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#while artists and their communities suffer
aquarian-airhead · 3 months
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"There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content," he says, as we're entering an era where the options for adult content hosting are dwindling drastically and corporate-enforced censorship runs rampant, tearing online communities to the ground.
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a-lavender-boy · 11 months
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Every once in a while you watch something about the past and it gut punches you about reality despite it being fictional. And its not where you expect it.
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orangerosebush · 2 years
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The new Contrapoints video is like... one of those pieces of art where you see too much of yourself reflected.
#Instead of being as straight-forward about trying to 'teach' something this felt like a more artistically-motivated piece IMO#There is something so uniquely difficult about trying to argue that one piece of your identity (queerness) is divorced from the parts of#you that grew out of trauma (substance abuse; emotional abuse; etc).#And it hurts because they are many who would#Politically weaponize that hurt in you because the pitiable and the unhappy are not the people#you advertise as being part of your persecuted community#The juxtaposition between how unflappable Justine is during the Socratic dialogue segment and the#scene where the Justine character is receiving a message from her transphobic family and ruminating on how much in pain she is from her ex-#partner breaking her heart -- and that's when you see the cynic in her crack and reveal this immenseness of shame at her suffering because#*God* what if *me* simply existing and revealing how broken I kinda am is bad optics for [insert social cause] lol#It truly took my breath away -- still sorting my thoughts out but holy shit was that one of the closest depictions to my experiences I've#seen lol#She certainly stays true to her tendency to be provocative at the detriment to the strength of her argument (and her tendency to lose the#plot of the discourse in the weeds of aesthetics) but it was fascinating from the standpoint of being a lesbian who comes from a family#that has struggled with (and has experiences dealing with) substance abuse while also trying to make tiny strides for progress in my town#The evangelical homophobia depicted in the narrative of the skit was also fascinating as it's one of the few times I've seen art nail the#specific tone (aesthetics?) of that strain of anti-queerness -- especially when the character reveals she is a recloseted lesbian#substance abuse cw#homophobia cw#transphobia cw#(for the video)#religion mention cw#all those CWs are for the video itself -- it gets extremely into the weeds so if any of those sound slightly triggering AVOID this video#She's one of those artists with whom I certainly disagree frequently but I also will say I am always struck by the work she creates and the#depth of thought underpinning these videos#The addiction parts were specifically so so so good#I mean holy shit
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mystigaron · 3 months
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IMPORTANT FINAL EDIT: THE PARTNERSHIP AND UPDATE PLANNED WITH IT HAVE BEEN INDEFINITELY SUSPENDED. i might delete this post within the next few days i'm still not 100% sure if i should or not especially since the information on it about ludeo is still relevant. however rain world has halted working with them and the update planned to implement the feature is not going ahead. thanks to everyone who spoke up and helped getting this out there and to the attention of the developers and akupara
i haven't seen this up until this morning and not all that many people within the rain world community seem to be talking about it but
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it's come to my attention that rain world has recently partnered with a company known as ludeo for the game's newest update. this was tucked away in the replies of their rain world art month post
ludeo is an israeli company run by two brothers based in tel-aviv. this is incredibly disappointing and fucked up to be doing during the on-going genocide israel is committing in palestine and the surrounding regions and i quite frankly do not care if it turns out this was just down to "poor research" and was an "accident": you can quite literally look up the two founders' names on linkedin and find out where they are based in under a minute. there are no excuses for this
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another point of note about ludeo that i find upsetting is that a lot if not all of the images used on the company's site to advertise this product are 99.9% guaranteed to be ai-generated
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while this is absolutely not the main issue at hand here as promoting your partnership with this company at this time is already fucked up enough to begin with, going and hiding this post within the replies of another promoting your art month event to the artists within this community is so astoundingly ironic and ignorant
i am not trying to suggest that there are alterior motives behind putting this post in the replies of another about a community event rather than making an entirely new and separate one dedicated exclusively to information about this update, but i do find it strange. i woke up to finding out about this and was absolutely livid, and while what's done is already done, i am hoping whoever was responsible for this knows how fucked it is to be promoting this company at this time, or just in general. i am not trying to start a witch hunt or start shit for the sake of starting shit, but i think this needs to be addressed and spoken about, as money towards israel is money towards more bloodshed and violence in palestine. this shit makes my blood fucking boil
edit: i feel like i should also put this here if this wasn't already terrible enough
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please continue sharing support for palestine. links below are sites and donation links that go directly towards supporting palestinian people in need
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professorsta · 2 years
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Really dislike when people pose Vincent Van Gogh as a deeply troubled twisted person when in reality the majority of his paintings were fucking flowers or nature and he would continuously write his brother Theo that he wants to fight against his depression. He was depressed bruh doesn’t mean he didn’t like to feel the grass between his toes and the smile of his brother. Neurotypicals can’t comprehend that your mental illness is not a character trait it’s a fucking disability
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sashayed · 9 months
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have you heard that jordan peele said steven yeun's character is the one that has the most in common with him. have you thought about how most of his cinematic career has been built around discussions of race and the traumas that come from racism. have you thought about how any media handling real and personal topics is a sort of emotional self-disembowelment on the part of the creator. have you thought of the glory and horror of being Seen. have you screamed
Have I? HAVE i. Have I thought about how Peele has discussed being objectified and tokenized on set, especially early in his career? Have I thought about what it's like to suffer real-life trauma in a space created for make-believe? Buddy, I haven't thought about anything else for days!!
I think one thing that makes this movie so visceral to me is that it's an exploration by a great popular artist on the human cost of making popular art. The link between the auteur and the cult leader--both are people consumed & defined by stories, people who are compelled by a narrative and feel an urge to spread that narrative to an audience.
And I am really impressed by how hard Peele seems to work to reject the cult leader in himself as best he can -- to make art that enriches the lives of ALL THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE IT. Every interview is about how collaborative and present he is as a director. Obsessed with this Q&A for many reasons but this moment sticks with me:
KEKE PALMER: There would be moments where we’re going through different parts of this script, this story, from when we first rehearsed to when we were actually on set, or when we had an idea that happened that morning. I would be listening, my head would be down, I’d be listening to what Jordan’s saying, I’m like, man this is deep. And I look up and there’d be just this one little tear falling. Man, this brother’s deep. JORDAN PEELE: I’m not afraid to cry as a director. KP: And he’s chill! He’d be like, “That’s what happens” and tears are falling. I’m like, “Are you all right?” But he keeps going and he’s like “Yeah, yeah. So that’s the thing.” And then he just walks out.
To me, that reads as a person who is NOT JUST super smart and deep and creative etc but who is also aware every moment of how lucky he is to be doing what he's doing, and who is not ashamed of his own reaction to that gratitude. What's to be ashamed of? It's incredibly fun! He is having an amazing time! He's hanging out with people he likes and respects and coating actors with goop in the esophageal tube! What a job!
I wonder if, to be that thankful and that aware (and that collaborative), you have to have experienced the flip side; if you have to have been Jupe, at least for a little while. I wonder if the process of -- to some extent -- commodifying your own suffering (as capitalism practically demands that artists do in order to survive as artists) leads, almost inevitably, to a moment where you think, "I survived this horror and became a Star because I am the main character of reality: I am more special than other people, I have a special ability to communicate, I have a special destiny." That is a powerful story and a seductive one, but if you don't leave it behind, it will eat you and the people around you alive.
It seems to me like an extension of what Peele is exploring in Us--the notion that your contentment is entangled with someone else's suffering. Why you? Why not the person with all your qualities who for whatever reason never ended up where you are? Especially for creators with marginalized identities, right? "Am I occupying a space that should belong to someone else?" You can avoid that question by deciding that you have special individual qualities that make you the Chosen One, as Jupe does. Or you can accept that the question will always haunt you, that luck (LUCKY THE FINAL HORSE??) has no logic, and you try to spread your luck out and open your space up to as many other people as you can. Which you see Peele doing all the time! Gah!!
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rey-129-fan · 24 days
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Well, it's been a while since I've posted any fanfic... Let's change that.
Good news! I'm not dead! My brain did try to get me to do things that could unalive myself for a bit, and then I lost nearly an entire side of my family over the span of 3 years, but I'm still here and still kicking! And I have two new puppies who are adorable and so loving.
Now for this story, this is inspired by a few posts I saw on @theglamorousferal, mostly the one about Amity Parkers going to college in Gotham and buying a hotel (I'm making it a co-op student house, but I've never lived in one, so if something's unacceptably wrong, tell me, if not, artistic license), but also the one where our main Trio buy a building to set up shop there, and wind up adopted my Jason (I swear, I saw that post after I wrote the first chapter, but it just fit so well).
***
Honestly, Amity Park was weird long before the Fentons moved there- the original settlers named the nearby lake Eerie, and it wasn’t after the Great Lake.  It’s just that before the Fentons’ machine punched a hole through reality and created a permanent doorway to the land of spirits and ghosts, the weirdness was not as blatant.
Prior to that, Amity Parkers were some of the few that could move to Gotham without suffering a breakdown that was common for new arrivals.  Now there was a slight dip in newcomers for about a decade or two after the Bat made his debut and then the crazies that followed him, but then Amity Parkers got used to the spirits of the dead wandering around following the aforementioned punching through reality.
All this to say that Gotham Universities were a rather common destination for young Amity Park adults seeking higher education.
Now because of this, there were always apartments advertising themselves for people from the small town.  They, after all, tended to not have a breakdown after their fifth rogue attack and just pack up and leave halfway through their lease.  But it got very annoying having to sift through all the advertisements when looking for a place to stay- something Danny Fenton saw his older sister go through when she got in to Gotham City University.  The boy then shared what he was witnessing with his two best friends- Tucker Foley and Sam Manson.  Tucker offered to help filter out the spam, which Danny’s sister Jazz thanked him for but turned down.  Sam… Sam instead got thinking.
Sam had been to Gotham a few times in her life.  She had an idea of the areas closest to the schools and how much those should cost.  And looking at the letters Jazz was getting, the offers were a little too high for a regular college student to afford.  Sam was also familiar with how many hotels were not being used in Gotham- people building them in hopes tourists would come to stay while visiting the East Coast, tourists that could not be convinced to visit due to the high crime rate and the lack of activities or places of interest in the city itself.
She quickly went to work, looking in to these empty hotels.  She was rather upset by their numbers and put together a spreadsheet of them, with details like number of rooms, any amenities they may have, and nearby landmarks.  She then grabbed her two dorks and marched to Casper High’s Community Outreach director.
Now Sam’s presentation raised a few eyebrows, mostly because it was in a completely different state, but Sam shot back that because of the efforts to incorporate the town’s new ghostly residents and provide them with helpful ways to feed their obsessions- efforts led by the Fenton family- Amity Park had very few homeless, and those that were had a huge community safety net to help them get back on their feet.  Additionally, with how many people moved between the city and the town, helping the city could be argued to also be helping the town.
The Outreach Director just sighed and gave Same the green light to at least draft and send out a proposal to the powers that be in Gotham, saying that there wasn’t much that could be done before they got backing and approval.  Sam thanked them before leaving, Danny and Tucker trailing behind.
She was back the next day with a draft of her proposal and a list of who to send it to.
***
Since returning from the dead in the eyes of the public, Jason Todd was often contacted by groups trying to use the Wayne fortune to fund their own personal projects.  They thought Jason would be the easiest to con- sorry, persuade- since he was a former street kid unlike the rest of his family.  Thus surely he would know just how much this new building with low income housing would help the people of Gotham- it even came with a pool and gym!
Yeah, he did know how much the people of Gotham needed housing, but $2K a month was not affordable when you’re barely making $30K a year!  Oh and the pool and gym were only available for those who could shell out an additional $2K a month.  Jason knows, he read the whole document carefully.
God, sometimes it was hard to tell who was worse, the psychos in Blackgate or real estate investors.  And sadly, he couldn’t just pop a bullet in their heads and be done with it because 1) it would raise too many questions and 2) it would make Bruce get all sad and mopey- again.  Jason just did not have the mental energy to put up with that on top of the rest of his life as a crimelord/vigilante/long-lost adoptive second son of a billionaire.
All this to say, he was not impressed when he first glanced over a proposal to convert the unused hotels around the city into housing units- especially since it was from someone that did not live in Gotham.
Manson?  Wasn’t there a family with that name that would attend some of Brucie’s galas?  Oh yeah, their family made its fortune off patenting the machine that wrapped toothpicks in plastic, as well as a couple others.  And they had a daughter around Repla- Tim’s age.  Hopefully this wasn’t her trying to be a kiss-ass like her parents.
Jason finished reading and sat back.  The proposal wasn’t too bad.  Converting hotels into apartment buildings would be easier than office buildings, and the suggestion to use ex-convicts that wanted to turn over a new leaf as building managers certainly wasn’t the worst.  Also creating a fund for those that couldn’t afford rent, as well as community kitchens and gardens were certain plusses, though would need to have the right people in charge to make sure they actually worked as planned, and to keep the Court of Owls from messing with it.
Overall, it was something Jason would consider, after some research and maybe talking with the rest of the Bats and Birds.  And if this was from the Manson kid, maybe get Dickie or one of the others to talk to her next time there was a gala in town.  Or talk to her himself, if the Pit wasn’t too loud.
…Dick was probably the better option to talk with her if it came down to it.
***
There's the first chapter. I'm going to go write the next one. When I have a good log of them, I'll then go and edit them and put them on AO3.
This has no title yet because I suck at naming. Feel free to comment with suggestions for a name, both for the fic/au and for the eventual hotel/co op. As well as any shinanegans and majors/colleges/universities for our liminal young adults.
Part 1/? Next >
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SEMIFINALS MATCH ONE
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"Can’t Help Myself" (2016 - Sun Yuan & Peng Yu) / "NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt" (1985-present)
CAN'T HELP MYSELF: It’s better to watch a video of it in action. It’s a large robot arm that’s only programmed to repeatedly sweep a pool of red liquid around it. But its task is never done, the liquid eventually oozes back out onto the floor. It just makes me so sad, the futility of its work. Brilliantly, the artists even programmed it to do little gestures during its work. Sometimes the arm will shake or almost wave at the audience. So it feels less mechanical, like it has a personality. People have interpreted it to symbolize many ideas. Like the futility of violence, and those who are tasked with the endless recovery and clean up. It could be about worker exploitation, the dehumanization of victims of violence, policing borders. Regardless of what it means, I feel pity whenever I see it. (nicolaleecallahan)
NAMES PROJECT AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT: fucks me up bc so many people died and so many people suffered and their partners didn’t have legal rights as next of kin and so many had been disowned by their parents and had to be held by a stranger while they were dying and if i could resurrect anyone in the world i’d dig up either reagan or thatcher and kill them again (jaskierx)
("Can't Help Myself" is a Kuka industrial robot made of stainless steel and rubber mopping up cellulose ether in coloured water made by two Chinese artists, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu. This installation was displayed in Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York but was removed from display.
The "NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt" is an ongoing community art project honoring people who passed away due to AIDS-related causes. It consists of approximately 50,000 panels of 3 by 6 feet (0.91 m × 1.83 m) panels, which is an estimated 54 tons of material. It is currently housed in San Francisco, but is often displayed in various places in the United States.)
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youremyheaven · 10 days
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The Severity, Spirituality and Stoicism of Saturnians ✊🏼🧎‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️
I will be criticizing Saturnian men throughout this post, if you don't like that, stop reading right now <3
Saturn is the planet of karma, justice, discipline, and order. In Claire's video about Saturnian men, she observed that "in Saturnian men you will find an exact duality contained here in breaking rules and doing strange stunts, pranks and having outbursts etc but also paradoxically find themselves submitting to ideologies, cults, political parties, motivational affirmations etc"
I feel like I touched upon this a bit in my first post about Saturn and in this post I'd like to go into different manifestations of this tendency along with some other things I've observed with Saturnian men.
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Timothee Chalamet, UBP Moon
Full disclosure, I've never liked him lmao,, I think the hype he gets is undeserved and 90% bc of the fact that there is a dearth of young charismatic actors in Hollywood.
But anywayyys, Timmy Tim first attracted controversy for working with Woody Allen even though he's since expressed regret for it or whatever,, then he received flak for having sex in a pool during the height of the pandemic and manyyyy blinds about him giving women chlamydia 💀💀started making the rounds and he was lowkey exposed for being a whore
Then last year he drew criticism for smoking indoors at a Beyonce concert (where smoking is prohibited) and he's literally talking to Kylie and blowing smoke ??? at the same time?? which is sooo filthy?? who tf does that??
His silence on the Armie Hammer issue and pretty much all issues lol have also been criticized. Everybody thought he'd be some woke liberal activist but he's just been dead quiet and pretty self absorbed the whole time. He loves to lap attention and give absolutely nothing in return to the community.
The thing with Saturn however is that, bad behaviour does not go unpunished. Timmy Tim has been getting A LOT of flak and the total rose tinted obsession people had with him is slowly fading (even tho he still has legions of fans). People are now starting to see his true colors.
But anyway, this is a very minor issue compared to all the other Saturnians I'm going to mention next.
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Jeffrey Epstein, UBP Moon, Anuradha Rising
I'm assuming most of you are familiar with sex offender Epstein. He has trafficked thousands of underage girls over the course of decades and to satiate numerous high profile paedophiles.
He committed suicide while in prison. One thing about Saturn is that, if you stray, are immoral, unfair, undisciplined, corrupt, foul, evil etc it WILL punish you. The truth is Saturnians know deep down that what they're doing IS wrong, they're not like Moon dominants who are completely convinced their corrupt evil idea is a "good" one. Saturnians know full well what they're doing and they do it anyway and they suffer its consequences.
Inviting Saturn's wrath upon oneself is basically how these natives find "balance", they feel like they get away with too much and they're constantly pushing their limits to see how far they can go before this wrath comes for them.
Epstein had been doing this for decades without much consequence, working with extremely high profile people including politicians and royalty. Eventually, he was caught and the truth of his immorality was exposed for all to see AND he ended his own life.
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Salvador Dali- UBP Moon
Dali was known for being an eccentric and a weirdo and you can say that the way he pushed his boundaries as an artist is a more "positive" manifestation of Saturnian individuals and their need to test limits.
However, Dali was also a pretty messed up guy
Dali admitted on several occasions to having sadomasochistic tendencies. As a child he enjoyed throwing himself down the stairs, explaining that “The pain was insignificant, the pleasure was immense���. Shockingly, he once pushed his childhood friend off of a 15-foot bridge – as his friend lay injured, Dali apparently sat calmly eating cherries.
Pleasure and pain seemed intimately entwined. Dali wanted both. One other childhood incident of note included a wounded bat. It was kept in Dali's washhouse hideaway and stayed there overnight. When Dali returned to it was being devoured by a mass of ants. He impulsively bit into the seething mass delirious with pleasure. 
I had briefly mentioned how Saturnians tend to be sadomasochistic in my previous post about Saturn and these examples just confirm it further.
When he is an adolescent a girl falls desperately in love with him. He kisses and caresses her so as to excite her as much as possible, but refuses to go further. He resolves to keep this up for five years (he calls it his ‘five-year plan’), enjoying her humiliation and the sense of power it gives him. He frequently tells her that at the end of the five years he will desert her, and when the time comes he does so.
When he first meets his future wife, Gala, he is greatly tempted to push her off a precipice. He is aware that there is something that she wants him to do to her, and after their first kiss the confession is made:
I threw back Gala's head, pulling it by the hair, and trembling with complete hysteria, I commanded: ‘Now tell me what you want me to do with you! But tell me slowly, looking me in the eye, with the crudest, the most ferociously erotic words that can make both of us feel the greatest shame!’ Then Gala, transforming the last glimmer of her expression of pleasure into the hard light of her own tyranny, answered: ‘I want you to kill me!’
He is somewhat disappointed by this demand, since it is merely what he wanted to do already. He contemplates throwing her off the bell-tower of the Cathedral of Toledo, but refrains from doing so.
George Orwell once described Dali this way:
"The two qualities that Dali unquestionably possesses are a gift for drawing and an atrocious egoism."
Art historian and critic Brian Sewell has also claimed that Dali once asked him to lie naked in front of one of his sculptures and masturbate whilst he watched.
He was also obsessed with Hitler in a perverse way.
While the vast majority of the Surrealist group professed far-Left political leanings, Dali kept curiously quiet during his early career, before being kicked out of the group for being a Nazi sympathiser, which he denied. Dali went on to make artwork addressing the Hitler, including “The Enigma of Hitler” (above) and “Hitler Masturbating”, once detailing that he “often dreamed of Hitler as a woman” and that the Nazi dictator “turned [him] on”.
He was a big old fascist who also supported the Spanish dictator Franco which made Picasso stop talking to him for the rest of his life. Orwell who fought in the Spanish civil war called Dali a "disgusting human being".
At age six, Dalí writes in his autobiography, he pre-meditated a "terrible kick" to his three-year-old sister's head "as though it had been a ball." Not simply childish not-knowing-better, this baseless cruelty continued as Dalí got older.
Here is an article that says more about his shitty behaviour.
Here is another article about his fcked up relationship with his sister
Saturn never fails to punish tho. It will let you fck up but punishment is imminent.
Dali died in his 80s, almost penniless, completely alone, as he had driven all his friends off decades prior, his wife had already passed and he was seriously ill and bedridden. He used button to call his nurse and one day that button short circuited and set him/the bed on fire. He suffered second and third degree burns all over his body. He lived for another four years in severe pain before passing away.
Just because you go a whole lifetime avoiding punishment, does not mean it isn't coming. People who suffer in old age have it the worst because you suffer 100x more
Dali was a Saturn defying narcissistic, violent, abusive person and guess what Saturn did? It saved it all up for the very end and left him without any kind of mercy. Friendless, penniless, bedridden, in excruciating pain, FOR YEARS until he finally died.
Saturn punishes you/is a harsh teacher because it wants you to uphold the Saturnian qualities of virtue, justice, fairness, doing your duty etc, you may never see the rewards of your good actions, so it may feel like a waste of time to keep being so principled but if you decide to just do whatever and disobey, you best believe Saturn will come through with that wrath. You have to keep being virtuous and morally upright even if you don't see yourself being "rewarded" for it. No one may recognise your goodness but keep being good anyway.
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Alexander Graham Bell, Venus in UBP in 2h, Saturn in Shatabhisha in 1h
He is the guy who invented the telephone but he was also a very controversial deaf educator in his time.
Bell's father was a teacher of the deaf. His method of teaching the deaf was coined "Visible Speech." Bell's mother was deaf/hearing impaired and he would often speak to her by placing his mouth close to her forehead, believing the vibrations from his voice would help her distinguish speech more clearly.
Although he married a deaf woman, a former speech pupil, Mabel Hubbard, Bell strongly opposed intermarriage among congenitally deaf people. Bell feared "contamination" of the human race by the propagation of deaf people even though most deaf people statistically are born to hearing parents.
Bell applied his study of eugenics to his goal of preventing the creation of a deaf race and presented his paper Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race to the National Academy of Sciences in 1883.4
Bell stated, "Those who believe as I do, that the production of a defective race of human beings would be a great calamity to the world, will examine carefully the causes that will lead to the intermarriage of the deaf with the object of applying a remedy."
In this paper, he proposed to reduce the number of the deaf by discouraging deaf-mute to deaf-mute marriages, advocating speech reading and articulation training for an oral-only method of education, removing the use of deaf teachers and sign language from the classroom.
Suggestions were made to enact legislation to prevent the intermarriage of deaf-mute people or forbidding marriage between families that have more than one deaf-mute member. His preventative strategies for deaf marriage included removing barriers to communication and interaction with the hearing world.
I feel like Saturnians often have a tendency to subconsciously make things harder for themselves and for others. Getting things easy is not Saturn's style. And this can manifest in sooooo many different ways. Bell grew up with a father who taught deaf people/children, his mother was deaf, he married a deaf woman YET he believed that they did not deserve to have separate schools that used communication tools specifically designed for them to make their lives easier. He spent his entire life working with deaf people but still somehow did not want things to be easier for them???
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Steve Jobs, UBP moon
He had a pretty stellar reputation for being a major asshole. He was an extremely difficult person to work with and often terrorised his employees and was a toxic vile asshole to the women he dated.
Jobs was given up for adoption by his parents and later in life, he abandoned his girlfriend and baby after he got her pregnant.
His daughter Lisa later said that her mother felt uncomfortable leaving her with Steve alone after an incident in which he questioned and teased the then-nine-year-old Brennan-Jobs about her sexual attractions and proclivities.
Once, as Jobs groped his wife and pretended to be having sex with her, he demanded that Lisa stay in the room, calling it a "family moment."
It is well known that Steve Jobs was really good at conceptualizing things and coming up with ideas (touch screen phones, macbooks, iMacs etc) but he lacked the technical expertise to build anything. His partner, Steve Wozniak was the actual brains behind all of the creations to put it simply.
Early in his career, Jobs worked for the game developing company Atari who promised him a bonus of $5000 for developing a game called Breakout. Jobs did not have the know-how to execute this, so he made his friend Wozniak who worked at a different company stay up all night for 4 nights to design this whole ass game. He gave him $350 for it and told him he was giving him half of what the company paid him. Wozniak only found out much later that Steve basically stole his ideas, used him AND gave him a paltry sum as compensation.
Before Apple went public, Jobs refused to give any major shares to the many many developers and engineers who played a crucial role in pioneering the company. Wozniak gave those employees HIS shares so that they could make a profit when the company went public.
I'm not going to detail all the ways he tormented his employees and staff. You can google it.
Eventually, Saturn's karma started kicking in and Jobs was fired from the company he founded and for 10 years, he had to stay away from Apple. This experience humbled him a bit.
Apple really suffered in his absence and they brough him back in 1997 and we all know the kind of groundbreaking work he did in the next decade there. (hint: iphones, ipods etc)
In 2011, he found out he had terminal pancreatic cancer and resigned from his position and died 6 weeks later.
He refused to get surgery and chemo and chose "alternate treatments" until his disease had progressed so far that, there was no saving him.
He would eat a single thing and only that for weeks. Like apples. He'd eat only apples for three weeks. He was convinced that made him superior to everyone else and that it made him have no body odour, so he never showered either. This made it really hard for others to be around him.
Now back to his daughter, he was incredibly abusive to Lisa. She said she was forced to move home over 13 times before age seven as her mother struggled to pay the bills through a series of cleaning positions, while Jobs, then already a multi-millionaire, refused to help.
During one visit she innocently asked if she could be given his Porsche after learning the flashy vehicle had a scratch and needed to be replaced. His scowling response shocked Lisa, then aged seven.
“‘Absolutely not,’ he said in such a sour, biting way that I knew I’d made a mistake,” she remembers. “I understood that perhaps it wasn't true, the myth of the scratch: maybe he didn’t buy new ones. By that time I knew he was not generous with money, or food, or words; the idea of the Porsches had seemed like one glorious exception. I wished I could take it back. We pulled up to the house and he turned off the engine. Before I made a move to get out he turned to face me.
“‘You’re not getting anything,’” he said. “‘You understand? Nothing. You’re getting nothing.’ Did he mean about the car, something else, bigger? I didn’t know. His voice hurt—sharp, in my chest.” (an excerpt from her memoir 'Small Fry')
Saturn may delay punishment but it will punish and whether or not you learn from it, is up to you. Some individuals are not very malleable and they suffer the most. They make the same mistake over and over again and never learn. Steve died of any entirely preventable disease but he refused treatment. He was in excruciating pain towards his end and was completely bedridden. He expressed regret about not having gotten treatment sooner but :/
It's really scary how your karma catches up with you. Its the worst when it comes for you and leaves you with no time to remedy anything, so you just suffer agony knowing there is nothing you can do.
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Woody Allen- Anuradha stellium (Sun, Mercury & Jupiter)
He molested his step daughter Dylan Farrow and is currently married to his former step daughter from the same marriage Soon Yi.
There has been a lot of misinformation regarding him molesting Dylan as a child even though the fact that he is literally married to one of his stepdaughters should be reason enough to suspect him
 Allen had been in therapy for alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan with a child psychologist before the abuse allegation was presented to the authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan.
 Allen refused to take a polygraph administered by the Connecticut state police. Instead, he took one from someone hired by his legal team. The Connecticut state police refused to accept the test as evidence. The state attorney, Frank Maco, says that Mia was never asked to take a lie-detector test during the investigation.
(Here is a link to the full article)
But again, Saturn's karmic lessons come through. Numerous actors have refused to work with Allen, he has been publicly condemned, lost all his reputation during #MeToo Actors such as Greta Gerwig, Colin Firth, and Mira Sorvino have recently apologized for accepting roles in Allen’s films, while many of his most avid fans have turned against him.
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Johnny Cash, Rahu in UBP in 1h
Johnny was a drug addict and very abusive to his first wife. He creepily pursued June Carter while he was still married and despite her rejecting him MANY times, he did not give up. She was in a financially unfortunate position and he gave her the opportunity of touring with him, which she had to take up to make ends meet and finally in front of a live audience, he proposes marriage to her and basically forces her to say yes.
They remained married for 50 years and died within a year of each other so idk if they had a happy marriage or a troubled one but the Saturnian persistence was coming thru.
Cash's whole life is super Saturnian. His career came to a standstill in the 70s after a stellar decade long run in the 1960s, all throughout which he was abusing drugs.
In the early 1980s, Cash had eye surgery, broke several ribs, and damaged a kneecap, all on separate occasions, and again became addicted to pills. He was hospitalized in 1983 with internal bleeding that almost killed him. Upon regaining strength, he checked into the Betty Ford Clinic and remained clean until his death.
In 1994, after a looooong period of zero hits and chart play. He collabed with Rick Rubin (the GOAT) and then released a number of successful albums until he passed away in 2003 and from 1997 onwards he had been struggling with autonomic neuropathy and was frequently hospitalized.
Its interesting to me how between 1954 to 1973, Cash was undergoing his Saturn mahadasha and this period brought him enormous success and also made him completely addicted to substances. In 1965, he started a forest fire that burned off 500 acres of forest land and killed 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. When confronted about it, he said "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards".
From 1973-1990, he was undergoing his Mercury dasha, and this was a very low period in his career as he suffered major setbacks.
As he's sobering up at the Carter's family ranch, he's walking along a path. One of their ostriches is standing in the path. Well Cash thinks to himself "Hell if I'm moving" and tries to move it, so the bird starts trying to headbutt/peck at him, so he swings a punch at the bird, it responds by splitting his goddamn abdomen open with it's talon, from top to bottom. (he said the only thing that stopped the talon was it got stuck on his leather belt and couldn't go further). So he's laying on the ground, and grabs a branch (or an old fence post, can't remember) and starts beating it from the ground until it runs away.
Its interesting how his major highs in life were during his Saturn MD (He has Saturn in Uttarashada in 11h) and his biggest blows came during his Mercury MD (he does have Mercury in Shatabhisha in 12h 😬).
Mercury is not an inherently difficult dasha the way Saturn is. But what we sow, we shall reap. Saturn gives you 19 years to get your shit together and if you don't really learn during this period, it gets on your ass long after that. Jennie from Blackpink ended her Saturn MD in 2019 and some of her career's biggest moments have come since then but so have the controversies (she's currently in her Mercury MD) and it's as though the lingering after effects of the Saturn dasha really dictates how we experience our Mercury dasha.
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Winston Churchill, Anuradha Sun
In 1943 in Bengal, over 3 million people died due to starvation and Churchill was directly responsible for this.
Churchill deliberately ordered the diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British soldiers and even to top up European stockpiles, meant for yet-to-be-liberated Greeks and Yugoslavs (all of this happened during WW2 for context)
He basically said, this is none of my business. Even though millions of Indian soldiers fought for the British during WW2 and were British subjects until India gained independence in 1947. Also btw India was the biggest contributor to the Empire's GDP. they looted and plundered us and left us to starve, basically.
In the book, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, written by Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill was quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. 😡🤬😠he was a racist imperialist pig to say the least.
Some people are Churchill defenders and genuinely believe that the Bengal famine was a necessary sacrifice to win the war, and that those who critiqued him were unfair and had little insight about WWII. Aka: the colonized are expendable in a war between essentially imperialist, genocidal and fascist states. And they can kiss my ass.
To Indians, Churchill is a Hitler-like figure and rightfully so.
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."
Winston Churchill to Peel commission in 1937. 
Here is a thread that elaborates the many fcked up things he did.
When I talk about how cruel, brutal and callous Saturnian men can be, this is what I mean. Saturn restricts, limits and binds. This can easily mean Saturnians subject themselves and others to unnecessary rules, restrictions and limits.
Steve Jobs thought he was superior to others bc he only ate one type of food for weeks and months. Just because someone has discipline, does not automatically mean its good to have it. Free range parents can suck because they dont protect you or shelter you but disciplinarian parents also suck. Both Jupiter and Saturn struggle to learn "balance".
An unevolved Saturnian will be stingy af, very partial, biased and ill mannered. They act like cave men.
Churchill struggled with his mental health his whole life. He referred to it his “black dog:” fits of melancholia that followed Churchill throughout his life and often left him bedridden, suicidal and unshakably depressed for months at a time. It may sound cruel to say poor mental health is "karma" for his actions. (He also suffered 7 strokes and the final one, killed him). But the ways in which we are punished are often not materially obvious??? We may see terrible people thrive but often they are really suffering on the inside. Saturn often punishes by depriving you of peace of mind :/
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Thomas Alva Edison, Anuradha Rising
In 1884, Nikola Tesla moved to New York City to meet Edison, who was famous for his low-voltage, direct-current electricity. Tesla believed the higher-voltage alternating current electricity was superior and suggested creating an AC-powered motor, but Edison claimed it was too dangerous. Instead, Edison promised the recent immigrant $50,000 (over $1 million today) if he could improve upon his DC generators, or “dynamos.”
After toiling for several months and making significant advances, he returned for his reward, only for Edison to say, “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.” Tesla quit—but the bullying didn’t stop there.
George Westinghouse had purchased Tesla’s patents and became the pioneering force behind AC power and its widespread implementation. Edison, who was ideologically and financially invested in his own DC power, began a publicity campaign against AC power. The campaign was ruthless; he wanted to prove that the high voltage of AC power was too dangerous for public use, so he and his cohorts began publicly electrocuting animals—stray dogs and cats, cattle and horses, and even, notoriously, “Topsy” the elephant. (you can hate me for pointing out how unevolved Saturnians abuse animals all you want but it will not stop it from being true<333)
The story gets worse. Edison was asked whether electrocution was a humane method of execution. In reply, he claimed that with Westinghouse’s AC power, it was indeed a humane and reliable execution. Westinghouse of course tried to prevent such an association, but Harold Brown, one of Edison’s employees, was hired by the state of New York to build the first electric chair. Obviously, he used AC power.
The execution—the first use of the electric chair—took place on August 6, 1890. AC power proved neither reliable nor humane. The first, 17-second-long charge failed to kill the man, an alleged axe murderer; after waiting for the generator to recharge and amping up the voltage, the next charge at last brought an end to the horrible, 8-minute long ordeal. Westinghouse, disgusted, reportedly said, “They would have done better with an axe.”
For his last two years, a series of ailments caused his health to decline even more until he lapsed into a coma and died at the age of 84.
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Bo Burnham, Venus/Jupiter/Ketu in Pushya and Anuradha Rising
He does have a reputation for being a dick but I wanted to mention him because I think his sense of humour is VERY Saturnian. He has this tendency to humble his audience and its super Saturncoded to me. Like his whole shtick is serving you with a reality check in a slightly condescending way which is extremely Saturnian.
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He often makes "ironically" misogynistic jokes or whatever and its laced with that Saturnian bitterness except he's slightly self aware I guess.
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Aziz Ansari, Venus & Mars in UBP and Jupiter in Anuradha
Tbh other than the fact that his stand up comedy routines are hella lame, I dont really have much dirt on him.
However, he did sexually assault a woman in 2018 and nobody has heard much from him since tbh. I guess its an example of "instant karma".
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Mads Mikkelsen, Anuradha Sun conjunct Ketu
Mads aka the man who made a career out of playing the bad guy
This isn't about Mads but about his most well known role, playing Hannibal Lecter.
Hannibal imo is very very Saturncoded
 He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and impeccable manners. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners; according to the novel Hannibal, he "prefers to eat the rude". Hopkins described Lecter as the "Robin Hood of killers", who kills "the terminally rude".
Saturnians are either extremely refined or very unkempt. There is no in-between. You can always tell when someone has an imbalanced Saturn influence based on how disorderly, messy and chaotic they are.
In the novel Red Dragon, the protagonist, Will Graham, says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath "because they don't know what else to call him". Graham says "he has no remorse or guilt at all", and tortured animals as a child, (👀) but he does not exhibit any of the other criteria traditionally associated with sociopathy. Asked how he himself would describe Lecter, Graham responded, "he's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell."
Hannibal embodies the disciplined, orderly conduct of an evolved Saturnian along with the cruelty and harshness of it.
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Charlie Puth, Anuradha Sun & Mars
half of this guy's discography is about how he hates women from LA. He literally has one song called "Nothing But Trouble (Instagram Models)" and it's just about how instagram models make problems. He has another song called "L.A. Girls" about how women in LA are fungible. It's like yeah maybe instagram models do suck but no one made you date them??? 
These are lyrics from the song LA Girls:
"There was Nikki, Nicole, Tiffany, and Heather But there's only room for you in my world But you say that I changed like the east coast weather How the hell did I get caught up? Messin' with these LA girls"
When I tell you the Madonna-Whore complex runs DEEP with Saturnian men. They will fool around with you and think of YOU as "cheap" for doing so and fall for the girl who never gives it up. The double standards of Saturnians are 🤮🤢
They will get frisky and frivolous with you and judge you for it :/
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Woody Harrelson, Pushya Sun, Anuradha Moon
When I think of unkempt Saturnians, I think Woody Harrelson lmao
While filming in London in 2002, Harrelson found himself at a bar when two women approached him. According to the actor, the women asked if he wanted to "take a walk on the wild side." To which Harrelson replied, "I guess I do." A third woman joined in the fun, and the foursome returned to Harrelson's accommodations and enjoyed what the outlet described as "whatever-happened-next." Unfortunately for the Rampart star, "a paparazzo was able to snap a photo that soon hit the tabloids." The worst part — his then-girlfriend and future-wife Laura Louie saw these photos in the press. This "led to a good bit of groveling on Harrelson's part," and the couple worked past the incident.
I think I have noticed about manyyyy Saturnian men is that they often have enabler wives who put up with their shit + encourage it. Steve Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell was like that. Steve was such a perfectionist that he did not even buy furniture for their house and yk what?? she was okay with that lol and they remained married until his death even though literally everybody who has ever known him describes him as an asshole.
Woody Allen's still married to Soon Yi who is also entirely defensive about him. Same goes for Harrelson's wife I guess. How on earth does someone work past a foursome??? wtf
"I used to go to bars and fight the guys I thought were bullies. I've got scars everywhere," he revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. His fighting ways continued even after becoming a famous actor. Like when he once punched a reporter and claimed he thought the photographer was a zombie. 
Saturnians never beating the abusive rumours 😩
On a different note, I've noticed how many Saturnian musicians make sad boy music with a ✨spiritual essence ✨
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Sufjan Stevens is a UBP Moon
This is from a 2015 interview:
"I still describe myself as a Christian, and my love of God and my relationship with God is fundamental, but its manifestations in my life and the practices of it are constantly changing. I find incredible freedom in my faith. Yes, the kingdom of Christianity and the Church has been one of the most destructive forces in history, and there are levels of bastardization of religious beliefs. But the unique thing about Christianity is that it is so amorphous and not reductive to culture or place or anything. It's extremely malleable."
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Tamino, UBP Moon
He said in an interview:
"We like to look at religious texts from all over the world, [and] they always share a lot of similarities. That's not because they necessarily influenced each other, it's more that our inherent experience as humans comes out through storytelling. It's awesome. So that's something that's really interesting: the story that we need to tell. And the stories that we tell will always survive longest. I think it sort of gives them a higher truth, a metaphysical truth, which makes religion quite beautiful to me. You don't have to necessarily believe in every little thing that's described in a book. I'm not a practicing believer—not in the classical sense. But I do have faith. I think a lot of people have faith without realizing [it]. Even waking up and starting your day, we all have like these little acts of fate throughout our lives without even noticing."
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Hozier- Anuradha Moon
Faith is a big theme in their work and their lives and I feel like they are some evolved Saturnian men who have embraced the stoic spirituality of Saturn and poured it into their creativity.
In one interview, Hozier described Quakerism as a doctrine which taught him during childhood “to look for the God in each person” and “the spark of the divine that’s in every individual.” In particular, Hozier seeks this spark in his lover.
Its interesting to me how all 3 of them use religious metaphors often to speak of love because the ultimate form of love is devotion and Saturnians who have transcended the grips of limitations imposed by Saturn understand this more than anybody. They know what its like to love like their life depends on it.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pushya Sun
Many Saturnians love to talk about working hard and kicking ass. Arnold is one of them, although I will say his preachiness comes from his Punarvasu stellium lmao
Arnold is a good example of a man who has worked very very hard and abided by every Saturnian principle to climb the ladder to the top. Yet he cheated on his wife with his housekeeper. He however did not deny paternity of the son he fathered with her. He has also expressed his regret about cheating and how he lost his marriage.
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Kim Kardashian, UBP Moon
She came under fire for her comments about "get your ass up and do the work" but honestly it's just Saturnian tough love
Kim is a good example of someone who has turned every single setback into a career opportunity. She is a true hustler. Obviously she's extremely privileged yada yada yada but she was Paris Hilton's assistant at one point and was at the bottom of the ladder. In 20 years she's built a fortune for herself and her family. Like, if it were Kourtney in Kim's place 🤡they wouldn't be where they are rn. Kim is a worker and its hard to deny that.
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Rose- UBP Moon
In her interview with Vogue Australia, she said:
“I ended up fighting for my life, training for my life. Because I couldn’t accept the fact that I’d just be cut and sent back, so I had no time to slack off. I remember I took every minute and every second to work on my craft so that I [could] make it,” 
“When I got [to Korea], I was like, ‘This is quite intense,’” she said of the early period of training. “I notice[d] that there [were] 12 other girls who had been training day and night for about five years. And I had just gotten there.” She feared that if she didn’t catch up to the other she would be cut and sent back to Australia, where she’d already told her school friends that she was dropping out to work on her music. "
“I [had] left and I didn’t want to fly back [to Australia] without having achieved anything,” she said of her worry at the time. “And I think it was a good drive. Just the fact that I had flown all the way from Australia gave me more strength [and] determination to strive.”
Hardworking Saturnians ✊🏼🙏🏼🧎‍♀️making the most of that Saturnian determination and reaping its rewards OOF
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saionjeans · 2 months
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so i read part one of after the revolution. touga and saionji both being art dealers who contend with the notion of prioritizing art, ethics, or profit is really great way to concisely communicate the tensions in utena regarding the inherent violence of framing as it relates to objectification through the gaze, and how objectification leads to dehumanization leads to abuse as a mode of control. here are some key panels that communicate these ideas most explicitly:
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it’s really interesting that while touga argues for art to take priority over the ethics of how that art is produced, saionji finds that notion outright reprehensible and admonishes touga for thinking that way. it’s funny to consider, because they’re both so awful, but yes, technically, saionji is nonetheless far more principled than touga.
touga takes a relativist approach to the morality of abuse, including the sexual abuse of children, claiming that there is no concrete morality that dictates whether or not an act is wrong, and thus the legacy of the artist must remain in the public consciousness for future generations to evaluate on their own terms. it’s not an unreasonable argument, but it’s also clearly obfuscating his own relationship to such a dynamic, as someone who wants to minimize the pain of his own suffering to position himself as stronger and more powerful than he is. by diminishing the impact of child sexual abuse through defending the right of the artist (ie, akio), touga is diminishing his own trauma for the sake of defending the value of art.
but saionji is also an art dealer, also operates within this framework, even as he resists it. which is obvious, because that’s his established modus operandi: ruthlessly critiquing the system that he participates in and even benefits from. saionji thinks that the enabling of csa is “a betrayal of life itself,” but touga considers it a crucial facet in the process of “immortalizing art,” or, in other words, achieving eternity.
then utena appears, and she grants touga the power to revolutionize the world, or, in other words, extinguish akio’s ghost once and for all. once touga defeats akio with utena’s help, akio’s prized painting (a nude of anthy he painted) transforms into a painting of her and anthy embracing (and fully clothed). the idea of achieving immortality through art, or attaining absolute power and control through exploitation, is flawed. paradigms can be overthrown through active resistance to hegemonic norms. neither touga’s approach that all art must be approached through a relativist lens, nor saionji’s approach that bad people should never have their art platformed on ethical grounds, is entirely correct. while saionji’s principles (that csa is always wrong and must always be condemned) is not incorrect, there is also a third approach, that is actively underwriting, complicating, and shifting the dominant narrative, which can only be done by facing it head on, as utena does.
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when akio comes back as a ghost (for the second time) to attempt to possess his painting of anthy titled revolution (which is great because he then says “i will let no one take my revolution!!”), saionji jumps in front of his sword to save touga. the extent to which saionji is actually injured is unclear (it’s utena, so blood isn’t actually a byproduct of stab wounds), but the sentiment remains. touga helps saionji to his feet, and they lean on each other while touga says “that’s what it means to have the power to revolutionize the world.”
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saionji jumping in front of akio’s sword for touga is essentially a parallel to utena taking the swords of hatred for anthy, although the parallel roles of anthy and touga are less explicit here (although as previously stated, his defensiveness when it comes to the matter of csa is nonetheless telling). it’s basically a conclusion to touga’s claim that “true friendship is for fools,” as he offers his true friendship, tender and unbidden, to saionji, and saionji, in turn, who literally drew a sword on him at one point in the comic (valid btw), jumps in front of another sword for touga’s sake.
the role of art in this story is thus fascinating as it connects more to the role of paintings in adolescence, whereas photography is the primary vehicle used to communicate this tension of framing in the show proper. the painting of anthy is a signification of the violence done to her, and both its revolutionary potential as utena actively rewrites it, and the conversation surrounding exploitative art as approached by touga and saionji, is actually a really interesting way to summarize these key thematic tensions, while also actively developing (and perhaps even resolving) the conflict between touga and saionji, who do blatantly function as counterparts to utena and anthy, for better or for worse.
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gamchawizzy · 4 months
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❗️Mutual Aid Needed🦐
Hello hello, I am Woz, I am a trans guy from the global south, and outside of my day job in corporate, I am an artist. I am the breadwinner of my family, and I also get my younger sibling through school.
For a little more than half a decade I have been suffering with bad mental health and suicidal thoughts, on top of trying to keep my family afloat with what I can earn.
I work two jobs to earn money, on top of tabling at conventions to be able to earn extra on the side. I am the one who pays all the house bills, some groceries, often having to send money to my sibling for school and sometimes tuition. Due to the constant pressure from overworking and the abusive social environment I have been exposed to for the longest time, I am now experiencing bodily pains, shortness of breath, headaches, worsening eyesight, and worsened depression as I clock in 10-15 hours almost daily (including weekends and holidays) trying to make ends meet.
I’m humbly asking for your help so I can get proper healthcare, which has been out of my reach for the longest time due to poverty. I was hoping to be able to afford help a few years ago, as soon as I got a job, but ever since the pandemic, the local price hikes just kept going, and going, until the matter was off the table entirely. The biggest reason why I am trying to get this moving now and as urgently as possible is so I can still receive treatment while I am still mentally and physically able to take charge of my own health. 
While I’m still more or less able to function well enough to work, I recently escaped an abusive situation, which was one of the biggest causes of my misery. The fallout from this event brought on a severe impact on my mental health and I was subject to a cult-like shunning by my old community. This has caused me to develop suicidal thoughts again, which eventually led to several self-delete attempts, the latest of which almost succeeded had I not been caught at literally the last second.
At the moment I am stable again and in the hands of trusted loved ones, but I still do not have access to professional help and I don’t know how long this stability will last and the next thing might cause me to spiral again.
We already did some research on getting local help and have a plan in motion, all we need now is the funds to carry it out. The bulk of it will be for the initial consultations and possibly medication, and we’re hoping to have enough to get the ball rolling for a couple months’ worth of treatment as I get myself back on track.
The initial process will be the most expensive as I am suspecting to have an undiagnosed condition that I would like to have checked, as well as possible medication. I do not have a disability ID yet (but I plan on getting one once I get a dx on paper), so we may have to pay full price for initial treatments.
Currently, my primary goal for this would be to achieve psychiatric help, diagnosis, medication, and therapy.
If I’m able to save up for a few months of maintenance and still have extra left over, my secondary goal would be to finally get my knees checked, as I have chronic pain and the occasional kneecap dislocation in them. This has been left unchecked for more than 15 years due to both poverty as well as being outright denied healthcare by the adults around me due to them downplaying the problem. I am nearing my 30s soon. While I’m still able to walk and engage in physical activities without the use of mobility aids, I fear that the complications from this condition if left untreated will only take a turn for the worse as I age.
Direct ways to support me:
Paypal:
Ko-Fi:
I have prints! You can pick up some of my art here:
We do not have a set price goal in mind as it will be a months-long process of beginning treatment and maintaining it, but rest assured all funds received will be set aside for the purpose of my healthcare and well-being only.
I still cannot escape many factors of my life that continue to hurt me, but I am hoping that continuous treatment, therapy, and support will help keep me going so I can keep my family fed without me having to worry about my own health.
Any donation, big or small, helps me so much! Even just a dollar/peso helps, shares and reblogs too! PH Moots, feel free to ask for my GCash in private!
Thank you all for reading! I’m always grateful 😭🙏❤
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collectmytears · 1 year
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alfaromeostake A special design for a great initiative. ♥️
@.valtteribottas will auction off his special-edition, race-worn 2023 #AustralianGP helmet to raise funds for @.savethechildrensuisse, the team's official charity partner.
Known for displaying unique helmet designs on track, the Finn teamed up with contemporary Aboriginal artist, Ricky Kildea, to realize two one-off helmets ahead of the Melbourne race, as a way to pay tribute to Australia's Indigenous communities.
A highly dedicated and passionate Aboriginal consultant, Ricky Kildea is committed to address the disadvantages experienced by Indigenous communities, improve pathways to employment and make a real difference within the local Aboriginal community.
As an artist, Ricky links his cultural identity with his passion for sport to create unique artworks, mainly on Australian Rules footballs but, in this case, #F1 helmets.
After the race weekend, one of Valtteri's special helmets will be auctioned on the @.f1authentics platform, with all proceeds donated to two projects benefitting the local Indigenous community.
The Mooroopna Kinder Project, which is accessed by families who otherwise would struggle to afford to put their children in kindergarten, suffered damage caused by severe flooding in 2022.
Save the Children will use the proceeds raised by the auction to cover the costs of repairs, as well as buying new equipment to restore the kindergarten as an environment where children can thrive.
Artist Ricky Kildea chose the second project to benefit from the funding: Koorie Academy Basketball, a not-for-profit organisation supporting Aboriginal children who face obstacles when it comes to inclusion in sports.
The proceedings will go towards hosting a basketball clinic and a cultural workshop in Geelong for Aboriginal youth.
The auction of Valtteri Bottas' race-worn will run on f1authentics.com between March 28 and April 11, 2023, with Valtteri personally handing over the prized item to the successful bidder.
Fans and collectors alike will be able to place bids for the chance to own a unique piece of memorabilia, while helping raise funds for important causes.
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wangxianficfinder · 3 months
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Fic Finder
March 15th
~*~
1. Looking for a post 1st seige burial mounds fic on ao3. It was a wip but it's been awhile so may no longer be the case. In it jc only participated in the siege as a cover to get close enough to his brother w/out endangering lotus pier. Since he leads the charge he finds wwx first and when wwx passes out after destroying the seal jc fakes wwx's death and smuggle him back to lotus pier & hides/kinda imprison him. But the longer they're together the more jc realizes a lot of the things he blamed wwx for aren't adding up (seeing through Jin manipulations).
Jc also forgot/didn't know about ayuan so when wwx wakes up he freaks out about where his baby adopted son is, but by the time jc gets back to bm yuan is no where to be found (implied lz had already got him) but jc and wwx think this means yuan is dead. Wwx is very depressed and becomes Jin ling's secret nanny whenever the kid is at lotus pier. In the most recent updates (at the time) a baby xue yang was introduced.
He saw a disguised wwx in a hidden area by lotus pier playing in the water and is basically like 'I'm cute and small too' and plots how to get himself adopted so he can also be pampered like the wealthy kid. I think there were some alternating povs. Might of been a Lan pov too, creating dramatic irony since both yuan and wwx are alive but neither side knows? Was setting up yunmeng bro reconciliation.
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2. I'm looking for a specific fic, it was modern, WWX took LWJ to a concert of post modern, like synth? Chinese music and I think NHS told WWX about it?? It had some good song recs and I'm mainly looking for the the songs- if you guys could help me out? Thank you!!!! @recombinantdna
NOT FOUND! The Quiet Room by trickybonmot (M, 39k, WangXian, Modern AU, 1990s, Goth LWJ, Cellist LWJ, College Student WWX, House Hunting, Dating, Clubbing, San Francisco, Implied/Referenced Past Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Academic Disaster Aftermath, Getting Together, Repressed Teen Crushes to Strangers to Lovers, Homelessness, in the form of couch surfing, background NieLan) in which WWX finds LWJ being a DJ in a goth club in the 90s and it talks a lot about music. NHS is totally an enabler.
FOUND! show me a quiver, give me tonight by spookykingdomstarlight (E, 115k, wangxian, lwj/others, communication failure, mutual pining, artists, demisexual wwx, angst w/ happy ending) WY surprised LZ by bringing him to a performance of an artist LZ likes, H i d d e n f r a g r a n c e who plays electronic guqin. The sample songs can be found in the author notes in Chapter 10
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3. hi! im looking for a fic and the only thing i remember from it was wangxian (canon divergence, maybe arranged marriage but im not sure) in maybe caiyi?? sitting down at a noodle place, and there was a thing about how wwx loved the gusu dialect and kept pestering lwj to say something in the dialect, and he knew enough of the dialect to flirt or haggle so when lwj said an endearment term (i think it was something like sweetheart?) he froze and got all panicky about wwx recognising the word because he froze too, but then wwx just asks if he swore?? THANK YOU SO MUCH IF YOU FIND IT ive been combing my bookmarks and history for almost weeks now and im so close to thinking i made it all up
FOUND? Your Hand in Mine by cerbykerby (T, 20k, WangXian, Humor, Comedy, Pining, cursed to hold hands, Light Angst, Sharing a Bed, First Dates, Embarrassment, Fluff, bathing together, wwx is a menace to society, and lwj Suffers A Lot, Canon Compliant)
FOUND? Fentao-laoshi’s Guide to Cut-Sleeve Pleasures by occultings (microcomets) (E, 31k, wangxian, canon divergence, pining while fucking, friends with benefits, first time, cloud recesses study arc, practice kissing, sharing a bed, jealousy, getting together, confessions, happy ending)
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4. For fic finder: I have lost a modern-au fic where Lan Zhan is in the hospital, in a children’s wing, and Wei Wuxian visits a lot/volunteers there. Wei Wuxian has prosthetic legs and he gets a new red pair around the point I lost the fic. I am pretty sure I found the rec through this blog but I can’t find it again TT Help please!
FOUND? 🔒 some things go forward by everythingispoetry (T, 73k, WangXian, Modern AU, Hospitals, Teenage Drama, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Happy Ending)
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5. First, thank you for everything that you do ! Your posts and recommendations and "I'm in the mood for" collections have kept my heart and soul busy for years now! I am honestly in awe of all the hard work and time you dedicate to both pages! 🥰
Unfortunately I don't remember much of the summary of the fic I'm searching for, but I wanted to try my luck. 🙈 It was a light modern dom/sub fic where WY accidentally sort of turned LZ into a sub. I think by giving him indirect orders all the time? And nobody noticed until WQ pointed it out? I searched through Ao3 with the light dom/sub tag for ages and then eventually gave up.
Maybe it rings a bell for you? 🙏🤞❤️ @papperlapapp1
FOUND? And They Were Roommates! or The Accidental Domming of Lan Wangji by DizziDreams (E, 21k, wangxian, Dom WWX, Sub LWJ, inexperienced BDSM practices, un-/under- negotiated kink, horny climbing, horny cohabitation, horny on main except by main I mean at a party surrounded by innocent bystanders, Praise Kink, Masturbation, Bondage, Lingerie, Orgasm Delay/Denial, omg they were roommates, Modern, BDSM, debatably a bit of dom drop, Public Masturbation, Edging, Getting Together, WQ has to come in and straighten this shit out)
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6. Okay so looking for a fic where lwj or wwx accidentally summon incubus/succubus wwx or lwj. (I can't remember who was the sex demon or who was the human but it is a wangxian fic)
So, the succubus needs food and it is, unsurprisingly, cum. As in they have to literally eat cum to survive. So the human is followed by this succubus/incubus everywhere they go to including his university.
The human does love feeding the sex demon and even lets him feed in the uni bathroom during breaks.
Does a fic like this exist? Does it ring any bell?
FOUND? An Array of Good Decisions by celerydragon (E, 11k, WangXian, Demon Sex Size Kink, Size Difference, Consensual Non-Consent, dubcon, Tongue Sex, Omegaverse, Humiliation, Mild Breeding Kink)
FOUND? Lan Wangji's Fullproof Guide on How (NOT) to Summon a Demon by fardimensions (E, 3k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Porn With Plot, but not a lot of plot, Incubus WWX, Demons, wwx has a tail, Wings, Interspecies Sex, Bottom LWJ/Top WWX, Anal Sex, Crack, Filthy, size queen LWJ)
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7. for the fic finder: it's a fic (dom/sub canon au?) where wei wuxian gave lan wangji a collar before he died. lan wangji keeps the collar for as long as he can but eventually the leather is too old and it breaks. there's a bunch of sadness but all is well when wei wuxian resurrects.
thank you for all you do!!
FOUND? Breathe Again by Sheehan_sidhe (E, 4k, wangxian, Grief/Mourning, Depression, Breathplay, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, POV LWJ, LWJ Has Feelings, Submissive LWJ, Crying LWJ, Grieving LWJ, Collars, Angst with an Eventual Happy Ending)
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8. for fic finder: my heart tells me it was a modern/modern with cultivation au, but my searches have been fruitless. i just remember our beloved wangxian dancing around each other, and the juniors being there with a similar problem. specifically, jin ling being tested at archery, and sizhui Totally Only There For Emotional Support And No Other Reason.
FOUND? with you, I am home by tellthemstories (M, 47k, wangxian, Modern Cultivation, fake dating for reasons, Meeting the Family, There Was Only One Bed, Casual Domesticity, wwx is oblivious in more ways than one, 'this fic is like emotional edging', this comment sums up the entire fic)
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9. heyI've been looking for a fic for a while.WWX and LWJ were in the turtle's cave of slaughter... they had no energy to fight and decided to do double cultivation.
When it comes to the part where WWX donates the golden core to JC.... during the surgery, WQ discovers WWX is pregnant, the double cultivation generated a uterus.
He is still captured by the Wen clan and thrown into the grave hill.He believes he lost the baby because of this and uses his resentful energy to survive and get revenge.
When he reaches the part at the end of the campaign where the sun falls, he goes into labor without knowing that he is still pregnant.
It's not Omegaverse.
Sorry if my writing is bad, english is not my first language @crazy-tai
FOUND? Impermanence, Transience, Permanence by Best Bepsy (BepsyGray) (E, 39k, wangxian, canon divergence, unplanned pregnancy, mpreg, gore, sunshot campaign, assumed miscarriage, medical procedures, childbirth, golden core reveal)
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10. Hello! I was wondering if anyone here knew of a fic that took place during the Wen Indoctrination? If I remember right, it was only one chapter, set mostly in the Untamed universe because Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning had worked together to make it seem like he was dead for the Wens after being locked in with that dog, but he was grabbed too early and basically paraded in front of the other disciples under the belief that he was dead. If anyone else has seen this fic, I'd be extremely grateful!
FOUND!🔒💖 the universe would turn to a mighty stranger by RavenclawLoki (T, 11k, wangxian, Angst, Eventual Fluff, Some mentions of blood, it looks like someone is dead but!!, it is okay, everything is going to be okay i promise, First Kiss, Canon Divergence, Wwx and lwj know they're in love, They just don't know the other loves them back, Everyone Lives AU, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ)
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11. For your next fic finder, I'm looking for a modern wangxian dating reality tv au. It's omegaverse and in the first half of the show, everyone is paired up, but in the second half of the show, it's wilderness survival with the alphas trying to catch the omegas. Wwx is a career omega who is trying to get a cash prize instead of an alpha. @leahlisabeth
FOUND? 🧡 shoot your shot – hot or knot by defractum (nyargles) (E, 51k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O Dynamics, Reality Show, Hunger Games Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Extremely Dubious Consent, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Humor, Additional Warnings In Author’s Notes)
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12. Guys I need help finding this story. So it’s about Wei ying being hit by this memory yao. And he is in pain. So lan zhan, lan yuan, lan qiren, lan huan, Jin rulan, and jiang cheng. They use this spell to take Wei ying bad memories. They hold onto this bad memories because they don’t want Wei ying to go through all of that and remember. Ofc they are traumatized but they love him, etc. sooo please if you know the name write in comments. I have been looking for it for DAYS @zodime101
FOUND? Window of the Waking Mind by mrcformoso (M, 8k, wangxian, LSZ & WWX, JC & WWX, Graphic depictions of violence, Major Character Death, Heavy Angst with a Happy Ending, Sad with a Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Torture, Golden Core Transfer, WWX Has Self-Esteem Issues, Hurt WWX, WWX Needs a Hug, WWX Needs a Break, Flashbacks, Curses, Night Hunts, Suicide, Starvation, Canonical Child Abuse, Canonical Character Death, Cannibalism, Although it was forced by the situation to survive, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, lots of comfort, Soft LQR, Learning To Communicate, Zidian Spiritual Tool, JC Tries, Reaction)
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13. hi! for the next fic finder — it was sizhui centered! him being raised by lwj but also wwx, but wwx is a ghost. and wwx has no recollection of his death and there was this one scene where he curls up around ayuans body and falls asleep and he wakes in the cloud recesses and i think he thinks he's being ignored? and then there was the whole realizing he was a ghost thing. and also lwj burying his body at the bm. pls help me T^T its Not "the dark doesnt frighten me, its mine" btw!
NOT FOUND! the moon, grown full by Deinde (T, 22k, LSZ & WWX, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Spirits, Identity Reveal, discussion of war crimes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Homecoming, reclaiming your name and identity, Names, Families of Choice)
FOUND! The Intervening Years by rosemu (G, 11k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, LSZ centric, Parent-Child Relationship, Wangxian is background, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort)
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14. Hi! For fic finder: I am looking for a canon-era fic where cultivators have golden blood and regular people have red blood. When Wei Wuxian loses his core his blood fades to red, which means he has to work harder to hide his wounds or they will give away his core-less state. I particularly remember the scene where Jiang Cheng stabs him in their “mock” fight WWX hides his wound with a cloak. He takes to covering up his body fully from head to toe to avoid showing any scrapes. Then after he is revived and Jiang Cheng whips him he purposefully shows the red blood to “prove” he isn’t WWX, then I think the core reveal happens when Jin Ling stabs him and everyone knows its him and they see the red blood too. Thank you!!
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15. I need help finding a fic, I didn’t get too far into it but I really want to finish it. I think it was a longer fic and I think it’s well known and/or already in a comp or itmf answer. I i remember is that the summary put wwx as a temporary head of the Jiang Clan, from the first few chapters I think he’s tricked/strong armed into this position by JC. He had some Buisness at koi tower or a conference that would take a while so he needed a filler and wanted WWX. I think it’s post-cannon and it had someone insulting WWX in the summary and something along the lines of a statement of spite and a declaration to prove said person wrong.
This is likely a terrible description but it’s all I have. I know I got the og link from this site so someone should recognize it… Help would be greatly appreciated.
FOUND? Twelve Moons and a Fortnight by stiltonbasket (M, 290k, WangXian, Humor, Slow Burn, Post-Canon Fix-It, Long-Distance Relationship, Epistolary, Love Letters, Family Feels, a-qing lives, teenage romance, Adoption, Romantic Comedy, Happy Ending, Weddings, Case Fic, Parenthood, Politics)
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16. Hello! For the next fic finder I have two fics:
A) the only thing I remember about this fic is that it deals with the "do not speak with Wei Ying" rule. Lan Wangji was really angry when he found out and was about to go yell at his uncle, but Wei Wuxian kept trying to stop him. I remember Wwx threw himself into a pond or down a hill or something to snap Lwj out of it? I don't remember anything else about the fic unfortunately.
B) vampire au where Wwx was a vampire and the lans hunted the supernatural I think? Wangxian had to work together to stop some evil thing. I remember Wwx's backstory was something like: Wen Chao captured him and locked him in a room with a vampire, thinking it would result in Wwx dying (cultivators couldn't be turned into vampires, they would just die). But Wwx had given up his core so he got turned and Wen Chao locked him in a house with Wen Ning. There was a fire and Wwx turned Wen Ning to save his life. I also remember a scene where Wwx tried to go into Cloud Recesses, but the wards wouldn't let him. He thought this meant Lwj wanted nothing to do with him, but it was just Lan Xichen updating the wards or something.
Thank you!
16A)
FOUND?🔒Scenes From Three Winters by LtLJ (G, 12k, wangxian, post-canon, romance, family feels, family issues, family drama, PTSD, body horror, bad parent LQR, happy ending) Wei Ying throwing himself in a pond and down a hill to snap LWJ out of anger at his uncle sounds a lot like what happens at the end of Scenes from Three Winters by LtLJ but it's not specifically the 'do not speak to Wei Ying' rule that's the problem (will probably need to read other fics in the series for context)
16B)
FOUND?🔒hear the monsters calling home by sundiscus (M, 8k, wangxian, Modern Cultivation, Vampires, Misunderstandings, Angst with a Happy Ending, blood drinking (romantic))
FOUND? And you must keep your soul/ Like a secret in your throat by athena_crikey (E, 48k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Vampire WWX, Cultivator LWJ, Case Fic, h/c Angst, Falling In Love, First Time, Reference to Torture)
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17. Hi!! for the next fic finder, I was hoping of you guys could help me find a fic where it takes place in post canon: lwj cultivates to immortality even though he didn’t want to be and wwx tried hard to catch up to him but later on passes away bc he was never able to. Lwj was so devastated and during wwx’s funeral, jc came to pay respects and lwj found out that jc has also become an immortal. lwj says something along the lines of “how dare you cultivate to immortality with his core?” it might be a reincarnation fic but that’s about all i can remember from it. Thank you so much! @makkachiin
FOUND!🔒Closer Than Eternity by Netrixie (T, 26k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reincarnation, an unhealthy addiction to starbucks, Immortals, Self-Doubt, POV Alternating, Minor Original Character(s), Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Temporary Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, not for jc fans, This is not a reconciliation fic) The scene at WY's funeral is in Chapter 3.
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18. Hi! I hope my request will be clear, since English is not my first language, so I apologize in advance. I really want to read it, but I can't find a fic in which Lan Sizhui dies on a night hunt, saving the distracted Lan Zhan and Wei Ying. I don't remember many details, but I remember how the grief of A-Yuan's family and friends was described, and then A-Yuan was reborn. The fic was on ao3. @amelliss
FOUND? Setting Of The Sun by heartsdesire456 (M, 8k, WangXian , Character Death, Or Is It?, Grief/Mourning, Child Loss, Heavy Angst) i don't think it's reincarnation but this sounds similar to
FOUND? Our Son Reborn by RenaFair (T, 103k, WangXian, Mpreg, Deities, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Slow Build, There's smut, Rollercoaster of Emotions, baby a-yuan)
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19. hi, I’m look for a fic from ao3, I can’t really remember the plot but the end was wwx absorbing the tiger seal and in the process made a SILVER core. It happened in the burial mound (I think after the seal was stolen in Lanling but that might be a different fic)the timeline was before wwx’s first death because wen Qing was still alive @teasong
FOUND? ❤️ kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight by AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf, tardigradeschool (T, 75k, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Eventual Happy Ending, Getting Together, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Inspired by The Parent Trap (1998), Kid Fic, teen shenanigans, two a-yuans, Fluff and Angst)
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20. Hello! I am looking for Wangxian fanfiction where Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are lovers before Demonic cultivation and Wei Ying hurt Lan Zhan as in canon later the reunite after 13 years or something like that @abz18699-blog
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aaknopf · 2 months
Audio
Martyr!, the poet Kaveh Akbar’s propulsive debut novel, tells the tale of Cyrus Shams, the son of a lost mother (victim of a 1988 U. S. Naval snafu in the Persian Gulf that killed 290 people on a commercial airliner) and the long-suffering father who emigrated to Fort Wayne, IN with his baby boy. We meet Cyrus as a student of poetry at Keady University and a reformed addict. In this excerpt, he’s at the local open mic with his friends; we also share one of the poems from Cyrus’s bookofmartyrs.docx, helpfully supplied by Akbar, the poet behind the fictional poet.
. .
The Naples Tuesday night open mic had become a mainstay of Cyrus and Zee’s friendship. It was a small affair, not much to distinguish it from the myriad other open mics happening elsewhere in the country—except this was their open mic, their organic community of beautiful weirdos—old hippies singing Pete Seeger, trans kids rapping about liberation, passionate spoken-word performances by nurses and teenagers and teachers and cooks. As with any campus open mic, there was the occasional frat dude coming to play sets of smirky acoustic rap covers and overearnest breakup narratives. But even they were welcome, and mostly it felt like a safe little oasis of amongness in the relative desert of their Indiana college town, a healthy way to spend the time they were no longer using to get drunk or high.   Naturally, Naples didn’t have its own sound equipment, so Zee would usually show up fifteen minutes early with his beat-up Yamaha PA to set up for Sad James, who hosted every week. Sad James was called this to distinguish him from DJ James, a guy who cycled nightly through the campus bars. DJ James was not a particularly interesting artist, but he was well-known enough in the campus community to warrant Sad James’s nominative prefix, which began as a joke but somehow stuck, and to which Sad James had grown accustomed with good humor, even occasionally doing small shows under the name. Sad James was a quiet white guy, long blond hair framing his lightly stubbled face, who played intensely solemn electronic songs, punctuated by sparse circuit-bent blips and bloops, and over time at Keady, he had become one of Zee and Cyrus’s most resilient and trusted friends.   On this night, Cyrus had read a poem early, an older experimental piece from a series where he’d been assigning words to each digit 0–9, then using an Excel document to generate a lyric out of those words as the digits appeared in the Fibonacci sequence: “lips sweat teeth lips spread teeth lips drip deep deep sweat skin,” etc. It was bad, but he loved reading them out loud, the rhythms and repeti­tions and weird little riffs that emerged. Sad James did an older piece where the lyrics “burning with the human stain / she dries up, dust in the rain” were repeated and modulated over molten beeps from an old circuit-bent Game Boy. Zee—a drummer in his free time who idolized J Dilla and John Bonham and Max Roach and Zach Hill in equal measure—hadn’t brought anything of his own to perform that evening, but did have a little bongo to help accompany any acoustic acts who wanted it.   On the patio listening to Cyrus talk about his new project, Zee said, “I could see it being a bunch of different poems in the voices of all your different historical martyr obsessions?” Then to Sad James, Zee added, “Cyrus has been plastering our apartment with these big black-and-white printouts of all their terrifying faces. Bobby Sands in our kitchen, Joan of Arc in our hallway.”   Sad James made his eyes get big.   “I just like having them present,” Cyrus said, slumping into his chair. He didn’t add that he’d been reading about them in the library, his mystic martyrs, that he’d taped a great grid of their grayscale printed faces above his bed, half believing it would work like those tapes that promised to teach you Spanish while you slept, that some­how their lived wisdoms would pass into him as he dreamt. Among the Tank Man, Bobby Sands, Falconetti as Joan of Arc, Cyrus had a picture of his parents’ wedding day. His mother, seated in a sleeved white dress, smiling tightly at the camera while his father, in a tacky gray tux, sat grinning next to her holding her hand. Above their heads, a group of attendees held an ornate white sheet. It was the only picture of his mother he had. Next to his mother, his father beamed, bright in a way that made it seem he was radiating the light himself.   Zee went on: “So you could write a poem where Joan of Arc is like, ‘Wow, this fire is so hot’ or whatever. And then a poem where Hussain is like, ‘Wow, sucks that I wouldn’t kneel.’ You know what I mean?”   Cyrus laughed.   “I tried some of that! But see, that’s where it gets corny. What could I possibly say about the martyrdom of Hussain or Joan of Arc or whoever that hasn’t already been said? Or that’s worth saying?”   Sad James asked who Hussain was and Zee quickly explained the trial in the desert, Hussain’s refusing to kneel and being killed for it.   “You know, Hussain’s head is supposedly still buried in Cairo?” Zee said, smiling. “Cairo, which is in which country again?”   Cyrus rolled his eyes at his friend, who was, as Cyrus liked to remind him when he got too greatest-ancient-civilization-on-earth about things, only half Egyptian.   “Damn,” Sad James said. “I would’ve just kneeled and crossed my fingers behind my back. Who am I trying to impress? Later I could call take-backsies. I’d just say I tripped and landed on my knees or something.”   The three friends laughed. Justine, an open mic regular whose Blonde on Blonde–era pea-coat-and-harmonica-rack Bob Dylan act was a mainstay of the open mic, came outside to ask Zee for a cigarette. He obliged her with an American Spirit Yellow, which she lit around the corner as she began speaking into her cell phone.   In moments like these Cyrus still sometimes felt like asking to bum one too—he’d been a pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker before he got sober, and continued his habit even after he’d kicked everything else. “Quit things in the order they’re killing you,” his sponsor, Gabe, told him once. After a year clean he turned his attention to cigarettes, which he finally managed to kick completely by tapering: from one and a half packs a day to a pack to half a pack to five cigarettes and so on until he was just smoking a single cigarette every few days and then, none at all. He could probably get away with bumming the occasional cigarette now and again, but in his mind he was saving that for something momentous: his final moments lying in the grass dying from a gunshot wound, or walking in slow motion away from a burning building.   “So what are you thinking then? A novel? Or like . . . a poetic mar­tyr field guide?” asked Zee.   “I’m really not sure yet. But my whole life I’ve thought about my mom on that flight, how meaningless her death was. Truly literally like, meaningless. Without meaning. The difference between 290 dead and 289. It’s actuarial. Not even tragic, you know? So was she a martyr? There has to be a definition of the word that can accom­modate her. That’s what I’m after.”
More on this book and author:
Learn more about Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar.
Browse Kaveh Akbar's poetry collections and follow Kaveh on Instagram @kavehakbar.kavehakbar.
Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.
To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.
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full hc request: mc and m6 celebrating holi ?
(i am friendless this holi and i will cry over it)
-🫧 anon
The Arcana HCs: Celebrating Holi
~ most of this is based off of childhood experience celebrating in South Asia, thank you for resurrecting all the fun memories anon! ~
Julian
He loves the concept of it
A community event, full of color and celebration? Heck yeah! This extrovert is pumped and ready to spread the joy!
This extrovert is also a doctor
And this doctor is already gearing up for the aftermath - for all the people who caught cold running around in wet clothes, the injuries from hopping around on wet cobblestones and twisting ankles ...
... the overenthusiastic celebrants falling into the canals and bumping their heads, the kids who always end up licking the color powder and find out the hard way what they're allergic to ...
And of course, the mild panic he experiences for the next week seeing faded stains on his patient's skin and faces and briefly mistaking them for bruising
Seriously, why do bruises turn every color of the rainbow??
But all that aside, he's excited to celebrate with you and will even bend down so you can smear some color on his face and eyepatch
Asra
Oh, they are thriving
This is easily one of his favorite events of the year. This gets more planning and preparation time than ... most things, really
They insist on making (or at least, modifying) all of their own colors and stock up on everything from powder to paste to dyes they can mix with water and spray at passersby with a water gun
Some of them he enchants to be holographic. Others, to hover menacingly in the air and then engulf whoever walks close enough
It's one of the few times when all the kids in the neighborhood flock to them because they know that nobody will kit them out for a proper water fight like they will. It's on
His hair is going to have colors lingering in it for over a month
The magic use does get just a little bit out of control, sometimes - they've been politely asked to stay away from the town square, since the statues still occasionally puke neon rainbows
Will put a spell on you that morning so nothing can stain you
Nadia
Does she enjoy and look forward to this festival? Yes. Is she stressed beyond words? Also yes. She needs a break
The sheer logistics of organizing a national holiday aside, Holi is messy. The streets are full of people, traffic is impossible for the day, injuries are spiking from partying too hard, and the cleanup
Don't get her started on the cleanup
Vesuvia has plenty of white marble statues and fountains that end up coated in the rainbow every year (though it's gotten easier since a certain magician was banned from the town square)
Not to mention the series of legal cases afterwards when some merchant passing through sells a load of poor quality colors
That won't stop her from enjoying it with you. She'll set up the garden and spend an afternoon chasing you around with her palms covered in color, darting out to leave smudges on your cheeks
If she moves a little more slowly to ensure that she gets covered in your colors as well, then. That's for only her and the shrubs to know
Muriel
A festival so exciting and intense that crowds of people flood the streets and smear colors all over each other with abandon?
Yeah, you can count him out
The concept of celebrating color and the triumph of good over evil is delightful, but you both know that if he joins he'll suffer at best and have a full-blown panic attack at worst. Better not
He'll celebrate with you in his own way
You'll find a forest clearing, pull out all the environmentally friendly colors you've stocked up on, and goad him with rainbow fingerprints into a playful game of tag among the trees
His artistic side will make itself known, waiting for you to tire yourself out before he sits next to you and traces swirls and runes all over your arms and face with featherlight touches
Of course, this only works if you're distracted with something while he does, or else your eyes on him will make him freeze up and blush. (the shaky little smudges those cause are the best)
Portia
She adores Holi and she is Prepared
She knows all the tips and tricks to get through the day with as little misfortune as possible. Old, cheap clothes that you don't mind getting stained. Oil on your skin and hair before you go out
And of course, a mom bag stuffed to the brim, half with celebration essentials and half with mischief implements
You look tired and a little overstimulated. Here, wipe your face and hands with this damp towel and drink some water. She packed snacks - do you want a cookie or a sandwich?
You look like you could use an advantage. Here, take this dye filled water balloon and throw it at the nearest street sign - the partygoers underneath will have it in their hair for weeks
Her favorite celebration spots are right in the middle of wherever the kids are having their massive water fight. Nobody can amp up mediate one of those like she can
Will shamelessly cover your clothes in her handprints
Lucio
He loves it for the first fifteen minutes or so
A town-wide celebration that fills the streets? Heck yeah, he is all in and having the time of his life! He has permission to splash color all over random strangers? Awesome! He's going all out -
... until he starts to receive the same treatment, which means his hair is getting messy and his clothes are going to stain and there's dye all over his face and absolutely ruining his eyeliner
Yeah, he's done, and he's going to start sulking if he doesn't get a hot bath nice and soon
Mercedes and Melchior, on the other hand, are having the times of their lives. It's chaos dialed to the max and they love the chance to weave between people's legs and splash colors everywhere
Of course, they also have gorgeous long silky white fur, which gets absolutely saturated with pigments and dyes as they run wild
Bathing them afterwards is a legendary nightmare and the pastel hues linger on their backs for quite a while
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PLEASE READ AND REBLOG🇵🇸
Rescue Lulu and Baby Adam from the Siege on Rafah!
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Message from the creator:
Urgent request to fund Lulu (7 years old) and Adam (5 months) across the border to Egypt as the bombing and aggression on Rafah increases. Their parents have done everything possible to keep them safe but now feel they have no other option but to leave Gaza. They will leave together as a family, evacuating four people total (two adults and two children) so they can join other family members in Egypt.
The family is in extreme, constant danger due to the military bombardment of their hometown of Rafah; the city is no longer safe for them. They have not been able to work for seven months due to the war so they are living on minimal food and water, little electricity, all while experiencing constant fear and shock. They lost many family members and friends in brutal and unimaginable ways including a recent airstrike on a family member's home. Several members of the family have urgent medical needs and their lives are in danger every moment. Prices have soared in Gaza and it's a daily struggle for them to meet their basic needs.
About us:
My name is Arwa and I'm an Arab-American psychotherapist living in South Florida, fundraising to rescue our friends Karem and Sheroq, their daughter Lulu, and their baby son Adam from the brutal war taking place in their home of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Baby Adam (5 months old) was born just two months into the genocide and in his short life has only known war. Lulu (7 years old) has a strong spirit but she is too young to be living through daily bombings and the hunger of food shortages. Just today, members of their extended family were killed in an airstrike; this has finally urged them to evacuate. Please help us get the Zamlis to safety as soon as possible!
We just completed a successful GoFundMe for Karem’s mother and siblings – now we must evacuate Adam, Lulu, Karem, and Sheroq.
Please share widely and donate generously, as if this were your own family and friends! Help us support them to reach peace and freedom after having their lives turned upside down so brutally. Thank you so much for your support!
Family in crisis:
Kerem and Sheroq Zamli have two small children who are loved very much and whom they want to be able to pursue their dreams. They try to shield the children as much as they can - however that has become impossible now with widespread loss and devastation everywhere in Gaza.
The Zamli family have asked us to help them cross the border into Egypt where they can begin a journey toward rebuilding their lives. Time is of the essence! Help us get them across the border into Egypt so they are safe from the increasing, indiscriminate attacks on their city of Rafah.
Meet the family:
Karem turned 30 years old during this war. He owns a small carpentry workshop that provides for his family. Karem is Feras Al Zamli’s brother, for whom we did our last fundraiser. They all live in the same home and hope to do the same upon arrival in Egypt. (You can follow Feras on Instagram at @feras.al.zamli for ongoing updates on the family.)
Sheroq, Karem’s 29-year-old beloved wife, is an incredibly devoted wife and mother, caring constantly for her family. She now suffers numerous health problems, such as anemia, due to malnutrition. Being pregnant and postpartum during the war, with constant stress and food shortages, has been very difficult. Even so, she delights in baby Adam and her daughter Lulu each day.
Lulu is 7 years old and more vivacious than words can describe. She’s a very talented artist with a passion for drawing. Lulu is love by so many in the community due to her outgoing personality and wise presence beyond her years. She loves learning and misses her school and teachers very much. It is difficult for such an incredibly smart girl to be deprived of her education and she looks forward to returning to school in Egypt.
Adam is just five months old, born into this horrific war. Since birth Adam has been surrounded by the loss of loved ones and destruction of his city. He deserves the same opportunities and chances that every child in the world does. He is constantly surrounded by the love and warmth of his family and we cannot risk him losing that so early in life.
All of the family members currently suffer from health problems due to war, lack of resources, and unavailability of healthy food. The Zamli family dreams of traveling to continue their lives in safety and serenity. They aim to provide their children with a safe and secure environment and to join their other close family members in Egypt.
Thank you for coming together as a community to help them evacuate this brutal war!
Breakdown of Funds:
It costs $5K per adult to cross the border into Egypt plus $2500 per child. This comes to $15K total for all four of them. They need an additional $9K for travel costs and $1000 for taxes and fees. The total amount needed is $25K.
We also hope to surpass the fundraiser by $2000 to help cover GoFundMe fees and international transfer taxes. All additional funds will go to interim travel expenses such as food and a temporary rental in Egypt.
Thank you for your support:
Thank you for coming together as a community to rescue the Zamlis from a brutal war! Time is of the essence! Help us get them across the border into Egypt so we know they are safe from the increasing attacks in the south of Gaza.
Please share widely and donate generously!
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