“Ilya made the first move” as if unsociable Shane Hollander didn’t search the entire facility for Ilya and then go out back and shake his hand and then stand there, breathing in secondhand smoke

yes good.

I can clearly remember the moment I first realised my mother and I were living on completely different planes of existence. I was 7 years old and I came home from my school's first track and field day having placed second or third in every event. the teachers had been making jokes all afternoon about how many times they had to call my name. my friends thought I was cool as shit. my enemies thought I was cool as shit too, come to think of it. I was proud as hell. so I get home with the entire front of my shirt covered in ribbons like I was a military dictator who'd awarded himself every medal, I walk into the kitchen and tell my mum all about my day, and she goes "oh, that must be disappointing not getting any firsts." and I'm like no?? first of all the first place ribbons are red and I don't like red. second of all look at me. there's literally nowhere left on my body for accolades. I am fucking Jacked of All Trades. how could this possibly be a disappointment.

it's all coming together

{ID - illustration of three hands stacked in the middle over the word "purple". the hands are labelled "asexual", "nonbinary" and (a purple impish hand) "Gengar"

END ID}

A big reason why I think I became a marxist is bc I read A LOT of Calvin & Hobbes and Bill Watterson really went out of his way to lay the groundwork for teaching people critical analysis. Like take this panel for example:

EVERYTHING one knows about American/Western culture, especially in the late 80's/early 90's, would lead to the logical next line being some form of "Kids These Days Are Succumbing To The Evils Of Satan" or some likewise cheap Reaction™ But then Bill pulls the rug out

He criticizes the "satanic" bands not for some lack of christian morals but because theyre a byproduct of hyperconsumptionist culture. Bill takes no issue with the subject matter bc his issue is knowing its only being done to sell rebellion as a consumer product rather than to say anything truly provocative or inspired.

Love seeing something from TikTok and going “girlie that is literally what led to the downfall of the Papal States”

Jewish baby named Edgardo Mortara is seemingly about to die in Bologna, 1851

Catholic nanny secretly baptises him to save his soul, which she’s not exactly the kind of authority who can do that, but w/e, it’s interpreted by the church as valid later

Kid survives

1857 her secret gets out, a baptising makes a kid a Catholic according to the Church and a Catholic can’t be raised in a non-Catholic household in the Papal States, so the church authorises the police to kidnap Edgardo from his family

Raised personally by Pope Pius IX, Jewish family not allowed to take him back due to Church doctrine, this action destroys the family with grief and despair

This case gets international infamy with the Pope not understanding why everyone’s shiting on him for doing this, including allies

Emperor Napoleon III shifts from opposing Italian unification to supporting it as a direct consequence

Bologna falls the next year, 1859

Kingdom of Italy forms 1861

By 1870 Rome is lost to the Italians and the Papal States are no more

(Edgardo Mortara goes on to become Father Mortara)

(He dies in Belgium in 1940 three months before the Nazis occupied the nation, which if he’d have lived he would’ve been persecuted as a Jew)

Wikipedia confirms

Fun fact: the Catholic Church did not stop doing this after Edgaro Mortara. During WW2, many Jewish children were put in convents or catholic-run orphanages for their own safety. Sounds nice right? Except after the war ended, when parents or surviving relative went back to claim their children, the church went, “uhhh, actually they’re catholic now, no take backs!”

The most infamous of these cases was the Finaly affair. Two Jewish children in France, Robert and Gerald Finaly, were placed in a Catholic nursery in 1944 in anticipation of their parents being deported to Auschwitz, where they were both murdered. Their aunt, Marguerite Fischel, survived the war and went to find the boys so she could take them to live with her. However, the nun who had custody of the boys, Antoinette Brun, adamantly refused to give them up, reportedly saying that “The Jews are not grateful”

What followed was a years long custody battle where despite being repeatedly ordered by courts all over Europe to return the boys, Brun took them to many different countries and hid them, with the support and help of other nuns and priests. It was suspected at the time, and later confirmed by documents released in 2020, that Pope Pius XII had supported the effort to keep the boys away from their surviving family and have them be raised Catholic.

Thankfully, after negotiations between a sympathetic cardinal in France and the chief Rabbi of Paris, the boys were finally recovered and reunited with their aunt.

I wish I could say that the phenomenon of the Catholic Church kidnapping children and keeping them away from their families for the purposes of forcefully raising them Catholic is unique to Jews, but it’s not. From the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, the Church ran hundreds of residential schools in the US and Canada where indigenous children were kidnapped from their homes and forced into these cruel and inhumane “schools”. The children were forbidden from speaking their own languages or practicing their own cultures and religions, their hair was cut, and they were subject to emotional, verbal, spiritual, physical, and sexual abuse. Many of the children died due to malnutrition or medical neglect, their bodies buried like dogs beside the schools. The Catholic Church was not the only Church to participate in this, but they’ve been the most reluctant to fully acknowledge and apologize for it. It was only in 2022 that Pope Francis apologized on behalf of the Catholic Church for their part, but some people found the apology inadequate.

Idk what my point is here, just that there’s such a clean link between evangelizing, cultural/religious imperialism, and how damaging and horrifying a religion can be when it is thoroughly convinced of its own superiority. And that unless an institution is forced to change, it probably won’t change on its own.

It’s me and whatever song is holding me together against the world.

white americans when you tell them that the idea of climate change as an impending disaster is a reductive first world perspective because it’s a tangible reality for many in the global south already:

maybe if you see south and southeast asians dying in the heat and latin americans dying in floods and all you think of is imagining a reality where YOU are affected, then you should rethink how you see people of color. if you cannot see climate change as a real disaster until it is other americans dying in the heat and the floods and not just black and brown people, then don’t talk about climate change until you can acknowledge the grim reality of climate change for everyone.

dc fandom has been redeemed by 99% of the fandom siding with riddler over joker

to be fair its kinda like being asked to choose between a delicious slice of cake and a kick in the crotch with ice skates

I bet even Batman likes Riddler. He gets the call that Riddler’s broken out of Arkham and is terrorizing the city, and he’s like “Oh, good. I get to give my mind a workout and keep Eddie from doing anything too stupid. I’ll bring the kids. They could use some critical thinking training.”

Ahh, the riddler. Just remember, in the Arkham games, he’s just “hey batman, I hid question marks. Can you find them?” And then just wandered off. No murder no mayhem. Just puzzles.

Joker: “hahhahhhehehehhhhhrhrghhghh I’m gonna do murder and make people die I’m a clown and I made Harley Quinn’s life hell hhehhhgheghegghghhhh”

The riddler: “hey Batman they just let me out on good behavior and I’ve been bored as all hell so come solve my riddles I got some spicy new ones I think you’ll like”

i really wish people could make characters with scars and just be normal about it. scars are just a feature, like brown hair or freckles, all it means is that you got an injury in the past. Scars are not gross or ugly or tragic or intimidating or scary or gorey or body horror, they are just a normal trait that a lot of people have. 

if i’m allowed to be picky, i also wish people could be more thoughtful/realistic when deciding on scars. like do some research and think ‘how did this injury happen’. if someone got attacked by wolves, how does that give them a straight cut scar across their face? 

and where are the other effects of these injuries? nerve damage, contractures, amputations, brain damage, PTSD, chronic pain, speech issues, sun sensitivity, blindness, etc? and please do research on these too, its good, its not that difficult.

i want to see characters have scars, and still be able to be normal, and cute/pretty/beautiful/sexy, and loved, and happy. this includes people with extensive burn scars, with skin grafts, with tons of reconstructive surgeries, who are missing eyes or noses or ears or limbs. this includes people with keloid scars, who don’t look normal, who have “gross” symptoms from their injuries. this includes people who have scars from elective or cosmetic surgeries, and surgeries that were botched. this includes people who have scars from self harm or suicide attempts. 

   please give more characters scars, and be normal about it. i am (politely) begging you. 

(sorry if this comes off as aggressive/accusatory, i struggle with tone)

definitly! i should of mentioned those more.

if people want to give their characters scars (which i highly encourage), just having had surgery is a great idea. surgery can definitely be traumatic and life changing, and it does need research, but it can also be a pretty mundane and casual thing too. i had a major surgery and i have a large scar from it, and it’s one of my favorite features and fun-facts about myself.

in the tags people are also mentioning acne and dermatillomania scars, and those are cool to see too :) (smiley face)

Writing would be so much easier if I didn't have youtube or computer games Right There.

"Derin you can get timed apps to block -- " No. I don't want to block them. They're too fun.

Me when I block myself from my games.

fortune teller🃏

the sunk cost fallacy has been my favorite fallacy for as long as I can remember. so at this point it's probably too late to pick a different one

I just heard about the recency bias, and honestly I think it's gotta be the best one ever

best thing about these movies being serialized with one single character as a connecting thread is that with each new production Benoit Blanc becomes by necessity an even older gay man and that's beautiful

Today I cried a little bit because I remembered that when Beethoven conducted his ninth symphony for the first time he got a standing ovation and one of the sopranos had to turn him around to see the audience. 

I have never recovered from this illustration by Scott Cameron for Barbara Nichol’s “Beethoven Lives Upstairs.”

god the tragedy of being born within a culture where it's expected of a person to live a lot of very long lifes to lose your mother with whom you should've had an opportunity to spend centuries with just after you reached your own adulthood. in the beginning of your first life. with everyone around you not being able to share your pain, because they, unlike you, had an opportunity to get to know her. because the loss will never be the same. with you killing her by her own desire, in an act to be considered honorable by the religion causing her death. with not even your own mother understanding the pain of ending her life with your own hand and after everything you've done to prevent it. essek thelyss you are such an unlucky man