Title is from Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories". Handle means "storyteller" in Nahuatl. This'll mostly be about pop culture, linguistics, philosophy, history, and other things that interest me, but also about writing.
this shit from the comments is unironically so fucking sad to me. this is where we’re at now? “aren’t books supposed to have morals?” genuinely let’s all just pack it in and go home, we tried the whole “experiencing life and art at a greater complexity level than an eight year old can handle” thing and it didn’t work out, somebody break the news to oscar wilde, we’re done here. “books are meant to teach you something.” christ.
Except they don't want it to be explicit written standards, they want it to be vibes from angry mobs that often haven't even seen what they're mad about.
I’m rapidly approaching a free speech absolutist but the moral context of the things that happen in a story is a fundamental part of the story.
“Light was right (except he didn’t kill billionaires)” okay you didn’t understand Death Note. “The Jedi were actually the bad guys and the Empire is good” that’s cool maybe you should rewatch Star Wars, a bit more carefully. “The UNSC aren’t authoritarian like 343 retconned them to be” Susan the list of things “the UNSC considers contraband” that Jun and the militia on Reach discuss includes rations. As in food.
Lots of my favorite characters are villains. I don’t pretend otherwise. One of them is literally the Antichrist and acts like it!
UCLA allowed Jewish students to be beaten until they were unconscious and attacked with pepper spray, according to a lawsuit against the Uni
A group of antisemitic UCLA students beat their Jewish classmates unconscious, attacked them with sticks and pepper spray and created Jewish exclusion zones — all while the school did nothing to stop it — according to a new lawsuit against the University of California.
The school allowed for vile antisemitic attacks on Jewish students on the campus following the Hamas attacks on October 7, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division said in the suit, obtained by The California Post.
“Antisemitic hatred against UCLA’s Jewish and Israeli students reached a point where students were physically assaulted, injured, excluded from campus, and deprived of educational opportunities because of their perceived Jewish or Israeli heritage,” the lawsuit said.
The explosive Department of Justice complaint alleges anti-Israel protesters seized control of UCLA’s main quad in April 2024, setting up barricades and physically blocking Jewish and Israeli students from entering classrooms, libraries and walkways.
One Jewish student was knocked unconscious with an open head wound, while others were kicked, beaten with sticks and blasted with pepper spray. Another victim was assaulted and told “Hitler missed one.”
One Native Jewish woman-who counter protested by holding a sign reading “Hamas supporters are not welcome on native land”-was “violently assaulted,” per the complaint. UCLA police were “directly behind [her] and [did] absolutely nothing,” it added.
Protestors established militia-style checkpoints on UCLA’s campus and refused to allow Jews to traverse public property unless those Jews denounced a core tenet of their religion, per the complaint.
The encampment took over Royce Quad — the heart of campus — with barricades, checkpoints and graffiti including “F*** ALL Jews” and ‘F*** Israel’ scrawled on buildings.
The vile students also allegedly set up “human phalanxes” to stop access for Jewish students for some areas — demanding students renounce Zionism to pass through checkpoints.
By the time police finally moved in, the situation had spiraled into what officials later described as a “war zone,” with fireworks, strobe lights and violent clashes between rival groups.
The DOJ says UCLA violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by showing “deliberate indifference” to widespread harassment and discrimination.
More than 100 complaints were filed by Jewish and Israeli students — many allegedly ignored by the school.
Internal findings cited in the lawsuit say UCLA leadership repeatedly refused to enforce its own rules, allowing the illegal encampment to persist for days.
Nearly 60% of Jewish students said they avoided campus at the time, while more than 40% considered leaving UCLA altogether, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims UCLA officials knew students were at risk of assault but “took no serious action whatsoever” for nearly a week.
Instead, administrators told students to “avoid the area if they wish” while describing the chaos as “mostly peaceful.”
Behind the scenes, the school chose a “de-escalation strategy” — even as protesters armed themselves with pepper spray, lumber and makeshift weapons
The DOJ also alleged UCLA breached its federal funding contracts and grants by claiming it complied with its Title VI obligations while allowing discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students to persist on campus.
“Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said.
“Now, the Department of Justice calls UCLA to account for its toleration of the equally appalling hostile educational environment against its Jewish and Israeli students.”
Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor Bill Essayli, First Assistant US Attorney for the Central District of California, said that universities “have an obligation to maintain safe and inclusive campuses for all students.”
“Universities that violate our nation’s civil rights laws by repeatedly failing to shield Jewish students from antisemitism will be held accountable.”
UCLA has been under increased scrutiny following months of protests and encampments over Israel’s war in Gaza.
“The Board of Regents and administrative leadership have been unequivocal: antisemitism has no place at the University of California,” University of California President James B. Milliken said in a statement to The Post.
“We have instituted numerous systemwide reforms and programs to promote safety and combat antisemitism on our campuses. UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, whose family was profoundly affected by Nazi antisemitism and the Holocaust, has made the protection of Jewish students, faculty, and staff on campus the highest priority since the day he took office.”
“This litigation — and other actions taken by the federal government targeting the University of California — does nothing to aid our ongoing efforts to address antisemitism and create safe and welcoming campus environments for all members of our community,” the statement read.
It's weird seeing people over on Twitter still trying to defend the latest cinematic rape of George Orwell's Animal Farm (changing the story to be a criticism of Capitalism instead of the Communism of the book, and adding a plucky new female heroine) with the words "George Orwell was a Socialist!"
People's ability to think has been so driven into the toilet by political tribalism and decades of woke indoctrination that any nuance of any thoughtful individual's positions is judged as either "with us" or "against us", so the concept of a self-identifying Socialist such as Orwell writing a very clear account of the failings and corruption of the Soviet Union just seems a bewildering impossibility to them.
This is a relatively recent phenomenon: when I was younger, all the Socialists I knew spent all their time arguing about all kinds of arcane internal divisions, and clearly marking out why Communism was bad but their own brand of Socialism was the way, whether that be The People's Front of Judea or The Judean People's Front. Do left-wingers simply not do that anymore?
I am not an expert on Orwell and won't pretend to be. I do, however, know that the Spanish Civil War happened about 20 years before the publication of Animal Farm and 1984. People's beliefs aren't static. Even if he still called himself a Socialist, it's very likely that Stalin had a huge impact on the way he viewed political philosophy. Just as much as Franco did.
Spain changed everything. He saw how the communist cadres, who answered directly to Moscow, would put the anarchist units in the thickest parts of the fighting every time, because Stalin wanted complete control of the Republican side and the anarchists were a potential threat. It was that kind of infighting that allowed the Nationalists to win, but even beyond that it was ridiculously, pointlessly cruel. Here were these men fighting against tyranny(the Nationalists weren't any less bastards just because the Republicans were dominated by communists), who had often come from overseas just to do what they thought was right, being sent off to their deaths in moves that actively harmed the Republican's strategic position because Stalin's communists were so totalitarian in nature that control was their priority over all else, including actually winning the war for survival they were in the middle of fighting. Power for power's sake.
The Nationalists were an army of 1e-style lawful good paladins, compared to the Republicans. Franco saved more Jews from the Nazis than any other leader except Pius XII.
Orwell had the views of a Klansman with a penchant for reading Andrew Tate. That actually makes Nineteen Eighty-four more impressive: even this misogynistic jingo fucker can tell these things are bad.
One of the host reviews on my airbnb profile is "well mannered archaeologist. Very clean" and im thinking of putting this both on my resume and on my academia.edu
Given the literal translations of jodan, chūdan, gedan, and waki no kamae, you can probably just have your swordsmen in a fantasy setting call them the high, middle, low, and side guard.
There's also the famous "well, there were a small number of Black Vikings, therefore it makes perfect sense for Vikings Valhalla turn an actual historical white male chieftan into a black woman."
The second part is implied, because not a single person in that article defending the racebending actually addressed that complaint. I had to go to Screenrant for the canon explanation of "the real guy got killed, and his wife took over".
And they immediately admitted there was no evidence of any female Viking ruler, ever, but, but, there COULD have been!
This incident was held up by some people as an example of progressives living down to memes about racebending.
Bridgerton had to invent an entire alternate history to explain black British nobility.
Of course, since musicians apparently play orchestral covers of Taylor Swift and Billy Eilish, I gotta wonder why they even bothered.
Funny thing is, when I Googled for controversy, I kept finding criticism from the left, not the right.
I also remember the times MedievalPOC said it made perfect sense to for a random African trader to head hundreds of miles out of his way, over a mountain range, to a random corner of medival Europe (that is still extremely white today) to appear in Kingdom Come:Deliverance.
Just to be clear; anti-woke people have been wrong about diversity. Both in fiction and IRL. Up to the point of riots and terrorism.
I have argued with them.
But I think it sure is curious that neither OOP nor any of the people in the reblogs had a single actual example. Heck, none of them even named a specific work.
And of course they never admitted their enemies could be right about anything, ever.
You don’t really need HEMA consultants, when Japanese arts are almost identical and never had to be reconstructed, plus they’re much more widely practiced so the consultants are cheaper and easier to find. Longsword is katana, glaive and halberd are naginata.
When I see a video of a cat minding its own business with nothing else going on I unmute immediately cause I know that mf is about to make a funny noise
listen to me, this is so so important: you've gotta get used to really giving it your 60% as a default. like don't half-ass it necessarily but try not to go over 70% or so of an ass. you'll feel better and live a happier more fulfilled life, and on the rare occasions where you do need to lock the fuck in you'll be able to pull off bullshit that the sad miserable wretches giving it their 100% can never dream off, because they're busy draining themselves dry and you have energy reserves to spare.
"My family thinks because im a leftist it means im radical but like whats radical about that? I just want everyone to hug, no bad things to happen, free healthcare and be nice to everyone" - the coldest, rudest most judgemental person you know.
If that’s who I think it is, pity that such a nice helmet belonged to the guy who kidnapped the Pope and had the Knights Templar liquidated on bogus charges.
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