Good Lore Update

i'm seeing people losing hope for palestine i'm begging you seriously please don't. the death toll is high but there are still people alive, there are still journalists risking everything to make sure the world sees what is happening. please continue protesting if you have the option to, keep demanding for a ceasefire and keep talking about palestinians both alive and dead. you have to keep going until the very end or else you really did fail them.

things in volume 13 that make me insane:

I finished my Rome book and have now begun one about Pompeii. I’m 65 pages in and I already love it: yes, it covers the volcano, but most of the book is about “this is what the town and daily life of it would have been like, actually.” Fascinating stuff. Things I’ve learned so far:

- The streets in Pompeii have sidewalks sometimes a meter higher than the road, with stepping stones to hop across as “crosswalks.” I’d seen some photos before. The book points out that, duh, Pompeii had no underground drainage, was built on a fairly steep incline, and the roads were more or less drainage systems and water channels in the rain.

- Unlike today, where “dining out” is expensive and considered wasteful on a budget, most people in Pompeii straight up didn’t have kitchens. You had to eat out if you were poor; only the wealthy could afford to eat at home.

- Most importantly, and I can’t believe in all the pop culture of Pompeii this had never clicked for me: Pompeii had a population between 6-35,000 people. Perhaps 2,000 died in the volcano. Contemporary sources talk about the bay being full of fleeing ships. Most people got the hell out when the eruption started. The number who died are still a lot, and it’s still gruesome and morbid, but it’s not “an entire town and everyone in it.” This also makes it difficult for archeologists, apparently (and logically): those who remained weren’t acting “normally,” they were sheltering or fleeing a volcano. One famous example is a wealthy woman covered in jewelry found in the bedroom in the glaridator barracks. Scandal! She must have been having an affair and had it immortalized in ash! The book points out that 17 other people and several dogs were also crowded in that one small room: far more likely, they were all trying to shelter together. Another example: Houses are weirdly devoid of furniture, and archeologists find objects in odd places. (Gardening supplies in a formal dining room, for example.) But then you remember that there were several hours of people evacuating, packing their belongings, loading up carts and getting out… maybe the gardening supplies were brought to the dining room to be packed and abandoned, instead of some deeper esoteric meaning. The book argues that this all makes it much harder to get an accurate read on normal life in a Roman town, because while Pompeii is a brilliant snapshot, it’s actually a snapshot of a town undergoing major evacuation and disaster, not an average day.

- Oh, another great one. Outside of a random laundry place in Pompeii, someone painted a mural with two scenes. One of them referenced Virgil’s Aeneid. Underneath that scene, someone graffiti’d a reference to a famous line from that play, except tweaked it to be about laundry. This is really cool, the book points out, because it implies that a) literacy and education was high enough that one could paint a reference and have it recognized, and b) that someone else could recognize it and make a dumb play on words about it and c) the whole thing, again, means that there’s a certain amount of literacy and familiarity with “Roman pop culture” even among fairly normal people at the time.

pro-AI in the sense of "they taught a bread scanning computer to recognize cancer cells" etc etc

against AI in the sense of "we stole artwork from hundreds to thousands of artists, didn't credit them and didn't financially compensate them"

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian babies that were left to starve to death then rot in their beds by the IOF.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian doctors surrounded by bodies of dead children begging the world to stop the slaughter.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian children who held a press conference in English to beg the world to stop murdering them because they want to live.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian Priest who said "We will not accept your apology after the genocide" to the world.

I'm never forgetting the Palestinian Imam who used the speakers of the Mosque, not to call people to prayer but to call out to God while the world around them was burning from American supplied Israeli bombs.

I'm never forgetting the grandfather who held his dead grandchild in his arms. Or the father carrying the remains of his two children in plastic shopping bags. Or the mother holding her dead child in a shroud. Or the father sitting among the rubble after he lost his whole family. Or the girl trapped under a broken building begging for people to save her family first. Or the boy who cried when he saw his brother alive. Or the girl who asked if she was still alive after being pulled from the rubble. Or the boy who carried the remains of his brother in his backpack. Or the old man the IOF used for a photoshoot before they shot him dead after getting pictures. Or the little boy wearing plastic gloves to pick up the remains of his family. Or the graves desecrated. Or the body of that small baby girl left alone in a tent because no one knew who she was or if her family was alive, small and alone and not one person who knew her name to bury her. Or the young boy who was shot in the street while his sister watched from the window. Or the men and boys who were stripped naked in winter. Or those tortured. Or those made to stand in open graves. Or the people who were raped by IOF soldiers. Or Palestinian workers kidnapped by the IOF and then labeled with wristbands, each one reduced to a number, then made to walk back to Gaza to be killed in the world's largest open air concentration camp. Or the people of Gaza starving because Israeli Zionists are blocking aid trucks. Or the Israelis dancing and celebrating the death of Palestinians. Or the lies spread by Zionists and their supporters. Or the people profiting off the oppression and deaths of Palestinians. Or the people of the West Bank being killed or kidnapped by the IOF. Or old woman who was older than the creation of the terror state of "Israel" who was shot by snipers for saying that. Or the Israelis dressed up as Palestinians to enter a hospital and kill three Palestinians in their beds. Or every single Palestinian currently kept in an Israeli prison. Or the journalists, doctors, poets, men, women, children, and the unborn all massacred. Or the fact that WCNSF exists now. Or the woman who refused to wash the blood from her hands. Or the dead, unburied and unmourned.

I'm never forgetting those who chose silence in the face of a genocide.

I may not know all their names but I will not forget the over 30,000 Palestinians dead. Or the over 60, 000 people hurt. Or the unknown number of people missing, still lost under the rubble. Or the 12,000 children slaughtered. An entire generation crippled or murdered.

I will never forget these things when Palestine is free.

I always say that I like L's death in the manga more, but I've never explained why. It's because it's quiet. You don't realise L's dying until he's actually dying. You see L stop talking mid-sentence, but it's not a weird behaviour coming for him. We see the ellipsis constantly, because he's thinking. You then see Mogi and Soichiro's confused faces, Soichiro asking what's wrong and in the bottom left L's hand trembling, but we already saw him shiver. It was when Ukita died and after Aizawa grabbed him. Or when Misa mentioned the Shinigami in the tapes. So, maybe he's shaking because he's scared or deeply affected by what's going on: Watari just died, the Shinigami disappeared, the Kira Case is getting to a critical point. It's normal to think that he's just trying to calm himself down. But then... He just falls to the side, while letting go of the spoon he was holding. You can't really say that’s usual for him. He fell off the chair once, but it was off screen. Now, even if it's a drawing, you can feel that he's going in slow motion, which means something is very wrong. Obviously, when you read, you can immediately see that bigger picture in which he falls and have a reaction, but going panel by panel, it's just so quiet. He's not going out in a big style or making a lot of noise. And this silent death symbolises to me how L – himself, not the detective – was during his time alive. So unimportant to anyone but Watari, that could've had an immediate reaction in case he had died in front of him. Just like those present had a reaction in that moment. But what if he died and no one was around him? He would've just perished. Alone. Nobody would've known. The world would've not realised that he is gone. And it didn't anyway. All the people he worked with. All the connections he made. None of them knows that L died. When I picture his death in my mind, I can’t help but imagine him being alone, because that's how I think he felt in that moment. He wasn’t actually very close to the task force. They were just people he worked with. Even if he felt some affection towards them, I don’t believe he thought they could feel the same. And they showed that they moved on pretty quickly. When I think about that moment, instead, I see him being on a stage, illuminated by the light, while all around him is dark, and you'd think that at least someone is watching in silence that heartbreaking moment. But once he falls, dies and the light turns off, you'd realise that there is actually nobody to react. No one actually cared about him without the detective persona attached.

this shouldn’t have to be said but if someone who struggles with cognitive issues such as fibro fog, autism or adhd etc has difficulty speaking or getting their point across, do not point it out. im talking about stuttering, misremembering words and definitions, using the wrong words in place of other ones, mixing up words or merging them together. you are allowed to help us find the right word but wait for us to ask first and give us a chance to find it ourselves. blurting out random words causes a lot more confusion for us and we often end up losing our train of thought.

also, in a similar vein, we may pause to think about what we’re going to say next, and it’s important that you not interrupt. for me, my train of thought is already on the verge of derailing. if i stop talking mid-sentence, give me a second to find my words and sort out my jumbled mess of a brain. don’t start speaking like we’ve finished our sentence and please don’t just abandon the conversation. it’s very frustrating, especially when you make jokes or tease us for forgetting words or misspeaking and it makes it much harder for us to get to our point. and tbh it’s embarrassing and it sucks because our brains aren’t doing what we want or need them to do and we don’t need a reminder every time it happens.

like the jokes might seem harmless or lighthearted but it hurts nonetheless because we are constantly in a struggle against our own brains. it seems like it should be such an obvious thing, not to tease or make fun of someone with cognitive issues, but so many people do it, including some of you who don’t think you do— particularly if you don’t think the reason behind it is a disability. it’s not the same as joking about your friend making a typo in the group chat. those are minor slip-ups and they happen to everyone. for a lot of us, they’re constant. we’re almost always trying to get our brains to work with us rather than against us and pointing it out only makes it that much harder to concentrate on actually articulating our thoughts instead of focusing purely on avoiding misspeaking so you won’t point it out again. obviously this will vary from person to person, not everyone with these symptoms feels the same way i do, but i think it’s a good rule of thumb to just. not interrupt and/or draw unnecessary/unwanted attention to our speech problems. i don’t think it’s too much to ask.

i want to post on wattpad but then it means i'll have to create a cover

i love him so much but everytime i think about him i am in pain

Ouyang is such an interesting character istg. I need a spin off series detailing his entire life just so I can study him.

he’s literally pure rage. he’s fuming all the time. he’s miserable and angry and pissed off and would rather die than even attempt to change or be happy in any way. he kills the one person he loves after destroying Esen’s life and kingdom. he violently denies himself any pleasure out of self loathing yet keeps spec sheet of everyone who was ever mean to him. he desperately wants to be seen and understood as much as he wants to rid the world of anyone who even comes close. don’t even get me started on his deeply complex and incredibly simple misogyny    

I’ve never seen such a fucked up, hateful main character. Ouyang is a pathetic, horrible little man in every objective and subjective sense and I love him so much

we’re up to 4.