#separation wall

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

“How would that carpenter and his pregnant wife have circumnavigated the Kafka­esque network of Israeli settlements, roadblocks and closed military zones in the occupied West Bank? Would Mary have had to experience labor or childbirth at a checkpoint, as one in 10 pregnant Palestinian women did between 2000 and 2007?... ‘If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed,’ declared Father Ibrahim Shomali, a Catholic priest of the city’s Beit Jala parish, in December 2011. ‘Mary and Joseph would have needed Israeli permission – or to have been tourists.’"

- Medhi Hasan, 2014

Click here for this poem in shareable text form, plus more reflection, images, & information.

[huariqueje]

Wood on Concrete - Khaled Hourani , 2022.

Palestinian , b. 1965 -

Acrylic on canvas , 28 × 24 4/5 in. 71 × 63 cm.

[scatteredprayerbeads]

from "Separation Wall" by Naomi Shihab Nye

When the milk is sour, it separates.

...

They say they are scared of us. The nuclear bomb is scared of the cucumber.

...

We would like the babies not to find out about the failures waiting for them. I would like them to believe on the other side of the wall is a circus that just hasn’t opened yet. Our friends, learning how to juggle, to walk on tall poles.

...

read or listen to the full poem here.

[instereospace]

Rather than seeing it as a conflict of two equal parties having a dispute over land, understand that what’s happening here is colonisation of land [and] ethnic cleansing of native people. Maybe make a connection with your own history: especially if you come from Europe, if you come from America, if you come from Australia. [Our] own history is very often taken away from us. We don’t often learn in our schools what our ancestors did to the native population. Maybe start to realise that yeah, as a white privileged person, my ancestors caused a lot of suffering. Just becoming aware of that can already change how you act in life with people around you. Back home you can see the result now, with native people having to fight for equality and justice, and being treated as if they were the immigrants, as if they are the newcomers, the people who don’t understand, who need to be educated.  

But they were the people who lived there long before the Europeans came and took over. And this is what’s happening here now. We see that Israel is making reservations by making walls, checkpoints, [and] settlements. The reality is that Palestinians are allowed to take care of their own municipal services and to get money from abroad to make sure that the reservation is liveable, but they have no say about exiting and entering the reservation, about freedom of movement, about trade, about borders. They don’t have their own currency. They are completely reliant on the country that occupies them. They’re going to end up the same as what we see now in other coloniser countries. So look at it in this way, from this perspective. Then maybe it will also teach you a lesson about how you can be part of a movement for equal rights back home. – Kristel

[lotussart]

pov: you are narinder

[freshfrenchtoast]

Kageyama's backstory only being revealed near the very end of the series is really interesting from a meta perspective.

For reference, his chapter is 387 out of 402. That's 96% of the way in.

To contrast, other characters like Tsukishima and Yamaguchi's backstories are shown in Chapters 87-88.

Now, we do get the explanation for his "King of the Court" title in Chapter 6, at the start of the series, but we don't see how he got to that point, or why he started playing volleyball in the first place like Tsukishima's and Yamaguchi's stories show.

It creates this situation where, despite being the deuteragonist, the character our protagonist, Hinata, is practically glued to the entire series, we barely know anything about him.

We don't even know he has a sister until that point whereas other characters' siblings like Natsu, Saeko, Akiteru, Alisa have all made appearances way before then. Even Oikawa's sister, though we don't see her, we at least know she exists because of Takeru.

He's both closed off to us (the audience) as well as the other characters in the series, and this results in them finding him rude or disliking his character in general (see: the "Kageyama is abusive" discourse that somehow keeps popping up even now).

Chapter 387 takes place in 2018 and was published in 2020 so it takes him 6 years of in-universe time and 8 years of irl time to really open up.

And the catalyst for all of this is Hinata fulfilling his promise of beating him.

You see, another thing to note is that, whenever Hinata thinks of Kageyama, he's always looking at him from behind.

His internal image of him is someone who's always up ahead, someone he needs to catch up to, meaning Hinata can only see one side of him, he cannot see all of Kageyama until he catches up and passes him.

Which he finally does here.

In this shot Hinata is finally the one who's looking back at Kageyama. At this moment, Hinata (and by extension the audience) can see him for all he is, can see how he was just a lonely boy who's been waiting for someone to meet him where he is, to keep running alongside him and not quit the race.

Someone he doesn't have to go easy on. Someone who would actually tell him to hurry up instead of slow down for a change.

His someone better.

[class1akids]

Always stuck on the other side of the glass. Can never cross paths, except by violence.

[emo-batboy]

Things Battinson Totally Did During His First Year of University

Using Unhinged or Odd Things I Also Did as a College Freshman :D

Note: for this list, let’s believe Bruce was living in an (admittedly expensive and swanky) dorm because it is required for first-years, especially those entering at a young age, and Alfred told him he needed to make friends. Also yes I did every single thing on this list. I never claimed to be a role model

Bruce, to his TA: I’m so sorry I’m late to class. I gave blood a few hours ago and almost fainted on the way here, but it won’t happen again.

Signs up for a class called “Age of Dinosaurs” despite it not being required whatsoever and proceeds to work his entire schedule around it

Bruce: Your mental health is super important. If you think you should see the on-campus therapist, go see them. Friend: Fine. I’ll sign up for therapy if you sign up for therapy too. Bruce: Hold on-

Finds a loophole in his housing contract that allows him to get a pet frog, calls him kermit :)

Gets a second frog because Kermit was lonely, names it Constantine after Muppets Most Wanted, then realizes that they’re gay for each other. Wonders if the rainbow-colored rocks he got them triggered anything

Swings dramatically between calling Alfred every single day and ghosting him for weeks, cries when he realizes what he did

“Accidentally” joins the student body council, doesn’t know what he’s doing, gets re-elected anyway

Molds a dragon out of Laffy Taffy instead of doing his work

Bruce: *joins Honors, gets all A’s, takes the max amount of classes, has several minors, overachieves* Also Bruce: I’m a failure.

Breaks into a building after hours to study because NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AT THE LIBRARY

Bruce: I will not get seasonal depression this year. Bruce: *gets real and seasonal depression that year*

Meticulously schedules his day with a color-coded planner because if he sits down for too long, the thoughts will consume him

Gives a presentation to his rhetoric class on how much he likes Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (it is 20 minutes long)

Successfully allocates funding from the student body council to pay for free feminine products in the dorms OUT OF SPITE because someone said it couldn't be done. fuck you, Andrew

Bruce: It is not an all-nighter if I go to sleep before my first class. Friend: It is 7:30am, the sun is in the sky, and your first class is at 12:30. Bruce: But I am getting sleep.

Refuses to go anywhere without his backpack because what if he needs three notebooks at once

Loses over 20 pounds because ✨stress✨ and scares the shit out of Alfred when he comes home for Thanksgiving

Argues with his TA over the one (1) question he got wrong on his Dinosaur exam

Bruce, calling Alfred: Hello father figure. How do I do taxes? Do I have to do them myself? Also, I think I’m having a panic attack.

Joins in on a charity arts-and-crafts project that gives kids books with matching activities made by volunteers, proceeds to commandeer the project because “it’s not color-blind friendly” and rewrites the instructions for everyone

Makes a murder wall

Goes to one (1) sports game and proceeds to leave in the first ten minutes because it’s way too loud wtf is wrong with people

Professor, addressing the lecture hall: I dare you to write an essay about these two sentences. Bruce: *writes an essay about six words, gets a 100, never even read the book*

Crawls into the ceiling for some alone time

Ghosts someone after a date because he’s too scared to tell them he didn’t know it was a date in the first place and now he feels bad

Classmate: How tf does he walk across campus that fast? I go in the same direction he does on my bike, and he’s always ahead of me. Bruce: *is gay sprinting to Dinosaur class*

Refuses to let others use his Favorite Pen TM

Constantly gets mistaken for a Grad Student because he is “so wise and mature” (bestie, that’s the autism)

Alfred: *casually mentions he got into a car accident through text* Bruce: *replies with a meme while hyperventilating because he doesn’t know what to do with that information??!*

Wears a suit to one of his finals

Regularly eats non-organic food for the first time in his life, proceeds to learn about several allergies Alfred forgot to mention he has

Writes “What is a Hot Pocket?” in calligraphy and proceeds to laugh his ass off alone in his dorm because he is so exhausted he’s reached the point of delusion

Locks himself out of his dorm right before class, frantically asks the floor group chat if someone can help, proceeds to tell the nice gay man on the floor who saved him “I love you” because his social skills have hit rock bottom

Makes a little music album display next to his desk for his favorite band (Nirvana) His friends call it a shrine, and they are technically correct

Has a blacklist of people he refuses to interact with because Reasons

Counselor: What do you want to do when you graduate? Bruce: *gestures vaguely*

Refuses to take the bus because there are people in there and he doesn’t like those

Loses one of his frogs, how tf did he do that, they’re fully aquatic, oh fuck, this is probably why they got rid of that loophole a year later because unbeknownst to Bruce, he accidentally started a frog revolution in the dorms, btw he SWEARS he did not mean to do that

Has two trash cans in his room: one for the Good Garbage, and one for the Bad Garbage. Only Bruce knows which is which

Bruce: *writes a creative piece about a ship’s final thoughts as it sinks, bringing its passengers down with it* TA: Absolutely lovely, Bruce, but are you okay?

Goes on Night Walks, keeps himself safe by maintaining a level 12 resting bitch face at all times

Earns the nickname “8th floor cryptid” after pacing the halls at 3am when it’s too cold for Night Walks (honestly tho how tf didn’t he get the nickname earlier?)

Bruce: Do you think a depressed person could do this? Bruce: *has a manic episode*

Okay that's all love you BYE

[arcade-confetti]

Some quick Twitter au based on this post because I can't stop thinking about it

[waterfallofspace]

when someone has a defined sneeze, not a quick cough-adjacent, or a rapid/small "eshh/ishh/tshh" type, a vocal, lengthy, defined one

think "hih'ttzshh'chiew!" or "hh'atchshew!" or "eh'rrschh'oo!"

one where you can hear each section, the breathy inhale (hihh-), the vocal release (tschh-), and the whining/relieved end (shhiew-!)

just something about getting all those parts in the experience, hearing the clear sections of a sneeze~

+ bonus points for being vocal enough to hear their voice in it~

[fooltofancy]

16 lupin ln - plot 16 6th ward, lavender beds (leviathan)

[heyitsluluagain]

Parallels in Queer (2024), dir. Luca Guadagnino

[julesnichols]

Okay bear with me here because I've got brain fog and tend to word salad but I'm gonna try my fucking best--

Everyone who insists that shipping/romance isn't the point of Severance and that anyone who ships is missing the REAL point about what capitalism does is also missing the fucking point, because it's BOTH

Because yes, it's about what capitalism does and the evils of giant corporations. But it's also about love, and specifically two things about love:

1. That falling in love when you're not supposed to, when you're trapped in hell, is one of the most revolutionary things you can do in a system that wants to crush you into dust. In a system that wants you to obey, loving somebody instead of giving in or giving up IS the most revolutionary choice you can make. This corporation can tell you that you're less than human, they can torture you, but you can still carve out a life and a family and find romantic love, too

and

2. That you cannot create a version of yourself that exists solely to do labor for his entire life so that you can cease to exist for forty hours of the week to escape your grief, and not face the consequences of that action

I think I've made my point about the first one enough as is, so let me just get into the second a bit more:

Mark Scout was choking on his grief over losing Gemma. He drowned himself in alcohol to cope, and either lost or left his job that he loved. He took a job that involved brain surgery to split his consciousness in half rather than confront his grief head on; he can choose not to exist for forty hours of his week, and spend the other hours either drunk out of his mind or asleep (the consequences of drinking being something that bleed into his innie as well).

I think that anyone who's dealt with a traumatic and painful loss can relate to why he would do such a thing. Isn't it understandable, if you had a way to not exist for a while, that you would take it without hesitation? That if you were drowning and confronting it would mean more pain before it got better, you'd run from it if you could?

But what Severance wants us to do is go beyond sympathizing with Mark Scout: it asks us to consider the consequences. Because in severing himself for a reason people can sympathize with him for, he created a version of himself that exists solely to work for his entire life, with no breaks, no rest, and torture tactics when he fucks up-- no matter how small the fuck up may be.

A version of himself without his memories, who has trickles of his grief but none of the love to go with it. Who falls in love with someone he meets down there, because Mark S. was created so that Mark Scout could avoid his grief and his love for Gemma. And thus, Mark S. moved on, because he never knew anything else.

Then Mark Scout finds out that Gemma is alive. He reintegrates without his innie's consent, because he views Mark S. as inferior to him and entitled to his memories. Their relationship is inherently exploitative.

Mark S. and Helly's relationship progresses further. Helena Eagan stalks Mark Scout. And here's something that gets me: you have to have your head buried six feet deep in the fucking sand to not see that they were flirting.

A sane person would've run when Helena awkwardly bragged about who she was and offered to bring Mark Scout to her father. But Mark Scout escalates it, turning it into a flirtatious joke about her taking him home to dad. And yes, he does ultimately go for more brain surgery because he feels guilty and spooked that he was flirting with Helena. Because he escalated the flirting.

Again, you have to be deep in denial to not see that. It relates back to the point about how he feels entitled to his innie's memories and experiences: he feels guilty and unsettled, so he tries to absorb more of them in hopes of more glimpses of Gemma to help him find and save her.

Again, can't you sympathize with that?

And again, the show asks you to consider the ramifications beyond that.

(note: I am on the side that innies and outies aren't cut and dry separate people as they are the same base people with different memories and lived experiences, akin to amnesia)

The first thing that Mark Scout remembers is Mark S. having sex with Helly, specifically as he watches her orgasm for the first time while he's inside of her. An extremely intimate moment, and it's intentional that it's that and not another flash of Gemma. Because the show, once again, is asking the audience to consider the consequences of Mark Scout's actions in severing himself.

And Mark S. recognizes that Mark Scout is exploiting him at the end! Mark Scout demands he find Gemma, save her, and be willing to die (because even if he reintegrates, NEITHER of them will be the same-- I'll come back to this in a sec). He belittles what Mark S. has with Helly and the life he's made for himself. He dehumanizes him. Because Mark Scout created Mark S. to escape, to do labor for him, and again-- he wanted to use him to get Gemma and then cast him aside, furthering how he dehumanizes and exploits him... and there are consequences to that action.

Back to the thing about reintegration I said I'd get back to: the characters within show, and quite frankly a large swath of the audience, thinks that it's Mark Scout absorbing Mark S.'s memories, and just still being Mark Scout with those memories. And yet, the show has shown us that this isn't the case. Petey says his earliest memories of the severed floor feel as far back as his childhood! What I think reintegration does, is create a new version of innie and outie, with both their memories. And that it's probably reliant more on harmony of goals and desires than forcing it; but again, the outies view the innies as inferior. Even the people in the show who claim to advocate against severance don't consider the innies human enough to consider what'll happen to them.

And so of course Mark S. chooses himself for the first time in his life at the end of the season. Because once again, the show asks you to look beyond the surface and consider the consequences.

And yet, too much of the audience also subconsciously (or consciously sometimes tbh) thinks of innies as subhuman, and miss the entire fucking point. Yes, there are obnoxious shippers; there always fucking are in large fandoms, use the block button as God intended. But you are being equally obnoxious and obtuse if you insist that the show does not want us to consider love and romance, too. Because again, it's about both the evils of capitalism and how revolutionary love can be, and how you cannot escape your actions. You cannot separate those two themes, because the show uses the romances in the show as vehicles to explore the evils and consequences of capitalism.

So stop fucking saying everybody who ships things doesn't understand the show, and actually watch it yourself, because clearly you don't either.

[gin-juice-tonic]

A healthy stable adjusted person probably wouldnt have a giant stack of trash in their apartment in the first place, but if they did after they cleaned and got rid of the trash pile i imagine they would think "Whew. I'm glad that trash pile is gone. I feel better about my new lack of trash pile."

Meanwhile, I clean out the trash pile and for 2 days now I've been thinking "i miss that trash pile"

[smileposting]

while i think every god deserves a good ol’-fashioned “what if they snapped instead of inspekta” AU, i think the reason i have a hard time buying most villain!thespius scenarios is bc i haven’t seen, like. Any that have offered a convincing explanation as to Why he would go down the villain route. usually they default to either “idk i just thought he would look cool” (respectable but generally i crave something a little meatier when it comes to AUs) or “idk maybe he waited too long for click clack and got emo about it” (we’ve already seen what he looks like when he’s emo about it - he doesn’t become a murderous Nice Guy™️, he mopes and writes more plays)

HOWEVER

thespius in-game is kind of hesitant to rock the boat irl despite pushing boundaries with his art, right? how many celebrities can you think of who ended up crashing out and making themselves as unpalatable as possible because they were too nice to say no? to predatory business deals, to pushy fans who insist they know their fave better than they know themselves, to doomed collabs, etc.? because i can think of Quite A Few.

just some food for thought!