#to add legitimacy or whatever

[shadowfoxsilver]

Some quick tips to spotting accounts that are pretending to be a Palestinian needing mutual aid. Please keep in mind that not all of them are scam accounts, and that some may legitimate blogs who just aren’t too knowledgeable on how tumblr works. This guide is based around what I go by when checking certain blogs and usually it’s a quick giveaway the blog is a scam.

1. You was sent the ask as someone who regularly shares Palestine related content such as regular news updates of posts by other Palestinians who are regularly giving updates. You may also get these asks from sharing a popular post that is from the Palestine tag. If you post often about Palestine, you will always start getting these asks. These askers don’t care if you state don’t send the asks. They will anyway. Unfortunately minors also get sent asks.

2. The ask has odd formatting such as having odd quotation marks in it or unusual formatting that may indicate it’s been edited and copied from somewhere else. Often the ask is the same thing as the post itself minus a link to a donation site. These asks rarely change so searching it should pull up if it’s been sent to other bloggers and sometimes the asks are edited only to add new phrases to them in time.

3. The account is almost always a few days old or a week old or long depending on how often they have sent asks. Usually some may even be an hour old and reusing a familiar pfp/ask.

4. The blog has a few Palestine related posts or posts from random tags reblogged to pad out length and then no more. They will have no original posts besides the pinned post while occasionally answering asks that they may have received but otherwise nothing else and no further updates given either.

5. They may have a Linktree link that is called “GoFundMe” as if indicating they have a GoFundMe there. However, they don’t. When clicked on, the Linktree actually goes to a PayPal account whose name may not even match the one their supposed name is. They’ll say it’s a friend, but it’s just the same person not someone else. You’ll see this same name across multiple accounts after a while usually giving away it’s not legitimate even under a different theme.

6. The text used by the blogs are often real stories stolen from legitimate fundraisers and searching parts of it in your preferred search engine should pull up the sources. These sources make no mention of a tumblr account either or don’t have the PayPal account associated with them in the info. Scammers often impersonate a real person in need and will ignore you if you show them the source they copied from.

7. Legitimate Palestinians often link to their own GoFundMe posts that their friends have set up or post links to other social platforms they are found on. They will regularly post updates when possible, post sources to support them when necessary, and also generally have some method of verifying their legitimacy. They may often share links to support others as well or give links to charities that have been shown as reliable. They will have more original posts than just a single pinned one and regularly speak to other tumblr accounts beyond just an ask. Please don’t bother them with asks about possible scam accounts. There are many guides out there that can do that for you if you search. You may find verified fundraisers too.

8. Scammers don’t know anything about Palestine and will often have trouble once you ask them anything beyond the mutual aid post. They don’t know the languages decently and you can tell it pretty easily if you’re one who uses it regularly. Whatever the scammers use is often just copied off the site they got the post from. Sometimes the text is just reused from past scams such as asking for insulin that doesn’t last long.

9. These scammers can and will use names stolen off real Palestinians to look more legitimate and trustworthy. They change names constantly once one of their PayPal accounts is shut down.

10. If you do see a GoFundMe link on a blog, don’t immediately assume it’s a scam just because it’s a relatively new account. Check the post notes to see if anyone’s verified the account yet or wait a bit as it takes time. You likely can search around to see if anyone’s posted anything where the blog has been vetted by others. You may also see if the GoFundMe is referred to on other socials or on lists that compile verified and vetted fundraisers.

Please don’t let these scams deter you from sending support where it needs to go. Even if you can’t donate personally, there are other ways to help. If you are sending money, please make sure that it’s going to where it’s needed and the place it’s sent has been verified accordingly. If you find a blog is a scammer, and have been able to prove it, please make sure to alert anyone sharing the post and report the account.

[inazuma-fulgur]

Accepting unpleasant and weird to you things and just letting them exist should be more normal

[hana-no-seiiki]

Oh! Question ⁉️ when you said some villains that villain cat MC have or had relationship with, who are those villains is having relationship with them ( maybe heros too bc let's be honest here, there's a lot of ships out there cannon or not) well except for Jason as much I love him, am curious about others too (that have a relationship with villain cat MC)

For platonic villains I’d say CV! Reader was close to Joker before the whole torturing and killing Jason thing, they’d regularly prank each other. Hence they’re pretty close to Harley and therefore Ivy in the current time. Ofc there’s cat woman. They’re also very close to the Superfam. Particularly Jon cause he’s just an adorkable boi but he’s more on the romantic end.

He has a huge crush on them. Very much the simping for the older kid of the group sort of thing.

They also like tackling Aquaman and biting him like a fish.

Anyways back to villains. I feel like the Al Ghuls in general have a soft spot for CV! Reader.

They like trolling Lex Luthor a lot. Lex is incredibly intrigued by CV! Reader’s harem making capabilities that he often forgives their pranks in exchange for a chat or two. Though Penguin takes the crown for the most trolling.

They’re also platonically close with the Riddler cause they share similar ideals when it comes to the truth. But not to his extreme.

Punchline views CV! Reader as a status symbol almost? Like them acknowledging her would giver her a sense of legitimacy. But they kinda just feel weirded out if not completely disgusted by her and anything related to Joker that isn’t Harley. Hell the latter took a while before she could appear around CV! Reader without triggering them.

I also have a few oc! Villains that work with CV! Reader but that’s for another day.

Feel free to add more. I’m not well versed in DC villains so I’m up for suggestions. Reader is you after all so the sky is whatever limit you put on yourself

[lovebugism]

also. not to add further discourse over this jq/doja thing or whatever (because it's not my business and also i'm not twelve anymore). but as someone who survived my very intense boy band phase of the early 2010s, i can almost sense in my bones when things are pr. and while i simply do not care enough to assess the legitimacy of this relationship (again, it's not my business), i knew when that mf signed that marvel contract we were gonna see him a whole lot more "candidly" and that his relationships would be a whole lot less private.

all this to say: surviving my one direction and 5sos phase prepared me for the world. i learned at a very young age that writing about fake relationships were a lot more fun than parasocial ones <3 u guys stay safe though

[qqueenofhades]

While I generally agree with your writings, I find myself confused by the term "Online Leftist". As a 75-year-old who has had a Social Democratic bent (and because of that has seen more of his votes lose than he ever wished in these United States), I have voted in every county-through-federal level election in my life since age 21. I also use social media sparingly, but I feel I certainly could be considered to be a leftist who is online, but I don't share the viewpoint of those you call "Online Leftist". Please clarify the meaning of that phrase in your writings.

I have to add that I've voted third party only once. I voted for John Anderson in 1980 and instantly regretted that action when Ronald Reagan won. (At that time, Jimmy Carter wasn't perceived as the great humanitarian and climate visionary he truly was, and the economy and the hostage crisis ruled the election arguments.) It was a lesson that was hard-earned. Thus in 2016, even though I supported Bernie Sanders's ideas and philosophy, I voted for Hillary because 1) she had unimpeachable (no pun intended) qualifications, and 2) not to vote for her would ensure that a really nasty and incompetent clown would be leading our country.

Thank you for all of your Tumblr postings. I find myself reblogging them hoping to reach the idealistic voter who tends to want to vote "purist" rather than "pragmatist."

The term "Online Leftists," as myself and others use it, refers to the specific group of often-young, often-white, often-western terminally online social media users, usually on Twitter, who post frothing manifestos about how corrupt the world is (specifically, how corrupt and fascist the Democratic Party of America is) and how the only way to fix it is to have some mythical leftist Revolution that will destroy late-stage capitalism and the current world order and somehow have no bad effects whatever and then a magical "progressive" utopia will spring into existence and everything will be fixed. Even the ones who don't go that far are heavily influenced by the ideology that the establishment/country is corrupt beyond repair, voting (especially voting for Democrats) is morally evil and indefensible, that there is no difference between the political parties of America, and that America/the West is the cause of all evil in the world. It has become especially visible with the Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Hamas wars, when they enthusiastically or at least tacitly support Russia and Hamas simply because those states/groups are "anti-western."

It also has to do with the whopping western leftist levels of virulent antisemitism and eagerness to call Israel a "white western colonialist settler state," as discussed in previous posts. Even while they decry Israel's genocide of Gaza, they will twist themselves into knots to excuse Russia's genocide of Ukraine or any legitimacy to a Jewish state or need for Israel to defend its own civilians, because you see, those genocides are committed by people they like in support of something something, Advancing the Great Revolution Cause. This is partly influenced by the belief that modern far-right fascist Russia is somehow a standard-bearer for old-school USSR socialism (which itself was horrifying enough) and should be defended and cheerled as a principled enemy of the West. This is the same group of people who unironically spend all their time posting fulminations that Biden is a genocidal fascist and America is a dictatorship, because they know that literally nothing will happen to them and they will face no real-world consequences, because none of those things are actually true. But as long as they can claim it for the rhetorical martyrdom, that does not matter.

By political beliefs and presence on Tumblr, I too am definable as a leftist who is online, but the Online Leftists (used together and with capital letters) are a distinct group whose ideology is marked by righteous nihilism, rejection of voting, support for a mythical "Revolution" in place of ever trying to work within the flawed political system, support for violent genocidal states or groups as long as they are "anti-western" or "anti-Israeli" (witness how they flocked to quiveringly defend the Houthis) while simultaneously yelling at everyone else for supporting genocide, making no attempt to incorporate actual politics, history, or reality into their all-consuming ideology, and shaming everyone else who doesn't agree with them. As you say, they are focused on some "pure" level of political engagement, which is of course impossible and therefore means the only thing they do is spend their time on Twitter rampantly spreading misinformation as long as it fits their beliefs. Pragmatism, harm reduction, nuance, or making a flawed choice that puts any kind of "moral burden" on them does not exist to them and is a dirty word, because it might conflict with bringing about La Revolution. So yeah.

[grainjew]

Nikaposting Pt 4: Sun God Tropes

This is the fourth of a series of posts about Nika & associated religious practice in the One Piece world. As I write and post the rest of the series, I’ll add links to this header.

Pt 1: Crypto-Religion | Pt 2: Symbology & Syncretism | Pt 3: Joyboy was Shandian

Enormous credit to @oriigami for being my discussion partner through all of this and having a substantial influence on the final product. Check out our ao3 series Joyful for a narrative rather than analytical take on the Nika tradition, and definitely go read her OP blog @kaizokuou-ni-naru for meta and translation fun facts.

-

#JustLittleSunGodThings

So Luffy’s a sun god, or the embodied power of the wishes for one, or whatever. But does he do mythological solar deity things?

Yes actually.

This post is the fourth and last (as of now) in this series, and it’s entirely for fun. I’ll almost certainly miss things as I go down the list here- if you can think of other solar or dawn deity things he gets up to, please add them in the replies!

With no further ado, here is a list of sun god things Luffy has been known to get up to, & which will no doubt inform the mythology developing around him in the One Piece world. (How many people were deifying this guy even before he awakened his devil fruit? Like it was definitely not zero is all I’m saying.)

Getting eaten by snakes

What started this whole list was me turning to @oriigami in the middle of the night after we’d been rewatching Little Garden and trying to make an accurate count of how many times Luffy’s been swallowed whole and going “you know what’s sun god shit? getting eaten by snakes.”

Sun gods are often doing this. Take Apep in Egyptian myth, who tries to devour the sun god Ra every day. Or Rahu, the Hindu shadow planet and serpent, who swallows the sun to cause solar eclipses.

Luffy is also often doing this. The most notable example is of course the Nola Incident in Skypiea arc, but if we expand the definition of snake to include generally snakeish sort of guys, he also gets briefly ate by Kaidou very shortly after awakening, and just now by Mister Sandworm in ch 1110. (And by Kaidou fish-fish fruit equivalency I’d argue we can also count the Little Garden goldfish and the crocodile that ate him as a kid here but obviously that’s more tenuous and mostly just funny.)

Slightly more tenuously as well, there’s Amaterasu of Shinto lore retreating into her cave (a cave is a kind of snake), as well as the Norse wolf that chases the sun Sköll (occasionally merged with Fenrir), the Javanese god (described as an ogre) Batara Kala who eats the sun and moon to cause eclipses, and the alchemical Green Lion that devours the sun.

Storm and sky gods are also often interacting with, killing, and being eaten by snakes, which is less relevant here except that Nami is storm god coded and she also got ate in the Nola Incident. So that’s fun!

Having a chariot that circumnavigates the world

Many sun gods, especially in the Indo-European sphere of traditions, have some sort of chariot or boat that they ride from east to west each day to carry the sun across the sky. Often they have attendants (sometimes dawn and dusk gods; or sometimes these gods have their own chariots or horses as well) to help them with this.

If you want a list of sun vehicles the wikipedia page for solar deities has a whole bunch of them. Have fun.

I think Thousand Sunny speaks for herself on this front: not only is Sunny a ship designed, destined, and dreamed up to herself circumnavigate the world with Luffy as her captain, but she also has the Sun on the front as her figurehead in a manner that does kinda remind me of some depictions I’ve seen of the sun being carried across the sky in such a chariot. Also, she can fly!

Association with royalty

Kings and emperors love to use sun gods to give divine legitimacy to their rule. This is in no way universal (there’s lots of storm gods out there who also do this, just off the top of my head) but take Amaterasu (Shinto), Inti (Incan), Amun-Ra (also Aten) (Egyptian), Sol Invictus (Roman), etc.

Obviously Luffy is going to be King, and is currently an Emperor. But also, he tends to go around and toppling kings and gods and tyrants and vaguely lending legitimacy to whoever is stepping up to the throne in their place. He’s got the Mandate of Heaven (this is a joke mostly but we HAVE all read Loguetown)! And also distributes it to people he likes. Thanks Luffy.

Solar discs, radiate crowns, and beetles

A solar disc is a flat circle, sometimes with rays, that symbolically represents the sun or the sun personified. If you have read pt 2 of this series, you will recognize the Nika symbol in this description.

In the same vein, when applied to a personified depiction of the sun, the solar disc has the habit of becoming a halo or a radiate crown (such as the one worn by the Statue of Liberty - the radiate crown used to be an emperors and sun gods thing and has since become associated with personifications of liberty. So That’s Fun). Obviously Luffy is not in the habit of having either of these representationally, except of course for. The hat that encircles his head in gold.

The final note on symbology I have here is that the Egyptian god of the morning sun, Khepri, is associated with scarabs/dung beetles. A fact that I think known beetle-lover Luffy would appreciate. Get this guy some scarab symbolism stat. Check these bugs out!!!

Bonus: descending into the underworld and eclipse stories

Katabasis, that is, a descent into the underworld, is in no way a sun god exclusive, although solar myths do often involve the sun god, having traveled across the sky by day, needing to find their way through the ocean, the underworld, or some other sort of nether realm to return, overnight, to their morning home in the east. And it’s very fun to look at in the context of Luffy, eclipse myths, and the Marineford saga.

So obviously the Impel Down arc is is a very literal katabasis. It’s Hell, it’s got all the Dante’s Inferno theming, and, like in so many katabases, Luffy descends to the depths in pursuit of some goal, eventually emerging miraculously alive but unsuccessful (see, for a very quick shortlist of katabases of this type, Orpheus & Eurydice, Inanna, and Izanagi & Izanami).

So that’s delightful. But I think it’s even more fun to think about the Marineford saga in general, eventually culminating in the timeskip, as a prototype for an eclipse story.

Solar eclipses, though predictable, are something like a rarer and more frightening form of night, and so their associated myths have a general tendency to involve a more dramatic and/or violent symbolic death of the sun- see, for example, the various devourers of the sun mentioned in the first bullet point of this post.

So, we have the timeskip. The fire goes out. The sun, having descended into the underworld and pushed himself past his own limits, is defeated, disappearing completely from the world for two years. Until- In a way that was, technically, predictable, if you had the correct sphere of knowledge, he returns, miraculously renewed.

I’d incorporate that into my belief system, is all I’m saying.

-

Thank you all for reading! This is all for the series so far, but not, I hope, forever. Many more thoughts to have and webs to weave!

Have a lovely week!

[fipindustries]

So both Rowling and Kui have done a lot of world building outside the official manga/story, but when Rowling reveals wizards vanished their poop, she is seen as a clown, while Kui can say faries are made of cum and the audience loves it.

well, i think there are many different things happening here.

the idea that this entire population would just squat wherever they are and take a shit only to then banish it afterwards seems too absurd, too outside of a society we can relate to or come to understand or empathize with. its off putting to think about and frankly paints wizards as aliens in a way that feels discordant with how they had been portrayed on the books. and also rowling's own world does not have the tone or the mood to fit with this revelation. that sounds like something you would see in a rick and morty sketch or a worldbuilding aspect of The Boys, not the wonderful magical wizarding world of harry potter.

this kind of nitty gritty "lets bite the bullet on the unpleasant implications of my world" is completly out of step with the kind of story rowling tries to tell in her book. in fact she has shown to be kind of averse to doing that in the past, so why would she do that now?

with ryoko kui its different, dungeon meshi is ALL ABOUT exploring the weird and silly implications of what happens when you take worldbuilding seriously. comedy is a big aspect of the story, as well as confronting face to face all the unpleasant real aspects of biology, living creatures and ecosystems. we see in the succubus section that succubbus feed their spawn with a milk they secrete through their anus, when we see minotaurs' breasts they are uncomfortably swollen and veiny, when they open an unripe barometz they find a calf uterus inside, etc etc etc. also kui incorporates elements of folklore and myth stayng loyal to their gory strnage origins, semen HAS been used in pleny of real magical rituals in the past so she includes that detail here to stay truthful to those myths. so its a lot less discordant.

also, it helps that when ryoko adds extra materials and cannons to her world she does it in the way of actual comics whereas rowling would do so by way of throwaway lines during interviews and whatever, so there is a bit less legitimacy in her extemporanous additions

[thesunfyre4446]

Marrying Daemon was the dumbest thing she could have done. It solved no problems just made the existing ones more glaring.

First, if Laenor had been alive the Driftmark succession would not have been brought into question (Yet, it eventually would have always) as after Corlys, it goes to Laenor. It would’ve freed up some years or decades and Luke could’ve idk- actually gone to the fucking island he was set to eventually rule over or learn to sail. Maybe endear himself to some more people because as much as certain viewers like to pretend otherwise, Corlys was the only Velaryon happy to spit in the eyes of his ancestors sit that boy on the Driftwood throne.

Two, Viserys would not have had to use his last breath and final braincell to go to the throne room to help Rhaenyra usurp the Velaryons. He probably would’ve lived a little while longer and maybe this time he would’ve died quietly without uttering nonsense about a prophecy the Targaryens should not have even been involved with in the first place.

Rhaenyra could’ve maybe got her shit together and stopped living in a lalaland where she thought she would just be handed things because she’s *checks notes*

-A Targaryen

-She has a Dragon

-Daddy said so

But we know she wouldn’t, the entitlement runs deep. She would’ve stayed on Dragonstone where she’s ruling over a castle of employees sworn to her and a small merchant/fisher’s village. Rhaenyra lived in bliss on that island for a decade with no responsibilities.

Three, when you raise the Strong boys alongside their brothers and especially alongside Rhaena- who is literally a Targaryens/Velaryon child who is what the strong boys are actually supposed to look like, it becomes so obvious that the boys are bastards of non Valyrian parentage.

The only one who won in this arraignment was the Child groomer. He got the woman he spent years grooming as a child and he got a heir and a spare. Let’s pretend in a fairytale world where the Greens don’t crown Aegon and they slink off to whatever corner of the world TB think they deserve to after Viserys dies. The history books would write about the series of freak accidents that took Rhaenyra’s first 3 sons until Little Aegon was the heir.

i honestly don't have anything to add anon. 100% agree with everything you've said.

rhaenyra is a horrible politician. her marriage to laenor kept the velaryon alliance and secured driftmark for her son. if laenor was alive, vaemond wouldn't have called for a petition, and rhaenyra wouldn't have to marry the strongs to the dragon twins. she could've arranged for marriages with other important houses like baratheon or lannister and win their support. also, by having legitimate sons with daemon she harmed jace, Joffrey and luke's legitimacy and position. especially jace.

your point about the strong boys parentage being even more obvious next to baela and rhaena is sooooo true. as if they didn't already stand out enough, raising them alongside the velaryons that they're usurping is ridiculous.

i really don't understand the people that are saying that rhaenyra is a good ruler because she managed dragonstone. dragonstone is a little island with a couple of villages surrounding it. you can't possibly compare it with ruling SEVEN KINGDOMS. (and even dragonstone turned against rhaenyra in the end, but i digress) rhaenyra thinking she's prepared to rule shows just how clueless she really is (she even says in ep 8 she doesn't know anything about ruling a kingdom lol)

i don't think that rhaenyra's decision to marry daemon was necessarily politic. i mean yeah he's a dragonrider and a soldier, but his loyalty was never an issue because he would never never never NEVER side with the greens (aka otto). the marriage def did more harm then good for rhaenyra, and the main benefactor was daemon.

[illeaadante]

Sometimes I think to myself about the characters that we don't see in canon, but are mentioned at least obliquely. And the circumstances that they have to deal with in order for the general fuckery of canon to take place.

What I mean is: I've got Questions about the psychological evaluators that looked at Edward Elric and decided, "yeah, this kid is fine to take the State Alchemist practical examination."

Like, sir... ma'am... [insert military rank here]... what the FUCK were you smoking??!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Did one of the evaluators wake up that morning, get told that they needed to interview a potential State Alchemist, walk into the room and see Ed sitting there and just go "y'know what? fuck it. Sure, this might as well happen."

Whatever certification you got needs to be removed, because you obviously can't be trusted.

You'd think that, even with the homonculi leading the country, they would at least have some standards for the psych evaluators, if only to help keep things under wraps and looking legit. Generally, you don't want to pass people who could, I don't know, transmute a spear out of the floor and attack the Fuhrer with it. Just as a random example.

Seriously, did it raise no eyebrows in that office when they passed a twelve year old double amputee with an obvious disdain for the military to go ahead with the State Alchemist exam? Like, just his age should have been an immediate disqualifying factor. "Oh, but he wouldn't be a soldier, there are plenty of research alchemists!" Name one that isn't Tucker. Tucker is his own disqualification, but at least he was an adult. And again, an obvious disdain for the military, both the trauma of losing his limbs and automail surgery, and also, y'know, being twelve.

OK, the homonculi are trying to find talented alchemists who could potentially survive opening the gate. BUT, all they know for certain before the practical evaluation is that Ed helped, in some capacity, stop a train heist, and that he passed the written exam. Until the practical they have no idea that Ed has already seen the gate. Or that he can, in fact, actually do alchemy and isn't purely theory.

So, I think when it comes to Ed's psych evaluator that they were either

A) paid off to send every Alchemist who passed the written exam and wasn't an obvious terrorist through to the practical

B) waved off entirely

C) envy in disguise, to add a veneer of legitimacy

and then I think about a world with a psych evaluator that actually has a conscience and fails Ed, meaning that the military don't learn until much, much later-- if at all-- that Ed's already seen the gate, and what that would look like. I imagine it would look a bit similar, but with much more breaking and entering on Ed and Al's part.

[humanerrers]

Israel and the world should strive to strengthen the very large community of Palestinians who accept Israel but who seek full political rights and equal standing as citizens. If the world values the ethos of human dignity regardless of race or religion, then at some point Palestinians, including Palestinian refugees, will need to have a nation-state of their own, whether in a unified polity consisting of the West Bank and Gaza, or in a single Israel/Palestine state, or in an agreed-upon regional federation where all residents are citizens with full equal rights. Israelis will need an iron-clad guarantee of their security and a comprehensive, binding cessation of all hostilities, as well as a normalization of relations with their Middle Eastern neighbors.

No one, especially not now, can be deluded into thinking that any of this will be easy. I’ve spent much of my life pursuing the goal of Palestinian independence, to no avail. A reckoning and reconciliation of this magnitude will face implacable foes, including fundamentalist Islamists who reject Israel outright and traffic in the worst sort of anti-Semitism; militant secular Zionists who treat Arabs as strangers in their own land; right-wing religious Zionists who thirst for a “Greater Land of Israel” and eschew Palestinian rights altogether; and Christian evangelicals who view an expansionist Israel as crucial to their end-times theology. Belligerence is mutually reinforcing, and everyone involved must reject this cycle of hostility.

I would add only that, in parallel to our support of the large community of Palestinians who accept the existence of Israel and advocate for political rights, we in the West need to do our part to also support the MANY Jewish Israelis who accept the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause and the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people. We need to support the people on the ground, both Jewish and Palestinian, who are working under INCREDIBLY HOSTILE circumstances to create the conditions for peace. Because this is Tumblr, I will say explicitly that this cannot be done by reducing Israel’s existence to a European colonial project — which, whatever the intention, has the effect of legitimating violence against Israeli civilians. Violence begets violence, which fuels extremism on both sides. If you do not care about Israeli civilians, you do not care about Palestinian civilians. Full stop.

[tarnishedinquirer]

Godrick the Grafted

I summoned Nepheli Loux to my side, stepped through the golden mist, and exited into a long strip of land flanked with graves. At the end was a central keep, looking as much mausoleum or temple as seat of power. A small dragon was impaled on a spire, presumably the one that crashed into the floors just outside. A massive, lumpy, misshapen figure approached it.

This could only be Godrick.

The wind carried his words to me. He spoke to the dragon lovingly, calling it a "kindred" and a "trueborn heir," and asked it to deliver him to greater heights.

Then he noticed my presence, and his demeanor shifted. See, everything I'd heard about this man told me he was a coward. Hiding from Radahn, licking Malenia's boots, sneaking out of Leyndell. His legitimacy was in question, his castle was crumbling, his soldiers were deserting... every sign pointed to a reign that was at an end.

And then I showed up. A Tarnished of no renown. Having defeated all his soldiers, looted his entire castle. To him, in this moment, I was a living manifestation of his every inadequacy and failure. I represented the inevitability of his fall.

My presence enraged Godrick.

He threw off his clloak, revealing the tangled mass of arms that was his body. His limbs were made of knotted coils of other limbs like muscle fibers. Some hands hung free at his shoulders. One held a spare axe. But in his main hands, he held a giant, golden axe with a heraldic crest on it. He slammed it into the ground and shouted, "I command thee KNEEL!"

At first, he was slow and lumbering, dragging his axe behind him as he hobbled towards me. His body was a patchwork of limbs and torsos, grafted from other unfortunates who had come through here, and I thought they weren't all working in concert. I had plenty of time to summon Aurelia before he got to me. But the second she spat poison at him, he whipped his axe in a vortex around his head, summoned the wind, and started rolling at me.

Walking like a normal person might not be his strongest suit but powered by the wind, and with so many limbs to propel him, he could tumble with breathtaking agility. It was all I could do to avoid his axe.

Nepheli Loux barreled into him, matching control of wind for hers. But she had an advantage he did not: she could also command the lightning. Each blow of her axe was accompanied by a yellow levinbolt. But Godrick had other tricks up his sleeve. He brought his axe down on the ground, stomped on hit like it were a shovel, and the earth around him heaved, knocking Nepheli Loux off her feet.

I was hanging back and throwing Glintstone Pebbles at him, but he sent two blasts of wind my way. I dodged them both, and lunged in with my sword ablaze in blue magic just as Nepheli Loux recovered and hit him with everything she had in her. He dropped to his knees, and I took the opportunity to plunge my sword into his chest, somewhere in the general vicinity of where his heart was.

I was not close enough.

Godrick threw us off, raised his axe, and....

...severed his own arm?

I think we were both too stunned to stop what happened next. Even Aurelia stopped, whatever passed for her brain failing to comprehend what exactly he could possibly be doing. Godrick staggered over to the dragon, screaming and laughing maniacally, clearly pushed to to the brink. He plunged his the bleeding stump into the dragon's neck and wrenched it off.

The dragon's head twitched.

I don't know the rules of grafting, but this seemed somehow against them.

Godrick raised the dragon's head above his and, despite its lack of lungs, it roared.

"Forefathers one and all," he shouted, as it breathed a gout of flame into the air. "Bear witness!"

My battle with Agheel had taught me that the best place to be when a dragon breathed fire was behind it, so without hesitation I sprinted past Godrick. The fire had a physical force that seemed to add to its mass, and he could not turn fast enough to catch me. He summoned the wind, but added a tiny gout of flame, turning it into a firestorm. He rolled at me again, and when he landed, a wave of flame went out from his axe. Even his stomp as empowered, now rocking the entire land bridge. He did not even care if he perished anymore, as long as we perished with him.

Nepheli Loux, barely clinging to life, slammed her axe into his gut and spun him around so his back was to me. I leaped on top of him, charged my sword once more, and plunged it down through his collarbone—his original collarbone. He spasmed, gagged, then went utterly still.

Nepheli Loux leaped in and he caught her in the dragon's arm, cackling like a madman as slammed her into the ground and roasted her alive. As I watched, the arm was already erupting in sores and pustules. There was no way it would last this fight, but he could certainly kill us before it rotted away.

Suddenly, he coughed. Choked, even. Godrick was seized by a coughing fit that only ended when he vomited black bile, forcing him to release Nepheli. I realized what was happening when I saw another spurt of purple fluid from Aurelia. Her poison had finally taken effect!

Staring unseeing at the Erdtree, he said:

I am lord of all that is golden One day we'll return together To our home bathed in rays of gold...

It sounded like the man had rehearsed his last words, like he knew this day would come and wanted them to be good. It was a poem, but I didn't get to hear any more. He hadn't accounted that his lungs would be filling up with blood and bile. The next lines trailed off into gurgles as all the various limbs started falling off his body. I took the sword and jumped back as he came apart, rotted into nothing, and left only a tiny, shriveled torso on the ground.

Nepheli Loux returned to her world, Aurelia to her ashes, and I stared down at the broken thing before me that was once a demigod.

Then Gostoc appeared and stomped on his head.

He continued ranting as he stomped the former lord's head into pulp, and I decided that whatever those two had going on before this, I didn't need to know. It was time to move on.

Is the Golden Lineage descended from dragons?

Why does his axe have a similar emblem to the Grafted Blade Greatsword?

[eastgaysian]

new temporary pinned post for clarity's sake, taking a break from donation comms to unfuck my wrist.

mentioning me in a post to reblog is totally ok, but i get a lot of notifications and mentions are likely to get buried - send an ask or preferably a dm if you need me to see something.

i cannot vet/verify fundraisers. i will share fundraisers that have not yet been verified with whatever information i can add about their legitimacy, but i encourage you to do your own basic research as well. most fundraiser reblogs are queued.

and while you're here, i do want to highlight a handful of specific fundraisers that are low on funds/in urgent need of donations:

Mohammed Haboub (mohammedhaboubsblog) - shared by 90-ghost - kr190,341/300k (USD $18,341/$28.5k) raised to evacuate 4 family members, along with paying for exorbitant rent and medical expenses. SHORT TERM GOAL: kr240,000 SEK, please note exchange rate

Mohammed Matar (matarmoh) - verified by el-shab-hussein - €3,727/€20,000 (USD $4,106/$21,800) raised to evacuate 5 family members, including a 6 month old baby daughter

Israa Alazaiza (sarah-family) - verified #236 - $7,033 CAD/$48,000 (USD $5,182/$34,560) raised to evacuate 9 family members - DONATIONS ARE STAGNATING

Feras Al-Mansi (mazenmanal) - verified by apollos-olives - €4,252/€100,000 (USD $4,684/$112,085) raised for rent and medical care, as well as evacuating a family including young children

[fruitytrollroll]

Hi I love your writing and LOVE the recent scarab/orbo fic you posted. I know with "shadow of the luminary" you said that it was cool for people to write sequels for it... I was just curious if that applied to "darkness drives the beetle to the bulb" too? But if so... would writing about the intern that appears in the middle of the fic (and then pairing them with Scarab) be okay? If not, that's totally okay (it is your work after all)!!! Thank you for writing such great fics and posting them!

thank you so much for this lovely message! you're too kind!! 🥰

and thank you for asking!! :D please, feel free! the blanket permission i gave for sequels extends to all my fic, really, but most emphatically to my completed fionna & cake works, including:

come out of your shell (prismo/scarab)

in the shadow of the luminary (nightmo/scarab)

the past is perpetual youth to the heart (wizmo/scarab, midquel to luminary)

when darkness drives the beetle to the bulb (orbo/scarab, sequel to luminary)

in fact, a wonderful sequel to "darkness drives the beetle to the bulb" was just published tonight: Growing Pains and Coffee Stains by mouseyblue! i got a sneak peak before it was published and CAN CONFIRM, it's VERY good!!! <33333333

anyway! as it happens, i spared the details on the intern in "bulb" SPECIFICALLY so people could imagine their OCs or self-inserts there, if they wanted. :3c so i'm delighted to hear that possibility piqued your interest! bonus points for understanding the "assignment", hehehe <3 if you check the "inspired by" box and add a link to my fic, I'll approve the association so they can link to each other <3

honestly, I'm really enjoying doing fic this way lately? that is, not making formal sequels with the AO3 series function, but using the "inspired by" function for my own fic too, so that both my fic and others' can share equal "legitimacy" as follow-up reading experiences from the fic they were inspired by! none of us owns these properties anyway, so why not have fun with it??? i love to construct a beautiful sandbox for everyone to play in together <3

i should get an email notification immediately if a fic is posted that's "inspired" by one of mine (unless it's posted to an anonymous AO3 account, for whatever reason...), but please feel free to let me know you've posted it here, or on any of my other socials, too!

thank you again for your lovely message, and happy writing!

[cysomen]

i didn't do a post-posting talk about the bh/outlaw fic last week so i figure i'll just do it now! (this is VERY long i apologize in advance)

worldbuilding how the two opposing systems would work exactly was really fun, because I had to figure out how I would eventually work in other characters like Reyna and Omen; the difficulty was that I'm really terrible at making OCs, and with out-of-canon oneshots i try to keep the amount of characters i'm writing relatively low because it tends to get kind of confusing otherwise. I wanted it to be modern enough that I wouldn't have to do a ton of exposition explaining how organized crime has altered the most recent history, which was difficult because bounty hunters aren't exactly a modern thing and establishing how people have essentially a license to kill others is a challenge.

So: the outlaw network, which functions as a sect of the "dark web", links together different outlaws digitally, and allows for communication, exchange of money, hiring services, ect. The creation and upkeep of it essentially allowed outlaws to become much more prevalent, because it's so secure to people who aren't also outlaws. That's partially why Cypher is an upper-ranked outlaw (along with some other details that'll become clear in the second fic). In contrast, bounty hunter's contract system is much more government-run (and less secure), and varies from country to country even with some degree of cooperation between them. Hunters have the option to use an alias while turning in outlaws, alive or dead, where the bounty is wired to them automatically. Or they can use a specific calling card so local authorities can attribute the kill to them.

Originally, the "organized crime" idea ran much deeper; the concept was that a much smaller network of outlaws functioned as almost a crime syndicate. Someone who needed a job done would contact scouts like Skye or Fade. It would then go through Cypher or Killjoy to verify other details/legitimacy, and get whatever information was needed to complete it properly. Then, depending on the nature of the job, hitmen/assassins like Reyna or Iso would be assigned, or burglars Raze and Breach, or maybe if it involved illegal manufacturing Viper or Sage would manage the job. Transactions and security would be managed by Chamber. Basically, it was much more complex, and required a lot more explanation that I really wasn't altogether convinced I could do for a relatively short oneshot. The current idea of them working together in the "upper ranks" of outlaws just made more sense in terms of scale.

In general I like to write AUs because it gives me a chance to understand the characters outside of their specific settings; removing the pressure of things like the protocol or other agents adds new things to consider.

Sova's blind eye was especially interesting to me, being one of the first details I worked out about his character. I thought that him turning to outlaw hunting in order to make a living was realistic after losing the ability to shoot a bow/rifle, because he'd view it as a way to better hone his other skills. Despite his anonymity in using only a calling card in his kills and not going public, it also adds something specific to make him distinct from other hunters. And that he was able to continue making a living as a hunter with such a large blind spot and bad depth perception gives another layer to his skill.

Using Sova's hometown as the setting for this fic was a choice that I went back and forth on. It adds a little humor in the fact that both of them were there at the same time, and the city being familiar to Sova is relevant to him being able to catch up with Cypher more easily. Character wise, Sova's way more likely to go after an outlaw while on leave specifically here because he takes it as a matter of pride. He's the hunter that's managed to kill in the upper ranks without falling, he's not just going to let one run around in his hometown and possibly harm people in the process. At the time I wasn't sure how in-depth I wanted to go about the setting, and I don't know a lot about Russian military cities.

Cypher characterization was especially challenging to try and write out, because his playful demeanor to build a front so Sova believes he's less dangerous than he actually is wasn't entirely easy to get right (and I'm still unsure if I did that correctly). Writing him slowly picking apart Sova's defenses with that unseriousness was actually pretty fun. I've never written something quite so one-night-stand-ish. His backstory is something I'll probably bring up again in the second fic. He doesn't wear a mask in this fic because he has no real second identity to protect, in contrast to his canon character. BH/O Cypher really has nothing outside of being an outlaw.

Time for ultra-specific details!

Sova's using linseed/flax seed oil specifically because it's used in finishing wood, and he built his own bows for hunting when he was younger (forgive me for possible inaccuracies there, im working with a relatively small amount of options). At one point I debated using unfrozen animal tallow. (I think that sort of insanity is better suited for a different fic, though)

That entire bit of Cypher and Sova arguing over the milk allergy thing was the result of me and my beta reader just giving Cypher an allergy on a whim (Originally it was strawberries, but we found a research paper that said milk is the most common allergy in Morocco and bam! Milk allergy).

Sova's calling card was created because I needed an excuse for him to use a softer rope than a regular outdoor rope. The whole "calling card" idea and his backstory idea were secondary to that fact.

The quilts Sova uses were made by his grandmother.

Sova hadn't used the cabin much while he was in the service, but the pile of ash in the hearth is something that directly contrasts his whole "perfectionist" image; it's remained there because he used the cabin to recover after the incident where his eye was removed.

The knives Cypher fails to use instead of coins are new, so he's unused to the placement of them inside his coat. In addition to that, he doesn't have enough of a physical advantage over Sova to be confident using them without having a backup plan if Sova overpowers him.

you may read all of this and ask "chicken, why would you put so much effort into what was essentially an excuse for cypher and sova to use rope bondage" and to that i will say: nothing. i dont have much of an answer.

[lemonhemlock]

very random thought I had while doing some world building for an oc 💭

What if the greens decided to marry Helaena to Qyle Martell.

In canon Viserys did consider marrying Rhaenyra to Qyle's father Prince Qoren Martell but that never happened. I'm thinking Alicent and Otto go hey we can marry Hel to a Martell, and since Qyle isn't the eldest child it means he won't need necessary to be in Dorne could stay in King's Landing as an ambassador of sorts to nurture relationships with Dorne. This way the greens can have Aegon marry a lady from a great house for more allies.

Also just thinking it'd be cute for Qyle to give Hel Dornish scorpions and spiders as gifts to add to her bug collection 🥰

Hi there!

You know, the honest thing with these kinds of tweaks in the canon is not that they wouldn't or couldn't possibly work, it's just that perhaps they wouldn't be the absolute best strategic decision IMO. But, then again, it's always about balancing out the pros and the cons and, at the end of the day, you can and should focus in your story on whatever themes or elements you find interesting or important.

Personally, if you ask me, I do feel like Aegon and Helaena make a lot of sense. Just by relying on simple statistics, it would be more likely for two dragonriders to produce more dragonriding children than it would be for a couple consisting of one dragonrider and a non-dragonrider. And the greens really do need to prevent falling behind in the dragon arms race, so to speak. Not to mention the benefits in terms of Targaryen legitimacy and PR. So, whenever I'm asked about this - I just feel that it's too important an issue to compromise on. (I have a ton of posts about this in my backlog, so I'll leave it at that.)

Not that I think that forging a marriage alliance with Dorne is a bad idea at all, but perhaps in this case it would have been better had Aemond or Daeron been betrothed to Aliandra or Coryanne Martell.

But, god knows GRRM isn't the most consistent either, otherwise we wouldn't have so many plot points that don't make sense (take the marriages planned for Daella or Viserra, for example). And, honestly, your proposals are more reasonable and logical than those, so, equally, I don't think it's fair either to hold fanfic authors to a more scrupulous level of scrutiny than we hold the author himself. So, basically, I think the idea is sensible and plausible enough to work out if you intend to follow through with it. Have fun! 🍋

[haggishlyhagging]

Having examined marriage, Engels turns his attention to the patriarchal family, as precious to the Victorians as it later became to conservative sociology in the period of reaction. In Engels' tart phrase, the family's "essential points are the assimilation of the unfree element and the paternal authority." "It is founded on male supremacy for the pronounced purpose of breeding children of indisputable paternal lineage. The latter is required because these children shall later on inherit the fortune of their father." Despite the decline of inherited wealth, this is still so; legitimacy is quite as important now, and thought to justify the cost and education of rearing the young in the nuclear family.

The ideal type of the patriarchal family and the ancestor of our own is the Roman family, whence come both the term and the legal forms and precedents used in the West. Originally, the word familia did not, Engels cheerfully informs us

“. . . signify the composite ideal of sentimentality and domestic strife in the present day philistine mind. Among the Romans it did not even apply in the beginning to the leading couple and its children, but to the slaves alone. Famulus means domestic slave, and familia is the aggregate number of slaves belonging to one man . . . The expression [familia] was invented by the Romans in order to designate a new social organism the head of which had a wife, children and a number of slaves under his paternal authority and according to Roman law, the right of life and death over all of them.”

To this, Engels adds Marx's observation that

“the word is, therefore, not older than the ironclad family system of the Latin tribes, which arose after the introduction of agriculture and of lawful slavery . . . The modern family contains the germ not only of slavery (servitus) but also of serfdom. . . It comprises in miniature all those contrasts that later on develop more broadly in society and the state.”

In noting its economic character Engels is calling attention to the fact that the family is actually a financial unit, something which his contemporaries, like our own, prefer to ignore. Due to the nature of its origins, the family is committed to the idea of property in persons and in goods. "Monogamy was the first form of the family not founded on natural but on economic conditions, viz. the victory of private property over primitive and natural collectivism."

Whatever the value of Engels' insistence on the priority of a "primitive and natural collectivism," the cohesion of the patriarchal family and the authority of its head have consistently relied (and continue to do so) on the economic dependence of its members. Its stability and its efficiency also rely upon its ability to divide its members by hierarchical roles and maintain them in such through innumerable forms of coercion—social, religious, legal, ideological, etc. As Engels makes clear, such a collection of persons cannot be said to be free agents. Historically, nearly the entire basis of their association is not affection but constraint: much of it remains so.

-Kate Millett, Sexual Politics