in weeks at the raising eyebrows of his saviours. “Just Yusuf is fine.”

“You have a sense of humour, brother. I like you!” Andy snorts, before cutting her palm with the edge of her axe, and showing him her fast healing.

“We are like you, Yusuf. That’s why you dreamt of us, and we of you” Nico adds gently, while Quynh offers her waterskin to Yusuf. They also offer their own names.

“We need to clean up this mess and move away from here” Andy says, while Nico helps Yusuf up. “One of those fuckers was boasting about an undying demon with others in a tavern, the last thing we need is to fight our way out against their whole army because someone else decided to come check if he was saying the truth.”

“It’s been a long time since we were in Kush” Quynh whispers, and Yusuf sees their faces open in a look of affectionate grief he remembers seeing on his Baba’s eyes when he talked about his own mother.

“We can talk about it more when we’re somewhere safer” Andromache suggests, before moving to set up the stage of an ‘accidental’ fire.

As they’re riding away, Yusuf turns slightly to watch the camp burn, leaving no trace of the invaders that hurt him. Jerusalem looms in the distance - lost, and wounded. If he were a little less exhausted, he could  easily work out a metaphor about his own situation.

But then he looks at the three people of his dreams – Quynh, Andromache, Nikolaos – that came for him. Who are the same as him, immortal.

His world has turned upside down, and there are so many questions to ask, and he could sleep for a month straight – but one thing is certain. 

He’s not alone anymore.

[galacticnova3]

Ok updating the pinned post because the old version… is old. Oop. Won’t repeat the stuff in my bio so I guess I’ll just… get into this.

•If you’re a terf, exclusionist, LGBTA+ phobic, think queer is a slur/not a valid identity, are racist/sexist, support p*dos/MAPs/proshippers/anti-antis, or are fatphobic, don’t interact. Also, block me. I hate you I am throwing so many rocks at your face and putting tacks in all of your shoes and changing all of your profile pictures everywhere to a picture of a clown because you’re a fucking joke

•I’m an adult, so if you’d prefer not to interact that’s no problem. Similarly if you don’t want me to interact with you, just let me know and I’ll respect that! In either case I would prefer it be mutual, as I don’t like the idea of only having one-sided interaction.

•Feel free to ask me questions whenever! Especially about headcanons or my own characters! Seriously, I love excuses to ramble about them and have trouble sharing otherwise. You can also ask about me and my opinions too, obviously, but I figure that’s not as likely. Please interact I still need enrichment

•Keep in mind that if an ask is super inappropriate(like actual nsfw) or gross, I probably won’t answer it. That being said I would really prefer not to get graphically sexual or otherwise unpleasant asks. There are better places to share that stuff and better people to share it with.

•If you need something tagged, let me know! However, I will not tag things as “q word” “q slur” or similar, because I see queer as an identity and not a slur, and will treat it as such. If you need it tagged for trigger reasons, I’d prefer a catch-all tag be suggested so that queer folks will not get the wrong idea or feel alienated. If you plan to argue with me about it, save us both some time and block me.

•I have multiple roleplay/ask blogs and they are all dead or dangling by a thread, said thread being an anon or two every few weeks. I’d love to revive them someday so if you are curious about them hit me up. I promise they are cool. One even has a canon url of the muse’s name, that’s worth something right? Pleas

•I support the (correct) use of tone tags! Though I don’t often use them on here beyond a small number in tags, I do on Discord, and I also know most of them.

•I have a Discord, by the way, but I’ll really only chat with folks I know.

•Free Palestine. Support for the current actions of Isreal is support for genocide. It will not be tolerated.

More specific/belief-based stuff under the cut. Not really necessary to read for average folks, but may be important to some. Kinda serious subjects.

•I am a Christian, but unlike some who call themselves that I’ve actually read the book. Tldr everyone is deserving of basic respect regardless of who they are, people aren’t inherently good or inherently evil, fuck capitalism, and choose peace until it isn’t an option. Also something something Jesus was a socialist feminist based on his actions and the conservatives who try to tell you otherwise have no idea what they’re actually talking about. Seriously I could go on about that for ages; don’t lump all Christians together with them, it’s not the fault of us decent folks that loud assholes call themselves the same thing despite being entirely different. That being said, while it rarely comes up, let me know if you want religious stuff like that tagged. At most I usually just reblog posts disproving the arguments of Bible thumpers and supporting the folks they try to use religion to justify their baseless hatred of.

•Related to the above, I don’t like when folks say Christians when they mean racists, homophobes, transphobes, etc. They’re not synonyms and that also lets members of those groups who aren’t Christian act like it doesn’t apply to them.

•I respect differing opinions on religion and am not the sort who forces it on others, but I expect my views to be respected in return. Basically I won’t be a dick to you if you don’t like religion, but don’t be a dick to me for being religious or a Christian.

•Kinning is cool, I do it, not going to elaborate beyond confirming this isn’t a joke.

•I do have several triggers and squicks, but don’t want to put them in the open for my own safety. If you really want to know, you can ask me in direct messages or in a non-anonymous ask.

•I do not want to be involved in discourse, please do not try to drag me into it. This can be anything from fandom stuff to issues between friend circles that don’t involve me to politics. I am here for a good time, I have already had my share of discourse that led to me getting death threats and anon hate over a fictional space clown, I don’t need any more.

Since that stuff was kinda heavy, if you read this far, here are some pictures of my cat Trail Mix

I would kill for her

[kkshowtunes]

Pinned post time!

Hi! Welcome to my blog! I know this pinned post is annoying and headache-inducing but who cares this is just so all my bases are covered.

Currently mainly posting: Deadpool and Will Wood with a touch of Gravity Falls

I feel really bad about this but I might take forever to respond to DMs. I set time limits on my phone to combat my anxiety but that means that I can’t see DMs sometimes. I also am at school a lot so yeah. Very sorry but I promise it’s not you.

Additionally, I will be online a lot less lately for mental health! I also am in school

check me out on my ao3 by the same name!

Please click read more if you are new here!

I like she/they pronouns :) in terms of nouns tbh you can use anything (boy, girl, idk)

Doodlebug (and variants of such) are my favorite names but I like KK and Peachie too <33

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I’m really sorry but I don’t do chain asks, they stress me out. I also rarely do chain reblogs. You can still tag me but don’t expect me to respond. sorry

Also really sorry but I can’t donate to donation posts. I don’t have a paypal at the moment and I don’t have my finances worked out enough to donate. Also, most days when my anxiety is bad I won’t be boosting posts like that because they cause me to spiral sometimes. Ocd isn’t pretty! So sorry! If you have any questions shoot me an ask!

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#Doodlebug says things - Original posts

#Doodlebug does art - art tag

#Doodlebug writes! - Writing / fics

#Doodlebug is happy now - Happy tag :3

#art block remedies - Art ideas

#Doodle saves - Save tag

#da mutuals - Mutuals tag

#answered - asks

#mr queuester - queue tag (rarely used)

#doodlbugs cats - stuff about my cats!

#hyperfixations collide - when two+ of my current or past hyperfixations are in the same post

#posts that make me have the bi feelings - simp tag (I’m so sorry for this one)

#banger - 100+ notes original post

#super banger- 500+ notes original post

#super banger hall of famer: 1k+ notes original post

#banger [x]k- replace the x with notes in increments of 5k

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Language: English

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Uquiz masterlist

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DNI: 

 - Porn/kink blogs (I don’t mind if you exist but please just don’t follow me!!)

 - Terfs

 - Homophobes

 - Biphobes

 - Racists

 - Anti BLM or an ALM supporter

 - Sexists

 - Maps, pears, or whatever the pedos are calling themselves now

 - bigots of any sort

 - Cringe culture people

 - Islamaphobes

 - Anti-Semites

 - colorists

 - trump supporters

 - Anti-self dx

- Into cypro/nft

- anti-palestine

- doxx people, think doxxing people is ok or funny, or use doxxing as a threat. this is a big one for me. even if it’s someone you think that person is detestable.

 - or supporters of any of the above (except for nsfw blogs you can support nsfw blogs just please do not interact if you post porn!!)

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FANDOM BYF:

- I don’t ship tomgreg BUT i believe Tom is in love with Greg. I’m more of a truther than a shipper if that makes sense

- Pretty much the same applies with Macdennis but I sort of ship it, unlike tomgreg

- Yeah I’m a South Park fan…

- I literally give negative fucks about shipping discourse because who cares

- I 100% understand that my favorite media is often problematic. I make sure to do research before I continue consuming it. However I still find comfort in it so if you are uncomfortable by me posting about it please just block me and don’t yell at me about it.

- I was hyperfixated on Harry Potter when I was 8. I don’t support it anymore or enjoy it really. But if the fact that I did have a hyperfixation causes you to dislike me/feel distressed please just block me instead of sending me hate <3

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I’m bi! I call myself gay on occasion but that’s for the sillies :3

im cis but i use she/they for sillies as well

- -

OCD and Anxiety, medically diagnosed, but I was self dx for many years so seriously dni if you have a problem with it

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I deeply apologize if you followed me for The Delaware Post.. you’re about to want to unfollow me real bad once you realize all I do is talk about musicians

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Fandoms (prolly unupdated :/)

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Have fun on my blog!

[hypomanicsatanicpanic]

you ever feel like a space that used to be a respite for you is now just...not? I don’t necessarily mean it’s not safe, just that going to a place which was once really productive and comfortable and energizing for you now feels stressful and uneasy? I (likely temporarily) stepped out of an organizing space that I’ve built up over the last year in order to deal with the intense workload around thesis/defense which is happening this upcoming Monday. Anyway, we started at three people and now we have a pretty robust core of about 20. What we’re trying to do is organize grad students into a union at the university where we all work, which is pretty fucking horrendous about how it treats us. This basically meant spending ~20hrs / week finding new students who wanted to organize, meeting with them, agitating, meeting with other unionizing grad students at other schools, managing personality conflicts in the group, etc as well as working on whatever campaigns/ social media stuff we were doing. All while doing grad school full time. It was energizing. We accomplished shit with only very few of us. While it’s explicitly in our bylaws that there is no “group leader,” a lot of things that would usually be directed to a president end up coming to me just because I’m the common person that everyone knows. Most folks in the group have zero other organizing experience; one has quite a lot, and two or three have basically been in the periphery of this one far left org (let’s call it WTF, for Women’s Task Force) in our very conservative small city. Most of us are quite left, though there are a decent number of centrists.   About WTF: basically there’s this one really...problematic? person who is employed by our university who leads WTF (which isn’t affiliated with the university). She, a white cis woman, collects people she can use as symbolic tokens (usually women of color, visibly disabled women, lesbians, and fat women) to use them in promo material, and get them to do errands for, and doesn’t help them gain more power or skills within the group. She consciously excludes transwomen and only allows AFAB nonbinary folxs, and not even those who have a more masc presentation much of the time. WTF is also massively outspoken about Palestine, which is usually a signal that a group may be pretty antiSemitic as well.  She uses her identity markers to shut down others who (legitimately) question her tactics.  WTF, in the 10ish years they’ve existed, has never made any actual policy or political changes in this town. They’ve never actually run a campaign. They basically just show up “in solidarity” with actions other people organize, and host fundraisers for themselves. So having to deal with them is pretty ick, because the people in that organization. WTF is basically bad news. The people from WTF--three women of color and two queer white women--are consistently bad about things which seem to be just fine for literally everyone else in the group. We understand that shit’s stressful as a grad student and that there are a lot of other things we could/ should all be doing in addition to organizing. But the few rules we have are freaking common sense/common courtesy, and not that hard to follow.  When people need to drop off the map for a while, they let others know that they’ll be out for a bit, and then get back in contact when their schedules free up again, so they can be caught up to speed at the next meeting. There’s also meeting notes which you can read to get back in the loop if you thought you’ve missed something: If you think you’re not going to be able to do something, you’re not supposed to commit to it.  If you can’t do something you committed to doing, give others a heads up so they can cover it. Last, since we’re trying to be a space that works for people across the political spectrum (not just like the total of 30 dedicated leftists here), we’re explicitly against callout culture. Meaning that if you have an issue with something someone says in meeting, you’re either supposed to hold it until the group evaluation (where there’s dedicated space for that), OR you’re supposed to have a conversation with the person about the situation, OR you’re supposed to talk to another neutral-party group member so they can have the conversation for you.  The WTF people have committed to following all of these rules and have been consistently bad at actually doing that, as per rules. They’ve consistently just not done the things they committed to, without actually telling anyone, leaving folks in the lurch. They consistently call people out in meetings in a way that alienates newcomers. They’ve consistently misgendered me, despite my asking them to not to, and speaking to them about it after meetings.   About five weeks ago, this started to become a really big problem as we planned a big public recruitment event. I had a few conversations with the people who’d primarily been affected by one of the WTF folks’ failure to follow through on commitments. They asked me to speak to her. So I took several days to plan and rehearse a conversation. She was extremely defensive (ok, that’s fine, whatever), and committed to a whole lot of other shit. My follow up with her was to meet on a regular basis, so we could check in and readjust. We met the week after that, shit seemed fine. The week after that, the day of the big event. she came to the 1:1 meeting we’d set up and basically yelled at me for an hour for promoting white supremacy in the group. I tried to ask her some questions but really it just was her telling me how I’m a white supremacist and by holding women of color accountable to rules which they too had voted for, in a UNANIMOUS VOTE, I’m promoting white supremacy. She suggested I go to WTF subgroup meetings called SURJ (showing up for racial justice), which is basically a reading circle for white people only to “deconstruct their complicitness in white supremacy.” One of my partners went once to learn more about antiblack racism, but was turned away because he’s South Asian, not white. So, nope. Not fucking happening--it’s a completely performative thing IMO. Also the WTF leader person consistently is there and I’m not comfortable around her. They are also definitely under the opinion that “Jews are white and benefit more from oppressing PoCs than other white people.” So not a good/safe place for me.  Maybe I wasn’t supposed to take it as a personal attack, but about halfway through the conversation she said it was specifically about me. So, yeah, a personal attack. She quit the organization and left, leaving us in the lurch for that night. The other thing that really bothered me about this conversation was that she was using her identity as a way to evade any and all accountability for repeatedly committing to things and disappearing. I would have been really happy to talk with her about how to make the space more accessible to her. In fact, we’d had multiple conversations about this. We’d implemented multiple things to help with the issues she’d mentioned...and she’d engaged with literally zero of them. Around that time, before the big event at a group meeting, another WTF member (also a WoC) was on the agenda to talk about “accountability.” Vague agendas are generally fine, so it was like, Of course! We should talk about that. That piece wasn’t really about accountability, it was literally just accusing the group of being a space for white supremacy, telling white people in the group to go to SURJ. Then she also left the group (though she waited until after the big event), though without the “Fuck y’all, I quit” meeting.  I’ve spoken to most other group members outside of WTF about this (both PoC and white folks), they agree that I’m not a white supremacist. Still, it’s probably a good idea to address the issue in more depth in the group. As a white person I really can’t say anything about how WTF members, unlike literally all other people in the group, were using callout culture and accusations of white supremacy to derail conversations, and to block any attempt at getting them to follow the same rules they not only expect others to follow but also that they themselves committed to following. We’ve had like 3 followup conversations in general meetings since then. So far, we’ve scared off 5 people that I’d recruited, as well as 3-4 others had recruited. Multiple opportunities to choose, plan, and launch campaigns have passed while we have these conversations. I can’t point any of this out because when I do, I’m just the white person who doesn’t want to talk about white supremacy.  Basically even though there are supportive people in the group that I absolutely love, I feel like the space has been emotionally polluted for me. I can’t deal with this fucking shit anymore, as much as I think unionizing is important to deal with the fucking bullshit from the university. This has become more of a stress for me than the shitty paychecks that come at unpredictable times; the shitty issues with my old PI/advisor; the really terrible benefits and leave policies; the expensive term fees.  I almost don’t want to go back. Is that terrible of me?

[masterthespianduchovny]

Say what you want about the MCU, I don’t have to read a fucking book to understand plot points.

Most of these stories stood alone, even the avengers films for the most parts.

But, The Rise of Skywalker, man, fuck that movie.

Defenders of the films or certain plot points are like, “you got to read the book” and “it explains Kylo’s backstory.”

If you all haven’t noticed, the industry is getting really fucking lazy. Never in my life have I ever had to READ a book to understand what should’ve been written in the movies. It’s called fucking BAD writing. That’s it, that’s all. I don’t care how big the star wars universe is, there are writers who are paid, you know, in addition to it being their profession, who are supposed to write coherent plots for moviegoers to understand the material.

All of the character arcs in this sequel trilogy is a god damn mess. The first two movies are enjoyable, yes even the last Jedi, but TROS is a god awful mess.

We can say that TLJ changed the course of the third film, but the larger issue is that they should’ve taken cues from previous successful trilogies or even the MCU about making sure all their shit was consistent and didn’t contradict other movies (in an obvious way).

As far as Kylo goes, tbh, I’ve always felt that he and his family life has been mismanaged. From Han and Leia’s separation to him being an only child and their strained/awkward communication with each other.

By being vague about Palestine and/or making viewers do the heavy work of finding the book to find out about BEN’s childhood, they set Ben’s redemption up for failure at jump. He should’ve been more tortured and conflicted besides the, “I’m reluctant to do what o need to do.”

Because, instead, he’s percieved as an entitled kids coasting off of his family’s legacy opposed to an emotionally and psychologically abused kid. I sure as hell saw him as that.

But, that’s not to say that his seduction by the dark side after Luke flirted with killing him was fascinating. Or that him questioning the Jedi and order of the galaxy wasn’t compelling.

It was.

But, they wasted that.

Disney didn’t have a plan and didn’t map out this saga. And, no, this ain’t on Rian. Like i said, this villain origin story has always been sloppy and doomed to fail. They were fine with Rian’s story until the backlash. Rian couldn’t had wrote that story and shot it with Disney being oblivious and not signing off on that shir. And JJ knew too. It is irrelevant that Rian disregarded JJ’s script because just like colon, Disney would’ve fired Rian if they didn’t like and support his interpretation. People are simply throwing Rian under the bus because it’s easy not because he was wrong.

Now, some fans argue that Ben shouldn’t have died because 1. it’s a rehash of Vader 2. What does that say to others trying to redeem themselves.

1. You’re right.

2. People need to understand that, despite relating to a fantasy character, you are not that character. What Ben did as Kylo is not only fucked up, it robs his victims of justice if he isn’t adequately punished. I’m not saying Ben should’ve died, I’m saying the subtext of many of these defenses is that Ben shouldn’t suffer appropriate consequences.

To those who want to argue, “but, Kylo isn’t real.” True, so you shouldn’t be upset that he died or the implications of what that means for people who relate to him, right???

The reason Vader was killed just like the reason Ben died is because they cannot exist openly in a society after the atrocities they’ve committed. It would mean mean doling out real consequences for Vader and Ben, which the series doesn’t want to do.

If Ben has lived, his options were 1. Jail 2. Isolation 3. Being on the run.

Ben doing the right thing in the end doesn’t negate all of the fucked up things he did before his redemption. Even then, Ben barely got a redemption. Apart of redeeming yourself is atoning for what you did. He decided not to support the dark side anymore, but he would’ve never had an opportunity to truly redeem himself and many would have every right not to forgive him.

Some argue that rey’s needs supercedes Ben having to atone for his misdeeds and...it does not. And the only way she could be with him was if they ran away together.

Or, he could go to jail and some bullshit thing happens which necessitates him being outside of jail, and then he is just redeeming himself left and right.

[janiedean]

So many people angry about Israel winning. People are either saying it was a victory for racists and that Israel doesn't deserve to win because of Palestine or they're complaining that Netta culturally appropriated Asian culture in her performance.

okay listen CULTURAL APPROPRIATION for israel is a joke I mean seriously she obviously was inspired by the style and she obv likes kpop/jpop/whatever which is btw 80% of the reason I don’t even like that song but people saying that she was culturally appropriating when it was a song with its lyrics/meaning/conception/style/identity and she wasn’t speaking random copypasted japanese/korean fucking with the pronunciation when THE ESTONIAN SONG WAS A BLATANT COPYPASTE OF FAMOUS OPERA ARIA TITLES AND SHIT AF LYRICS THAT WERE ALSO GRAMMATICALLY WRONG and she was singing it wrong - sorry I listen to enough opera to recognize it when someone has the skills and the romanian vampire from 2012 beat her hands down - and she was basically cashing in on italian sounding GOOD and the juries actually picked her over our singers is like the most fucking ridiculous thing anyone could conceive

and like…. netherlands guy was obviously skilled in his craft and could play and wasn’t *culturally appropriating* but that song was basically lifted out of nashville and the refrain sounded like cat’s in the cradle come on XDDD I mean I know that according to tumblr people can’t appropriate US american music but in between him and israel she was way more original than he was??? and I actually liked his song more than hers like it could be on my ipod hers wouldn’t be but come on let’s be objective

ANYWAY if anything was cultural appropriation it was that dumbass estonian song except that PEOPLE NEED TO STOP WITH CALLING BEING INSPIRED BY A GENRE CULTURAL APPROPRIATION MUSIC EXISTS BECAUSE PEOPLE INSPIRE EACH OTHER AND DIFFERENT GENRES INFLUENCE EACH OTHER GOOD FUCKING GRIEF according to these ppl mozart writing opera in italian would be cultural appropriation are we serious

now with that put out of the discussion

listen, you can dislike israel and its politics - as far as I’m concerned I do not like israel’s politics especially their current PM - and we can discuss to hell and back what they should change and most of all that they need to find an agreement already (also because I don’t think you can solve the situation by canceling either israeli or palestinians from the map), but fuck’s sake this is a dumb music with glitter and fireworks competition and if people could vote for russia in spades every damned year when they didn’t deserve it when russia is also hardly politically great these days then people can vote for israel’s song or singer without it being tied to politics, or we’d be all be voting for I dunno ICELAND at this point. also **deserving** to win in a competition with rigged juries 90% of the time is like, what, but seriously, she won because people liked her song and like her, not for political reasons, and I’m saying it as someone who didn’t even like the song period. but she looks very sweet and tbh she deserved it more than fucking SWEDEN pls are we serious, let her have her moment and let’s discuss politics in, uh, relevant spaces ie, POLITICS, and not fucking eurovision. like, ukraine won two years ago for politics and it was obvious, but it was a POLITICALLY CHARGED SONG. and if anyone got the politics vote here it was us and the french. israel’s song wasn’t about politics, don’t make it about politics and let *her* as a person have her moment like fuck’s sake you wanna criticize israel’s politics INSULT NETANYAHU AND THE CURRENT RIGHT WING ISRAELI GOVERNMENT rather than a poor entertainer/singer born in the year of the lord 1993 who isn’t doing politics in her life nor makes politically-charged music, thank you very much

[tsvitok]

I thought it’d be a nice little thought experiment to do a pseudo-historical map of how the world would have ended up without gunpowder or horses.

Gunpowder isn’t too hard, though I think I might have fucked up a little on some of it, I’ll post that up if people are interested.

Horses though. To think that a freak evolution of an animal so that it walks on its fingernails and the subsequent realisation you can ride them around, it kind of completely dominated human history.

Cavalry empires essentially dominated history, from the Persians to the French, to the Mongols and Russians. The Xiongnu and Huns that emerged to rapidly speed up the end of two of humanity’s major empires, the Songhai and Malian empires, the European empires in the Americas and Africa. The fact that European nobility originated out of cavalliers - the Knights, and that was something that originated in Greece with the hippeis and continued with the Roman equestria.

Not only that, but Islam was spread by the sword, and only so because the early caliphates were cavalry empires - they fought largely germanic empires that had settled in North Africa and Iberia. The Romans and Byzantines were largely checked in their eastward expansions at the height of their power by cavalry empires such as the Parthians and Turks.

You would have no Mongol Empire that brought Islam into the Indian subcontinent by force. You would have no expansion into subsahara africa or the horn of africa by muslim empires that were successful specifically because of their horses. Indonesia would probably be Hindu.

Would Hinduism replace Islam as the world’s second largest religion? Would there be Hindu empires that expand into the Middle East? Would there ever be a unified China? China was united three times by cavalry empires before their eventual fall to communism. It is arguable that there would be no communism as we know it. What would replace the Knights and form the stratified classes we still struggle to break free from?

Would there be European Imperialism? Horses were why the Spanish conquered the Americas not guns. The Aztecs and Inca adapted to firearms, they struggled to deal with the cavalry. And what about North America?

The horse was why so many tribes moved onto the great plains, it brought conflict and war to the area over the resources and it helped those like the Sioux, Navajo and Creek grow strong enough to resist against Europeans. Not even to comment on if the Europeans would even make it there.

After all the major colonisers of America were the Spanish, French and English. None would exist without horses - would the Anglo-saxons have lost if William had no cavalry, they were crucial to his victory and the further conquest of England, and the conquest of Wales and Ireland and the wars against the Scots. The longbow was only as good as the knights that supported it.

Or the French, whose entire military society was established around the chevalier - something that nearly lost them the hundred years war several times. Would there even be a France, as it was formed from a tribe whose success came due to its cavalry?

Or the Spanish, who only conquered the peninsular by way of the muslim-style cavalry tactics they used - which brings up the more important fact, without the muslim invasion, would Spain have even formed or would it have remained as a Gothic state?

But none of this even matters, because if Persian never came to be powerful and threaten the Hellenic City States, then it is impossible to say that there would have been an Athenian Empire which spread trade and colonised much of the mediterranean including southern Italy. And Rome wouldn’t have become a thing without trade. Hence no Roman Empire.

And you know what that means. Carthage probably wouldn’t have been defeated - and because a lot of its military relied on mercenaries and was largely infantry like the Romans, it wouldn’t have been stopped purely by a lack of horses.

The enemies that would have naturally arisen to threaten a Carthaginian Empire were nomadic horse-tribes and the islamic caliphates - neither would have existed. Islam may have even been the state religion as Christianity was to Rome - but it is unlikely because both Christianity and Islam emerged as a response to Rome. Christianity due to Roman occupation of Palestine and a Jewish holy war against the Roman occupation. Islam due to the collapse of the Roman empire, instability and the religious divisions caused by the Roman Empire basically forcing Christianity/the displacement of Jews from Roman Lands.

I have my doubts Carthage would ever be considered a foreign conqueror in the same way Greece and Rome were, after all Carthage was semitic. And I highly doubt Judaism - which is a highly insular religion - would ever become as dominant over a huge region of the world like Islam or Christianity.

So here in lies the root of the problem, because if you accept that we’d find a way to replace all the social status and military impacts of cavalry over time - you need to accept that because of one event as seemingly insignificant as Persia not having its cavalry to expand to threaten Greece and thus make them form the Athenian League - you’re not going to have the pure reason why Europe went on to dominate the world and murder like 80% of the non-European population. The snowflake christians were worried that the snowflake muslims were going to white-genocide them, so they had to genocide them first.

The roots of European colonialism were established in the Crusades, which were fought for largely the same reasons as the Spanish rape of the Americas. The pope said it was okay, the trade routes were controlled by muslims and there was money to be made.

I can probably do a map of Europe sans horses assuming that the Romans still rose to power. Or assuming that say the Carthaginians became the dominant power during the Iron Ages.

Also, we’d probably all be worshiping Norse or Celtic Gods, which’d be infinitely cooler for a number of reasons. I mean that might be a cool map to do.

[were-cheetah-stiles]

The Recruit (Chapter 25) - Mitch Rapp

Author: @were-cheetah-stiles​

Title: “Day 103″

Characters: Mitch Rapp, Stan Hurley, Irene Kennedy, Aiden Breen & Reader/OFC

Warnings: This is the last god damn chapter in which I label for cursing. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE CURSING. 

Author’s Note: I would watch this or this (Or both) before reading any further chapters. Just a nice brush up, you know? Also anyone who loves The West Wing as much as I do should catch the shout out to a super fake terrorist organization.

y/f/i = your first initial

Chapter Twenty-Four //-// Chapter Twenty-Five - Chapter Twenty-Six

"Y/n!" Stan knocked loud and hard, making sure to announce his presence as he opened the door without permission from his niece. You snapped up in bed and reached for your Glock, pushing your hand next to your bed, your new hiding place for it while you slept, only to pull away when you realized that it was just Stan waking you up abruptly. You looked around the room, it was barely light out.

"The fuck is going on?" You said groggily, pushing your hair back from your forehead and rubbing your eyes, a permanent frown living on your face.

"You've got a half hour to pack a go-bag with moderate climate gear." Stan told you.

"What is this? The Assateague Island camping trip? Isn't it still a little too early in the year for that?" You questioned, not fully grasping what was about to happen.

"No, kiddo, this isn't the camping trip. Training is over. You've been called up to the big leagues...” Stan glanced down at his watch, tilting his mug almost too far to the side, just to check the time. “And now you’ve got twenty-eight minutes to pack and meet out in the driveway." Stan nodded, with a fake half-smile. "I gotta go get your partner up." Stan didn’t close your door all the way and you heard him make the same demands across the hall. You smiled as you realized that Mitch was your partner and you didn’t have to worry about finding a way to warn him that you had gone on a mission.

"Shit." You sprung to your feet, after you heard Stan’s footsteps growing fainter in the hall. You began ripping through your bedroom to find the proper gear for the vague tip of 'a moderate climate'. You placed The Great Gatsby on the top of your go-bag and zipped it up. You threw the black, lightweight duffel over your shoulder and walked down to the driveway. Stan opened the door to the large indistinguishably black, American-made SUV idling in the dirt driveway in the front of the Main House. You, turned and saw Aiden descending the stairs behind you, and you snapped your head back when Stan said your name and gestured for you to give him your bag. You stepped up into the car and saw Mitch half-smile at you from a seat in the last row, and Irene turn her head to smile from the front passenger seat. You climbed in the back with Mitch and had to fight the urge to take his hand in yours. Aiden and Stan loaded in after you and before you knew it, the car was moving on the gravel road that led in and out of The Barn towards Williamsburg, Virginia.

"Does anyone want to fill me in?" You broke the long silence in the car.

Irene turned around, and gave her best calm and reassuring smile. "The two of you have been tapped for a mission. Mitch has already been briefly caught up, but you'll both get your packets with the full parameters on the plane."

"The plane? Where are we going? How have we been tapped for a mission? Neither of us are technically agents yet." You were not usually this questioning of authority, but you were very caught off guard by all of this news and you knew this was not how this sort of thing worked usually. A large part of you never thought that Stan would ever actually let you leave The Barn, and if he did, you were certain you would be stuck behind a desk at Langley.

"Y/n, when you get back from this mission, Irene is going to put you in with the next graduating class from The Farm and you will be a full-fledged member of the Central Intelligence Agency." Stan explained, and you glanced over at Mitch, who was boring holes into the front of Stan's skull trying to keep his mouth shut, but curious what this meant for him. You glanced back at Stan.

"What about Rapp?" You asked.

Stan shook his head. He was certain he was right, and Irene was wrong, but she was his superior and what she said was what was going to happen.

"Mitch, you're also done with training at The Barn. You've been done for some time, we just needed to wait until the mission was ready for you. You are Orion now. We'll make that official on the plane." Irene said to him confidently.

Mitch nodded once at Irene. He felt that he was ready too. You were feeling less prepared somehow. Maybe because Mitch seemed to have a better grasp on what was going on. You continued with your line of questioning. "What plane ride? Where are we going? What is this mission? Someone has to tell me literally something, anything."

"We're going to Istanbul." Stan explained, finally giving you some insight into what you were pretty sure that Mitch already knew.

"Why Turkey?" You asked.

Irene spoke up again. "Four days ago, fifteen kilos of plutonium went missing, weapons grade. We think a catastrophic attack is imminent."

"We've been tracking an arm's dealer named Hamdi Sharif, who has ties with the Bahji terror group-" You couldn't help but allow those names to elicit a quick reaction from you. You glanced over at Mitch, who remained stoic, and you quickly mimicked his expression. Stan continued explaining. "-who have had a vendetta against Israel since the creation of the state in the 40s. We think that he is trying to smuggle it into Israeli state borders, set it off, and hold Palestine responsible..."

You cut him off. You understood Middle Eastern relations, and suddenly, you also understood how you fit into the mission. "...Essentially setting off World War III and basically, wiping the Middle East off the fucking map." Stan nodded grimly at your deduction.

"We're trying to make sure that the sale is not final." Irene interjected.

"Who's selling it?" You asked, catching an odd exchange of glances between Stan and Irene.

"We're pretty certain that a man by the name of Ghost is the seller." Irene explained. You glanced up at Mitch, who, for a nanosecond, glanced back, and you realized that this was the mission that Mitch had been training for for months.

"You have forty-eight hours to track Sharif and Ghost and make sure that the sale is not completed." Stan explained. "The rest of the details and your exact assignments are in the files that I'll give you on the plane."

"There's a fucking nuke in play. Don't fuck this up." Irene warned as they pulled onto the tarmac at Andrews Airforce Base in Virginia.

Irene dropped you all off and Stan and Aiden sat on one end of the small private jet, while you and Mitch sat across from each other on the opposite end of the plane. You were somewhere over the Atlantic, five and half hours into your ten and half hour flight to Turkey, when Mitch leaned forward and closed your mission folder.

"Y/f/i, you've read it, like, thirty times. I know you understood and memorized everything after the first. You need to sleep." He reached forward and gently cupped your hands in his, eliciting a soft smile from the woman across from him.

"I'm nervous."

"I kind of gathered that." Mitch smiled, one side of his mouth curled up a little higher than the other, the kind smirk that always made you feel woozy.

You couldn't help but smile back at him. You loved that he knew what was going on in your head without you having to say. "I've wanted this for years... to be in the field, to be on a mission... to be a real agent, and now it's happening and I'm fucking nervous? It's frustrating as shit."

"I know it's nerve-wracking, but Y/n/n, you've trained longer than any other CIA recruit. You've trained longer than me. You're one of the best, and they wouldn't have brought you on this if they didn't think you were ready." Mitch tried to ease your nerves.

"You've actually been out there though, Mitch. You've been in the field without the backing of the Agency. All the training in the world can't compete with actual field experience."

"And now you're getting your actual field experience. Plus Stan and Aiden are here, I doubt you and I will even get any real action." Mitch hoped that wasn't true. He had a lot of pent up aggression after everything that went down with Brunski, and he was pleased with the person that was going to be the target of his violence.

"You're probably right.... although, Sharif.... how are you so calm about the fact that he's the one that we are going after?"

Mitch shrugged and leaned back, breaking his physical connection with you as his thoughts went to the beach the day that Katrina was killed. The weapons used by the terrorists on that sandy expanse that day were supplied by none other than Hamdi Sharif. This was the first step in Mitch’s plan for revenge. "I've been prepared to kill him and wipe out the Bahji terror cell for years. If that day is today, then I'll be ready." Mitch said clinically, trying to hide the fury and inclination towards violence bubbling underneath the surface.  

You nodded and went to open your mission folder again when you saw Mitch close his eyes. Mitch snickered and quietly slammed his hand on top of it, keeping it closed. He gathered your hands up in his once again. He glanced behind you to check if he had woken Stan or Aiden, but they were still asleep. "Let me just go through it once more. Last time, I promise."

Mitch smirked and shook his head. "You don't need to. Listen, Y/n/n, it'll be alright. I've got your back, always." Mitch swore, holding your hands up to his lips, so you could feel his promise.

"And I've got yours." You replied, in a calmer and more confident whisper.

"Always?"

"Always."

Twenty-Four <- -> Twenty-Six

Please please please let me know what you thought of this chapter and also, please go see American Assassin. :)

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