If you ever feel like you don't contribute to fandom because you "only" comment—
A regular serial commenter just joined a fandom Discord server I'm on and people are coming out of the woodwork to thank her for her service to the fandom, expressing how much joy her comments on their works bring them.
The EBU has allowed Israel to participate in Eurovision 2024 despite the genocide in Gaza, claming that it is 'an apolitical event that unites audiences around the world through music' despite removing Russia in 2023 due to the complaints of other countries.
Last year's Eurovision has been about showing support of Ukraine because they needed help, Palistinians need help now too. We have to show these organizations and countries that we aren't going to just stay silent when people are literally being systematically starved and dying on the streets.
Youtuber verilybitchie has listed the national broadcastors of the countries participating. Send your complaints. They can't get away with this.
Israel has bombed—and completely demolished—the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza, which is the second oldest mosque in Palestine. There was no purpose to bombing it. There was no advantage to targeting it. Israel simply destroyed it to make a statement: that Palestinian religion and culture not only mean nothing to them, but are something they’re actively working on wiping out. This was one of Palestine’s most sacred cultural sites. Now it’ll forever serve as proof of the horrifying death and destruction the world has allowed to befall Palestine.
I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.
btw if you live in the midwest (a region where a lot of the states are going to have trigger laws or ban abortion completely it looks like) and if it’s possible that you can leave ur state, get to illinois. Illinois isn’t just a state where abortion is permitted, in illinois abortion is strictly a protected right. illinois’ right to abortion is permanent and isn’t going to be changed anytime soon. in illinois your abortion rights are completely confidential. illinois is one of the easiest states to access abortion in and the process is fairly simple, and it’s going to always be legal to do so even as the right to abortion is overturned in other states. it’s very much a safe haven to anyone who needs to flee their state right now. if anyone can provide any resources and links that would be greatly appreciated.
If you experienced trauma in childhood or had a rough childhood, dude listen to me. Offer yourself play. You were deprived of it.
Keep bubbles in the house, blow bubbles in the yard, blow them in your room, get a coloring book that doesn’t have to be an adult one with mandalas, watch cartoons, laugh at stupid things, dress up as a superhero for Halloween, wear a Santa hat on Christmas and big light up snowflake earrings, lay down on the floor, lay down in the grass, eat eggos for dinner sometimes. It’s not stupid. You’re not childish. You’re giving your inner child what they had taken from them. They deserve it.