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All the Israel hate aside and be serious

Yuval has a great voice and she did well. And I respect that. And I know a lot of people are disappointed with her being second.

Now: more serious

If she was singing for another country, i would have been happy if she won. However people are not happy with Israel, the ongoing genocide, their government and what they are planning to do or are already doing. While we watched this competition. Like i already stated at the start of this program, Israel is preparing for a new, big ground offensive against Palestine. The government already ordered/said that the people of Gaza (i think it was Northern, please correct me if i’m mistaken on what region) should evacuate immediately.

However, they cannot do that. They’re literally cornered or surrounded by the soldiers.

If the people really claim what they say they stand by, use your voice. Fuck EBU, fuck the government if they support genocide.

People saying we avoided a dark timeline. Did we really avoid it? Or are we just waiting for the worst now? Happening right on our screens as we stand and watch. Those that can help, please do. Those that cannot immediately help, do what you can. Be it posting and sharing posts and create attention and awareness, be it talking about it. Any little thing helps.

These things sound cliche: but: why fight? We are all humans ffs and we all deserve a chance of life and peace. It’s everyone’s first time living.

Don’t let a book/belief tell you otherwise.

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Watching the esc, with that public-vote, directly followed by news about a new israely offensive with 50 dead already...

I am not a smart person. I an naive and gullible and too idealistic, but even I can see what's going on here.

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Aber jetzt mal tacheles:

Dieses jahr waren wirklich nur uk und israel wirklich scheisse - uk hatte nen halbgaren, uninspirierten popsong und israel ne vergessbare ballade mit ner message an die sie selbst nicht glauben. Und dann kriegt dieser lauwarme toast eines liedes 297 punkte?? Ich hab nich mal was gegen politik votings - ich weiß das stefania und 1944 nur gewonnen haben weil russland aggressionen gegen ukraine gefahren hat - aber 1944 und besonders stefania waren halt trotzdem extreme Banger. Wirklich gute lieder auch ohne den Kontext. Und das israel lied isses halt... nicht. Es ist langweilige, allerwelts scheiße. Wie das uk lied. Nicht technisch beeindruckend, nicht singt sich die seele ausm leib beeindruckend - einfach nix als wie wenn man ungewürzten haferbrei isst

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Ya'll, I'm afraid this is it for me. I have been able to deal with the problematic parts of the esc for the last years because I genuinely believed that the idea behind it was worth it, but after this year I just can't take it any more. What Israel did was so blatantly cheating that its obvious even to people that aren't informed about what's going on behind the scenes. If this doesn't lead to any consequences it's final that israel gets to do what ever they want. Not-political my ass.

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Banging together my pans & pots:

It is fake! It's all fake! There is no way they beat estonia and sweden! Somebody fucking arrest somebody

Me: who the f*ck voted for israel

Germany public votes: 12pts for israel

Me:

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Feeling proud of my country 🇪🇸!! Message shown right before the Eurovision Song Contest.

Context: the Spanish commentators discussed the genocide in Palestine during Israel’s performance in the semis and the Israeli TV complained to EBU about it. EBU threatened to sanction Spain if Spanish commentators mentioned Palestine again.

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United by music? United by Hass gegen Stefan Raab, apparently

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Not this being postet the same time I'm complaining about Raab

I've decided we are friends now, sorry not sorry

Barbara telling Stefan Raab to shut the fuck up thank you very much

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I'm starting to say Stefan Rab with the same intonation timmis dad uses for Dinkelberg

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Me, german, totally desensitized to what we are sending at this point, stalking tumblr to see if people hate this song

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FREE PALESTINE

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The fun thing is, I think we kinda do have that superpower. Not to that extend, but I know the times I have felt alone and rejected have made it easier to push other people away. The times people have put me down taught me how to be mean. At the same time, every time someone cares for me, comforts me or loves me, I feel like I get a bit better at doing the same for others. The more happy memories I have to fall back on, the easier it is to try and cheer somebody up.

"I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy" nah fuck that I would. Actually if I could choose to have any superpower, I'd want the power to make people feel whatever I've felt at any point of my life, at my choice. Someone mildly inconveniences me, I'm letting them have 30 minutes of being five years old and trying to learn how to cry silently because you know nobody's coming to help you and if someone hears you, they're coming to make it worse. Fuck you and your eyebrows.

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On Engagement Bait

Whenever you see it, that's an additional five years. All currently active negative effects are dispelled.

A lil' essay.

I hate engagement bait - with a passion.

"Reblog if you care" "Reblog to mark your blog safe for [marginalized group X]" "Reblog or your mom dies in her sleep tonight."

"Reblog, or else."

I know most of these are made in jest. Harmless fun, right? But to me, "harmless fun" doesn’t excuse poor taste. Especially when it veers into manipulation.

So, here's a little something below the cut. If you're here for the poetry, you're free to scroll. If you're here for the ramblings, keep reading.

Either way, have another look at the duck. That's another 5 years on the house. Download it, look at it whenever - stack that immunity to last a lifetime. No engagement bait shall ever touch you again.

That little ducky up there was born in response to a post about you not having any original thought for the next five years.... unless you reblog.

It was meant as silent defiance, as a soft out. Then @bred-is-a-dumb-name reblogged my little ducky. With the following tags:

First and foremost: Thank you for speaking so clearly. Your tags were the push I needed to sit down and write this.

I. The Premise

Engagement bait plays with a simple human desire. Recognition. People want to be seen, they want to be recognized. Above all, they want to be validated.

From the early days of social media 'likes' equaled validation.

On tumblr, the currency of choice is reblogs. Reblogging equips a post with wings, allowing it to touch down on your own blog, be exposed to your own audience. The growth potential here is exponential, as reblogs don't just live tucked away in your profile, but are the groundwork of the tumblr algorithm on what content to show to its userbase.

My Thesis: You are responsible for the content you pass along to your mutuals. Even if you didn’t create it. Even if you reblogged it "ironically."

From the creator’s side, engagement bait is often a way to chase notes - a hit of serotonin from the numbers ticking up. And I get that. I love seeing my posts resonate too - reading your tags, your comments, the ways my words find you.

But I would never boost engagement through pain, coercion, or bad vibes in general. And I think no one should.

II. The Danger

Here's the catch: reblogging engagement bait feeds a manipulative feedback-loop.

But, at the same time, Let me be clear: Not all engagement bait is created equal.

Baity posts like "reblog to show your moots you appreciate them" (you know who you are! And I appreciate you too! c: ) are fine. Sure, they're meant to play the algorithm and the very human rationale that 'external validation is more valuable than internal validation' . basically: "If I reblog this post it'll mean more than if I just tell my moot they mean a lot to me".

At best, they're a reminder to be kind.

But - and this is the important part - there is also a different kind. Engagement bait like "Reblog or your mother will die tonight", "Reblog or no more creativity for 5 years".

These aren't funny to everyone. To some, they're not even neutral.

They're cruel. They are emotional abuse hidden under the guise of a 'funny context'. Of the absurdity of a duck holding that power.

Let's be real. It's not holding that power. And you'll reblog it ironically with funny tags in the vein of 'oh, better be sure, mighty duck'. Unless you don't.

Because guess what? It IS holding that power.

To those with OCD. To those in intrusive thought loops. To those with deeply rooted fear of loss. To the neurodivergent. Maybe even to you? To those, these posts can be triggers.

III. The Mechanics of Harm

To people like that, the harmless meme becomes a source of real-world stress.

It's toying with - to me - deeply problematic, psychological concepts:

Compulsion and Intrusive Thoughts For someone with intrusive thought patterns, seeing a post that ties inaction to harm can spark a cycle that’s hard to break. It’s not a meme - it’s a trigger.

Guilt-Tripping and Moral Coercion There’s a quiet cruelty to coercion wrapped in kindness. ‘Only good people will reblog’ is just a digital form of social blackmail.

False Urgency & Manufactured Stakes The moment a post tells you "do this now, or else" - it's bypassing your agency. It swaps thought for panic.

Neurodivergent Sensitivity to Harm Avoidance This isn’t about superstition. It’s about the fear of what happens if we don’t play along. That fear is real. Many neurodivergent folks have built entire internal systems around minimizing perceived danger. These posts poke at that. They exploit it.

The Illusion of Safety through Compliance Some users - especially those who’ve seen harm happen "coincidentally" after ignoring a chain post - develop ritualized engagement. It becomes a way to feel in control, even when logic says otherwise. Engagement bait can reignite old fears tied to punishment, loss, or abandonment. And I get it. These posts feel silly. But they sit in the mind like a splinter.

Yes, it's uncomfortable having it called out like this - and it should be. It's meant to be.

IV. Walk a mile in their shoes

I’m not writing this from a pulpit.

I’ve wrestled with compulsive thoughts and weird little rituals my whole life. So when I say this stuff can hurt, it’s not theoretical. It’s personal.

And I’m not here to scold. I’m just inviting you to zoom out. To consider that your reblog might have more impact than you intended.

V. Being Responsible

I try to bear responsibility for what I put out here. Tumblr is full of vulnerable, brilliant, open people. The way we talk to each other matters.

Don't get me wrong, sharing a joke is fun - But if you knew a joke would hurt your friend, you'd probably hold it back. The same logic applies here.

I'm not here to shame anyone - unless you’re making this kind of post in bad faith. If you’re knowingly feeding on people’s fears for notes? That’s not a joke. That’s cruelty. That, to me, is despicable.

All I wanted was to offer this, another point of view. And just maybe, if you’ve ever reblogged something like that without thinking, this helped you see it through a different lens.

Be nice to each other. Look out for each other.

We're all navigating this life for the first time, let's not make it any harder than it needs to be, okay?

Yours truly,

Poe

Just silently accept. The donkey will know.

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I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

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Painting the Poster, or why Peeta Mellark is the reason it finally worked

Spoilers for SOTR as well as the rest of the hunger game franchise up to this point

This post is just my personal interpretation / subjective opinion. If you disagree that's 100% valid, and I'd be more than happy to discuss

So, I finished SORT today, and I think it's pretty obvious how a lot of the characters parallel each other. We have the theme of free-spirited covey girls, of victors driven by their need to protect the innocent, of careers regretting their role, etc. Almost every character seems at least mirrored somehow in the narrative, expect one that seems to stick out - Peeta Mellark. While I see a lot of similarity between him and young Haymitch in the way they love, it's impossible to deny that at its core, Katnisses character is way closer to Haymitch than Peeta. They are both fundamentally driven by a desire to protect, though Haymitch does it openly and with out restraint, while Katniss has already been hardened by the neglect and abandonment she faced. But when it comes down to it, they both follow the same instincts. So how does Peeta fit in?

Honestly, I just couldn't figure it out, at least not while I was thinking about the different games as individual stories. But then I thought, this isn't multiple stories. It's one story, one rebellion slowly growing until finally everything was in place, slowly collecting people and different roles until they finally had enough? So, here we go, my theory. Everything you need for the perfect poster.

1 - The Idea

This is less what we need for the poster as it's the reason we paint it. It's people like Lucy Gray Baird or Lenore Dove, people that refuse to fit into the system and force other people to admit that maybe it could or should be different. I also like to count Primrose Everdeen into this category, because even though she doesn't have the same rebellious spirit as the original covey girls, she still is somebody who values kindness and compassion in a world that wants to destroy those things, making her a rebel of her own right, at least in my book. She also serves as motivation for Katnisses fight, which will become relevant during the second point

2 - The Motive

Here we have Haymitch, Katniss, probably countless other tributes, victors and other people that were punished for their bravery. This, if everything works out, is the person you put on the poster. It can't be the idea, because they are natural rebels. People look at them and think, they must be something special, I could never be like this. While the idea gives us something to fight for, the motive is somebody we want to fight with. But because the motive isn't something 'special' on it's own, they need the right idea to make them worth painting. Or, to become a bit less metaphorical, people like Haymitch and Katniss don't just fight for no reason, they fight because they have somebody they love, somebody they fight for, somebody they are willing to break every rule and go against every norm for. This is why we need both the right idea and the right motive, on their own they just don't work.

3 - The Tools

Now we get into the practical side of things. Here we have people like Peetee, like Plutarch, possibly even Wires and very likely a ton of other people. They hardly get noticed once they are done, but they are what makes the whole thing work. The canvas, the paint brushes. It's not glamurous, it might be dirty, but with out it you won't get anywhere.

4 - The Colors

Those are the people that make the motives visible, give them their depth. Finnick, Rue, Johanna, Maysilee and Lulu, the careers, the heroes friends, families, everybody that surrounds them. With out them, we can't see the motive for what they are. We can't see them strong with out somebody to fight, we can't see them caring with somebody to care for, we can't see them as somebody to rely on with out somebody relying on them... you get the point. I could go into even more detail, but the gist is, like you need many different colors for an accurate picture, you need many different people to make a Hero visible

5 - The Artist

And here we have the big finale, the reason that with Katniss and Peeta things finally worked out. Because there are many pictures in the world, but few works of art. And to creat a work of art, you need an artist. Somebody who gets the idea, who knows how to work with all the tools, sees all the colors and most importantly, understands how to make the motive shine. And that's what Peeta did. He looked at Katniss, the way she fought and loved and cared and bled, and decided to make her shine. Other people have tried, Effi and Cinna and Coin, but with out Peeta she would just have been another Haymitch. But Peeta saw her, and understood how to show the whole world how special she was.

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Time to talk about it… Peeta erasure. Why is it so easy to fall for that trap?

The most obvious answer is that he isn’t the main character, Katniss is. But then, why do we laud Lucy Gray, also not the protagonist of her book, as the OG Mockingjay? What does Peeta lack?

Well, Peeta is a bread aka a carb. We avoid carbs. It’s just the way of life. (Hahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha I’m so sorry guys it just came out as I was typing 😭)

Anyway. Yes. Peeta.

Well, his manner of playing the games is very similar to how Haymitch played his, but executed stunningly better. His “rebellions” can literally be passed off as a smitten boy wanting to keep his crush safe and guess what, here’s the biiiiiig reveal, we fall for the same trap that the Capitol does.

As readers, we see him through Katniss which means the first sight we see him with is suspicion. Why does he want to talk to Haymitch alone? How is he so good at faking it and winning everyone over? What is he planning, what’s his end game? So on and so forth. The second emotion we feel towards Peeta is confusion and anger. The same questions repeat themselves with no answer unveiled, leading to an unsettling doubt planting seed - is he telling the truth? By the time the third emotion comes around we, along with Katniss, now care about him. This is still just the first book.

Now, this exact narrative is how the story plays out to the Capitol and we, with them, fall for the sweetened trap of a love story. That’s the entire argument about the series anyway, no? That we care about the couple more than the point? Well, unfortunately, that theme continues to play out as we see Peeta as someone caught up in an unsuspecting web when he’s actually the one who spun it.

It’s an unfortunate fact that Katniss would not have made it out of her games if Peeta hadn’t been the other tribute from her district. Having Peeta immediately removed the first part of her competition - your home tribute. Then, he goes above and beyond to make her look pretty, to talk her up, sacrificing every second he could use to keep himself alive on her. The plot plays out with him in the centre, protecting her both from her fellow tributes and from the watching world. Even when the berries scene comes up Katniss only wants them to come out alive and realises the repercussions later. Peeta? His quote is, “Hold them out. I want everyone to see.” Defiant. Direct. Dangerous. But no, to the audience - both in and outside the book - it just meant “let them all see clearly so that they can stop us in time”. Alas, us readers are as naive as our protagonist.

We see the picture of Peeta as painted by Katniss, someone who loved her so much that he’d do anything to keep her alive. We even pity him by the end of the first book because that’s what Katniss does, once again not realising that he orchestrated so much of why they’re now in trouble. His perspective is washed away, much like Haymitch’s games are retold, and we don’t take him as a serious contender… maybe ever?

—————————————Tis Part I. Lemme know if you’d like a Part II and III though I’m likely to not have any self-control on the matter anyway.