springcrafter - Tumblr blog

[springcrafter]

At the gate for my flight home from visiting friends and there's a woman here with a service Shiba Inu. No pics because he has a Do Not Disturb vest and taking pics of strangers is illegal but I need to stress how ON DUTY this animal is. Ears up. Eyes doing Lazer scans of everything. Examining everyone who passes within 10ft like a security guard. Ass planted on her feet. I have never seen a dog with such intense chivalric guardian energy before. He has tiny eyebrows and they are FURROWED with concentration.

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Time shifting

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I wanted this but the original poster is transphobic

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Beautiful Cinnamon Roll Too Good For This World, Too Pure

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I wish Americans fucked with more foreign music. You don’t have to know the language to appreciate a good record. Folks in other countries listen to our music and don’t speak a lick of english. Music needs no translator

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LESLIE JORDAN & TRIXIE MATTEL Trixie Motel | Episode 6 “Malibu Barbie”

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click on one. then see read more for what it means

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Tracking Service, as helpfully as possible: Your order is out for delivery! It should arrive by 8 PM today!

Me, sitting by the door at 8:12 AM: pakige

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I can't stress enough how much I miss StumbleUpon

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ID in alt

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I cannot believe I have to ask this of people (nobody here that I know of, otherwise you'd be contacted personally, but I've seen enough). Please don't trivialize this war by bringing fandom attitudes into them.

This is serious. I can speak for the Jewish Israeli side of things, that the foundations of everything everyone here ever believed are being tested in a degree unseen in our country's entire existence. I cannot tell you what I believe and what I don't anymore - this is existential to degrees I cannot compare to any event other than 9/11 and many of you are too young to remember that. Life as we knew it doesn't exist anymore. I will not pretend to speak for the Palestinian people because I'm not Palestinian, but I know them to be facing horrors beyond most people's understanding, particularly in Gaza.

This is no joke, and no talking point. This is an ongoing conflict that radically challenges the status quo for every involved side; too many of the chips have yet to fall, and personally I don't believe anything I'm told beyond the barest irrefutable facts. Misinformation and propaganda are rampant on both sides, and that's an insult to the truth and each and every victim. It gets worse when people with zero stakes in the matter get involved and turn our suffering into yet another point of debate to virtue-signal and boost their ego and pretend they're better than the person they're talking to.

I've had to see people with my own two eyes treat this as a shipping war or as another partisan issue to fight with your uncle over on Christmas dinner. Attempts to "pick" aside or to "help me convince [relative]" or "how can I rebuke [point]?", basically twisting reality into knots to make it fit your Western little heads.

Major yikes. It's bizarre and invasive and borderline appropriative, to think of our issues on your terms, and try to shape cherry-pick these narratives to suit your set of morals. These are Middle Eastern peoples (check Israeli demographics and my Ashkie DNA if you think I'm pulling that out of my ass) with our own cultures and sets of beliefs, and a conflict with an incredibly unique history and reason to be.

(For example, something I wish people understood is how diametrically opposed the notions of pikuach nefesh and jihad are. Pikuach Nefesh is Judaism's most important tenet - human life comes before everything and anything and it is our duty to do whatever it takes to save a life. Jihad is, as explained to me by several Muslim people, is a pillar of Islam and encompasses the idea of martyrdom, or basically that there are things worth dying for, and things one must die for. These principles factor on how both sides deal with warfare and it's a fascinating thing to talk about - but you'd never know if you only care about this war to boost your ego).

So what I'm about to say below goes tenfold if you're from the wealthy Anglosphere or the seat of a former European empire, because the state of the Middle East is your leadership's fault and you, yes you, have been doing absolutely nothing to hold your elected officials accountable. You also benefit directly from the instability in the region your countries caused (by keeping us powerless, yours are more powerful) and you have the privilege to sleep safe and sound and know war never will come to you. So here it goes:

Bringing selfish and trivial attitudes into a very real issue that affects real people that isn't you is a complete moral wrong. If you don't have a direct stake in the issue (ie. Israeli, Palestinian, or descendent of either) and have the absolute privilege of not having experienced war yourself (ie. lived in an active war zone for real personally in unequivocal terms) please take several steps back and a goddamn seat. This is not about you, your need to virtue-signal, and your feelings.

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Not the Irish PM talking about a child hostage returned in a swap deal as if she were an iPhone forgotten at the mall 🤡💀 the bar was on the floor and my dude here is playing the world's most absurd game of limbo (and lingo).

Like seriously I know this war is rife with misinformation (on both sides) but that is a fact; Israeli civilians, included children, were kidnapped from their homes - and even if you think they deserved it (......yikes but yes I have had to see that cursed take with my own two eyes) that is still a fact unless you buy Antisemitic conspiracy theories that say we perpetrated October 7 on our own people which is (no gray areas here) 100% Antisemitic - so who are you pandering to here, Mr. Varadkar, by obfuscating the fact that a child was kidnapped?

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This is going to be a personal post, the sort is that's completely about me and my thoughts and life story (slightly obfuscated because I'm not going to doxx myself over here). Don't think for a second this means that I'm ignorant or dismissive of anything that's going on around me; it doesn't lessen my personal trauma and if anything, it makes it even worse.

tl;dr - I'm in pain beyond words. I'm so furious and distraught that I can't even begin to be afraid.

I once spent six blissful months in a particularly safe European city. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like not to experience existential anxiety. Existential anxiety was always present in my life to the point I thought it was the normal way to be. It was there as I grew up in an unsafe city (for everyone, but for Jews in particular), and then after fleeing to Israel when it was clear I would not be able to make any sort of life worth living for myself in a country that never saw me as one of their own.

It also dawned on me that loyalty to a place is the norm. Everyone around me had a home in their towns and cities, or simply their countries, that they had absolutely no interest in leaving behind. Most people are not uprooted once a generation (if lucky) to start over anew - and most nations don't go through this for 2000 years straight.

For at least three generations back, everyone in my family has migrated twice in their lives. A few times by choice (and I use that word loosely) but mostly because of generalized persecution and personal threats. Come and tell me with a straight face, then, that you know what it's like to walk in my shoes. Tell me with a straight face, that I should "just leave" as if there was no Antisemitism whatsoever in the ideas of the Wandering Jew and dual loyalty, or the belief that we're sitting on the sort of piles of cash and resources needed for sustainable immigration.

As for me - I was born rootless. My dad let it escape that I was conceived while my family was transferring their life elsewhere, after he received a personal threat that put the entire family in danger. We got lucky that one time - there was somewhere we could go. But it was not by choice.

The second time, twenty years later, saw the openly Antisemitic government actively destroying hour livelihood. With everyone but me being either aging or severely disabled - we only had one option. Only one place where we could go. I got here before, desperately wishing to belong somewhere, anywhere, as a Jewish immigrant. Except that when I understood there was nothing to go back to, I realized there are no roots under my feet. Not here. Not anywhere.

I often thought of myself as uprooted but I keep wondering if I ever set any roots at all.

I was fortunate in countless ways - I consider myself a lucky person and I count my blessings at every opportunity. Right now, though, I'm not okay. I would be insane if I were. I'm not okay, and no one around me is okay, and I don't know if I'll ever be.

Because there are people who think being pro-Palestine or pro-Israel is like your run-of-the-mill shipping war or sports rivalry, when what's at stake is human lives, including mine. As if one side had to be 100% right and the other 100% wrong. This obsession with "picking a side" is disturbing to me.

(The way I have always seen it, there are two sides - those who benefit from this conflict and treat it as a chessboard, and everyone else. Because when I hear the testimonies of the Palestinian people who were violently uprooted, who have been purposefully kept disenfranchised for nearly a century not only by their enemies but their own allies - I feel that in my bones, far deeper than anything anyone in my leadership has to say. Because we're more similar to one another than to our respective leaders, and they keep us busy hating one another because they don't want us to see that.)

Yes, I'm furious, because so many of you are willing to ignore that high politics are at play, and that this stage of the conflict (October 7 onward) was never about Palestinian freedom. The Israel-Palestine conflict has become a proxy war for bigger fish. It's no longer about us. We're their pawns. But that's not as appealing to emotion as the Palestinian cause, and not the sort of black-and-white narrative people love to latch on to.

Because there are people saying with a straight face that October 7 was perpetrated by Israel against our own. That's a baby step removed from Holocaust revisionism. I've always poked fun at my friend for letting themselves be bullied by the youth; this is the first time I'm genuinely scared of them.

Because Free Palestine, which is about the right of the Palestinian people to live a free life in this land, has genuinely Antisemitic people within their ranks and they are not being held accountable by the broader movement. They are platformed and followed and being allowed to dictate what is and isn't Antisemitism (surprisingly moving goalposts after October 7) - as if anyone who isn't Jewish had the right to define what is or isn't Antisemitic.

Because genuine Antisemitic sentiment is rampant among the general Palestinian population as well, but that is never taken into account when discussing the possibility of peace in the region. "From the river to the sea" is a phrase used by both sides in an ethno-nationalistic manner, and whoever pretends it isn't is outright, knowingly lying to you. There are people on both sides who won't accept peace unless the other side is dead. That is just a fact.

I'm furious, because some of you find this selective blindness acceptable. Because some of you genuinely think that displacing half the world's Jews is any form of solution. Because I have been told "if you don't want to be killed, just leave".

Just leave. Sure. We have been doing that for 2000 years.

There are no roots under my feet, but no wings on my back either.

Because we apparently "control the media" (Antisemitic trope as old as time) but it's extremely clear how little control we have of the narrative - not that I think this is the sort of narrative that should be controlled by anyone.

(A good rule of thumb is that if a turn of phrase or a general idea sounds icky when you replace "Israel" with "half the world's Jews" - it's most likely Antisemitic. Things like blocking Israeli netizens for no reason other than them being Israeli, calling us conquerors when generally we came here as refugees - that is all rooted in Antisemitism, and if you refuse to even consider that idea, you should be taking a good look in the mirror and ask why.)

Because everyone accepts that Hamas runs the Gaza Strip in a brutally repressive manner not unlike North Korea (talk about an open-air prison) where freedom of expression is quelled, but everyone believes their officials blindly.

(Another good rule of thumb: If you believe blindly what one side says and label everyone else as liars - you are a victim to propaganda.)

I'm seething, because the concept of nation-states is inherently European, and it was forcibly imposed upon much of the world in an act of Neocolonialism that areas like the Middle East and Africa will never recover from. Because the Middle East was broken into arbitrary pieces precisely as an European tactic to divide and conquer post-World War 1, and Britain controlled this land and fueled the local conflict until their departure post-World War 2 (whether that was ineptitude or malice, I don't care).

But it's easier to blame 'those savages' in the Middle East rather than force your own to take accountability for all the pain and misery they brought into the world - pain and misery created precisely so you, yes you, living in the Imperial core, could benefit from it.

Furious, because the "solution" to Antisemitism in Europe was to ship the Jews off elsewhere (after taking everything we owned and making it nearly impossible for us to go back) - and now they don't want us here, either. Yes, horrible things are being committed by our own, and we are unequivocally holding our leadership accountable - but you would rather think we are a monolith; that makes us easier to hate.

(I fear that the inevitable accountability will make our leadership prolong the war for as long as they can - there's nothing more that Netanyahu fears than the day after.)

Because I have been labeled as "one of the good ones" before, several times, as if that train of thinking alone wasn't inherently discriminatory. As if the "good Jew" as one who accepts their fate passively wasn't yet another Antisemitic idea.

Because people seem to care about Palestinian lives but say little about the allies using them as proxies. Because people only care when they can justify their hatred for (cannot stress this enough) half the world's Jewish population.

I'm holding the anger of two-thousand years of rootless ancestry and you don't get to tell me how a mile on my threadbare shoes should be walked. Not now, not ever.

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Still obsessed with Arthur Conan Doyle’s letter to Bram Stoker gushing about how wonderful a book Dracula is, but particularly how it makes such a good template for leaving fic comments, so I’m gonna to a BREAKDOWN:

Just say you loved reading it - “I am sure that you will not think it an impertinence if I write to tell you how very much I have enjoyed reading Dracula.”

Comment on a detail of the craft or structure that impressed you - “It is really wonderful how with so much exciting interest over so long a book there is never an anticlimax.“

Comment on how it emotionally affected you - “It holds you from the very start and grows more and more engrossing until it is quite painfully vivid.”

SHARE YOUR BLORBO FEELINGS - “The old Professor is most excellent and so are the two girls.”

Show appreciation for them as an author - “I congratulate you with all my heart for having written so fine a book.”

Next time you don’t know what to say on a fic you enjoyed, just use the ACD method~

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Oh also like. I don't chronicle every single one of my thoughts because a lot of it has been said already (I'm not trying to Raise Awareness or stuff just trying to stay semi-sane) but on this point I want to make my stance undeniably clear to anyone within earshot because I would hate myself if I didn't and would hate anyone who assumed otherwise.

The current Israeli government (Binyamin Netanyahu and his cronies, particularly the likes of Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Amichai Eliyahu) is downright evil and I'd rather abandon the mortal plane by my own volition than even pretend I stand for their actions or anything close to it. Like sure Hamas is also extremely evil but they are not the evil I can hold accountable. These men? Evil, every single one of them, and the ones standing silent behind them and letting them instigate murder in silence. All of them.

No ifs buts or ands. I want the hostages back, I want people to stop dying, I want all of us, Israeli and Palestinian, to be free and peaceful in this land we call home, and I also know for a fact that we are ruled by a 100% evil government - and if you think you're opening my six-point-starred eyes to this fact by trying to "well, ackshually" me about Israel well guess what, I know, I have always known, they are the ones that brought us here and knowing this is making my trauma actively worse because I have been screaming about Netanyahu for the last ten years (the "he's-a-fascist-dictator-in-the-making" kind of screaming) when even the leftists thought I was too extreme.

My government sucks (understatement) and the world is like "not saying you should die but I wouldn't cry if you did" @ half the world's Jews (also understatement) so like. The only thing I can turn to is my own people - and there, there's the one thing. Only one thing is giving me hope. People here aren't blind. We are informed, angry, and pushing back whenever we have an instant away from our trauma.

The world thinks living in Israel is sucking Big Propaganda dick and swallowing like the good Hasbara little whores that we are or what-the-fuck-ever but like. No one, no one is more informed and angry about Israel than Israeli Jews and we don't usually share it with the world because, lbr, a good chunk of it is Antisemitic enough as is and yes I'm sick of being labeled "one of the good ones" as if that wasn't Antisemitic enough on its own, but we know. We fucking know.

This is the only thing that has given me any shred of hope for this country. The majority of the people actually do know better, when push comes to shove. In the majority there was fear and naivete and idiocy but not (again: in the MAJORITY) malice. This is how the pipeline goes and you're stuck before you even know you're there. If elections were held today then hindsight would be the fucking James Webb. Not like it matters because we're here and people are dying. We are trapped between the rock of October 7 + perpetual existential trauma + growing Antisemitism, and the hard place that is the absolute evil that has ruled us for the past year and brought us here.

When the time of truth comes, I hope this nation judges them every bit as harshly as they have earned. I hope we hold them accountable for every single drop of blood. But until then. Until then we're powerless to stop this. We have no control over any of the worst parts of our existence at present.

And still? We still push back with all our might. We do. I push back, in any direction, because something's gotta give and it sure as fuck isn't going to be me.

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So the (Iran-backed) Houthis in Yemen joined (Iran-backed) Hamas and (Iran-backed) Hezbollah in attacking Israel. I wonder who is behind this current wave of violence in the region? /s

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Iran gives an actual fuck about Palestinian freedom.

When speaking on Palestinian lives, very few on the global left seem to want to discuss the bigger picture (almost as if they only cared about Palestinian lives when they can blame half the world's Jews for their misery?) and how this has become essentially a proxy war. Iran isn't too happy with Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations, so they are using the paramilitary groups in the region to destabilize the process. Whether you agree with the Saudi-Israeli normalization or not is irrelevant. The end result here is that lives are being lost and war money is flowing into the pockets of the people who instigate this conflict.

Israel is a thorn on the side of the big powers in the region, and the West wants this region weak and unstable. That's all there is to it. Palestine is very intentionally kept in its precarious state by the allies that could help it, so it can remain as a thorn on their thorn's side. Lather rinse repeat. It infuriates me to no end that the Palestinian people (and us Israelis but at a different scale) are being used as cannon fodder, and those orchestrating this mess are quite happy to recline back in their comfy chair and enjoy the show as we point fingers at one another.