mortalityplays

[mortalityplays]

there are two sitcom protagonists:

put-upon guy who is passionate about something the audience understands is petty or stupid, fundamentally well meaning but always getting himself in trouble for taking a stand

dorky BUT STILL HOT girl whose life is a TASTEFULLY slob-coded disaster, but who covers it up with peppy antics and occasional moments of childish idealism

whichever one isn't the protagonist is the love interest. you may also pick 1-3 of the following supporting cast, depending how ensemble you want to go:

big dumb guy who loves [sports/sci-fi/writer's thinly veiled interest]. he is also probably some kind of handyman.

sardonic hot girl who is more competent than the rest of the cast combined. she may NOT be the love interest.

old person and/or immigrant who is initially used for comic relief but then turns out to be the cool, canny gatekeeper to something that makes the protagonist go wow I never realised you had this rich inner life

wire mother

if your sitcom is set in new york or chicago you MUST talk about the rats and/or getting a slice. if it's set in LA or Seattle you MUST joke about superficial clout chasers. if it's set anywhere else your characters MUST be tormented by big dreams and a backwater life. these are the rules, as I understand them so far.

until I started looking at sitcom pilots on purpose I never noticed how many US shows are about how much silly goofy workers secretly deep down love to work with their workplace families and do a good job even though pay and management suck because they take pride in delivering results. you guys need help.

[mortalityplays]

observation day two: at least 50% of all US sitcom pilots are about rallying to throw a party/dinner/event that will prove something to someone, only to fail and learn a valuable lesson about relationships

until I started looking at sitcom pilots on purpose I never noticed how many US shows are about how much silly goofy workers secretly deep down love to work with their workplace families and do a good job even though pay and management suck because they take pride in delivering results. you guys need help.

[mortalityplays]

I remember a couple of years back when the argument du jour was over whether people at risk of radicalisation or cult recruitment 'deserve' the effort of understanding and outreach, and the entire time people were having knock down drag out fights to determine the one true and correct take I didn't see a single person point out that deradicalisation is a sphere of research and activism that already exists. like you can get involved if you want to. or, if you don't think it deserves your energy, you can disengage in the knowledge that other people have it covered.

we have this dysfunctional cultural notion that the only way to tackle any given issue is for everyone to agree on a single course of action and carry it out simultaneously. our concept of collectivity is so broken that we forget it's not just individualism with a multiplier.

[mortalityplays]

I just watched a video about "real" vs "fake" environmental activists...

The "real" ones was the video of those guys cleaning up clogged up streams in a city. The same kind that clean up beaches after they got invaded by plastic n such.

The "fake" ones was videos of Greta Thumberg when she was in the rhineland during the protest again the destruction of thar small town for the german coal industry.

Too many people reacted positively toward that...

Dunno how to feel.

sadly the world is divided into exactly two types of people: cultured nuance appreciators, and dimwits who crave polarised dichotomies

#genuinely I am so glad I don't have to watch clickbaity Topical Issues videos for work any more #sorry you were exposed to the slop

[mortalityplays]

shin

[mortalityplays]

Somehow it has been almost a whole month since I launched my business ('business' feels like a weird word for it, but we don't have a great word for 'loose stable of artistic endeavours'). So what's been cooking?

I posted an update over on Patreon rounding up everything that went on this month - things I wrote, things I'm writing, and new things to watch out for on the free and paid tiers in May.

One of the headlines is that I've finally relaunched my print shop! If you missed out on the launch prize draw, you can pick up all kinds of prints and posters direct from my website. I'm going to be updating it (semi) regularly with new work now that I have my own little in-house print setup working. Exciting!!!

#replug #updates

[mortalityplays]

هل تعرفون قصة "أثواب الانتفاضة"؟ شرعت نساء مخيم قلنديا وقرى الخليل، في صنع "أثواب الانتفاضة" خلال انتفاضة عام 1987، وفي الوقت الذي كان يصادر الاحتلال الأعلام الفلسطينية، ويمنع رفع أي رموز وطنية، بدأت النساء بتطريز العلم والخارطة وغيرها من الرموز على أثوابهن. وحين ارتدت النساء تلك الأثواب، جعلن من أجسادهن سبل مقاومة، فمن يستطيع انتزاع العلم في المظاهرات، لا يستطيع انتزاع الثوب عن أجساد من يرتدينه.

Do you know the story of the 'Intifada Dresses'? 'Intifada Dresses' began to be made by the Palestinian women of Qalandiya camp and the villages of Al-Khalil during the first Intifada in 1987. When Palestinian flags were confiscated in protests against the Israeli occupation, which prevented raising any national symbols, women began to embroider motifs of explicit nationalism onto their thobes. These dresses could not be taken from their bodies, and thus became powerful visual expressions of protest.

[mortalityplays]

🇵🇸 Amidst the rubble of his destroyed home, Ashraf Nafedth burns a book he once treasured—a guide to international law. He now sees it as a lie, failing to protect people like him. The unfair treatment of countries like Palestine by powerful nations like the US shatters his trust in these laws. His burning of the book symbolizes his loss of faith in international law's ability to keep him safe and reflects the struggles of many in similar situations.

🇵🇸 وسط أنقاض منزله المدمر، أحرق أشرف نافذ كتابًا كان يعتز به ذات يوم - دليل للقانون الدولي. وهو يرى الآن أنها كذبة، وفشل في حماية الأشخاص مثله. إن المعاملة غير العادلة لدول مثل فلسطين من قبل الدول القوية مثل الولايات المتحدة تحطم ثقته في هذه القوانين. إن حرقه للكتاب يرمز إلى فقدانه الثقة في قدرة القانون الدولي على الحفاظ على سلامته ويعكس نضالات الكثيرين في مواقف مماثلة.

[mortalityplays]

A GHOST STORY HAS UPDATED!! LEAST INTIMIDATING THING YOU CAN YELL DURING YOUR EPIC ATTACK, TO BE HONEST

TODAY'S UPDATE: HERE START THIS CHAPTER: HERE START FROM THE TOP: HERE

SUPPORT A GHOST STORY ON PATREON

[mortalityplays]

verso books has made books on palestine, mass protests, and student rebellions free to download on their website

[mortalityplays]

Statement: Student organizations in the Gaza Strip in solidarity with the Student Intifada in the United States

In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful… We, the students of Gaza, salute the students of Columbia University, Yale University, New York University, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and dozens of universities across the United States who are rising up in solidarity with Gaza and to put an end to the Zionist-U.S. genocide against our people in Gaza. As we remain under the bombs of occupation, resisting Nazi genocide, grieving for our martyred colleagues and faculty, and witnessing the destruction of our universities, we welcome the examples of solidarity offered by students facing arrest, police violence, suspension, eviction, and expulsion in order to demand that their universities end their complicity in the Zionist-U.S. genocide and renounce their support for the occupation and the war profiteers that arm it. We have seen hundreds of students arrested across the United States as they work to transform their universities into “Popular Universities for Gaza.” Students, faculty, and staff are disrupting university operations and making clear that while universities in Gaza are being bombed, university business cannot continue as usual in the United States. These actions come as university administrations collaborate with members of Congress to discredit conscientious student activists and faculty, expel students, ban events, shut down student organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine, and condemn activists working to end the Nazi genocide. At the same time, these same universities invest in the same companies that profit from the continued sale of weapons to the Zionist regime to continue its genocidal offensive. Our students – and our educational system as a whole – in occupied Palestine are subjected to ongoing genocidal aggression: our universities destroyed and bombed, our student organizations banned, and our student leaders subjected to torture, assassination and mass imprisonment. However, in Palestine and around the world, the student movement has always been a driving force of our struggle for liberation. When we see videos and images from American universities today, we are reminded of our history of student struggle as well as the student uprisings of 1968, which challenged imperialism from Vietnam to Palestine and reshaped the face of Europe and the United States. Now, in 2024, the student movement is once again leading the way. From here in Gaza, we see you and salute you. Your actions and activism matter, especially in the heart of the empire, in the United States. As members of Congress agree to provide $26 billion in additional weapons to bomb our people and continue the Zionist-U.S. genocide, you are taking meaningful action to shut down the war machine on your campuses. It is clear that a new generation is rising that will no longer accept Zionism, racism and genocide, and that stands with Palestine and our liberation from the river to the sea. Your global student solidarity is breaking boundaries, and it is time to smash the US imperialist war machine. From Gaza to Columbia, to Ann Arbor and Berkeley, our hands are joined to end Nazi genocide and achieve our collective liberation.

[mortalityplays]

it's because you're always on that damn tome

[mortalityplays]

When people get a little too gung-ho about-

wait. cancel post. gung-ho cannot be English. where did that phrase come from? China?

ok, yes. gōnghé, which is…an abbreviation for “industrial cooperative”? Like it was just a term for a worker-run organization? A specific U.S. marine stationed in China interpreted it as a motivational slogan about teamwork, and as a commander he got his whole battalion using it, and other U.S. marines found those guys so exhausting that it migrated into English slang with the meaning “overly enthusiastic”.

That’s…wild. What was I talking about?

[mortalityplays]

Man iirc the person who used to run that medievalpoc blog also lied about being half Jewish/half Romani. What is it about that specific combination that makes weird white grifters claim it? It's so absolutely bizarre.

my best guess: when you grow up in a bubble of whiteness, and have no genuine interest in other cultures, it's the first profile of Highly Genocided People you pick up from the history channel. a tantalising combination of ancestral victimhood and exoticism. most importantly, one that people will still shrug and accept after they see your selfies.

[mortalityplays]

there is something darkly, abjectly comedic about this white american so confidently faking these identities for so long while I don't even have the first clue how to passively live in them. yeah sure let's say comedic. fuck me.

[mortalityplays]

thank you for salvaging what evidence of this you could (and for somehow finding the patience and compassion to deal with it as kindly as anyone could). this is all so fucking violating and I haven't had the first idea what to say about it since yesterday. they had posts going back years commenting on murders and hate crimes against romani people saying "this is how people treat us" etc. it's nauseating.

some of the things they were faking are real facets of my family history, and they're facets I both cling to and rarely feel I can talk about because I have so little claim to them beyond strange experiences with older relatives and complicated, uncomfortable feelings. that they appropriated these identities so loudly and for so long – that I really thought they had more authority and connection to those cultures than I do, and more right to present themselves that way – makes me want to fucking puke. I don't think they even grasped how dehumanising their actions were to the 'friends' they were worried about losing.

what can you say??? what can you even say. I only knew them for a couple of months and I feel manipulated and betrayed. I can't imagine how their long time mutuals must feel.

Regarding @littlegreenfag

Tldr: Adina, known by the Tumblr urls littlegreenfag and prksoda, has spent the past several years lying about many facets of their life. The list of lies includes, but is not limited to, being half manouche Romani, being Jewish, and being descended from Holocaust survivors.

I never wanted to have to do this. I’ve spent months trying my best to encourage Adina to come clean themself. My methods were not ideal. I should not have used anonymous messages. I used to be friends with them, I should've talked to them openly as their friend. I also should’ve attempted to be less aggressive at times, even though I think it is incredibly reasonable to have felt the way I felt when I was sending some of those messages. I understand and regret both of these things. Unfortunately, since Adina has deactivated @littlegreenfag, I cannot provide links or screenshots to every ask of mine that they responded to, only those I saved at the time. I will do this later, upon request. This post is already going to be enough of a monster without them.

Though the last day has been a complete nightmare, I am satisfied with one thing: Adina came clean about everything, even if not publicly. My worry was always with the though of having to reveal their personal information, as many of the things they’ve lied about would require me to, functionally, dox them. Though it's technically all public, I would much rather that no one who doesn't already have access to this information gain it.

So, why am I writing this post? For those of you who were on Adina’s blog last night, you may have seen this post. I was also able to save a capture of their blog on the Internet Archive. Here is a screenshot that I took around when the post was first published. Apologies for the formatting.

To summarize, Adina begins to by admitting to a small lie, that they were born in Chicago, before admitting that they had been lying about their race. Though it was not present at the time of the blog's deletion, I would like to note that Adina had the phrase "jewish and half-romani" in their blog's bio for a very long time. This phrase was quietly removed after I sent the first anon message telling them that I was aware of their lies, on March 16th 2024. This can be seen on the Wayback Machine, by looking at the capture taken on March 5th, 2024, in comparison to the capture taken on March 24th, 2024.

That is what you may have seen. However, it is not the only major lie Adina has told. After suggesting Adina should turn off anons, I sent them another ask with my blog name visible, telling them that I could tell everyone about the other lies for them, if they wished to log off and be done with it. They messaged me privately, and this is the resulting conversation.

I apologize for the block of images, but I figured it was necessary to include the entire conversation. Here, Adina openly admits to not being Jewish. Adina has spent months receiving social benefits for claiming to be Jewish, and they've even used this claim to support arguments. Truth be told, Adina has one Jewish great-grandfather. How Adina expected me to believe they would know about this without knowing his surname, I will never know. However, I should emphasize that Adina is not Jewish by the standards of any main movement of Judaism. Orthodox and Conservative look for an unbroken line of Jewish women, while Reform asks that you be raised Jewish by a Jewish parent. Adina is descended from a Jewish man who converted to Catholicism and raised his children Catholic.

Regarding the Holocaust claim, I understand hat Adina did not directly address this. I will say that I find it suspicious that they deactivated as soon as I mentioned it, but they technically never confirmed it was a lie. However, with the information that:

The ancestors they mention as being survivors or victims quite literally do not exist and

Their Jewish ancestor was born in the United States well before WWII

I believe it is quite safe to say this was also a lie. My screenshots of their claims come mostly from their Reddit account, which is now deleted.

It is absolutely ghoulish to me to create fake relatives so that you can pretend they were tortured and killed during the Holocaust. All to receive sympathy.

Though there are many, many other lies Adina has peddled, such as being a child of divorce and having a dead biological mother, I don't think any of them matter much in the grand scheme of things when these are the other lies that have been told.

It is also worth noting that this is a pattern of behavior from Adina. As some of you who followed them may know, back in 2019, a blog was created with the intent of calling them out for lies. Frankly, this blog, @prksodalies , is what put me on to Adina's trail in the first place. Though I believe that several of the things Adina was accused of on this blog are downright cruel to accuse someone of without evidence, the fact that there were so many smaller obvious lies made me very uneasy. What specifically made me curious was the post, here, where Adina claims that they are half Lebanese. Obviously, this did not make a ton of sense with the half Roma and half Ashkenazi Jewish Adina we all knew. As it turns out, this was one of the very few shreds of truth from Adina. They're a quarter Lebanese on their father's side, and other than that and a Jewish great-grandfather, are of mostly Polish and German descent.

This being a pattern of behavior, alongside the way Adina behaved in messages with me, tells me that this will likely unfortunately not be the last time this person creates a Tumblr blog with a fabricated life story. I feel immense guilt at the thought that they may continue to swindle and hurt people, and that I will never know or be able to help again.

To everyone who was friends with this person and has been hurt by their actions, I am truly, truly sorry. This has been an absolutely miserable experience for me and I can't imagine it's much different for any of you. If you have questions, I'll be available for a least a few hours. I do not want to share any of their personal information, but I will share what I need to (privately) if some of you need or want more information.

[mortalityplays]