So after many people kept putting some very confusing posts somehow connect by a mysterious book series on my dash I finally borrowed Gideon the Ninth from the library and dear lord. I'm halfway through I was not expecting to love this strange conglomeration of settings, tropes and characters as much as I do. Excellent vibe, delightful writing style and use of first person, love this meathead enjoying her vacation locked in a haunted rundown murder-monastery
very interested to see how literally any of the posts I have seen regarding this series winds up relating to what I have read so far.
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like 70% of my knowledge about twst is because I read all the comics about it you do bc they're hilarious, but can I confirm that Rook's character arc was basically just an 'Applejack -> Rarity hypeman (malicious)' pipeline??????
yep, Rook joined NRC as a full-on Rowdy Boy who wore the same ripped-up jeans and sweatshirt 24/7 and was 99% split ends, until one day Vil convinced him to dress up a bit for a concert and he was like, "oh. hmm. actually, I like this." and swung fully into the other extreme of Fanciest Lad. Rook just...does not do middle grounds.
(tangential, but my personal 100% crack actively-contradicts-canon-but-I-don't-care headcanon is that French doesn't exist at all in Twst. Rook personally just made up a collection of fancy-sounding words that, by complete coincidence, happen to sound exactly like earth-prime French.
"but in the City of Flowers --" no, look, his family is VERY rich and VERY weird, it is not out of character that they paid an entire city of people to throw out a few words of their kid's conlang whenever he visits. it makes SENSE --
this is mostly because I think it would be funny if, after Rook gives someone their special little nickname, he has to sit down and explain to them what it means. which I've actually just decided he does anyway, so never mind.)
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I'm sure there are many more factors at play than merely the rise of trope publishing and booktok demand, but the older I get, the more content I am with the notion of just. never getting published?
at this current moment, posting my stories fanfic-style on some online platform for the select few who are already invested in them sounds 100 times more appealing and fulfilling than going through all the stress of getting traditionally or self- published only to never hit the shelves of a Barnes & Noble
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guys, can - can we stop saying that percy jackson is an unreliable narrator who thinks he's an idiot? bc like. rereading the books.
he's doesn't??? think he's an idiot????
like sure he'll say things like "echidna.... isn't that a type of anteater?" but he doesn't think that he's himself an idiot for that.
let me quote you the book: "Go ahead, call me an idiot for walking into a strange lady’s shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes."
HE doesn't think he's an idiot, but he does assume that YOU, THE READER, will think that. and that's true to his life experience, true to his school experience, true to anyone with a learning disability like his.
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hello! i hope it's alright to ask you this but i was wondering if you have any recommendations for books to read or media in general about the history of judaism and jewish communities in egypt, particularly in ottoman and modern egypt?
have a nice day!
it's fine to ask me this! Unfortunately I have to preface this with a disclaimer that a lot of books on Egyptian Jewish history have a Zionist bias. There are antizionist Egyptian Jews, and at the very least ones who have enough national pride that AFAIK they do not publicly hold Zionist beliefs, like those who spoke in the documentary the Jews of Egypt (avaliable on YouTube for free with English subtitles). Others have an anti Egyptian bias- there is a geopolitical tension with Egypt from Antiquity that unfortunately some Jewish people have carried through history even when it was completely irrelevant, so in trying to research interactions between "ancient" Egyptian Jews and Native Egyptians (from the Ptolemaic era into the proto-Coptic and fully Coptic eras) I've unfortunately come across stuff that for me, as an Egyptian, reads like anti miscegenationist ideology, and it is difficult to tell whether this is a view of history being pushed on the past or not. The phrase "Erev Rav" (meaning mixed multitude), which in part refers to Egyptians who left Egypt with Moses and converted to Judaism, is even used as an insult by some.
Since I mentioned that documentary, I'll start by going over more modern sources. Mapping Jewish San Francisco has a playlist of videos of interviews with Egyptian Jews, including both Karaites and Rabbinic Jews iirc (I reblogged some of these awhile ago in my "actually Egyptian tag" tag). This book, the Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, is avaliable for free online, it promises to be a more indepth look at Egyptian Jews in the lead up to modern explusion. I have only read a few sections of it, so I cannot give a full judgment on it. There's this video I watched about preserving Karaite historical sites in Egypt that I remember being interesting. "On the Mediterranian and the Nile edited by Harvey E. Goldman and Matthis Lehmann" is a collection of memiors iirc, as is "the Man in the Sharkskin Suit" (which I've started but not completed), both moreso from a Rabbinic perspective. Karaites also have a few websites discussing themselves in their terms, such as this one.
For the pre-modern but post-Islamic era, the Cairo Geniza is a great resource but in my opinion as a hobby researcher, hard to navigate. It is a large cache of documents from a Cairo synagogue mostly from around the Fatimid era. A significant portion of it is digitized and they occasionally crowd source translation help on their Twitter, and a lot of books and papers use it as a primary source. "The Jews in Medieval Egypt, edited by: Miriam Frenkel" is one in my to read pile. "Benjamin H. Hary - Multiglossia in Judeio-Arabic. With an Edition, Translation, and Grammatical Study of the Cairene Purim Scroll" is a paper I've read discussing the Jewish record of the events commemorated by the Cairo Purim, I got it off either Anna's Archive or libgen. "Mamluks of Jewish Origin in the Mamluk Sultanate by Koby Yosef" is a paper in my to read pile. "Jewish pietism of the Sufi type A particular trend of mysticisme in Medieval Egypt by Mireille Loubet" and "Paul B Fenton- Judaism and Sufism" both discuss the medieval Egyptian Jewish pietist movement.
For "ancient" Egyptian Jews, I find the first chapter of "The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD” by Simon Schama, which covers Elephantine, very interesting (it also flies in the face of claims that Jews did not marry Native Egyptians, though it is from centuries before the era researchers often cover). If you'd like to read don't click this link to a Google doc, that would be VERY naughty. There's very little on the Therapeutae, but for the paper theorizing they may have been influenced by Buddhism (possibly making them an example of Judeo-Buddhist syncretism) look here (their Wikipedia page also has some sources that could be interesting but are not specifically about them). "Taylor, Joan E. - Jewish women philosophers of first-century Alexandria: Philo’s Therapeutae reconsidered" is also a to read.
I haven't found much on the temple of Onias/Tell el Yahudia/Leontopolis in depth, but I have the paper "Meron M. Piotrkowski - Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period" in my to be read pile (which I got off Anna's Archive). I also have some supplemental info from a lecture I attended that I'm willing to privately share.
I also have a document compiling links about the Exodus of Jews from Egypt in the modern era, but I'm cautious about sharing it now because I made it in high school and I've realized it needs better fact checking, because it had some misinfo in it from Zionist publications (specifically about the names of Nazis who fled to Egypt- that did happen, but a bunch of names I saw reported had no evidence of that being the case, and one name was the name of a murdered resistance fighter???)
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wanting & laying yourself bare
Yo wants to trust that this time could be different. she wants to believe that Plug could hold her & not break her- that he'll take care of her. she wants to rest in this beautiful connection she's found.
she could've been sarcastic or cutting here- easy enough when you're hurting & terrified- but instead, she made herself vulnerable by expressing her wanting.
Ray desperately wants to be loved unconditionally, despite the hurt, the trauma & the burden of addiction that he still bears. he wants a life with Sand- a second chance.
Sand wants to be able to trust in this, to have this too- so much that he pushes past his hurt (fear too, probably) & tells Ray he can't live without him, either.
Boston wants to give a type of relationship he’s never experienced a chance, & he makes it known.
Top found something so authentic & true with Mew. he doesn't just want Mew- he wants him to trust in him, in them. Mew didn't answer him here with words, but I think he'll get there.
what makes this all so profound is that these aren't surfacey, simple wants. these are wants that sleep next to your bones like a secret, aching wound.
you know the kind…we all have at least one.
it's a personal truth- often rooted in past pain- that when given a voice lays you bare. some of us spend our entire lives running from moments like these. we'll sabotage ourselves, drive away good people or keep ourselves busy- all to (maybe, hopefully) forget the wanting.
it takes time, self reflection & a fuckton of bravery to make it known, but when you do? you're saying yes to yourself. life will never not hurt us, but giving other people the chance to meet you where you are & give you what you need? to love you, care for you- see you?
that's when you start living. really, actually.
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I've been thinking about the tragedy of Elizabeth Woodville living to see the end of her family name.
I don't mean her family with her husband, which lived on through her daughter and grandson. I mean her own.
Her sisters died, one by one, many of them after 1485. When Elizabeth died, only Katherine was left, and she would die before the turn of the century as well.
All her brothers died, too. Lewis died in childhood. John was executed. Anthony was murdered. Lionel died suddenly in the peak of Richard's reign, unable to see his niece become queen. Edward perished at war. Richard died in grieving peace. For all the violence and judgement the family endured, it was "an accident of biology" that ended their line: none of the brothers left heirs, and the Woodville name was extinguished. We know the family was aware of this. We know they mourned it, too:
“Buy a bell to be a tenor at Grafton to the bells now there, for a remembrance of the last of my blood.”
Elizabeth lived through the deposition and death of her young sons, and lived to see the end of her own family name. It must have been such a haunting loss, on both sides.
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