*puts ur favs in a jar n shakes em*

Introduction to Palestine: 

Decolonize Palestine:

Palestine 101

Rainbow washing 

Frequently asked questions 

Myths 

IMEU (Institute for Middle East Understanding):

Quick Facts - The Palestinian Nakba 

The Nakba and Palestinian Refugees 

The Gaza Strip

The Palestinian catastrophe (Al-Nakba)

Al-Nakba (documentary)

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (book)

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (book)

Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948? (Article)

The Nakba did not start or end in 1948 (Article)

Donations and charities: 

Al-Shabaka

Electronic Intifada 

Adalah Justice Project 

IMEU Fundraiser 

Medical Aid for Palestinians 

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund 

Addameer

Muslim Aid

Palestine Red Crescent

Gaza Mutual Aid Patreon

Books:

A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine

The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge

Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean

The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique

From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948

Captive Revolution - Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of The Palestinians 1876-1948

The Battle for Justice in Palestine Paperback

Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom

Palestine Rising: How I survived the 1948 Deir Yasin Massacre

The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer, and the Palestinians 1949-1996

The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples

Where Now for Palestine?: The Demise of the Two-State Solution

Terrorist Assemblages - Homonationalism in Queer Times

Militarization and Violence against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East

The one-state solution: A breakthrough for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock

The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians

The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine

Ten myths about Israel

Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question

Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition

Israel and its Palestinian Citizens - Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State

Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy

Greater than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

Palestinian Culture:

Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture

Palestinian Costume

Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution

Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora

Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing (Oriental Institute Museum Publications)

The Palestinian Table (Authentic Palestinian Recipes)

Falastin: A Cookbook

Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen

Palestinian Social Customs and Traditions

Palestinian Culture before the Nakba

Tatreez & Tea (Website)

The Traditional Clothing of Palestine

The Palestinian thobe: A creative expression of national identity

Embroidering Identities:A Century of Palestinian Clothing

Palestine Traditional Costumes

Palestine Family 

Palestinian Costume

Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, v5: Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia

Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

Documentaries, Films, and Video Essays:

Jenin, Jenin

Born in Gaza

GAZA 

Wedding in Galilee 

Omar

5 Broken Cameras

OBAIDA

Indigeneity, Indigenous Liberation, and Settler Colonialism (not entirely about Palestine, but an important watch for indigenous struggles worldwide - including Palestine)

Edward Said - Reflections on Exile and Other Essays

Palestine Remix: 

AL NAKBA

Gaza Lives On

Gaza we are coming

Lost cities of Palestine 

Stories from the Intifada 

Last Shepherds of the Valley

Voices from Gaza

Muhammad Smiry

Najla Shawa

Nour Naim

Wael Al dahdouh

Motaz Azaiza

Ghassan Abu Sitta

Refaat Alareer

Plestia Alaqad

Bisan Owda

Ebrahem Ateef

Mohammed Zaanoun

Doaa Mohammad

Hind Khoudary

Palestinian Voices, Organizations, and News 

Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS)

Defense for Children in Palestine

Palestine Legal 

Palestine Action

Palestine Action US

United Nations relief and works for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA)

National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Times of Gaza

Middle East Eye

Middle East Monitor

Mohammed El-Kurd

Muna El-Kurd 

Electronic Intifada 

Dr. Yara Hawari (suspended on X 10/25/2023)

Mariam Barghouti

Omar Ghraieb

Steven Salaita

Noura Erakat

The Palestinian Museum N.G.

Palestine Museum US

Artists for Palestine UK 

It includes:

A telesync of the movie (with English soft subtitles)

A digital copy of the movie (with occasional Russian hard subtitles)

My transcript of the movie (more on that here)

Audio recordings of the movie

A PDF of the book

An EPUB of the book (for e-readers)

The full audiobook

A copy of Andy Weir's doc on Eridians

A copy of Andy Weir's spreadsheet on Astrophage physics (among many other things!)

A draft of the screenplay for the film from 2022

An audio recording of the director's commentary

My transcript of the director's commentary

The telesync subtitle SRT file

The audiobook, audio recordings, and commentary all have their properties programmed so they (should) work just like songs with a track number, album cover, artist, and so on if you download them.

There are two audios of the movie, one is the entire film untouched and one is that same audio cut up and broken down into separate scenes for convenience.

Additionally, there are two versions of the transcript, one with time stamps that match the audio and one without. The time stamps (+ their titles from the audio) are outlined in that version, so if you double-click on that tab or click "show outline," they'll all show up and you can pick a specific scene.

The first few seconds of the commentary are missing unfortunately as my US friend who was kind enough to record it for me had some technical difficulties at the start, but the commentary starts around the shot of the robot arms right before the shot of "good luck!" written on Grace's sleeping bag. It's also about 40-45-ish seconds behind the audio recording if you can only listen.

There's also a google doc with some instructions to follow if any of the files aren't working, which usually happens when too many people try to access or download something at the same time.

There are two different versions of the transcript, the first is made to listen along to the commentary, while the second is more intended to be read on its own. The first is a direct transcription of everything that's said (an attempt, at least), while the second is slightly cleaned up for easier reading, meaning things like jumbled sentences and stuttering were removed or reorganised, but nothing has been actually paraphrased or anything. Both are broken down into different scenes based on how their conversation goes, and the listening version includes timestamps. 

This is mostly extrapolation from the way Simon behaves on top of just straight up fiction from my head. Bear with me.

The Cult of Eden, also known as the Brotherhood of Eden [of the Last Tree], is three things at its core:

Agrarian

Death-worshipping

Puritan

Their views go a little something like this:

Humanity's purpose is to die and become soil for the Last Tree

The Last Tree will give birth to a thousand trees and restart the ecosystem without humans

They believe in purity of the body, and wish to sustain that through abstinence, whether that be sex, gluttony, or emotion

They refrain from being humanistic to preserve the "sacredness" of, ultimately, the sacrificial offering of their lives

Something something, virgin sacrifice

The Tree deserves only the best quality sacrifice, so they will not offer bodies they deem "soiled"

Their leader, the Father, is a nasty fuck who seeds this extremism into everyone on Eden Station. A traditionalist and a narcissist basking in the glory of an entire station worshipping his word.

They hate the C.O.I. for refusing to feed their bodies to the Tree, and believe they are hurting the natural continuance of life by not doing so.

They train their cult members from birth to kamikaze, essentially. They don't fear death, they don't see the point in repopulating, they don't express emotion, they don't express needs. At least, much of it. Despite the fucked-up family dynamic of the cult, the "being there for each other" thing always seems... oddly shallow. It was play-pretend.

Refusing such basic needs to oneself for so long only leads one place: becoming a loose canon.

Enter Simon.

Already, he most likely had some kind of Conduct Disorder as a child that followed him into adulthood due to the ritual mind control, scarcity, and emotional/physical abuse. He was everything the cult was not. He was explosive in a way that the Father decided to exploit, and so he was molded into their weapon alongside many of the others who were not deemed worthy of the Tree. Made him do a lot of disgusting crimes under the guise of "helping your family in times of need."

He was already deemed soiled from the start. Weapons don't come back to the tree once they're deployed, but Simon didn't know that. Wasn't told. None of them are. It's why he was eventually abandoned at Filament Station. The cult was trying to save face. He'd done his part.

Just like his mother, which is the entire reason she is dead. She'd done her part in the cult, and her time there was over. So, she was disposed of.

It's a sick flip on the C.O.I. sending Convicts into the ocean to die. Both factions saw Simon as expendable for their own benefit, plus, he is a survivor of a similar scenario his mother simply did not make it through, and I think that is such a tragedy.

But, seeing as Simon was a part of the cult for so long, he had adopted their values, and was on the ass-end of deconstructing them when the events of Iron Lung happened.

He frequently denies his own needs and battles with the voice of the Father berating him every time he goes for something he wants

He has to actively talk himself out of doing his previously-normal religious rituals nigh-daily

He still prays and believes in the symbolic nature of the Tree, hoping that maybe its promise holds true, and his mother and brothers didn't die for nothing

He battles with the idea of his late mother hating him, or "disowning" him somehow, for leaving the cult

He has an extremely hard time feeling like anyone would ever want him, or view him as anything other than a Robot Who Can Do Tasks

Inherently, as part of religious trauma and guilt, feels dirty down to his very core

^ prev's tags

I'm absolutely thrilled you think that my takes on Simon are as close to canon as it will ever get ?! Oh my god that means so much to me.

Let's talk about the last bullet point, because I just realized I completely forgot to elaborate on this.

I'm writing lore on the stations we know about. I have plenty of Eden posts, some C.O.I. posts, but... basically nothing on Filament Station itself. That's my oversight!

So, I'm using your question as an opportunity to talk about it.

He is also extremely shaken by the idea that he killed his own god at Filament Station, and has no idea how to even begin to unpack that without breaking down. It's part of the reason he has so many nightmares about that day.

The timeline in my extended universe looks like this:

The Brotherhood of Eden of the Last Tree were just that: keepers of the very last tree in the universe.

The C.O.I. has imprisoned plenty of cultists during their violent run-ins with raiders or fanatical extremists, therefore...

C.O.I. has stolen multiple Eden pendants, which contain seeds of the last tree.

They were, unbeknownst to the cult, attempting revival efforts with the seeds and experimenting with them on Filament Station

Simon is sent to Filament Station with a crew completely unaware of the bomb (because they were trying to get rid of him), and unaware of the C.O.I.'s operation happening on the station. That there were saplings on Filament Station.

Simon destroys Filament Station

Simon only finds out afterwards exactly what he did, and he's antagonized for it horribly. The psycho Eden freak who murdered his own god? There's a title under The Butcher that's even worse, and it's not something he can even remotely begin to handle.

Simon is excommunicated from Eden not only because of this, but because he fought to survive during Filament Station, which is something Eden cult members are taught not to do. That, and the fact that Simon found out that they lied to him about the bomb.

I volunteer for my local shelter and when the weather's good, we do a free vaccine clinic every Friday. Free distemper, free rabies, cats and dogs. We hand out free food from the pet pantry, we give people leashes and collars, we do whatever we can to keep people's animals at home and healthy. Every animal that can stay home and be fed and be vaccinated is an animal that we can keep out of the shelter.

We get all kinds of folks, sometimes we even get backyard breeders but we don't do any judgment, because we want people to come and get their dogs vaccinated, because one parvo case costs $7000+ and the whole year of Parvo vaccines for hundreds of dogs costs less. It's just harm reduction, everything we do is harm reduction.

So anyway, this one day this woman comes up to the vax clinic and she is high as fuckin' hell, just obliterated fucked up, smoking a joint in line, and she has this TINY pibble puppy with her, maaaaybe four weeks old. This thing is so fuckin tiny and wormy and lethargic, and she's like, "Hey I heard I can get her shots." and we're like, oh fuck this puppy is gonna die. Like straight up, we were all like, fuck that dog is gonna die. So we gave her wormer, we gave the first distemper shot, and I put together a whole care package: wormer to take home, puppy milk replacer, puppy wet food, a leash, a harness, some blankets, toys, we gave her instructions on how to get the puppy eating food, and we told her to come back in 3 weeks for the follow up vaccine. And we were all like, well fuck, that puppy's gonna die, goddamnit, that's so fucked up. But you know, we did our best, and we hoped we'd see her again.

And in three weeks, you guys, she showed up. And she was still high, but like, half-high this time. Smoking a cigartte in line but like, could focus, could ask and answer questions. And she'd taught that tiny puppy how to SIT and had her walking on a leash. We found out that it took her three buses to get to the clinic, and she told us all about how she got the puppy eating right, got her stool solid, she was taking her on walks... The puppy looked so good, you guys. I almost cried, it was so big. Really happy puppy. At the end of the visit, we were like, ok, see you in three more weeks for the next distemper.

So three weeks later, she shows up, and she's sober, and she told us, "You know, I was really fucked up the day I bought that puppy, I wasn't sure I was going to live, and I bought that puppy and she was too young, and I didn't know what I was doing but y'all were so nice to me, and you helped me so much, and I knew that I had to give this puppy the best life I could, so I moved back in with my grandma, and I'm getting clean, and I'm on methadone, and I'm going to rehab next week, and when I get back, I'll come back and visit you guys again."

if I don’t make it back from where I’ve gone, just know I loved you all along

It’s you // it’s me

Orpheus // Eurydice

anya mouthwashing & simon iron lung frolicking in a field together because i think they should be allowed to be happy for once