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I was having funny paws dream

ID: Orange and white tabby laying on his side sleeping with one paw folded up and placed on his other paw

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Never let anyone tell you that "bitching online about fucked-up corporate choices is a waste of your time." IT WORKS.

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- Celine tending her garden - Fields of Mistria

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Do non Brazilians/Filipinos know about Brazilippines…. Brazilians and Filipinos randomly decided that we were two sides of the same coin and have now become besties

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More Dawntrail narrative thoughts, this time about the Golden City. Spoilers below.

There are several layers to the Golden City as a plot device in Dawntrail, and I think they're interesting enough to just unpack them all and look at them.

The first time we hear the term, it's from Hades in Endwalker:

"Tell me, have you been to the ruins beneath the waters of the Bounty? Or the treasure islands beyond the frozen waters of Blindfrost, in Othard's north? The fabled golden cities of the New World? The sacred sites of the forgotten people of the south sea isles?"

It's telling that he groups that with the sacred sites of the south sea isles. The plot later tells us that they are explicitly connected to one another, but why does it call them "citiies," plural? Where's the other one, Hades?

(Also, we haven't yet been to the treasure islands in the north, but every one of those locations in the quote above has to do with cross-rift travel. Every. One. So, that may be something we see again later.)

But apart from their lore and plot significance (and potential foreshadowing), the Golden City is, from the first time we hear of it, a lure. Bait, dangled before an explorer, enticing them to go onward. It is, for lack of a better word, a promise of things to come. In the specific case in Endwalker, it's a promise that your story isn't over yet, there's still more to come. Even though you are, at that moment, standing in front of the amassed dead of countless worlds. Death is not the end, it's the beginning of new life.

The second time we hear the term, it's from Wuk Lamat. Who is, again, using it to entice us to join her. We don't know at that point that her actual title is, in fact, Promise. And that is significant.

It is, likewise, the bait for Krile's involvement in the story. The thing she knew her grandfather had been asked to study, the secret he'd kept out of the records of the Students, the promise of a connection. To the past, to someone she loved who is now gone.

But then there's the Rite of Succession. And it changes the meaning of the plot device entirely.

The Rite is structured to follow the Tulliyolal saga--the journey Gulool Ja Ja undertook, over the course of who knows how many years, to unify the peoples of Tural into a single nation. A journey which notably has nothing to do with the Golden City. To the Turali, it's a fairy tale. It is so detached from the story of Gulool Ja Ja that Koana immediately has to ask if the city being the final goal means his father actually has some proof it exists.

The Rite itself, as Gulool Ja Ja later admits to us, is meant to be instructional for his children. They are not meant to simply find and cross the finish line, they're supposed to be learning how to be the rulers of Tural.

As we complete feats in the rite, we are awarded stories of the Golden City by each of the races in Yok Tural. And they all follow a significant pattern: The Golden City was the literal dream of the Yok Huy. The conquerers of every single people in southern Tural. The stories we are given are the stories shared by colonized people of their oppressors.

The conquest of Yok Tural is mentioned repeatedly. Every group we meet was displaced and enslaved by the giants during their empire, and the ultimate goal of that empire was to find the Golden City--a paradise of eternal life without pain or suffering. It is at this point that the Golden City becomes a warning. It is the promise of self-destruction. Searching for it ultimately toppled the Yok Huy empire and changed the giants forever. It displaced and disrupted numerous cultures and started centuries of war.

It is, ultimately, the reason why Gulool Ja Ja ever had to play the role of peacemaker and unifier in the first place. The divide-and-conquer tactics employed by the Yok Huy created every problem he set out to solve.

Why did he choose to make it the final goal of the Rite of Succession? A place he famously did not find before becoming Dawnservant? Was it, perhaps, as a lesson to his children, his Promises? Especially his son Zoraal Ja who had dreams of empire?

But interestingly, the Golden City was also set forth as the specific goal for Erenville to find by his mother. Cahciua wasn't present in the flashbacks to Galuf and Gulool Ja Ja and Kettenram viewing the gate, but we know that she met them afterward, and had Erenville with her. Was she with them the first time they'd found the gate? I have to think she was. The only people who seem to have known for sure about it, among Gulool Ja Ja's circle of friends and allies, were the explorers. The ones who would have been interested in searching for it purely for the joy of discovery.

I think it's safe to say that for Cahciua, at least at the time that she gives her son his quest, the Golden City is the Almost Impossible Dream. One that can, in fact, be found, but crucially, not alone. The Yok Huy, who searched for it for generations, and crushed everyone around them trying to get inside, had it in their possession all along. But they never even saw the gate. It took Gulool Ja Ja, who had friends to help him, who actually discovered the way in. It is the promise of discovery through love and fellowship, for her only son who was withdrawn and antisocial.

And then we actually find it.

It is not an accident that the way to reach the Golden City is through a cenotaph of lost hope. We literally pass through waters littered with the bodies of children who were never born--promises never fulfilled--to get to its gate.

And it's eating the Yok Huy ruin. The electrope spreads out from the gate like an infection, over-writing the Yok Huy stonework, erasing their culture.

And it's still... oddly beautiful? But in the way a poisonous mushroom is beautiful.

And it's closed. We don't go through it at this point, though we walk right up to the seal on the doorway. Because we're alive.

We're told by Erenville that many people have sought the Golden City, never to return. And of course they didn't.

Because this is the gateway to death.

Zoraal Ja is the first person we actually see go through it. The False Promise. Just to reinforce that this is, in fact, Zoraal Ja's role, Sareel Ja leads him to the gate and hands him the key with a speech that is wholly constructed of the same false platitudes about Zoraal Ja's magical birthright that have driven Zoraal Ja to be this self-destructive and miserable in the first place. And we can see how much the speech upsets Zoraal Ja, who just lost the contest to both his siblings. He knows every word of his inherent greatness and destiny is a lie. Sareel Ja hands him the key, and he grips it like it might be a bludgeon without even looking at it. And the second time Sareel Ja makes a "Resilient Son" speech, Zoraal Ja literally stabs him in the back.

Having skipped all the lessons and warnings about the danger of pursuing death and destruction, Zoraal Ja walks through its front door.

And I don't think it's accidental that the dome appears in Xak Tural, even though the gate itself is located in Yak T'el, far to the south. Xak Tural is the land that defeated the Yok Huy advance without a single battle. The unconquerable land. This is the part of Tulliyolal that Gulool Ja Ja didn't have to fix because it was never broken in the first place. They very notably do not live in the segregated societies the people of the south do, because nobody imposed that on them. The towns we see are a mix of races living together, and probably served as the inspiration for Gulool Ja Ja to build Tulliyolal in the first place, differing people pursuing communal and sometimes conflicting interests together. These are the people Zoraal Ja has been rambling about nonsensically, "teaching the value of peace by the misery of war." The ones who don't need Tulliyolal, but merely want to be part of it.

He can make his mark here because his father never did.

When the dome appears over Yyasulani, we, the players, know it's Zoraal Ja's passage through the gate that caused it, but the characters don't learn this until after he's brutally slaughtered people. We players see the sequence of events as: Zoraal Ja, the Promise of Death, walks into the land of death and carries it out with him. But the characters are instead following the trail of death back to the land of the dead. We don't enter Alexandria through the Golden City. Not at first. We enter it through a swathe of destruction and desolation and a storm that never ends. That's our first view of it. The promise of ruin. We do not see the paradise that led the Yok Huy to their doom until after we know that Sphene, like the Yok Huy, is willing to lay waste to the lives around her to have her Golden City.

And then we have the vision.

I don't think it's an accident that the only people who have ever seen anything come out of the gate to the Golden City are the Warrior of Light, Gulool Ja Ja, Kettenram, Galuf, and indirectly Cahciua. All characters who inherently understand that life comes from death and the balance between them is vital. And it's symbolically significant that it's a child who is delivered from the land of the dead. Her parents don't come with her. The dead don't get to return, we get new life instead.

And then we go there. And it looks like Amaurot.

We call it Living Memory, but the resemblance to Amaurot, and the knowledge of what's actually here means that we immediately understand the lie. The Golden City, the cloud, the twelfth level of Everkeep, all of it has always been a false promise. Zoraal Ja, the False Promise, walked into the land of False Promises and became its king.

And Sphene, the Queen of False Promises, has always had the impossible task of keeping the dead alive.

As we make our way through Living Memory, it's notable that what we actually do is remove the beautiful, golden veneer from the land of the dead. The city is still there when we're done with it. We walk back outside through its gate. We do not have the power to remove death any more than we could destroy despair. But we take the lie out of it, we free the stolen life force to become life again. It's now just dead. No more promises of paradise or ruin to fulfill.

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Here's something useful.

"On May 15th Google released a new "Web" filter that removes "AI Overview" and other clutter, leaving only traditional web results. Here is how you can set "Google Web" as your default search engine."

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in case you were wondering how things went down at the pokemon world championships this weekend:

-during the top 8 of the TCG masters division, chilean player fernando cifuentes was running a gimmick deck that consisted exclusively of four iron thorns ex and a whole ton of control-focused trainer cards in a strategy that either completely shuts down opponents or shits the bed entirely

-through skillful play and some good luck, fernando made it through 2 days in a tournament with over 1100 players to get to the quarterfinals

-fernando lost 2-0 to ian robb, who was running regidrago vstar (widely considered one of the best decks in the current format)

-in an overexuberant victory celebration, ian did what can only be described as a jacking-off gesture, on a stream with tens of thousands of viewers run by a company with very firm player conduct expectations

-the judges determined that this warranted a penalty of game loss, but for some reason, rather than applying it to ian’s next game in the semifinals, they applied it to the one he had just won in the top 8

-(it should be noted that the prize money for making top 8 is $15k while top 4 is $20k, so this jerking gesture cost ian robb $5,000)

-nearly an hour after fernando came to terms with his loss and the end of an impressive run, he was told that he was to get back on stream because he’s now playing in the semifinals due to winning by default

-the player he was up against in the semifinals was playing a deck (miraidon) that happens to get shut down hard by iron thorns’s gimmick, so fernando wins the semifinals

-said player, jesse parker, had notably had an undefeated run throughout the whole tournament up to this point, and likely would have continued that streak had his intended semifinal opponent not gotten a game loss penalty for miming a lewd act on stream

-meanwhile, the other semifinal winner is japan’s seinosuke shiokawa, running a deck (roaring moon) that players had largely written off as underwhelming months ago

-the grand finals are on the following day, so saturday evening was abuzz with a lot of people baffled by the absurdity of the situation

-come sunday afternoon, the grand finals are set to begin, with fernando cifuentes running iron thorns and seinosuke shiokawa running roaring moon

-it should be noted here that the roaring moon deck doesn’t rely very much on abilities, so iron thorns’s gimmick has very little effect - this is basically an even matchup

-fernando wins the first game of the set, and seinosuke wins the second

-the third and final game of the set is a bonafide cheek-clencher, with both players reaching a state where a single KO will win the game, but fernando manages to clinch it at the last minute

-and that’s the story of how a guy pretending to jork it led to the first instance of a pokemon world champion who also lost the quarterfinals

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In light of a scammer taking the identity of legitimate Gazan people, I kindly remind you, before reblogging a fundraiser check the donation link! Make sure the link itself is on the list. It's not enough to check the name.

The scammers are clued into there being a widely accessible list of names to steal but the thing they cannot steal is the link that we put in our list

Be careful. And if someone says they are vetted but do not say who it was that vetted them, question them on it. Ask them to share the post made about them by trustworthy individuals, confirming them as legitimate.

Honest people and all the Gazans I have spoken to were eager to prove their legitimacy because they want your help and want to encourage you to support them. If someone is not providing you any evidence of legitimacy, question that.

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a pleasant evening to all girls getting a little sloppy on a monday night

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urgent aid needed for a school massacre survivor

in addition to fundraising for their evacuation, Mohammed @mohammedhaboubsblog's family needs our urgent immediate support for rent and medical treatment in Gaza

Mohammed's sister Farah was injured in an IOF school massacre last week and they still need $948 USD (9,986 SEK) to cover her treatment. they'll also need $3000 USD (31,597 SEK) for September's rent

can we raise the remaining $948 (9,986 SEK) for Farah's treatment by tomorrow, August 16th? we need to reach 91,103 SEK on the GFM to meet this goal

after that, we'll need to reach at least 122,700 SEK by August 30th to cover next month's rent so they don't lose their housing while Farah recovers!

you can find more details and documentation on Mohammed's blog, and this campaign was shared by @/90-ghost. please support Mohammed's family in meeting these goals! reblog, share widely, and most importantly please donate whatever you can spare

$5 USD = 52.67 SEK August 15th: 81,117 SEK / 91,103 SEK (urgent short term goal for medical expenses)

plain text and tags under cut

PT:

urgent aid needed for a school massacre survivor

in addition to fundraising for their evacuation, Mohammed @/mohammedhaboubsblog's family needs our urgent immediate support for rent and medical treatment in Gaza

Mohammed's sister Farah was injured in an IOF school massacre last week and they still need $948 USD (9,986 SEK) to cover her treatment. they'll also need $3000 USD (31,597 SEK) for September's rent

can we raise the remaining $948 (9,986 SEK) for Farah's treatment by tomorrow, August 16th? we need to reach 91,103 SEK on the GFM to meet this goal

after that, we'll need to reach at least 122,700 SEK by August 30th to cover next month's rent so they don't lose their housing while Farah recovers!

you can find more details and documentation on Mohammed's blog, and this campaign was shared by @/90-ghost. please support Mohammed's family in meeting these goals! reblog, share widely, and most importantly please donate whatever you can spare

5 USD = 52.67 SEK August 15th: 81,117 SEK / 91,103 SEK (urgent short term goal for medical expenses)

/end PT

@feluka @tortiefrancis @timetravellingkitty @flouryhedgehog @jinnazah

@mazzikah @irhabiya @terroristiraqis @watchnpray @stuckinapril

@soracities @bloglikeanegyptian @handweavers @trans-axolotl @plomegranate

@briarhips @dirhwangdaseul @mahoushojoe @rhubarbspring @schoolhater

@pcktknife @transmutationisms @sawasawako @anneemay @bedufairy

@starstrucksnowing @handsworthsongs

@libraryposting @geeseareassholes @wellwaterhysteria @deepspaceboytoy @edwordsmyth

@chilewithcarnage @psychotic-gerard @post-brahminism @bringmemyrocks @arslanjae

@determinate-negation @khanger @kibumkim @qattdraws @brutaliakhoa

@sharingresourcesforpalestine @neechees @mothblossoms @gothhabiba @mangocheesecakes

@reduxskullduggerry @magnus-rhymes-with-swagness @kyra45-helping-others @log6 @7bitter

@toiletpotato @fromjannah @palms-upturned @omegaversereloaded @vague-humanoid

@capricornpropaganda @communist-ojou-sama @xinakwans @heritageposts @velvetys

@ot3 @amygdalae @ankle-beez @communistchilchuck @dykesbat @watermotif @mavigator

@lacecap @littlestpersimmon @socalgal @ghelgheli @northgazaupdates2 @vakarians-babe

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also "ough life-saving essential medical equipment uses so much plastic" in this country you can purchase an artificial ballsack for your pickup truck

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This kid is going places

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and what if I told you nine was less afraid of love than ten. what then.

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More fundraisers I trust!

The fundraisers that were brought to me by my vetter today. ALL of these are very low on funds:

Saleh Abu Sardanah: "I used to work in the field of architecture and decoration, and I was skilled at my work because I worked with love and passion, but the Israelis destroyed everything, my home and my work, and I had nothing left here except my children, my wife, my mother, and my brothers. I want help to rebuild my house, feed my family, and other basic life needs, because it is my city and I love it as much as I love my family."

Tawfik Al-Tatri: This one has been vetted by me a long time ago but has been vetted once again by Mohammed! But months have gone by since they last received a genuine stream of donations. "I live in a refugee camp with my children because of the destruction of my home and repeated displacement, something that no one can bear because of our presence in a tent and the extreme cold at night."

Fadi & Ahmed Ishtewi: Their family has lost 10 members from the bombings. "This news remained for several days and we were unable to obtain confirmed information, until certain news came after we communicated with several parties in Gaza through journalists on social media sites, and they confirmed the martyrdom of their uncles and the injury of their younger brothers, some of them seriously." Please support them through their displacement and grief.

Faten's family: This family is dealing with unlivable conditions. "We were displaced for the third time after the occupation forced us to move to the south of the Strip, and we did not take anything with us. We lived for days in freezing cold and heavy rain. We also experienced extremely hot weather that no human could bear. There was a shortage of water and food, and our health deteriorated due to malnutrition and the spread of diseases in shelter centers." Please suppoet them in their displacement.

Weam Fan: "My mother suffers from severe back pain due to a slipped disc caused by the exhausting conditions of living in tents for a long period. She needs urgent medical treatment, and I am striving to get her to travel for treatment as soon as the border crossing opens. The healthcare situation in Gaza makes it difficult for her to receive the necessary treatment, so she needs to travel abroad to get the care she needs."