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#return to the 36 chambers
todayinhiphophistory · 14 hours
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Today in Hip Hop History:
Ol’ Dirty Bastard released his debut album Return to the 36 Chambers March 28, 1995
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amourlashai · 5 months
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The one and only: ODB aka Ol Dirty Bastard
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musictyme · 7 months
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Ol' Dirty Bastard - Shimmy Shimmy Ya
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yurugua · 1 year
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Today’s Vinyl: Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version
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spilladabalia · 5 months
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Ol' Dirty Bastard - Shimmy Shimmy Ya
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saywhat-politics · 1 year
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The council suspended the rules to allow an immediate vote on Jones’ seat. Less than an hour later, Jones was sworn in on the steps of the State Capitol.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Nashville Metropolitan Council voted Monday to return Justin Jones to the state Legislature after he was removed last week by Republicans for protesting gun violence on the House floor.
The 36 council members at Monday’s meeting unanimously supported reinstating Jones. The council had suspended its rules to allow an immediate vote instead of holding a monthlong nomination period.
Less than an hour later, Jones was sworn in on the steps of the State Capitol. He raised his fist as he entered the House chamber while supporters chanted, "Welcome home!"
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wolveria · 8 months
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The Raven’s Hymn - Ch 36
Pairing: SCP-049 x Reader
Series Warnings: Eventual smut, dubcon, slow burn, violence, horror, death, monsters, human experiments, dark with a happy ending
Chapter Summary: “I told Leahy I’d tell you myself. I didn’t want you to find out from him. It’s cruel enough without him saying the words.”
AO3
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That night, 049 didn’t offer to share the bed, and you didn’t ask. You couldn’t, not when… It had just been so odd, and the SCP hadn’t been himself the rest of the day. Oh, he’d seemed the same on the surface, acting as his usual cordial self. But that was the thing. He’d been so much more open the past few weeks, warm and present, that his stiff politeness was a regression.
You didn’t sleep well. Restless dreams plagued you, but not once did you open your mouth to ask. You regretted it in the morning when your neck hurt and you could barely keep your eyes open. Of all the oddly delicious meals you’d had while staying in 049’s chamber, they’d never given you coffee. Wine was apparently fine, but coffee beans were too much to ask.
Not that you needed the jitters. Without 049’s affectionate presence, the anxiety crept in, a reminder that you were not staying in a hotel room with a scholarly roommate.
Despite all of this, when the outer containment doors opened, they came as a surprise. At least, to you. 049 was on his feet and squarely between you and the guards before you fully registered what was happening, his shoulders hunched like a predator braced for the hunt.
“SCP-049, calm yourself. There’s no need for that.”
You frowned, carefully looking past 049’s arm. Dr. Puli stood between the guards, his eyes a little too large in the gaunt hollows of his face. Stubble lined his jaw, and he looked like he hadn’t slept well in days.
“But I will need you to separate,” Dr. Puli continued, for once not sounding nervous or uncomfortable. He simply seemed weary. “I only need Reid.”
“Where, may I ask, are you taking my assistant?” 049 didn’t move from his station in front of you.
Dr. Puli sighed and stuck his hands into his lab coat, shoulders hunched. He didn’t even seem to care that 049 was only about ten feet away. Even with the four guards at his side, 049 could close that distance with ease.
“I come as a gesture of goodwill.”
“Goodwill?” 049 asked with an edge of sharpness. “For what purpose?”
Dr. Puli looked past him, meeting your eye.
“We need to talk, Reid. Just talk, that’s all. Stand down.” He said this last to his guards. They glanced at each other but lowered their gun muzzles midway towards the floor. That was about as relaxed as they were going to get.
You studied him. This felt… different. You couldn’t pinpoint how, but you knew it wasn’t a trick, and it wasn’t another test. Maybe you didn’t trust Dr. Puli any longer, but you did know Leahy. If this was another experiment, the Site Director wouldn’t bother with your old boss. He wouldn’t ask you to come nicely. He’d simply have you dragged out, leaving 049 shocked or sedated into submission, as he had many times before.
049 turned halfway toward you, as if sensing you’d made up your mind.
“You do not have to go with him.”
Placing your fingers against his arm, you tried to convey to him what you couldn’t say aloud.
“Yeah, I do. But… it’s okay. I’ll be back.”
His eyes softened, a sad knowing in their depths that you could offer no such promise. But he still moved aside, respecting your decision, and hopefully trusting you would return. You squeezed his arm before letting go, and you moved past him, following Dr. Puli out the door.
You were right about it not being a test, unless it was a new level of bizarre concocted by the Site Director. You were led to a room you hadn’t been in months. The tan colored walls, the maroon carpet, the dark wood desk and the green futon all deeply familiar to you. Dr. Puli’s doctorates were lined and framed on the wall behind the desk. The first time you’d stepped foot in here was your initial day with the Cryptopsychology Department. The last time when you’d been assigned to SCP-049 as part of the observation detail rotation.
It was a lifetime ago. The person you’d been then might have looked identical in a mirror, but the internal workings were completely different. You didn’t know exactly what had changed, or if you were any stronger, but you certainly weren’t the same person: the one who kept her head down and focused on her work to the exclusion of all else.
The guards didn’t follow you inside. Dr. Puli indicated the futon, and you sat on one end, expecting him to also take a seat.
Instead, he pulled a paper cup from the receptacle next to his water cooler. He filled the cup and handed it to you before going to the front of his desk to lean against it.
You waited for him to talk, unmoving and taking slow breathes, no outward indication that your stomach was tight and twisted.
“I’m sorry about everything,” he started, staring firmly at the carpet. “All that’s happened, it wasn’t… it wasn’t my idea. None of it was. It was all the Site Director, that fucking prick.”
Your brows rose. You decide to take a sip of water after all, savoring the cold filtered flavor that tastes better than the water from the bathroom or lab sink.
Dr. Puli removed his glasses and wiped his forehead with the edge of his sleeve. He was sweating, but the air conditioning thrummed through the vents above you.
You didn’t forgive him for not protecting you, but you could appreciate the difficulty of his position. Either way, it was best to let the silence force him to confess whatever was clearly eating at him.
Dr. Puli finally met your eye.
“This wasn’t my idea either. I don’t approve of it, and I fully plan to contact the O5 Council myself. I don’t give a damn what it costs me. I can’t believe they would ever sanction… It’s madness. Utter madness.”
“What?” you asked quietly, your stomach twisting further. “What’s madness?”
But Dr. Puli continued on as if he hadn’t heard you, shaking his head.
“I told Leahy I’d tell you myself. I didn’t want you to find out from him. It’s cruel enough without him saying the words.”
Dread knotted your gut.
“What words?!” Your throat cinched tight, strained. “Tell me!”
Dr. Puli didn’t answer. He swallowed compulsively, his expression etched with what could be him fighting down the urge to vomit. When he did speak, it was slow and dull, like reading from the page of an academic brochure.
“The Site Director has greenlit a program that would, potentially, have the benefit of… of creating Foundation personnel that would have a higher survival rate, given they would have… anomalous properties themselves.”
You frowned. It was an audacious idea but not exactly unheard of as far as projects went. There were plenty of anomalous objects that had given unnatural abilities to Foundation staff, Dr. Bright being the most infamous example.
But Dr. Puli continued to look sick as he went on.
“These Foundation personnel would not be given their anomalous properties from experiments. They would be born with them. The offspring of a human subject… and an SCP.”
No.
“You are to take part of the first trial—”
No. No no no.
“—and will be bred to SCP-049 until gestation is achieved.”
You couldn’t breathe. There was nothing, nothing to grasp onto. Your thoughts slipped like water through a sieve, just like the half-empty cup slipped through your fingers. Neither of you noticed the spill on the carpet.
“I’m going to do all I can to alert the O5 Council,” Dr. Puli said from somewhere very far away. “But Leahy is pushing through with this as soon as possible. I told him… I told him to let me tell you first. You deserved to know. To be treated like a human being.”
You stared without seeing. Everything was at a great distance. Nothing was present, nothing was real, it all just… slipped past.
Until there was a light touch on your arm. Dr. Puli knelt next to your leg, eye level with you now where you sat on the futon.
“Reid, listen to me. I know this is a lot to take in, but you can’t separate from this. Focus on surviving. You know how to do that. I know you can hold on until I can stop this.”
You spoke very quietly.
“You can’t. And you know that. That’s why you’re telling me. To ease your own guilt.”
He flinched, but he didn’t deny it.
You stood and flatly stated, “I want to go back now.”
He said your first name, something he rarely did, but you turned your back on him and faced the door. You drew your arms across your chest, protecting yourself from something you had no protection from. He would let you go back to 049’s chamber. That was the point now, wasn’t it?
Dr. Puli let out a tired breath, but he opened the door. You stepped through, and the guards took up positions around you, escorting you back to 049’s containment chamber.
You’d made it back. Just like you promised.
As soon as the doors locked behind you, the inner containment cell opened and 049 stepped through. He quickly strode toward you, concern in his grey eyes.
But you couldn’t breathe, horror clawing up your throat.
You flinched.
049 stopped dead in his tracks. He was only a few feet away, his hands halfway raised as if to reach for you, his stare uncomprehending.
“Doctor?”
You shook your head.
“Please, tell me what ails you?” He sounded almost scared. It was jarring to hear the fear curled in his words. “What did that man say to you?”
You swallowed and tried to steady yourself, but your jaw shook, and your eyes burned.
“I just… I need a minute.”
You went around him in a wide berth, past the frozen SCP to the inner containment chamber. As soon as you caught sight of the full-sized bed, you knew. You knew exactly why the bed had been upgraded to a bigger size from its previous small twin.
You rushed to the toilet and barely got the lid up in time.
After you were done emptying the contents of your stomach, you flushed the toilet and washed your hands and mouth in the sink. You washed your face too, cleaning away the tears that had finally escaped while you’d been sick on your knees.
You would have preferred a shower to scrub it all away until it was gone, but there was no removing this.
Glancing at the bed again, you opted to sit on the ground, your back against the wall and your arm against the sink pipe. It was cold. Uncomfortable. That was good, it grounded you, made you stay in the moment and not float free again. You couldn’t afford to check out, as much as you might wish to.
During all of this, 049 watched but didn’t move. He stood just at the threshold of the inner containment chamber, as if fearing to step inside. An unwanted visitor in his own cell.
You flushed with anger—not at the SCP, but at Leahy. He’d taken this from you, perverted and tainted the only solace you had in this hell, the only friend you’d made in this place.
It wasn’t 049’s fault. He wasn’t the problem, but he was just as much effected as you were.
You steadied your breathing and looked him in the eye.
“We need to talk.”
Next Chapter
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hephaestuscrew · 4 months
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Audio Drama Sunday 24/11/2023
Here's the new stuff I've listened to in the past week and a bit:
🏠 Unwell Ep3.01-3.07 - I really liked the first couple of seasons of Unwell, and I don't know why my listening fell off midway through Season 3 in 2021. (Honestly it might have partly been that some of the dementia stuff hit too hard. Ep3.05 was A Lot in a masterful way...) But I thought I'd resume it from the beginning of Season 3, and it's been really nice to return to these characters and this world, even if I can't remember all of the context. I'm tutting at Hazel, a librarian actively withholding and distorting information. I'm shaking my head at what Rudy's gotten himself into. I'm very emotional about Wes - the first episode of this season was really moving. And I'm excited to see where things are headed!
🚀 Travelling Light, Ep1-3 - Like Monstrous Agonies, this show has such a lovely reassuring vibe. I'm in awe of H. R. Owen finishing one show and almost immediately releasing another weekly show nearly single-handedly. It reminds me a bit of the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers, because of the exploration of the diversity of cultures across different planets and species, and the way these differences are celebrated. I've also noticed that so far the cultures described tend to be more local and specific than 'every alien of this species has this tradition' - instead it's usually about the people who come from a certain city or region on a planet. Which helps avoid some troubling attitudes that sci-fi which contrasts different species can imply. My favourite archive entry from these episodes so far was the drinking song. It felt convincing as that kind of song and was fun to hear.
🌊 The Silt Verses, Chapter 36 - This was one of those episodes that made me stop in my tracks in the street as I listened. I cared so much about the two characters who were only introduced this episode, and the ending sent shivers up my spine. I often hate listening to flirting but the flirting via memory games was unusual, sweet, and compelling in a way that made me smile in spite of the Horrors around them. Also I think Carpenter should be a bitch about unimportant things like music trivia more often. I loved her and Hayward bickering. She should get to care about things that aren't gods or rituals or matters of life and death.
🚇☕ Greater Boston / The Amelia Project, Live Crossover Episode - This was an excellently done crossover in terms of blending elements of both shows in a way that I think would work for someone who was only a fan of one or the other. I was pleased to hear Felix Trench's absurd portrayal of Mark Walhberg again, but my favourite parts were Chuck Octagon attempting to sum up the events of Greater Boston (and the Interviewer's reaction to this) and the Narrator narrating the Interviewer's response to his offer with his own exaggerated impression.
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waltwhitmansbeard · 11 months
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Hello! I don't know if you've already talked about this in mfl, but what was it like when keyleth felt vilya kick for the first time?
nonnie if this was a ploy to get a drabble out of me then congratulations, you've played me like a goddamn fiddle
turned my water into wine #36
When Keyleth stole away from the castle in the early morning to wed her love in secret, her only fear was the someday anger of her father, who would surely be incensed when he learned of what she'd done. She imagined him taking out his ire on Vax, locking him up or exiling him or worse. She made plans for their escape, for absconding with Vax in the middle of the night to begin their lives anew somewhere else, somewhere they could be together, even if it meant giving up her crown.
Never did consider this, regular dinners with her father in his chambers in the castle, both he and Vax red-faced from wine and laughing uproariously in front of the fire. Keyleth, who has been unable to stomach wine since becoming pregnant, sits in a plush armchair just off to the side, rolling her eyes as the two of them hiccup their way through Vax's recounting of some mission he'd once completed at Korrin's behest that went spectacularly awry.
"And—and then—" Vax can hardly get the words out through the laughter. "—I was so spooked, I saw something m-moving in the corner of my eye, so naturally I threw a dagger at it." He wheezes. "It was my own damned reflection in the window!"
Her father howls. "You never said!"
"What was I to say? Your Majesty, I was nearly caught because I tried to assassinate myself?"
Keyleth has never seen her father so hysterical in her life. She knows she should be glad for their companionship, for the clear, easy bond the two most important people in her life have forged against all odds, but it is late and she is tired and the raucous laughter is starting to dance on the frayed edges of her nerves. She stands, the movement just a hair more difficult than it used to be, thanks to the small swell of her belly, and begins to say, "As scintillating as this story is, I ought to drag my husband home before he p—"
She cuts herself off with a small gasp, and the lingering laughter in the air evaporates. "Kiki?" Vax shoves himself to his feet, eyes clearer than they had been just a moment ago. "What's wrong?"
It is the strangest sensation, this knocking from inside, as if her hardened stomach is a door through which someone is trying to request passage. "I..." She cannot explain it, so instead she reaches out and grabs his hand. She settles the palm just above her belly button, about an inch and a half to the right. They both wait, and just as Vax opens his mouth to speak again, the knocking returns, an alien stretching from within.
Keyleth's mouth curls into a smile as Vax's eyes blow impossibly wide. "That...that's..."
"Our child," she whispers, and Vax lets out an awed laugh at the concept. As if in response, the child reaches out again, pushing against Keyleth's belly toward their father.
"They like your laughter," she says, watching the wonder and disbelief play across Vax's face.
Her father stands, coming to rest a hand on Vax's shoulder. "Keyleth loved birdsong when her mother carried her. She'd kick and dance in the early mornings when Vilya would go out for a walk about the gardens."
Vax can't take his eyes off of Keyleth's stomach, so she gently pulls his free hand into hers. "It seems our child loves the sound of your joy as much as I do." She pauses. "Though I do believe I've rather heard enough of it this evening."
Vax smiles sheepishly. "You are tired." She nods. "My apologies." He reluctantly pulls his hand away from her stomach to turn and shake Korrin's. "I ought to get her home, though I am not done with the tale of my most elaborate failure."
"I look forward to hearing the rest." He pulls Vax into a hug, and then Keyleth. "Get rest while you can, my daughter." He settles a hand over the spot where the child has been kicking. "This one will be keeping you up before you know it."
"I have no doubt." She and Vax say their goodbyes and begin the trek down to the little cottage on the edge of the grounds. As they walk beneath the waxing moon, Vax's arm around her shoulder to ward off the chill, she murmurs, "You know, I think tonight was the first time it felt real."
"The child?"
"All of it. This life. You and my father and our baby, a family of my own. A kind of joy that I never could have imagined for myself."
Vax reaches across to lay his palm over where the baby had been kicking, though they seem to have stopped for the time being. "It still feels like a dream to me, each morning I awake to find you beside me, each morning I don't have to rise and steal away from your bed before the sun. This little life is a blessing, both the life you carry and the life we have built here together."
She tips her head onto his shoulder and continues on toward the cottage, yearning for sleep and for the many years of happiness ahead.
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The time is very near, closer than most people want to believe.
1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
25 Behold, I have told you before.
26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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chloewatcheswrestling · 7 months
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Wrestling Love Letters
Fireflies in the Dark: A Tribute to Bray Wyatt
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I wasn’t going to write today.
But then we lost Bray.
There are some performers who transcend the ring and become more than just athletes. Bray’s mystique and captivating storytelling, undoubtedly made him one of those figures. His unexpected passing has left our community mourning the loss of one of our great wrestling minds who managed to weave enchanting narratives that gripped wrestling fans worldwide.
Bray used the canvas like a true artist, painting his stories with the strokes of a genius. He was the cult leader I would have followed willingly, especially during an "era of lies" where authenticity seemed scarce. In moments when watching WWE grew challenging, his segments became my refuge – a place to immerse myself and search for hidden gems within his narrative. The most recent version of Bray walked down that ramp every week and relayed the same message, and yet, we were still right there, in the palm of his hands. This wasn't just charisma; it was a connection that few could forge. He was an inspiration to anyone who has lost their way, a guiding light amidst the darkness.
Many likened him to the Undertaker but, for me, he was this generations Mick Foley. A man of many faces, he was a unique fusion of wrestling brilliance and raw charisma. The juxtaposition of his eerie presence with a touch of humanity made him a character like few others. My favourite Bray, Firefly Funhouse Bray, was Mr. Rogers-esque, a blend of warmth and macabre that shouldn't have worked, but did – brilliantly.
The night he won the WWE Championship at Elimination Chamber (2017) is etched into my memory – a moment of triumph that stood as a testament to his talent and dedication. I can vividly recall the chills that ran down my spine as I witnessed The Fiend's debut at Summerslam (2019). The classic horror ambiance he effortlessly created became a hallmark of his performances. The Firefly Funhouse match vs John Cena (Wrestlemania 36, 2020) remains one of my favourites. It wasn't for everyone, but for those who understood its depth, it was a masterpiece. It was a match that came at a time where the world was shut down and we needed an escape from reality. Bray knew his audience – those loyal viewers who craved acknowledgment, who searched for Easter eggs and subtle nods (along with some not-so-subtle winks to camera, talking directly to his fans). Bray Wyatt dared to be bold. In a time when creativity often felt stifled, he fearlessly injected his character with veiled jabs at WWE creative. The Vince McMahon puppet with little devil horns was a testament to his audacity. He thrived on speculation and anticipation, drawing fans into conversations about the identities of the wrestlers behind the puppets and the possibility of a Wyatt Six faction. Bray was more than a performer; he was an architect of engagement.
Beyond his character, Windham was a person who was loved and respected. To his father Mike, his brother Bo, his wife Jojo, and to his children, my heart goes out. The Wyatt family, both the on-screen and off-screen versions, has suffered profound losses with the passing of Brodie and now Bray.
As I watched the tribute videos and teary messages this morning, I stumbled upon his return speech following Extreme Rules and the words he left us with, "This is a version of me that I’ve never got to introduce to you guys before, this is just me… being me, genuine me, for the first time." Those words echo a sentiment many can relate to – the search for authenticity in a world that often demands conformity.
To Bray, thank you for the stories, the captivating moments, the suspense, the pops, your unapologetic creativity and your beautiful mind and thank you, for being you. You always mattered to us and as the fireflies fade off screen, your legacy will continue to shine brightly in the hearts of your fans worldwide.
With pins, submissions, and some tears,
Chloe xoxo
25.08.2023
“...I was in a time of need, and I lost people that were close to me, and I lost my self-confidence and I felt weak and I felt vulnerable. And in this weakest state I found your words Bray, I found your words…”
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andnowanowl · 2 months
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Since "Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation" is suspiciously not available in the US in the form of an e-book, I purchased a physical copy and wanted to share it here for anyone else also unable to get access.
RIYAM KAFRI ABU LABAN
Chemistry professor, blogger, 36
Born in Amman, Jordan
Interviewed in Ramallah, West Bank
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Riyam Kafri Abu Laban was born in Amman, Jordan. Her father was one of thousands of Palestinians not allowed to return to their homes after the Six-Day War of 1967 —marking a second wave of Palestinian refugees after the massive displacement of 1948. Riyam's parents waited for the opportunity to return to the West Bank instead of leaving to pursue lucrative jobs elsewhere. They finally returned to the West Bank in 1980, after years of legal wrangling. On returning to Palestine, they settled near Ramallah.
We interview Riyam in her spacious kitchen in Ramallah. As she talks, she stirs pots, washes dishes, and checks the oven, effortlessly putting together a dinner for six as she tells her life story. We learn that this kind of multi-tasking is normal for her. She is the mother of twins, teaches organic chemistry at Al-Quds University, and she helps to run the university's liberal arts program (designed in conjunction with Bard College). She also writes a blog with a fellow professor, and her posts are sharply observed explorations of daily life in Palestine.
Writing is Riyam's passion, but she came to it later in her career. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and had the opportunity to live a comfortable life in the United States. She chose instead to return to Palestine where she started teaching, and she found her voice as a writer in describing life as a resident of the West Bank. She writes that Palestine is "like a distant land that inhabits the warmest chambers of one's heart, so close yet so unattainable.¹
A DESIRE TO LIVE JUST LIKE ANY OTHER TEENAGER IN THE WORLD
When the war broke out in 1967, my father was an electrical engineering Ph.D. student in Germany. After the war, Israel gave ID cards to Palestinians. The cards were required for them to remain in Palestine, but since my father was abroad at the time they were distributed, he wasn't able to get one. My mom, who hadn't yet met my father, was in the West Bank at the time and was able to get an ID card. A little after dad moved to Jordan. Later, he met my mother while she was traveling through Jordan to visit a relative. My parents were married in November 1977, and then they started working immediately to return to Palestine. At first they thought that since my dad was marrying someone with an ID card, it would be easier for him to apply for one as well. But the Israeli government said that they needed to have a child to prove that the marriage was real. They got pregnant really quickly and I was born nine months later, in Amman, Jordan, in October 1978.²
After I was born, my parents continued their pursuit of an ID card for my father. This time, the Israeli authorities told my mom that she needed to have a boy, because a girl didn't count. Who knows what their reasoning was. My mom had to make the choice to get pregnant as soon as possible again, so that she could try to have a boy and reapply for an ID for my father.
An opportunity came up for my father to help build a new university out of a technical college that was located in Abu Dis.³ So we moved to Palestine in 1979, even though we didn't have an ID for my father yet. We didn't stay long. The faculty named the new university Al-Quds.⁴ Al-Quds is the Arabic name for the city of Jerusalem, and the name drew a lot of attention from the Israeli authorities, who assumed the founders were implying that the city belonged to the Palestinians. Some professors were arrested, and my dad was sent back to Jordan.
The next year, my mother was pregnant with my brother Muhanned, and we tried again to live in the West Bank. My father had found teaching work. This time, we settled near Ramallah.⁵ Finally, my father was able to obtain an ID card not long after my brother was born. Then after he got his ID card, he helped found the engineering school at Birzeit University.⁶ My mother was a teacher, and later a principal, but she took some time off after the birth of Muhanned and later my sister Duna.
I grew up in a politically active family. I also grew up with parents who thought that their children had to leave a mark on society. We were raised to think that we had to live with a sense of purpose. And the main purpose, the underlying goal, was always to serve Palestine in one way or another.
I was sheltered from some of the problems many Palestinians have, but I can't say I grew up completely sheltered, because I was educated about the Israeli occupation. You know, I grew up during the beginning of the First Intifada, so the entire atmosphere was different.⁷ Everyone, from teenagers to adults, was more aware of Palestine, of the political situation, of the prisoners and arrests.⁸ Demonstrations took place right outside our home, since we lived in a central area of Al-Bireh, just outside Ramallah.⁹ One of my earliest clear memories is from the start of the Intifada. I was eight years old, and I spoke to a BBC reporter. I told him, "We're not just throwing rocks, we want our freedom!"
The demonstrations during the First Intifada brought the neighborhood together. At that time, women would knit navy-blue V-neck shirts that they could send to prisoners. So that's how I learned knitting. The prison would only accept that color, and it had to be V-neck, and it had to be plain—we couldn't even use any stitches but the most basic ones. And my mom was part of a women's group that would go into refugee camps to visit prisoners' families, and they would also collect these knitted shirts and send them to prisons.
I don't remember much about my first couple of years at school. Actually, the Israeli military shut down most schools in the area during the First Intifada. Schools might operate for only a few hours a week. So we did distance learning. I was enrolled at the Friends School, and I'd go once every two weeks to drop off my assignments and pick up new ones.¹⁰ The first day of the year, we'd go to pick up our books, get our first assignments, and then immediately go home to start working on them. We were really responsible for our own education. Kids from all around would come to our home, and my mother would teach them. Finally, when I was around twelve, the school reopened. But even then it was only open for half days.
Around the time I became a teenager, the Intifada took on a different emotional quality for me. I wasn't just knitting sweaters anymore I was watching my friends get arrested. I remember the powerful desire to live just like any other teenager around the world, to spend my time listening to music and not having to care about politics. It was suffocating. I say this with a lot of humility, because I didn't even see what it was like to live in a refugee camp. So if I was suffocating in the middle of a city, with a home that had all the amenities that anyone could ask for, I can't imagine what it was like for anyone in the refugee camps. And then I saw this complete switch, with Oslo, around 1993.¹¹
Things started to open up more. We could get to places we couldn't get to before, including Jerusalem, and Haifa, and Jaffa.¹² By the time I graduated from high school in '96, even the topics of conversation with my more the day-to-day concerns with friends were completely different living and work. We didn't need to talk about fighting just to live and struggling just to exist. I could think about things like the New Kids on the Block, pop music. But even as a teen, I never trusted the Oslo Accords. We had peace, but it felt like an illusion, a hologram.
I WAS IN LOVE WITH THE CONCEPT OF A ROAD TRIP
I lived in Ramallah until I was seventeen. Then I graduated from the Friends School, and I received a full-tuition scholarship to Earlham College in the States.¹³ The Friends School had an arrangement where they'd send one or two graduating students to Earlham on full scholarship every year. I'd applied to a few other liberal arts colleges in the States, but I really wanted to get into Earlham, and when I got the scholarship, my family discussed it. It was a little bit of a conflict. It was very tough for dad, particularly. My mother is a very realistic woman, and she felt like her children leaving home was inevitable. But I think for my father it was harder. He viewed the United States as a country that helped Israel. It was a matter of principle that his daughter shouldn't leave this country to study in the U.S. Coming to terms with that was a huge adjustment.
In the end, we decided that I'd go with the idea to become a physician, and that I would return to Palestine after my education. My parents announced, "We'll allow you, our first daughter, to go to the United States on your own, only under the following terms—you will not return with a bachelor's in biology or chemistry, because you could always do that at Birzeit, and you will try to get into medical school." I would finish my education, and then I would come back and work here in Palestine.
All I knew about Earlham was that it was a small school, that I wouldn't have more than thirty or forty students in my classes, which was true. Except for introductory classes, I think most of my classes were like that. I think at seventeen you don't know what to expect out of college, and I soon learned that the school was extremely challenging. I worked really hard. But the social life was far better than I expected. The kindness of people on campus made me feel really cared for in a small setting. And Earlham was very pro-Palestinian. As a Quaker institution, they were very interested in educating Palestinians—they'd been accepting Palestinian students since 1948.
I took biology in the first year, under the assumption that I'd be a pre-med student. But I was broken by the anatomy and physiology course. I just couldn't do it—the smell, the formaldehyde. I worked so hard, and I could barely break a C in the course.
And in the meantime, I was taking organic chemistry, and I was practically sleeping through the course and I was getting an A, you know? And that's when things kind of shifted. I had a great organic chemistry professor, Thomas Ruttledge, who's still my friend and colleague, and I decided to become a chemist. And I thought, "Well, I'll get a Ph.D. instead of an M.D." And I wanted to work in the pharmaceutical industry. That part really enticed me—the idea of creating things.
By the end of my undergrad experience, I felt very much at home at Earlham, and I do think those were the best four years my of entire time in the United States. You know, the one thing that fascinated me the most living in the United States was the ability to drive anywhere. I was in love with the concept of a road trip. I learned driving just to be able to drive out for endless hours, because it was mind-boggling to me that I could cross state lines and be in Tennessee for a couple of hours, and on the same day drive back to Indiana, no problem! That was new to me, and I loved traveling, even after starting my Ph.D. program.
I did my Ph.D. in medicinal organic chemistry at the University of Tennessee, and I focused on computer-based drug design and discovery. I learned to design compounds by modeling enzymes on a computer, which was a very cutting edge approach to medicinal chemistry at the time. I worked with a team that researched anti-HIV compounds and anti-cancer agents.
I briefly considered staying in the U.S. When you're in graduate school and doing research, all you see as important is the science that you're doing. And you don't have a concept or understanding of what life really is, right? Because for a scientist, life exists within the walls of the lab, and the library, and on your computer. And so for a while I really thought that I should stay for a post-doc there. But my parents weren't willing to live through another year of not having their children around. They were really adamant that we should all finish and return as soon as we were done.
Also, I started my Ph.D. program at Tennessee right before September 11, 2001. I remember the day of the attacks, I had to teach a class. As I walked into the classroom, I heard some students whispering about me, "She's Palestinian, they're responsible for this." I couldn't keep silent. I told the whole class that it couldn't have been the Palestinians, and that there was no way I would condone such an act. I told them I came from a violent place, but that all I wanted was for things to be easier for my younger brother and sister. I ended up crying, and a colleague came to the classroom and took over the class for me.
Later I experienced real hostility, even from some faculty, me questions like, "Why are Muslims like this?" I knew then I couldn't stay in the U.S. I couldn't go through life explaining myself to others. It sounds strange, but I thought then that if I had children, I'd rather they who'd askgrow up with the problems of occupation and know who they were than to keep having to explain themselves and their identities to everyone else in their community.
There is a lot that I still love about the U.S. and the South - I still make sweet potato pie every November, around Thanksgiving. But since September 11, I've known there is no way I could be happy living my entire life in the States.
So an opportunity arose in Ramallah at a pharmaceutical company called Pharmacare, and it sounded interesting enough. Also, I thought, If I'm willing to try living in the United States and adjust to its cultural values - the way it works, its social structure, everything—then why not give this chance to Palestine itself?
So after my Ph.D. program I returned to Palestine in January 2007, and I began researching the antioxidant activity of Palestinian plants with Pharmacare. It was part of a project where we were looking for anti-cancer compounds in traditional Palestinian medicinal plants. I worked with herbalists throughout the West Bank. We started the lab from scratch. Up until that point, all pharmaceutical companies in the West Bank were generic drug producers. Our work was the first to invest in innovative research in the region.
THERE'S A RHYTHM IN PALESTINE THAT REALLY GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN
Palestine had changed quite a lot since I had left. I had been away for the entire Second Intifada.¹⁴ I had never seen the wall. That was my first impression of what had changed. I had seen pictures, but to see it cut through terrain I remembered well—honestly, to this day I haven't resolved the feeling I had when I saw it. Passing into the West Bank through Qalandiya, I saw incredible poverty—Qalandiya looks like all the misery of the West Bank, including overcrowding.¹⁵ Then driving into Ramallah, I was amazed to see how things had grown. There were new tall buildings, signs that people were doing okay. The city was jazzy, sort of dressed up. Coming back home, it was as though that illusion of peace, the hologram, had shrunk to a bubble just around my hometown.
Still, being back in Ramallah was a challenge in some ways. Once you go to graduate school abroad, it's an entirely different experience living in Palestine. Believe it or not, the culture shock was easier to get over going to Earlham from Palestine than the culture shock that I faced coming back after almost eleven years of being away.
I can't exactly pinpoint what the reasons are for the difficulty. I think one of them is that I spent eleven years on my own, in a country that's fairly free and accepts anything and everything. And I learned to think for myself, learned to accept people for what they are and who they are, and not judge them for what they think or what they look like or what they believe. And I came back to a country that's fairly systematic. There's a specific, almost rigid, structure in society here that you have to fit into.
I came back here to Palestine, and I had social obligations and family obligations, and I was no longer able to read in my free time. Even the way I dressed had to change. So it was very difficult at the beginning.
But even in those early days back, I felt like Ramallah had a way of making me feel comfortable. And it's not just the city—it's the people. There's a rhythm in Palestine. Every country has its own rhythm, but there's a rhythm in Palestine that really gets under your skin, even with all the difficulty of travel, with all the difficulty of being stuck on the road in traffic. There's something that just gets under your skin, and it's very difficult to leave, once you start to get settled in here. I also finally found old friends, and a lot of my friends were going through the same difficulties. They'd been gone for a while, they were educated outside, whether in France or England or the U.S., and had returned. So we had something in common, and a common language, and that's kind of what's got me slowly coming back into living here.
OUR FIRST CLASS
I worked for Pharmacare for over two years, until around 2010. But there were several reasons why I thought it was not the right place. I was spending my entire time in a lab with only one other person, and I realized more and more that I wanted to work with people. And what does a Ph.D. do with people, other than teach, right? When I was nineteen years old, my adviser Thomas Ruttledge told me that I would end up in teaching, and I thought he just didn't know me. He said that I had it in me.
So in 2010, I applied to Al-Quds University and Birzeit University for teaching positions. Al-Quds had recently developed a partnership with Bard College in the U.S., where Bard would establish a liberal arts degree program within Al-Quds.¹⁶ And Bard thought I was the perfect candidate to teach for them—I was a liberal arts college graduate. I would understand the concepts and the teaching methods of liberal arts education.
Originally, it was a part-time position for a semester, so I only taught one class. After that first semester, Al-Quds and Bard immediately offered me a full-time position. They kind of took me in. They didn't care that I didn't have an extensive publication history or anything like that. It wasn't an old boys' club like Birzeit University.
I became a core faculty member and one of the founding faculty members. We had no program—only thirty students— and I remember running these internal transfer campaigns, where we encouraged students from Al-Quds University to give it a try for one semester. We basically opened it up for everybody, so good students and bad students were applying, and we accepted all of them just to be able to run a program. Then I started building the science program, and now we have the largest and most successful division in the entire college. I have sixty students who are hoping to complete their degree in either biology or chemistry right now. This year, at the end of June 2014, we were able to graduate our second class and my first class of chemistry majors.
I WORE A HEADPIECE THAT'S 200 YEARS OLD AND MADE OF GOLD LIRAS
In the spring of 2009, I met a man named Ahmad through a friend of mine who works with him in the municipal government. We saw each other occasionally for a year and a half, but I wouldn't say we were dating, really. I saw him once or twice, and I think we were both busy with our careers, and so it kind of just took its time.
We would send each other messages every now and then, check on each other. Then it took a more serious turn in the fall of 2010, in September. We started seeing each other among groups of friends so that we could keep it on the down-low, so no one would really catch who was dating whom.
Then in the end of December, we decided that we wanted to be together. He invited me to dinner on December 30 at his family's home. He said that after dinner he'd love to go to my parents' home—he wanted to meet them. From there, things developed really quickly. On Friday morning, New Year's Eve, he called me and he said that his older brother would like to talk to my father and that he'd like to make this official, which is the culturally correct way of doing things. And so they set a date to talk to my parents officially and ask for my hand in marriage.
The night of New Year's Eve, Ahmad surprised me by proposing in front of 360 guests at the Mövenpick Hotel New Year's Eve party.¹⁷ So, by the next morning, the entire city knew that we were engaged.
It was right at the beginning of the second semester for me, so it was a little bit hard to think about getting married during the semester, but semesters at Al-Quds University are never properly planned, because there are strikes, and there are closures and political reasons not to go to school. So we thought about April for a wedding date, and then it didn't work with one of his brothers, whose daughter was expecting a child, and they wanted to be with her when she had the child. We decided that it would have to be pushed till June, but his mother was not willing to see that happen. She felt like she was old, and you never know what happens, and she wanted to be there for the wedding. And so we actually ended up getting married in March 2011, on a very cold, rainy day.
We had a full-on traditional Palestinian wedding. I wore a traditional dress, and I also wore a headpiece that's 200 years old and made of gold liras—Ottoman liras. The wedding party was huge. There were over 700 guests. I should have known that my life would be loud after that. After the big wedding, we had a smaller wedding reception for the family and close friends.
Within less than a year, I went from being single and career-oriented to a wife, a pregnant woman, then a mother of two. I had my twins on November 10, 2011. I came from a small, nuclear family where everybody's educated, and we had a very quiet breakfast every Friday morning, and suddenly I shifted from that into this huge, clan-like family, with a whole lot of brothers and sisters who are all married with children, whose children were having children. Life with my husband's family was loud and lively, and I learned how to cook for forty people—while pregnant. And I found myself completely entrenched in Palestinian life in a way I hadn't been before.
I DISCOVERED THE WRITER IN ME
My husband worked as the mayor of Ramallah's right-hand man. When we married, in a way, I thought I was marrying Ramallah. My friends actually nicknamed me "Lady Ramallah," because I was everywhere, I would go to all the cultural events, always out in the city.
When I finally got to know my husband's family well, I realized that I didn't marry the city, I married Abu Shusha and Zakariyya, which were the two villages that his parents had left in 1948.¹⁸ I suddenly found myself completely entrenched in Palestinian culture that I've only read about the diaspora refugee culture. Now, my kids are descendants of refugees. It's been a total switch for me. And it was more eye-opening to me - there's real suffering in Palestine, there's real heartbreak. And it's a lot more than what people think it is. When I began to see these things, that's when the writing happened.
In July 2010, Bard sent me to the U.S. to do this writing workshop called "Language and Thinking," which is part of our core program for all of our students, and all faculty from all fields are encouraged to teach the course. And that's where I discovered the writer in me. At the Bard workshop, I discovered how much I love human beings and that I like to learn from them. That is when I started to write in earnest. Before long I had started a blog about Palestine called The Big Olive.
I started it with a woman I met at a wedding named Tala. I met Tala exactly two weeks before I went to that writing workshop, so all these things started to come together at the same time. Initially, the blog was supposed to be about Ramallah and about my return to the city, and how the city helped me really adjust. But it became more about growing close to this big Palestinian family of my husband's as well.
Another reason I felt I needed to write about the real Palestine was that I was traveling a lot through the West Bank doing school recruitment. I spent a lot of time traveling to the Abu Dis campus near Jerusalem, visiting Bethlehem, going from checkpoint to checkpoint. The blog became a place where I could examine what it was like to live in this growing, cosmopolitan city—Ramallah—and then going out and observing a culture that you don't see within the city.
Back when I was living in the U.S., I used to get asked about life in Palestine quite a lot by my friends there. I would tell them to imagine that you are commuting from New York City to a small town in New Jersey, which should be an hour drive. But in order to get there, you can't take the regular highway, you have to take all these back roads. And even the back roads aren't all open, and at any point in time, any of the state police might stop you and ask you questions for an hour or more without giving any reason. Suddenly most of your day, most of your work, has been commuting home. It's exhausting. That's what living in Palestine is like, and that's what I wanted to capture in my blog.
I'd always tell my American friends, "You take your freedom to move too much for granted." I remember being stuck in traffic going to JFK after my workshop with Bard in 2010. I was trying toget to the airport to go back to Palestine, and I was really getting antsy. I was with my friend, and I said something like, "Oh my God, I'm going to miss my plane, and I can't understand this traffic." And my friend looked at me and said, "What do you mean you can't understand this traffic? You're the one who lives it every day in Palestine." But that's the thing we take gridlock for granted in Palestine. It's possible to be surprised by terrible traffic in the United States. And so I think that's the difference between traveling here and there.
As Palestinians, we can't take any of our day-to-day plans for granted. I may plan to start my class at eleven o'clock, and on any day I could easily be fifteen minutes late, an hour late, no matter how early I left—for no reason other than a random pop-up checkpoint somewhere between home and school. There may not even be a tense situation or security reason for the pop-up checkpoint. It could be just because.
The stress of getting to work and then back home rules our lives. And now that I have children, I feel it's even further compounded. I have to get to daycare to get my children, and to bring them home so that I can have an hour with them during the day, so then I can put them to bed on time. And that's such a basic human want. That's something that working mothers all over the world have to worry about. But I have to worry about it several times over. Every day I have to figure out how I might improvise if I can't get to daycare to pick up my children on time.
This stress makes you age faster, I think. In certain areas of Palestine, you can cut the tension and serve it up on a platter. And it's because people are not able to be regular human beings, because they're completely controlled by these random obstacles that will stop life from happening.
When I was pregnant, I constantly feared that my water would break in Qalandiya and I'd be stuck. I had twins who were breech sideways, and so there was no room for them to come out. I couldn't have natural birth.knew that. And so, the last time I drove, I was about a week from giving birth. I went as far as making arrangements with a doctor in Bethlehem so that, should my water break, it would be easier to go to Bethlehem and give birth there than drive the few miles to my hospital. So I had a friend, and he agreed that he would have an ambulance on standby in Bethlehem that would come and pick me up at the drop of a hat and would take me right away to the French women's hospital in Bethlehem. He would also make sure that he was in contact with my OB/GYN, who could explain to him on the phone the details of my pregnancy. That's an extreme example, but the truth is that every time I leave the house, I have to have contingency plans. I never know how long it might take to run simple errands.
If you're in much of the U.S., you're pregnant with twins, and you work a few miles away from home and the hospital, you can get to any hospital at any time, no matter when your water breaks, no matter if your twins are breech, or both pointing downward with their heads and ready to be delivered naturally. You have that access. Here, you don't.
The only access from one city to the other is roads, and when those roads are blocked, then life stops. And that's how women end up giving birth at checkpoints. I wrote about giving birth at a checkpoint on my blog, and I was writing about my own fears. It was something that kept coming at me. And even when I was driving, I kept thinking, "What if I get stuck in this crazy traffic, and someone hits me, rear-ends me, and then I lose one of the babies because of the shock?"
For anyone who doesn't know the road Wadi Nar - actually, it's a little better now that the roads are a little bigger - but it's this winding, uphill road between Ramallah and the cities southeast of Jerusalem where trucks of all kinds and sizes and cars of all kinds and sizes are traveling two ways. There are no clear two lanes, and literally, when you are going up, look to your right, you're practically on the edge of a cliff. If your car gets hit, there's nowhere to go except down the valley.
I tell my friends that it's only by the grace of God that I make it from sunrise to sunset every day, and I go to Abu Dis, and I still have the energy to take care of two kids every day. The only way for me to de with this stress is to write. I've gotten such positive responses to the blog from everyone who reads it, but I'm not sure if I'm actually a good writer, or if people just want to be nice to me. And this is where one of my fears exists. It's not a fear, it's maybe that I'm not willing to believe that I'm good at something else other than science.
On the other hand, I found this open-armed place with this community where anything you write is up for discussion, and it's up for editing and up for improvement, and people are willing to read what you write. Because every time you write, you're putting yourself on that paper. And I'm always submitting pieces to an online magazine called This Week in Palestine, or just putting work up on the blog, and thinking, Dear God, please have mercy on me. There's a piece of me within those words. So don't let them batter it because it would break my heart. And so I'm in between, as a writer, I'm still searching for the voice. I don't know what narrative I'm going to take, I don't know what I am trying, I don't even know what story I'm telling.
So I'm still trying to find my voice. I'm not ready to give up science completely and just do writing. And at the same time, I can't just let the science take over, because I'm so extremely happy to finally have that part of me alive again.
THERE IS REAL SUFFERING OUTSIDE OF RAMALLAH
When the Bard program at Al-Quds was just getting started, we didn't have enough students to fill the classes. Besides teaching, I worked as a recruiter and traveled all around the West Bank to meet students. I traveled a lot in Bethlehem and recruited a lot of students from the refugee camps there. I also recruited quite a lot from around Hebron. Those trips were so valuable to me, because they reminded me that there is real suffering outside of Ramallah, beyond the day-to-day obstacles of checkpoints and uncertainty that I faced in moving around the West Bank.
I've seen that suffering touch my students. We recruited quite a lot from the refugee camps, and so I taught many of the young people I was recruiting. I remember one student took an intro organic chemistry class with me I always had to tell him to be quiet so I could get on with the lecture, because he was always asking questions. He was funny, sweet, handsome. One of the leaders in the program. Then in the middle of summer break, he disappeared for two weeks. His parents had no idea where he was—they just found his car abandoned in the street one day. He'd been arrested. And then when he returned to school in the fall, he was a completely changed person. He didn't say a single word all fall semester.
But I think the liberal arts approach here is valuable. The students really take to it—they flourish. We have students reading Greek philosophy, drama. And writing as well. I remember one assignment where students read the "to be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet and recast it from a Palestinian perspective. The students shared their work in class, and the results were chilling and powerful.
I hope my students will have an easier time than my generation has had. I hope they make the Palestinian cause the way they see it and not simply follow leaders whose ideas have expired. And I hope they stay alive. For my children, I hope they find liberation through education, and I hope that they choose the pen and the book before anything else. For myself, I want to continue to write, though my hopes for Palestine feel more and more crushed. I hope to never forget for a moment that whatever peace and prosperity I have in Ramallah is temporary - an illusion.
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Footnotes
¹ From the appendices -
IN WAITING by Riyam Kafri Abu Laban
The following prose poem was written by Riyam Kafri Abu Laban and is included here to stand in for sentiments expressed to us by nearly every one of our interviewees, whether their narratives were included in this collection or not.
Welcome to the land of waiting. People here are born waiting. Waiting to return to a homeland lost, and, from the looks of it, in the most desperate moments, lost forever.
Waiting to return to a home they still carry a key for in their hand, and a memory of in their heart; an image hidden in the folds of their dreams, and which, sadly, in the most realistic moments they know no longer exists.
In Palestine you wait for Ramadan, just like you wait for a breath of fresh air in a crowded restaurant in New York City. You wait for a permit to travel. You wait for schools to open, for the strike to end, for the checkpoint to be removed, for the accident rubble to be cleared. You wait for the Allenby Bridge to empty, for the doctor to finally come in on time.
In Palestine you wait. You wait for your dreams to come true.
You wait to leave the refugee camp, you wait to leave the village, you wait to arrive in Ramallah, you wait for destiny to embrace you—but she really never does. In fact, at the first stop she slaps you hard in the face and leaves her mark on you, and then you spend a lifetime waiting for that wound to heal. It never does.
In Palestine you wait to graduate, you wait to find a job, you wait for the next job to be better than the first.
In Palestine you wait to get married, then you wait to have children, then you wait for them to grow. Then you wait for them to become doctors—but trust me, they will not.
In Palestine you wait in line endlessly to receive permission to see the Palestine that is yours. And after you finally get a chance to see her, you realize she looks nothing like what your grandparents described, and nothing like the country your mother cries over. You wait to see her, only to realize that she has moved on, and did not wait for you.
In Palestine you wait for the birth of a child anxiously, with the hope she will not be born on a checkpoint.
In Palestine you wait for the hunger strike to end. You wait for sons and daughters to be released from prison—only to be rearrested again, at the next checkpoint while on their way to find a job and start a life.
In Palestine you wait for your paycheck only to have it hijacked by hungry loan payments and red hot gasoline prices.
In Palestine, you wait endlessly in Qalandiya to get home. Keep waiting. This might take hours.
You wait for the summer to end in the hope that winter will bring more peace, and you wait for winter to end in the hope that summer will bring more warmth.
In Palestine you wait for everything and everyone.
In Palestine you wait for the next eruption, the next Intifada, the next incursion, the next war—which always comes.
² Amman, the capital of Jordan, is a city of over 2 million residents.
³ Abu Dis is a city of around 12,000 people just east of Jerusalem and the location of one of Al-Quds University's campuses.
⁴ Al-Quds is a university system with three campuses-one in Jerusalem, one in Abu Dis just outside of Jerusalem, and one in Al-Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah. The system currently serves over 13,000 undergraduates.
⁵ Ramallah is a city of over 30,000 people. It has experienced rapid growth since it was adopted as a de facto administrative capital by the Palestinian Authority following the Oslo Accords. Numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and diplomatic outreach offices are also based in the city. Ramallah is located about ten miles northeast of Jerusalem, the city many Palestinians consider Palestine's true capital.
⁶ Birzeit University is a renowned public university located just outside Ramallah. It hosts approximately 8,500 undergraduates.
⁷ The First Intifada was an uprising throughout the West Bank and Gaza against Israeli military occupation. It began in December 1987 and lasted until 1993. Intifada in Arabic means "to shake off."
⁸ Israel carried out the mass arrest of Palestinian citizens during the First Intifada. More than 120,000 Palestinians were arrested or spent time in prison from 1987 to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.
⁹ Al-Bireh is a city of over 40,000 people just east of Ramallah.
¹⁰ The Friends School of Ramallah is a Quaker-run institution that was opened in 1889, during the time of Ottoman rule.
¹¹ The first Oslo Accords negotiations took place in Norway, the U.S., and France during the summer of 1993. The Accords outlined a plan for the Israeli military to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank in stages while further negotiations would be carried out regarding Palestinian statehood, security, borders, and Israeli settlements.
¹² Access to Jerusalem was significantly restricted to Palestinians from the West Bank before the Oslo Accords in 1993. Haifa is a city of 270,000 people in northern Israel. Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv in Israel, was home to many Arabs before 1948.
¹³ Earlham College is a Quaker-affiliated liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It has an enrollment of 1,210 students and has regularly accepted a large cohort of Palestinian students since the signing of the Oslo Accords.
¹⁴ Though a small portion of the barrier wall in the West Bank was constructed as early as 1994, construction of the wall increased rapidly in 2002.
¹⁵ Qalandiya is a refugee camp and city of nearly 30,000 located between Jerusalem and Ramallah. It's also the name of the nearby checkpoint, one of the biggest in the West Bank.
¹⁶ Bard College is a liberal arts college in Dutchess County, New York, on the Hudson River. It serves just over 2,000 undergraduate students. Bard formed an alliance with Al-Quds University in 2009, with the idea of bringing training in liberal arts education to Palestine.
¹⁷ The Mövenpick Hotel in Ramallah is part of a Swiss chain of international luxury hotels. The hotel in Ramallah was opened in the fall of 2010.
¹⁸ Abu Shusha was a Palestinian village of under 1,000 near the city of Ramla that was destroyed in the war of 1948. Zakariyya was a Palestinian village of just over 1,000 north-west of Hebron that was destroyed in the war of 1948.
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defjux · 1 year
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100 of my favorite non hip hop releases from 2022. I made a seperate list for hip hop already which you can find here if you’re interested. 2022 will go down as a memorable year for me not just for the sheer quantity of great releases, but also because i feel that all my of my favorite genres had a chance to shine. I started returning to my hardcore/punk/metal roots within the last couple years and 2022 was the first time in recent memory where I really felt like I was fully tapped in. There were so many highly anticipated releases from a ton of different artists last year, and the majority lived up to the hype for me. Grindcore, Mathcore, and Post-Hardcore seems to have been making a huge comeback with some incredible new efforts from modern genre staples like Wormrot, Callous Daoboys, Brutus, Greyhaven, Birds in row, Knoll, and Cloud Rat. Not to mention the much welcome return of some legendary acts including Gospel, Sawtooth Grin, and City of Caterpillar. I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff I missed out on too, so feel free to hit me with any recommendations you might have or just let me know what projects you enjoyed the most last year. Oh and you can also click the titles of any of these albums and it’ll take you to the bandcamp or spotify page where you can check them out if you’d like. Peace. Chart with album titles 1. Wormrot - Hiss 2. Alvvays - Blue Rev 3. Brutus - Unison Life 4. Cloud Rat - Threshold 5. Weyes Blood - And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow 6. Gospel - The Loser 7. Natalia Lafourcade - De todas las flores 8. Massa Nera - Derramar | Querer | Borrar 9. Messa - Close 10. Soul Glo - Diaspora Problems 11. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Omnium Gatherum 12. Cult of Luna - The Long Road North 13. tricot - Fudeki 14. White Ward - False Light 15. The Callous Daoboys - Celebrity Therapist 16. The Sawtooth Grin - Good. 17. Ultha - All That Has Never Been True 18. Joel Ross - The Parable Of The Poet 19. Autonoesis - Moon of Foul Magics 20. Knoll - Metempiric 21. Joyce Moreno - Natureza 22. Birds in Row - Gris Klein 23. Artificial Brain - Artificial Brain 24. Wake - Thought Form Descent 25. Tómarúm - Ash In Realms Of Stone Icons 26. Greyhaven - This Bright and Beautiful World 27. Sudan Archives - Natural Brown Prom Queen 28. Nilüfer Yanya - PAINLESS 29. Mary Halvorson - Amaryllis 30. Celeste - Assassine(s) 31. Naked Flames - Miracle in Transit 32. Elephant Gym - Dreams 33. Cave In - Heavy Pendulum 34. Silvana Estrada - Marchita 35. Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double - March 36. Imperial Triumphant - Spirit Of Ecstasy 37. Blind Girls - The Weight of Everything 38. Chat Pile - God's Country 39. fleshwater - We're Not Here to Be Loved 40. Fievel Is Glauque - Flaming Swords
41. Melody's Echo Chamber - Emotional Eternal 42. NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM - Set Chaos To The Heart Of The Moon 43. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava 44. An Abstract Illusion - Woe 45. Sigh - SHIKI 46. City of Caterpillar - Mystic Sisters 47. Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You 48. Conjurer - Páthos 49. Kali Malone - Living Torch 50. Krallice - Crystalline Exhaustion 51. Aeviterne - The Ailing Facade 52. Scarcity - Aveilut 53. The Comet Is Coming - Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam 54. Makaya McCraven - In These Times 55. Misþyrming - Með hamri 56. Loraine James - Building Something Beautiful For Me 57. Knxwledge. - 家​.​V1 58. Hylda - Juniper Pyre 59. Gillian Carter - Salvation Through Misery 60. Beach House - Once Twice Melody 61. Angles - A Muted Reality 62. Hatchie - Giving The World Away 63. Daniel Rossen - You Belong There 64. Pyrithe - Monuments to Impermanence 65. Otoboke beaver - SUPER CHAMPON 66. The Orielles - Tableau 67. Sunrise Patriot Motion - Black Fellflower Stream 68. Blut aus Nord - Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses 69. Helpless - Caged In Gold 70. Immanuel Wilkins - The 7th Hand 71. Mizmor & Thou - Myopia 72. The Wind in the Trees - Architects of Light 73. Daniel Avery - Ultra Truth 74. Rolo Tomassi - Where Myth Becomes Memory 75. Show Me The Body - Trouble The Water 76. Sault - 11 77. Bríi - Corpos Transparentes 78. Sweet Pill - Where the Heart Is 79. Vein.FM - This World is Going to Ruin You 80. Ravyn Lenae - Hypnos 81. Disheveled Cuss - Into the Couch 82. Aoife Nessa Frances - Protector 83. Niechęć - Unsubscribe 84. Elder - Innate Passage 85. Raum - Daughter 86. Viagra Boys - Cave World 87. Chalk Hands - Don't Think About Death 88. Boris - fade 89. Nouns - WHILE OF UNSOUND MIND 90. ANNA SAGE - Anna Sage 91. Nu Genea - Bar Mediterraneo 92. JYOCHO - Let's Promise to Be Happy 93. Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There 94. Waajeed - Memoirs of Hi-Tech Jazz 95. Petrol Girls - Baby 96. DIM - Steeped Sky, Stained Light 97. lilien rosarian - every flower in my garden 98. Work Money Death - Thought, Action, Reaction, Interaction 99. A.A. Williams - As The Moon Rests 100. Vital Spirit - Still as the Night, Cold as the Wind
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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
April 10, 2023
Heather Cox Richardson
“Justin Jones is reentering the chamber at the Tennessee State Legislature to tremendous applause.” So said an MSNBC commentator today, after the Nashville Metro Council voted to return Democratic state representative Justin J. Jones to the Tennessee General Assembly. Last week, Republicans expelled Jones and his colleague Justin Pearson, who represents parts of Memphis, for breaches of decorum after they joined with protesters to call for gun safety legislation in the wake of a school shooting last week that left six people, including three 9-years-olds, dead. The colleague who protested with them, Gloria Johnson, survived a motion to expel her, too, by a single vote. The vote to reinstate Jones to the legislature in an interim seat, until a new election can be held, was 36 to 0. After the vote, Jones led a march of thousands of people—mostly young people, from the look of the video—back to the Tennessee Capitol building where he was sworn back into office on the Capitol steps. Once sworn back into office, Jones reentered the legislative chamber arm in arm with Representative Johnson. To great applause, he walked through the chamber, fist held high, past Republican representatives who sat silent and pretended not to see him, as the galleries cheered. The Shelby County Commission will vote on a replacement for Representative Justin J. Pearson on Wednesday. It can, if it chooses, return Pearson to his former seat until a special election can be held. In a statement yesterday, Chair Mickell Lowery of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners, a Democrat, said, “The protests at the State Capitol by citizens recently impacted by the senseless deaths of three 9-year-old children and three adults entrusted with their care at their school was understandable given the fact that the gun laws in the State of Tennessee are becoming nearly non-existent. It is equally understandable that the leadership of the State House of Representatives felt a strong message had to be sent to those who transgressed the rules.” Lowery went on to say: “However, I believe the expulsion of State Representative Justin Pearson was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods.“ Mickell noted that he was one of the more than 68,000 citizens stripped of their state representation by the state legislature and said he was “certain that the leaders in the State Capitol understand the importance of this action on behalf of the affected citizens here in Shelby County, Tennessee, and that we stand ready to work in concert with them to assist with only positive outcomes going forward.” Yesterday, representatives Jones and Johnson flew from Nashville to Newark, and it happened that Joan Baez, the folk music legend, was on the same airplane. In the Newark airport, Jones asked Baez to sing with him. As Johnson filmed them, together they sang two spiritual-based freedom songs that became anthems in the Civil Rights Era: “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” and “We Shall Overcome.”
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
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iapetusneume · 2 months
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What about "5 + 1 Sanguinius Hair Fic"? <3
Ok. So, Sanguinius has the ability to change the color of his hair and eyes. It can be debated how much control he has over this. Canon says its based on his moods, but Canon is also very strange, so I liked the idea that he has a bit more control over it. Or, at least, he could get some more control with practice. My other theories are that
If Sanguinius wants to practice some of his magic psychic powers, he should definitely ask his brother where that's his whole bag (Magnus the Red)
This is a generally-known fact among his brothers. But at one time it wasn't known, right??
The 5+1 part is the typical fanfic convention. I don't have a great title or description to this fic yet, but it would be something along the lines of "5 times Sanguinius surprised his brothers with his color-chamging hair, and 1 time he didn't.
The Snippet!
It had started harmlessly enough, over a glass of wine. The wine was delicious, but nothing close to impairing the judgment of a primarch. No one quite believed Magnus when he said it was Sanguinius’ idea, but that was fine with him. His only regret was not being able to see the reactions himself.
Bringing the Blood Angels' most recent target into compliance with the Imperium had taken quite a bit longer than Sanguinius would have liked. Within the first 36 hours of engaging with the residents of the target, he realized that the intel the Blood Angels had received was… incomplete. It was rare that an engagement would have zero surprises, but this was almost embarrassing. He would have word with the scouts that brought him this information.
The Blood Angels had been fortunate enough that the Thousand Sons were close by, and in between engagements. They were able to come and assist, and that was the extra push that was needed. And while Magnus would need to leave soon to get back to his own expedition, they did have time to spend at least an afternoon together.
Seeing himself as the ‘host,’ since this was originally his campaign, Sanguinius invited Magnus to the Red Tear, to his private chambers.
It was only an hour after Sanginius had sent the invitation that Azkaellon sent him a message. “Sire, Primarch Magnus has arrived. Shall I show him in?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Of course.”
The doors to his private chambers slid open, and Azkaellon walked in. He stepped to the side, and bowed to Sanguinius. He held his bow as Magnus walked in.
Sanguinius gestured with his hand for Azkaellon to rise. “Thank you, Azkaellon. Now, I would like to spend some time with my brother alone.”
“Yes, my lord,” he said, and walked out.
Sanguinius rose and walked over to Magnus, giving him a hug, which Magnus warmly returned. “It’s good to see you in the flesh and not over a hololith,” he said. “When was the last time we were in the same room?”
“Altogether too long,” Sanguinius said.
“Correct, but not very specific,” Magnus said, chuckling.
“This is not a battle report, I can forgo a little precision,” Sanguinius said.
.
(Want to play? Here is the original post.)
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ginevrafangirl · 10 months
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Love Between Fairy And Devil Commentary Part 3
The final one! Excerpts from my reactions while watching episodes 25-36! Apologies for the delay
Part 1 | Part 2
SPOILERS ahead!
when did shangque fall in love with her anyway i feel like it snuck up on me. like it was obvious it was going to happen, but the how happened subtly
the grooms need to get DRESSED
it would be hilarious if girlie and sauron get together now and kiss and people see and incest rumors cause the weddings to fall apart
wow sauron looks SO weird with his hair up
a red wedding is about to happen // its snowing as well for maximum effect
he cannot control hellfire well anymore he really should not be doing this
i love that him being 'injured' means he got eyeliner and dark lipstick
she didnt fail the tribulation besties she is fine
FINALLY we get a badass moment from girlie
wdym 'why cant i control hellfire' its obviously cause you have emotions again
have i mentioned how much i hate jin guangshan
did she just feed him her blood to heal? what in the svsss?
girlie's 'i want to jump into the river' after getting caught locking lips was so cute
also why is everyone acting like they dont know why sauron cant use hellfire // i mean he was against her restoring his emotions for this very reason??
god i knew they were gonna be disgustingly cute
i think jieli was prettier in the mortal clothes but girlie is definitely more gorgeous in her immortal robes
i really appreciate the little comedic moments scattered through this show
omg this is beautiful // the women singing together for the return of their men // very avatar like
DAMN that was an eventful two episodes // the wedding happened, batman appeared, everything went to plan, batmans identity was revealed, girlie and sauron finally kinda got together, danyin and ice man came back and girlie's true identity was also revealed
its so crazy that they are saying they need to settle the score as if sauron hasnt regularly whooped jack frost's ass completely
girlie you were happy as a mortal cause you were rich
omg she is literally 'i see you as a nice friend'-ing him rn. i didn't expect this level of self awareness
sauron feeling proud of dragon boy for scoring a date
sorry dragon boy jieli is a businessminded woman
i feel like a matchmaking auntie watching these cuties together
oh good batman backstory // he literally has no parents. but he is also blind like a bat. and uses sound - the flute. // i am a genius
HAN PU!????????? baby batman is HAN PU (who rules the world reference)
also batman is literally luo binghe (svsss reference)
good for jin guangshan and jack frost's mom for running away and escaping this madness
frostie is suicidal. cue the beat boxing song
YES GO FULL HIPPIE ICEY BOY
that man did NOT swallow
DANYIN? danyin is the baby??? then why does the pregnant lady look like jieli???
i am 99% convinced fake old god is gonna die
this is a very random last minute storyline/backstory that i did seriously not see coming
has jieli been a plant by catwoman and batman this whole time?? thats why she cant reciprocate dragon's feelings?
shangque stop saying you'll forgive her manipulating you
damn the whole city gathered to stop him from getting laid
he wants to mawwy herrr
this is why dating villains is fun, they truly dont give a fuck about right or wrong, just you. great romance
he didnt go to hang locks! does he need to get the spike in him right NOW?
that punishment is so awful sauron become 3D in a 2D show
there is lightning! are they gonna kiss kiss body swap again?
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why dont they just tell emo boy girlie isnt a fairy, she is the goddess of xishun
this conflict is seriously so unneccessary, she is a GODDESS
the people on twitter were right, this does get only better as you keep watching
thats not a cave, thats a torture chamber
and he decided to share her pain // ofcourse he did
thats a long ass wig
i thought he was gonna carry her but them walking hand in hand is so much better
ice man and jin guangshan's fathers name is lord DONG that is amazing
wowwwwww danyin just confessed her love in front of EVERYONE // balls // she has got balls
girlie's true identity was the fix-it of everything huh
dragon boy is brave to the point of stupid giving jieli all his money // omg is she finally accepting him // i wonder what they will get up to in his dragon form
now wtf is happening here
plot is now aiming at killing girlie i see
i dont see how he didnt see the loss of hellfire coming from miles away after he got his emotions back, i mean wasnt he so opposed to it for this very reason??
i cant believe they hurt my babygirl dragon boy
the phrase "menacing fairies" is quite funny
sauron just wants to live in domestic bliss but the plot wants WAR
i love the meek obedient expression sauron gets on his face around girlie
he is too smart to work with an obviously evil swirling dark cloud // right?
mr sauron i thought you werent gonna lie to her
she has gotten good at setting boundaries
is he possesed rn or just what is happening
i hope the war lives up to the hype, unlike who rules the world // i mean we have been talking about it for literally 30 episodes
the crazy thing is that if he had been straight up with her and told her why she has to die she would have killed herself easily
jieli is fucking smart
I GET IT NOW // he cant take off the bone orchid cause she is devoted to him, so he has break her heart so he can take it off
oooo is it time for ✨war✨
for two opposing armies the fairy realm and demon realm sure have the exact same armour
i think even if she tries to kill herself she wont die cause of special goddess powers
ooooo i think he will use the evil qi and then girlie will purify it
wow her screams of pain are quite intense
honestly i am sick of lady war just having no agency in this story // like lets have her come back to life and tell off batman please
ohhh its the long awaited batman vs iceman fight
they sure picked a place with terrible visibility for this war huh
who tf is qingchuan???
after all this time iceman just now found out batman is ronghao?
love how lady si ming still hasnt shown up again // though i do still believe she will
i knew it!! her magic dust brought everyone back to life
that god(dess) for better visibility amirite
wait are they still pretending she isnt gonna live
sauron doesnt have enough sand on his face, he face planted multiple times. i need him to be coughing up sand
oh wow she is actually disintigrating thanos snap style
why is jieli not just telling dragon boy the truth that she was poisoned? is it cause she knows catwoman is gonna come after her and she doesnt want him to get hurt?
and now batmans all happy and shit?? rude
omg stop manipulating lady war i am sick and tired of her agency being taken away
awwww this is a very cute sequence if not for the fact that he is definitely dreaming
wow watching sauron smile with all his teeth is weirddd
so i guess the remaining 5 eps will be him trying to get girlie back
if dragon boi dies i am gonna riot
oh its a dream sharing incense burner!
woooooow hot take from ice man there 'she will come back from death cause she hasnt married me yet'
i love the juxtaposition of the chaos irl and the serenity in his dream
i am really confused about the girlie marrying iceman prophecy because there is no way thats gonna happen right? unless she has some serious memory loss or something
i am so confused about ronghao's feeling towards lady war
jin guangshan is a fucking bitch
hah i knew lady si ming was gonna turn up
what a power couple though lady si ming and her dragon living together forever
popping back in to say i was right about the memory loss (i stopped in the last few eps cause i was tired lol)
i hate memory loss tropes btw // her memories better come back
did lady war just off danyin?? // misdirect
after i was done i had some last words to say
the ending wasnt bad exactly, plot wise, but i missed the light hearted tone of the show in the last six episodes and also why do we get more fluff in the middle than at the end??
all i wanted was to see them getting married and sitting on the moon throne as king and queen
and not a single jielie/shangque kiss?? we were ROBBED
And that's it folks!! Overall a very fun and enjoyable experience, would recommend!
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