"Oh, they made DLC Eclipse after the arcade machines"

you fool. Steel Wool watches Spiff's videos. AND THERE'S A GLITCH THAT MATCHES HIS DEFINITION

also there's the SB Eclipse lore :3c

One Piece Masterlist

Requests Open for Zosan, Zolu and Law- I don't do requests involving: NSFW (Smut), child/teen x character, domestic abuse in a relationship with the characters, couple fighting over reader (e.g sanji and zoro fight over reader) and Au's.

^ Clone wars + Bad batch Masterlist

^ Law Masterlist

^ KidKiller X Reader Masterlist

All straw hats + Law:

^ Caring for you - plot: Headcannons for how they would care for you before a procedure/surgery.

ZoLu X reader:

----------Headcanons -

^

^ Writer - Reader is a writer on the crew and loves books, but secretly writes romance.

^ Hugs and Kisses - Reader's the type to want hugs and Kisses at random times.

^ I want a baby - Reader tells the boys she wants a baby.

^ Morning Routine - What your morning are like.

^ Night Routine - What your nights are like from 6PM to 4AM

----------Stories -

^

^ Celestial wedding - P1 - P2 - P3 - P4 - P5 - P6 - P7 - P8 - P9 - P10 - P11 - P12 - P13 - P14 - P15 - P16 - P17 - P18 - Plot: Reader gets taken as revenge for Luffy and Zoro's defiance against the Celestial Dragons, they were just going to kill her to make an example but now theres a wedding????.

^ The Vault - P1 - P2 - Doctor who Crossover (On hiatus until life settle down) - Plot: The Doctor asks for your help when he finds out theres a base on earth holding alien tech and maybe some alive aliens. Luffy agrees before you do so you take some of the crew along to have a look but you don't reserve a warm welcome and this place seems to be hiding more than just normal aliens.

^ First Bath togeather - Plot: Your first bath with Zoro and Luffy gets you to open up about your past a bit.

^ A step too far - P1 - P2 - Plot: While enjoying a Night of music and relaxation in the aquarium bar a fight breaks out between Zoro and Sanji only this time its worse than ever.

^ Loyalty Test - Plot: Your sister isn't convinced that Zoro and Luffy wont be loyal to you so sets them up to be flirted with while she makes you watch form a back room.

^ Trouble Makers P1 - P2 - P3 - Plot: The new island you docked on seems peaceful until a strange rumble catches you all off guard.

ZoSan X reader:

----------Headcanons -

^

^ Little maker - Zosan with a reader that makes things for them and the crew.

^ Nightmares - How Zoro, Sanji and Reader help each other with nightmares, how they deal with it themselves and what they have nightmares about.

^ The Spicy Book - Zoro and Sanji find you reading a spicy book. Contains sexual content but no smut.

^ How it happened - How you, Sanji and Zoro got togeather.

^ Morning Routine - What your mornings are like.

^ Night Routine - What your nights are like from 6PM to 4AM

^ Annoying things you all do - All couples have things they don't like about each other but you put up with them because you love them. here are some things that you find annoying about each other.

^ The little things - Just some cute little things the three of you do togeather and how you interact with each other. Also threw in how the crew see's you three.

^ Homesick - Your feeling home sick so this is how Sanji, Zoro and the crew help you

^ Kleptomaniac - Zoro and Sanji with a kleptomaniac Partner.

----------Stories -

^

^ Obsession's Grip - P1 - P2 - P3 - P4 - P5 - P6 - P7 - P8 - P9 - P10 - P11 - P12 - P13 - P14 - Plot: After saving some of the straw hat crew from a prison, the crew help takes a young man away so he can have a fresh start in life. He's shy but seems to grow attached to Reader in an unhealthy way.

^ Wild Flower - P1 - P2 - P3 - P4 - P5 - P6 - P7 - P8 - Bonus- Plot: While doing recon for the crew, reader's snake gets captured by a marine who knows more about her than her own crew but to make matters worse he can hurt reader through her Snake using some strange powers and deadly plants.

^ Hot-spring - Plot: Just the crew relaxing for a week at an exclusive winter resort.

^ New bounties - Plot: After Wano you all find out what your new bounties are.

^ Fear of abandonment - Plot: the fear of abandonment hits you hard and now you just want to leave before your friends and the people you love leave you.

^ Old Friends - P1 - P2 - P3 - P4 - P5 - P6 - P7 - P8 - P9 - P10 - P11 - P12 - P13 - P14 - P15 - Plot: Reader is the 9th doctors old assistant but soon moved on to other things, joining the straw hat pirates and falling in love but now their paths cross again (only he has a new face) when they go to see an old friend in a strange hospital. Unfortunately there's some one else there that wants to start trouble.

^ You get sick - Plot: Zoro hides being sick which causes you to get sick, not only do you have to deal with the symptoms but your ability to control the tattooed snakes on your arms makes things worse.

^ I love you - Plot: the first time you say I love you to each other

^ Your First time - NSFW Minors DO NOT read

^ Distraction - Plot: its your's and nami's job to distract some pirates in a night club while the rest of the crew steal from their ship. Theirs only one problem, those pirates get a little too handy. Basically you being super sexy in front of them

^ First Bath togeather - Plot: After being togeather for a long time the boys have never taken a bath or a shower with you. You work up the courage to join them but try to hid the scars of your past.

^ You and your wild plans - Plot:. Zoro refuses to dance even when Luffy try's his best to make it happen, so you hatch a plan to make him dance.

^ Don't get lost - P1 - P2 -plot: Zoro gets lost and its up to sanji and reader to find him and bring him back but there's one problem.

---------- Series masterlist links

^ Baby series

^ Halloween series

okay random 4am rant time, don't take it too seriously, but: people need to recognize there's a difference between "bad worldbuilding" and "worldbuilding styles you personally don't like."

bad worldbuilding is, for example: internally inconsistent, bigoted, or something else that messes up the plot or characterization of the story itself. sloppy. careless.

things that are *not* bad worldbuilding:

minimalism.

i've been thinking about this in the first place because i saw a post about the Murderbot Diaries a while back (don't know who made it, don't care; this ain't personal) saying the worldbuilding in those books is bad and lazy. to me, as an avid sci-fi reader and writer, that is clearly not true. but i understood why they thought this. the series uses extremely minimalist worldbuilding which intentionally withholds a lot of detail, in a way that is consistent with the (nonhuman, robot, depressed robot) first-person POV. this could also be a feature of the author's writing style in general—i haven't read her other works—but i wouldn't bet too much on it.

the signature of intentional minimalism is that there *are* details about the speculative setting—they're just doled out very thoughtfully and sparingly. the intent is to leave you a little hungry for more. it's to make you think very carefully about the details you do have. this is best suited to stories that already have elements of psychological and/or mystery plot types. the worldbuilding you do see should still be believable, internally consistent, and have interesting implications if you think about it a bit. but you are for sure going to have to think harder to get it.

if you're not in the mood, i will concede, a minimalist style definitely comes off as a bit dry. if you are in the mood, it's relaxing.

whimsy.

this is a big one for sci-fi fans in particular. see: the constant debate about whether any particular story is "hard" or "soft" sci-fi, and whether soft sci-fi is bad, etc etc. but worldbuilding doesn't have to be realistic to be good. you're allowed to have Jedi and humanoid aliens and time travel in your sci-fi. you're allowed to have historical anachronisms and astrology and po-ta-toes in your fantasy. whether or not they're silly isn't the deciding factor on how "good" these worldbuilding elements really are.

the key thing is tonal consistency. you've got a serious high-fantasy setting with its own strict, un-Earth-like theology and magic system, and you throw Santa Claus in there? yeah, that's not gonna land well. but C.S. Lewis can get away with that in Narnia just fine. why? because the Chronicles of Narnia are whimsical children's stories with a strong Christian/Western mythological influence already, and their central conceit is a crossover between the mundane world and the magical world. of course Santa can cross over too. it's whimsical, but it's not actually random. (and if you ventured into straight-up comedy, you could get away with random too. as long as it's funny.)

the unreliable narrator.

i don't have a good example for this off the top of my head (maybe Murderbot again? idk, i'm sleepy, fill in your own) but i'll tell you how to recognize when this is done well.

by definition, an unreliable narrator has some key misconceptions about their own world. so how do you tell what's going on as a reader? how do you know the writer isn't equally confused?

you connect the dots. solve the puzzle. in practice this is similar to reading a minimalist setting—but instead of just sparse clues, you also have a boatload of red herrings. you can catch some of these misleading details by comparing them to your real-world knowledge and saying "wait, this doesn't add up." other times, the false clues intentionally trick you by subverting those real world expectations.

the trick is in the consequences. regardless of what the narrator says, their actions should still have logical consequences. there should be things going on that the POV character doesn't know about. the character will be forced to learn and adapt their narrative because of these shifting circumstances. you can catch them in a lie. the inconsistencies themselves tell a story.

...

i'm gonna stop myself there because this post is long and i oughtta be sleeping. just. this is a distinction worth making. is it really bad worldbuilding, or is it simply not the genre you're craving today? learn the difference for your own sake. you'll have an easier time realizing if a story is something you'll find enjoyable to read, regardless of its actual quality.

is there a specific order you like to listen to the red vault tracks in? i’ve been thinking about this a lot ever since 1989 tv came out because the 1989 vault tracks tell such a cohesive story so i’ve been trying to figure out how to do that with the red vault

YES ITS LIKE. THE ALBUM TO REARRANGE FOR ME I GENUINELY HAVENT LISTENED TO THE ORIGINAL TRACKLIST IN YEARS NOW

i think i’ve run through it before but here’s my thoughts on the mains tracklist

state of grace: perfect opener no notes

22: this is and holy ground can switch for me, i think either makes a fantastic track two, but it’s hard to pass up 22 track 2. also i like how the second song and the second to last song parallel each other

treacherous: building off of 22’s “you look like bad news, i gotta have you”

i knew you were trouble: it’s the obvious mirror of treacherous, and also i think it’s important to establish the emotion->exact opposite emotion flip of the tracklist, and treacherous and ikywt are a really obvious example of that

all too well: i mean what else can you choose. also it’s a good flip of ikywt because it’s all the moments where it DIDN'T feel like trouble

wanegbt: “i remember it all too well 😔” -> “I REMEMBER WHEN WE BROKE UP 😡🙄” is just an insane whiplash. ALSO track sixes are such a hard landing to stick and can easily be overshadowed by the track five, and having a song that’s already been released kinda lets the song simultaneously have its moment beforehand and let you kinda check out on your first listen through while you recover from atw

come back be here: i think cbbh really just deserves a main album slot, mostly cause it deserved to be played on tour, but i also think it’s a great whiplash from wanegbt and a great lead in to…

the last time: it takes the more crush-focused aspects of cbbh and plays them out to the bitter end, just that cycle of always leaving and coming back and leaving again. also it’s the end of the first half of the album

red: it’s a great pick me up in the middle of three mellow songs, also i can’t separate this from run which i can’t separate from sad beautiful tragic and i can’t put sad beautiful tragic right before all too well so it needs to be further down the tracklist

run: “loving him was like driving a new maserati down a dead end street” -> “give me the keys, i’ll bring the car back around” makes me go CRAZY

sad beautiful tragic: THE AMOUNT OF PARALLELS WITH RUN IS INSAAAAAAAANE

holy ground: again this is a bit of a floater like i could see an argument for this being track two. and the argument is it goes hard at the start of the red tour

better man: this just needs to be by the end of the album for me. it feels like the start of the summary, wrapping up what we’ve learned and starting the hard work of moving on that the last few tracks will continue

i bet you think about me: that first verse really stretching out the betterrrrr’s after better man is funny. also, after an album of one sided pining in one way or another, it’s just like hey. fuck you. also, at first it kinda bugged me how the last few tracks starts at 4am, then 3am, then the middle of the night, but then i started seeing them as just slowly losing less and less sleep over it, which i kinda love now

nothing new: here is the damage i am left with. even if i move on from this relationship, here is the mindset that will whisper in the back of my mind forever— that i am valuable because of my youth, that my happiness is mockable and my sadness is quaint. this is the thing that led me to the relationship and this is the thing that i will be left with after it

begin again: and then… begin again. choosing happiness, choosing maturity, choosing childlike joy. like, you all know it’s an amazing closer, but after nothing new it just sings

+ forever winter: i think this does add important context to her general mental state? like 22 mentions how everyone is miserable, but really focuses on the highs of being 22. forever winter adds to it, how your peer group is falling apart and even when you are at your worst, you are being someone else's shoulder to lean on. it's not Needed to tell the story, but it is a good bonus.

+ starlight: more good context, especially in taylor's personal life-- as far as i can tell, this is the first song she wrote for red that Wasn't about crash and burn heartbreak, and it really kicked into high gear an obsession with vintage fashion and mid century celebrities that she ended up building part of her personality around. she's not just trying to find her old self again, she's building a new one

+babe: what am i supposed to do, not end the album with this is the last time i'll ever call you babe?

+ state of grace (acoustic), the red demo, and all too well (ten minute version) to get the tracklist to 22 and also fun bts context!

oooo new anti Endo syscourse blog hiya!!! :33

here's two takes for ya:

the comfort, safety and healing of people with a debilitating trauma caused disorder (DID/OSDD) is more important than the inclusion of people who claim to have something exclusive to them (systems/alters) but want to be us

endos harm newly discovered systems by making them think that they actually don't have trauma if they don't remember it and just have quirky special guy experiences instead of an actual disability

hello!! it's so hard to find anti-endo blogs on here lol- i agree with both these takes tbh, i think endos are really harmful to the community, both due to them spreading misinformation and also due to how they over take a lot of the "resources" we have. by resources i mostly mean our communities and apps (simply plural is a good example of this, its pro-endo which is so frustrating but its one of the only good system app we could find). as its hard to find system spaces that don't include endos and even harder to find places that are both safe and anti-endo (as some anti endo spaces can be very iffy too, much like pro-endo spaces). and the rampant misinformation that is usually spread by endos is disgusting. especially when targeted towards newly discovered systems or just any vulnerable system that could genuinely fall for their tricks and lies to us endos are weirdos, they claim to not have a disability yet still use the terms that are related to that disability (alters, headmates, systems, ect) and they also try force themselves into our communities?? its a lot like those people on tiktok who call themselves "delulu" (spelling might be wrong) or something despite not having delusions. it makes no sense and honestly feels very ableist not to mention the amount of terms (especially ramcoa terms) they've taken over (like system hopping and system resets, which were both originally ramcoa terms that they stole) (sorry if this doesn't make much sense / is repeated a lot, its like 4am right now lol)

if you want a perfect example of what guillermo del toro meant when he said that animation is afflicted with "emoji-style behavior" akin to "emotional pornography" then look no further than this clip Disney posted from their Proud Family reboot

everyone has said enough about the dangerous and abusive parenting depicted for laughs in this so i'm not going to post about that; i'm going to instead dwell on the lazy shorthand body language that leaves no room for interpretation. the character is never allowed to turn away from the camera, have a moment of silence, or show subtlety in their facial expression-- every movement tells, not shows, exactly what the character feels.

(as an aside, wow-- taking these shots i realized the mom's lineart clips real bad into the phone hand at multiple points)

look at these expressions and movements. this doesn't convey a relatable childhood frustration of parents valuing control over safety, this looks like the lead-in to a mobile game ad where she gets guided through a series of traps except when you play it it's actually just bejeweled again:

Even the details themselves are deeply insulting to the intended young audience-- the phone's time depicts it being afternoon (don't worry, just reuse assets, kids won't notice):

and in the end, she gets handed a scrooge mcduck sack of coins with a big dollar sign for... bus fare, a very normal and relatable way to carry around one's coinage, because god forbid he just hand her a regular coinpurse or a ziplock bag full of quarters or literally anything a normal person would (i get they are an eccentric family and the show has exaggerated visuals, but, come on-- let's work on tone). are they afraid a six-year-old won't understand what's in an unlabeled coinpurse via the spoken context?

anyway like, not my fandom and not my business or whatever, but god what a dire clip for so many reasons. disney needs to stop undervaluing its animators, the very cornerstone of its existence as a company. it's embarrassing that one of the wealthiest companies in the world can't quality control its animation or take a little risk with emotional complexity.

editing to add (it's 4am and i'm ranting sorry) that the original quote about emoji behavior was more specifically directed at animated feature films, but i think the sentiment shouldn't just be reserved for it. kids are smart and absorb everything that enters their radius, and i think that needs to be respected in the art we make for them too.

grrr its 4am too warm and im feelin petty SO im rollin in w a request for a hc😤😤😤

what abt zhongli, raiden, and/or childe act w an enby s/o who has kinda-not-rlly-chronic-illness and they constantly make jokes abt it and tries placing bets w ppl abt what will cause em pain that day if ur fine w it

mwa dont follow my example sleep and hydrate

| S/O who constantly makes jokes about their chronic pain condition

Character(s): Zhongli and Raiden/Ei

TW: Chronic pain, chronic condition (generally unspecified), mediation mention, betting, Xiao spoilers (? - Minor, if it isn't already common knowledge, idk)

Notes: Non-binary reader || We're not gonna talk about the fact that I went to sleep at 7 in the morning the day that you sent in this request m'kay 😌 But make sure to take care of yourself and hydrate too!!

Zhongli

He tries his best to joke along with you but he's struggling

He's already aware of chronic conditions because he makes quite the effort to learn as much as he can about humans in general and various area of study such as medicine and is more than aware of things like Xiao's karmic debt in regards to which he already finds himself very concerned about so it's very alarming to have you joking about it all of the time

He ends up developing a habit of noting what hurts and when and how often for you and will otherwise learn how to respond quickly if your pains are sudden and irregular

He's not actually too fond of the idea of you joking about your pain but, if it makes it easier to deal with, he'll leave it be but he does make an effort to try and lessen the pains with the help of anyone he can find

"I bet it'll be my joints that screw me over today. I bet 500 mora on it. Hey, Hu Tao, what do you think?" Yeah he's definitely not too on board with the fact that you manage to rope Hu Tao - and very easily for that matter - into betting mora on it but what can he do against the two of you when you're... The two of you?

He never stops you from betting on it - not that he could - but he puts all of his skills to use in ensuring your comfort. If you don't want him coddling you, then he's doing it discreetly but Baizhu will wring Zhongli dry of all of his mora and Zhongli will be more than willing. You will likely never know this

Unlike his mora, he'll never forget things like medication when he's out with you

Raiden

She has not been out in the world for a WHILE so hearing you joking about your pain throws her off no matter how many times she's heard it

She has her plane of Euthymia to remove her from feeling things like pain - physical, emotional, the pain of loss - so she's more alarmed than Zhongli at your constant jokes

Not to mention that she's emotionally inadept and most definitely is not accustomed to the idea of people using jokes to mask their pain

She can't really comprehend the idea of pain having no cause, or none that's visible at least so she's at a genuine loss of what to do and constantly asking Miko for advice which consists of both really good advice considering her being an immortal familiar but also just "Perhaps you should lock them in their room so you can monitor their condition."

Ei doesn't but she does consider it for a split second

She's almost painfully aware of your mortality so, while an immortal would be able to get used to it and just live with it without much issue, you're life was much too different and she's definitely rubbed the wrong way by the fact that you're having to spend your life with the pay and have it getting in the way of basic activities

She gets a lot more defensive over you in general and does tend to be rather straight forward with how she'll treat you and your condition but she doesn't stop the betting. She doesn't even realise that you probably shouldn't do that until Miko keeps denying your encouragement to place bets with you

Do not repost or claim. Only reblog 💛

The official Blanktember calendar is here! 4 weeks of general prompts and 30 days of specific prompts for a month of telling stories about our two funny train men!

Each week has a general theme which you are free to write or create art for and have a relaxing time. For those after a challenge, each day will have a specific prompt that correlates to that week's theme. (Omegaverse being under Opposing Dynamics, for example.) ((And yes, Trains gets its own day outside of Transportation the boys would want it that way!))

The event starts September 1st (or earlier if you get inspired) and I look forward to seeing everyone's creations!

Remember to tag all your work as 'Blanktember' as well so we can all see what you create!

(Also, no complaints about the calendar! I spent 3 hours on mobile making that until 4am!) For a transcription of the prompts check below the read more!

Week One: Opposing Dynamics

Day 1: Black & White

Day 2: Youger & Older

Day 3: Dominant & Submissive

Day 4: Bigger & Smaller

Day 5: Meaner & Nicer

Day 6: First & Last

Day 7: Up & Down

Day 8: Formal & Casual

Day 9: Alpha & Omega

Week Two: Angels and Demons

Day 10: Heaven

Day 11: Hell

Day 12: Angelic

Day 13: Demonic

Day 14: Sins/Virtues

Day 15: Prayer

Day 16: Rapture

Week Three: Gods and Myths

Day 17: Pantheon

Day 18: Religion

Day 19: Truth

Day 20: Ideals

Day 21: Monsters

Day 22: Daemons

Day 23: Forgotten

Week Four: Travel

Day 24: Transportation

Day 25: Trains

Day 26: Vacation

Day 27: Adventure

Day 28: Time Travel

Day 29: Hisui

Day 30: Reunion

The Flashfic Challenge is back!

Poor Phryne has had a bit of a shock, she just received word that the MFMM Flashfic Challenge is back!

That’s right, people of the internet, please make a note in your diaries because on 25 February 2023 we will be doing another Flashfic Challenge and we really want you all to join in.

It’s been so long since we did this, and we know that this absolutely amazing fandom has grown since the last time so let’s explain really quickly (Well, actually this does go on a bit and we’re very sorry.):

The flashfic challenge is a writing prompt challenge where members of the fandom provide prompts and then fics are written based on those prompts. Which seems simple enough, but that’s not really how we roll, so there’s more:

Fic writers only have 2 hours from when they receive their prompts until they must have posted their fics on AO3. (Which explains why Phryne looks so worried.)

Because the fandom is spread all over the globe, we run 4 heats so we hopefully have one at a time of day that works for most people:

Time slot 1: 10am GMT / 2am PST / 5am EST / 11am CET / 9pm AEDT Time slot 2: 4pm GMT / 8am PST / 11am EST / 5pm CET / 3am AEDT (Sunday) Time slot 3: 10pm GMT / 2pm PST / 5pm EST / 11pm CET / 9am AEDT (Sunday) Time slot 4: 4am GMT (Sunday) / 8pm PST / 11pm EST / 5am CET (Sunday) / 3am AEDT (Sunday)

Prompts are submitted by members of the fandom - you don’t need to submit prompts in order to write, and you aren’t excluded from writing if you do submit some. You can do one or the other or both. (Yes, it is also okay to just submit prompts.) We then divvy up the prompts so we have a reasonable amount for each heat and then prompt lists are published when each heat begins.

There are 2 ways to receive the prompts: You can follow this blog, where they’ll be posted when the heat begins, or you can sign up to receive the prompts for whatever heats you want by email. Signing up for prompt emails does NOT mean you’re obligated to write anything, it just means you’ll receive the prompts and what happens next is 100% your business. If you want the prompts by email, just send a message to [email protected] no later than February 22nd and let us know which heat(s) you’d like us to email you and that’s it.

Each heat has its own collection on AO3 where writers can publish their fics, and those collections all close when their respective heats end, so after the two hours are over. Because writing can be stressful and sometimes it takes longer or life gets in the way mid-heat, we also have a flash free collection where any fics that are completed later can be published. That collection will not close at any point and can be added to whenever you want.

Each flashfic challenge has a theme for the prompts and this time the theme is AO3 tags. That means anything you could imagine being a tag on AO3, so either a warning label, a descriptive tag, or a more random freeform tag. Anything goes and feel free to get creative! We’re asking for these tags in sets of three, so for example: “Why Is This Happening?? // Domesticity // Also Cats Can Talk Now” Writers can of course add as many of their own tags to their fics as they want, all we ask is that you use all three tags in the set you choose, and that they apply to your fic in some way.

We’d love it if you send us your prompts no later than February 20th by emailing [email protected]. (And you can send as many sets as you’d like!)

Hopefully that’s it - the only rule that’s left is: Have fun! It’s fine if your version of fun is the traditional writer’s agony, obviously! (And we’re not thinking of anyone in particular as we type that. At all.)

Oh, yes, and the most important rule of all: It doesn’t matter if you’re new to the fandom or new to ficcing, or if you just arrived here and you don’t know anyone yet, or you used to hang out here but haven’t been back for ages. Everyone is welcome and we’d LOVE for you to join us in this madness! Submit prompts, write fic, and (hopefully) READ fic.

Come play with us! ❤︎ 

@whopooh​ & @olderbynow​

The TL;DR for the experienced Flashers:

We’re back(!) and we’re ficcing on February 25th

The prompt theme is AO3 tags and prompts need to be submitted by February 20th to [email protected]

Sign up to receive prompts by email by February 22nd by sending a message to [email protected]

South Africa vs Israel Hearings this week

I mostly just post fandom stuff here, but for the avoidance of doubt: Free Palestine.

Later this week, the International Court of Justice will hear South Africa's claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestine and will consider whether to grant the requested interim order. The details of this claim are publicly available here and definitely worth a read. Since it's a fairly long document however, I'll also put my attempt at a (non-lawyer, best efforts only) summary below:

Israel and South Africa are both signatories to the Genocide Convention, meaning that they must not themselves commit, incite or support genocide and that they must also enforce the prohibition on other member states. This case has been put to the ICJ, which is not a criminal court but instead responsible for resolving disputes between nations. This does not prohibit (and may even support) similar claims being submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at later dates.

To meet the legal definition of "genocide", the acts must be committed with a clear genocidal intent. The accusation is therefore that Israel has a) engaged in a variety of acts that have both directly killed, injured and displaced people and which have created conditions unsuitable for life in Gaza, and b) done so with the intent of destroying, in whole or part, a nation, race or ethnic/religious group.

As of the time I write this, Al Jazeera's live tracker states that at least 23,167 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank since 7th October, along with 62,216 injured and more than 7,000 missing. More than half of Gaza's homes have been destroyed or damaged, and 23 of 36 hospitals are not functioning. 370 educational facilities, 104 ambulances and 203 places of worship have been damaged or destroyed. South Africa's submission further details attacks on agriculture, bakeries and etc. as further evidence of Israel rendering Gaza uninhabitable.

South Africa's submission quotes several major government and IDF representatives as evidence for the "intent" component. It also states that various efforts have been made outside of court, including contacting Israel in advance of the submission, to try to stop the claimed genocide, and that Israel has failed to adequately respond to those concerns.

Actually finding a party guilty of breaching the code may take years and a high burden of proof, however the application seeks an urgent interim order to halt the claimed genocidal acts, which can be granted on the balance of probability (i.e. whether the case has merit at face value) rather than an absolute finding of fact.

An order of this nature can however be ignored - noting for example that a similar order was previously made against Russia in regards to its invasion of Ukraine - however it could have material impacts on both the internal perception of its acts and the external support from Western nations, including the USA. It may prompt some nations to implement sanctions.

Israel have publicly stated that they will fight the claim.

The hearings are scheduled for Thursday 11th January and Friday 12 January, from 10am to 12pm local time, which looks to be 8pm AEST, 1am PST, 3am CT and 4am ET (European timezones are NOT kind to the USA, sorry). It looks like you can watch them online. And of course, you can check the news or ICJ website afterwards.

As above, even if an order is made this does not automatically result in a ceasefire - however Israel remains reliant on the support of Western nations and especially the USA, and that support may be impacted by the results. It may also help to shift media framing and public opinion. If nothing else, it'll be something new to point your local member of Parliament towards.

I'll be watching with interest. I hope you'll do the same.

ohp another ask sorry lol

(cw for mention of suicide jokes further down in this ask ^^)

grian also calls jevin "jev" i think?

jimmy says "bro" a lot, and "tha" ("that" without the last t)

for martyn! you said "kinda pronouncing the g in words like lon, strong, Renchanting" - i think i would word this more like, when he makes a "ng" sound, he ends it with a k. so like "ngk" (except "ng" is one sound. so ŋ, so "ŋk" is more accurate, i just dont know how well known ŋ is as a letter)

martyn also is good at just going with the flow of things. he's good at fake confidence and therefore intimidation. he's good at threats (this clip comes to mind)

martyn also knows some japanese, he has to take a second to think about it but he can say things in it

sometimes martyn does a "hehehe" laugh and there's a little "sh"ing to it? like his tongue is brushing up against his teeth like how it does with a sh sound but everything else is doing the laugh (like at the very end of this video)

martyn and jimmy have "the game's the game" as an inside joke, once the old sherrif is introduced in empires season 2. i know joel is unaware of it but thats about it, i assume its between just martyn and jimmy

martyn and grian call jimmy timmy, grian calls him tim, joel calls him jim

scott is very observant, as is martyn but scott especially

martyn swears when not around pg people, does so more when alone with chat than he does around others in general

scott swears a bit less than martyn and also can easily stay pg

and when i say "not around pg people" i mean literally that. like martyn will swear around some people on an smp but not others, scott's sworn around cleo on double life, etc

skizz swears sometimes—not enough that its a problem, he doesnt tone it down that much in pg spheres i think? but he does. for example in limited life "ive been a real dick to you" to scott, and in 3rd life he mentioned on the imp & skizz podcast, that after the first session they had a meeting and skizz said something about scar and grian telling skizz and [whoever he was with] to essentially go fuck themselves, and everyone in the call just exploded laughing because they did Not expect it lol. basically when skizz swears its funny and unexpected

something ive also noticed: jimmy tends to be more cautious of suicide jokes, like when he encounters one he usually goes "ohp" or "oh, jeez-" or something like that. cleo and martyn aren't so much, they're pretty comfortable with them i think (cleo in double life ghost pov: "suicide! thats what we want here" and martyn mentioning a thing he saw of stampy playing something and it suddenly cutting to him saying "and now im just gonna kill myself" and martyn found that hard cut funny)

jimmy is just generally more cautious of things that'd get him demonetized i think. he picked up really quickly on scott implying he wanted to call himself a "[f slur] guy" but couldnt because of TOS whereas it took martyn a good 10 or so seconds

martyn switches between zed and zee. he'll say xyz with zed but colin z with zee, for example

martyn ends verbal paragraphs with "so, there you go" quite a bit

martyn and all his characters are really gender inclusive, the old sherriff saying "good morning ma'am, good morning sir, good morning they, good morning them", for example (martyn's really good about this in general actually :D)

ren tries to be as well, "ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between" but he forgets sometimes

owen uses tone tags in speech, "slash gen" "slash s r s" "slash neg" "slash pos" "slash jay"

people like bek and tubbo do so as well sometimes but owen does it the most

oh, scar safe as a phrase :D scar uses it the most, grian uses it sometimes, idk about others

tubbo can get very loud. especially on rats. "RRRRRRRRATS??"

tubbo also constantly jokes about being homophobic while saying he's serious. tubbo himself is gay. this is such a thing that the emote tubFoe is a thing

it is 4am i should sleep

hi! I got all three of your asks but I won't post them all for spam reasons LOL but thank you so much for the notes and chat screenshots I'll be adding those tidbits when I get to it!

Thought I'd make a showcase of some of my conlangs, so I'll start with the one I'm working on rn

Or mesako! Jenojarko Ajir gi mo do heni'a'in.

[oɾ mɛsɐˈko] [jɛnojɐˈɾko ɐˈjiɾ ɡiˈ moˈ doˈ hɛniˈʔɐʔin]

Translation: "Hello! My name is Ire and this is my language."

This is Fjatli, or Sfarokchosti [sfɐ.ɾo.k͡xoˈs.ti] if you'd rather use the endonym. It's inspired mostly by the grammar of the Muscogee language but with a good few liberties taken, especially with my use of a German-esque orthography, and in its lore is spoken by an indigenous people who are known for their relationship with luck, their beautiful and intricately styled hair, and their perseverance against all odds

Much like Muscogee, Fjatli is polysynthetic. So words take multiple and often many prefixes and suffixes, so often entire sentences can be contained in just one word (which is actually a help since Fjatli doesn't have any pronouns at all)

Eraba. : Eat.

Erabata. : I eat.

Erabanita. : I am eating.

Anerabanita. : I want to be eating.

Jo'anerabanita. : I want to be eating you.

This is a weird example (and there are certainly more useful examples) but it shows how verbs work in Fjatli. Nouns, adjectives and adverbs operate similarly but aren't as complex (however this is still a WIP so I'm planning on expanding all of them.) I'll show an example of ownership and definiteness in nouns

Fjer : Friend

Cafjer : The friend

Fjerin : My friend

Fjerag : Your friend

Fjerob : Their friend

Fjerimin : Our friend

The main word order for Fjatli is generally VSO whenever other words are needed. So "the animal wants to eat a fruit" would be said in the order of "wants to eat the animal a fruit" similar to Irish, Welsh, Classical Arabic, and many Polynesian languages. Also make sure not to forget subject and object markers, similar to Japanese. Here's a full breakdown

A'aneraba ja cacoxot do t'ano.

[ɐʔɐnɛɾɐˈbɐ jɐˈ t͜͡ʃɐt͜͡soǃoˈt doˈ tʼɐnoˈ]

[It wants to eat it] [sm] [the animal] [om] [fruit].

And you can expand on this by putting indirect objects before the verb. Combine this with Fjatli's verb aspect system that can still give a detailed description of events in time without any tenses at all, and you get my absolute favorite sentence I've translated for this language: "I bleed through my instrument"

Isorogin chonsoho'inerta.

[isoˈɾoɡin xonsohoˈʔinɛɾtɐ]

[My instrument] [I have and often bleed through]

This is what I love so much about polysynthetic languages, like in just two (albeit pretty long) words this language can say something that takes English upwards of eight words to fully convey. Especially since the verb in that last sentence takes advantage of the perfect habitual aspect (where the verb has been completed and will be several times in the future) which can't be easily communicated in English

This was just an introduction to the basics of Fjatli, there's even some stuff in the greeting at the top of this post that I didn't get into so maybe if there's demand I'll make a follow-up that explains more (as a gift to anyone who notices that there's click consonants in this language). I also made a writing system for it and I'm not gonna let anyone live in peace until they've seen it because it's so cool (I say that about all the writing systems I've made)

Or menoko, fjerin!

Edit 1: fixed some glaring spelling mistakes (I wrote this at 4am and I'm not entirely sure it wasn't a fever dream)

Edit 2: finally found out how to do smol text

TOM propaganda:

"He's voiced by Steve Blum, he likes anime and he respects women."

"The coolest robot you'll ever meet once a week. No really. Toonami is program block that usually hosts anime but is for action cartoons in general and is on Adult Swim ever Saturday night/Sunday morning (12am-usually 3 or 4am). Anyway, here's some stuff about him specifically. He's voiced by Steve Blum doing his Spike Spiegal voice but was originally voiced by Sonny Strait. And the reason for more than one voice actor isn't just 'they decided to change his voice'. No, they gave that decision its own lore. See, T.O.M. has several different incarnations (there are T.O.M.s 1-6) that usually come to be when the current incarnation gets killed during one of the stories they show that provide said lore. He went from voiced by Sonny Strait as T.O.M. 1 pre-The Intruder, the first of these stories, to voiced by Steve Blum as T.O.M. 2-current.

Some examples of these stories have been: blob/slime like monster invades his ship and essentially eats him, his ship gets stuck in a tractor beam of a trash compactor ship that's running on pure autopilot, a sentient computer virus infects his ship (along with its AI and his best friend) so he jacks into the mainframe to fight it, that same blob/slime monster comes back years later but intelligent after his first body was properly assimilated into it, planet he and his AI friend are stranded on is threatening to implode onto itself and they have to find a way off before they go with it, the new ship they got during the last adventure gets zapped by alien lighting (? idk it was a nebulous storm that acted almost virus like) and there's time travel shenanigans involved and everyone is traumatized a bit, their ship gets hacked and forced to come the space station where robots that look just like T.O.M. are being made as...basically slave labor bots and he has to work to shut the place down and free them. They also get incredibly traumatized in that one too, but because of how little story there's been since then you wouldn't be able to tell by first glance.

Anyway, he also looks cool, with his third incarnation being the fan favorite for having a shape that looks like it has muscles? IDK man. He usually just has a 'visor' for a face, taking place where a human's facial features would go...except for one time he had both eyes and mouth which fans didn't like. I don't mind that incarnation though cuz I grew up with him. Plus, through means we still don't have the full answer to, that incarnation has actually been revealed to be like a twin/clone of the aforementioned T.O.M. 3. Like they have the same memories up until their 'birth' and stuff. For his current body (and honestly my favorite cuz he looks cool :)) T.O.M. 6, he has a cool feature with his visor in which projected images can be shown through, like when they had him wearing a digital costume during Halloween two years in a row that had a flaming jack o' lantern on it.

Personality wise- he's sardonic and cool, but actually also a big nerd. He's also a very loyal friend. If you were his best friend and got corrupted by evil, he'd try literally everything before taking action against you (like he did in aforementioned story about time travel). This loyalty could also be a bad thing as sometimes he puts his loved ones' needs over his own, letting himself get sacrificed so the others can get to safety. He's also an avid gamer. One who canonically raged quit Dark Souls and threw a game out the airlock cuz he couldn't get past one of the levels no matter how many times he tried.

A karaoke program insulted his singing during one of the stories and for years fans (or at least I was) were convinced because of this that he couldn't sing until an intro for the block like last year where he sang like five seconds of a sea shanty and it sounded pretty good.

Uhhh what else... IDK man I just really like him... I love this traumatized weeb robot in space and hopefully this all was a good reasoning as to why. He's so cool. Look up 'Toonami Total Immersion Events' if you can, those are the stories I mentioned."

the blame game

content warning for extreme multigenerational child abuse, trauma, and addiction.

the way i grew up wasn’t good. it was packed chock full of generational traumas and illnesses, all revolving around each other in this constant, hellish tornado. like cold air and hot air spinning each other faster and faster, the fronts of poverty, addiction, mental instability, and trauma moved through our family over and over and over. and it hurt us. they hurt us. our parents hurt us and our aunts and uncles hurt us and their kids and my grandmothers hurt them and they hurt each other. over and over and over. but you love them still. you love all of them. and you don’t know who to hold responsible for any of it or how to.

to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, i’m gonna talk about my dad. he and I were really close while I was growing up. he taught me to lay brick and weld and paint and place sheetrock. sometimes, we would listen to the radio and he would tell me the band, the name of the album, the name of the song, the year it came out, and what was going on in his life when it came out. he would ask me what I was reading and to explain everything I was thinking about it and saw in the book and he would tell me that I was smart and beautiful and nothing would ever be able to hold me back and he couldn’t understand how something so incredible came from him. other times, it wasn’t so good. I was an obsessive reader when I was a kid and in the summers when we were working, I was expected to keep to a specific sleep schedule. the rule was there for good reason. we had to wake up at 4 or 5 every morning to beat the heat, and if you didn’t get enough sleep, the work got dangerous. you could vomit or pass out or worse from heat stroke. well, i was 14 and caught in a book and stayed up the whole night finishing it. dad found me at 4am when his alarm went off, maybe 30 pages to go to the end. he took the book, dragged me on site, and made me work until I was crying and feeling faint and vomited. when I went to go sit in the car, I wasn’t allowed to read or sleep. if I fell asleep, he’d walk up and pound on the door frame to jerk me back awake. he was furious with me, and it was brutal. he was brutal sometimes. the thing was, I always knew why. my dad’s uncle shot him up with heroine for the first time when he was 11 years old. his childhood babysitter was a pedophile who abused him and his brothers. his sister was regularly assaulted by new stepfathers moving through the house. years after the babysitter’s abuse, my developmentally disabled uncle began regularly abusing my cousin who was only 6 years old at the time. my uncle didn’t know it was wrong and my cousin didn’t have the verbal skills to tell anyone for almost a year. my dad still blames himself for not catching on sooner. when my older sister told him that she was abused by a babysitter, he refused to believe her because he couldn’t stand the thought that he’d failed. dad ran away from home for the first time when he was 12, made money then by running parking lots and by selling LSD and bareknuckle boxing when he was older. he spent 4 terms in juvie and learned exactly how to answer psych evaluations and behave for early release on good behavior. he’d run away again as soon as he was placed in a new foster home. he wouldn’t speak about the few times he stayed in a foster home longer than a few weeks. when he was 21, he met my mother. There were a few different diagnoses offered by different doctors, but what matters is her symptoms got way worse when I was around 5. example: when she stabbed my dad a few years ago in a fight over a broken tail light, my grandmother called and told me that she just “poked him with a knife” and everyone is fine. she’s shot at him more than once (totaled a truck once) and he’s run her over with a car.

the entire family is like this. filled to the brim with pain and abuse and trauma that winds its way around to bite over and over. one of my uncles on my mother’s side accidentally murdered his best friend while drunk driving. my grandma once threw a spoon so hard at his head that it knocked him out cold. two of my uncles died by overdose. another uncle holds the all-time county record for evading the most federal marshals for the longest time. my grandfather threw my mom out of a second story window when she was 16 because he was drunk and one of his bootcamp trainees asked her out on a date. his father beat him so badly that he ran away from home and enlisted in the military at 17. mom threw me out the window of a moving car when i was 4. my mom would also take us and all of our cousins out for the best halloweens out of everyone we knew, literally we would take 2 pillow cases each out with us and fill most of them.

who do you blame? who do you hold responsible and how do you hold them responsible? what do you do when all everyone knows is pain and violence? my dad never did anything more physically extreme than bruise us, and that was very actively a vast improvement over his experience of childhood. he actually did try and he actually did protect us from so much harm. when my mom got a cattle prod and used it on us, my dad stole it from her and destroyed it with a sledgehammer. when my mom went after my sister with a knife, he took all of us and fled the state for two weeks. he also went back to her and would repeatedly clean out my bank account to disappear on a bender for as long as the money lasted. my mom couldn’t tell what was real for years. every bit of it is mangled by unbelievable cruelty, cruelty and pain that lasted for generations. there’s no one left to blame, only victims and victims and victims.

mine is an extreme example, but i see people playing this blame game online a lot lately. trying to figure out how to hold people accountable when they’re lashing out from pain, trying to negotiate oppression points and determine how culpable a group of people is for various -isms, trying to find the line between empathy for their pain and excuses for the pain they’ve caused. all of these things are what start to happen when true justice isn’t an option, and I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work like that. none of this works like that. there is no objective answer. there’s no magic trick or grading scale. there’s no one keeping track of every trauma they’ve suffered and giving them 1 harm freebie for each. You won’t ever be able to say they’re fully evil or fully trustworthy. They’re damaged, and sometimes those who lived too long with monsters become monsters themselves. You have to decide how you can move forward and what you can live with. And you have to figure out how to stop yourself from passing the pain forward if or when justice never comes. I left. Sometimes that’s all you can do. I forgave my dad years ago. I love him and I miss him, but I still don’t talk to him.

What I can say is that our lives and the cycles we live in create us even as we create them. When I left and got therapy, I paved the way for my little sister to do the same. She felt so much better that she encouraged my mom to go. Now, my mom’s been in therapy for almost a year.