#coming to talk about hama like fucking.

[blastlight]

every so often i think about how if i ever make a post or something that blows up, i'll immediately be harassed en masse by people claiming i'm a zionist

[adelle-ein]

idk man i've reblogged and said things about how certain people on this site and the bird one are putin defenders, syrian/ukranian genocide deniers, outright white supremacists, avowed antisemites, etc. pointed out the ways in which the current moment is being happily hijacked by white supremacists with very strong and obvious agendas. and some of you guys have reblogged and liked those posts, and then immediately gone on to continue reblogging violently antisemitic things from the very same people. so i don't think it's sinking in tbh

(and like, the posts in question are never anything useful or links to articles or anything remotely "worth" platforming genocide deniers, just the usual "DON'T SCROLL PAST THIS, POSTING IS ACTIVISM" shit)

[ocdhuacheng]

I love my mom but she’s such a fucking liberal

[badolmen]

Hm. Maybe ending up on some list for that email.

[anshelsgendercrisis]

something that's fucked me up over the last three weeks is the constant barrage of non palestinian goyim saying "why should we have to condemn hamas???????? why do we have to focus on jews or israelis when palestinians are dying??????????" and i know ppl who have already decided i'm guilty by virtue of being a jew won't give a shit, but i'm hoping people who still have a bit of humanity left in them will.

i've gotten so many anons chiding me and demanding to know why they should give a shit about the people killed by hamas (not all of whom were jewish or even israeli), and the answer i keep wanting to give is that. honestly you don't fucking have to. quite honestly, i wouldn't have cared if no one talked about it. i would be hurt to see people didn't see the loss of (assumed to be jewish) life as a tragedy, but i would have much preferred silence to the utterly horrific things i have had to see over the past three weeks.

bc that's the thing. we as jews are so fucking jaded when it comes to gentile reactions to violence against us. we're used to you saying it doesn't matter or even that we deserved it. gentile apathy has so thoroughly broken us that we consider it a win when y'all don't actively celebrate instances of antisemitism. and you had the opportunity to disrupt that pattern, to either take a single moment to offer condolences for the loss of so many lives (not all of whom were jewish or even israeli) or just simply back off and give us space to grieve.

but instead, i witnessed people, who just over a month ago had been wishing their jewish followers a happy rosh hashanah, post or repost some of the most appalling displays of antisemitism i have seen since may of 2021. i have watched you post about the "zionist media" ("jews control the media"), tell jewish israelis to just use their dual citizenship to go back to their third beach house on long island ("all jews are rich"), that jews israelis are bloodthirsty monsters who get pleasure from killing children (modern day blood libel), that jews are the "new nazis" (holocaust inversion), that jews in the diaspora are responsible for the actions of the israeli government (dual loyalty), and that every single israeli should die (literally genocide???????????)

i witnessed people who call themselves antizionist gleefully become tools of political zionism, bolstering the claims that the diaspora is not safe for us and therefore we must support israel when the countries we currently live in turn on us like they have without fail for the last 2000 years. and when i point this out, instead of taking this to heart, people double down. they insist if i'm pointing this out it must mean i believe it.

you all had the opportunity to do nothing, to prioritize the safety and liberation of palestinians over your own hatred of jews, and yet you still chose antisemitism. and i will never forgive you for it.

[xyriath]

but seriously if you are at all blogging about the i/p conflict you NEED to read that standing together article from that post i just reblogged. please. please please please please please. these are the people who are actually doing something about freeing palestine and have been for years. And here's the thing:

IF YOU WANT PEACE IN ISRAEL, IN PALESTINE, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IT'S GOING TO COME FROM.

Because yeah. The way this site is spreading around uncritical posts is a huge issue (and a reason I haven't been around since October). Standing Together is doing a hell of a lot more than blogging about it. They're on the ground putting in the work. Nine days before the October 7 attack, they were in Tel Aviv publicly protesting about the systematic oppression of Arabs (not just Palestinians) in Israel.

"The global left has to be synced with what we need." Trust me, the right is. Boy HOWDY is the right synced. I have gotten more support about my Judaism from the far right than the left and it's??? kinda fucked up??? Someone who worked for Pat Robertson should not feel safer than someone dedicated to activism, but here we are. I can feel how easy it would be to be radicalized towards the right, and I'm actively fighting against it. Now imagine that multiplied by millions of people, plenty of whom don't have the same desire to do so, or feel like they don't have the luxury of safety to do so.

Seeing Hamas being portrayed as sympathetic and talked about like they had a right to commit all of the atrocities that they have is making me lose my MIND. They're a group run by corrupt billionaires who actively started this conflict with the intent of silencing the Palestinian people who have been protesting their tyranny. They have been siphoning money from Palestinians for years and this entire attack is them deliberately throwing Palestinians into the path of slaughter to distract from that fact, the same way that Netanyahu absolutely took advantage of the threat and tragedy to try and get himself off the hook for his own corruption.

Also check out the google doc linked in the article. It's not just a good way to learn how to communicate, but a very good resource for finding out if something you're sharing is worthwhile. In fact, it does a really god job of breaking down why I've felt so uncomfortable about a bunch of the posts on my dash. Some excerpts:

This got way longer than I had intended, but hopefully does its job. Go read the article and, yes, if you need to, reevaluate your activism. Because if it's not what people involved actually want or need, then it's just for you. And that's kinda fucked up.

[xclowniex]

I truly think that the majority of goyim simply do not know what it has been like for jews in the diaspora since Oct 7th.

When the news first broke, I did not know how far hamas had gotten into Israel, my family in Israel was on a trip somewhere in Israel too and I had no clue where they had gone for a holiday. Whilst I knew they did not live anywhere near the Gaza border, I had zero idea where they were when it was happening. I had zero clue if they were alive or dead. I was stuck in limbo watching all the reports.

Then on Monday, I had to go into work like nothing fucking happened, like I didn't just spend the weekend worrying if they were dead or alive.

When I came into work, my manager who had heard the news who knows I have family in Israel asked me what had happened. I was still processing the news myself. All I told her was that there was an attack on Israeli civilians and she said that she hoped my family was safe.

In the coming days I saw all the protests, all the protests BEFORE Israel had even retaliated. I saw the antisemitic protest in Australia where people were chanting "gas the jews" and thinking "oh my fucking God, Australian culture is similar to New Zealand culture, is a similar protest going to happen here?" I spend so long worried that something like that would happen where I lived. I planned what I would do if I got caught near one, picturing all the common places people protest and planning my escape routes. Thankfully nothing on that scale happened. I was lucky.

None of my friends at the time asked me if my family was safe, but they all posted about Palestine. Keep in mind that all bar one knew I have family in Israel as I've spoken about it multiple times.

I watched support keep coming and coming for palestine when Israel hadn't even retaliated yet, and no support for the Israeli lives lost. I pushed my feelings aside, giving people the benefit of the doubt, maybe just maybe they didn't know the extent of Oct 7th that was released at that time.

After Israel retaliated, I ended up unfollowing so many content creators online because they refused to talk Oct 7th and only talked about Palestine. Were my family just chopped fucking liver to them???? Did my anxiety that I felt about their safety just not matter? Did all Israelis dying not matter to them?

I went to my first Halloween party. It was fun and I enjoyed myself for the most part, but on the way there I kept worrying that someone was going to say something antisemitic, that someone was going to bring up the war and dehumanize Israelis, dehumanize my family. I spent the whole evening on edge, worrying that it would happen. As a result, to calm my nerves I ended up getting super fucked up. It did not work and I overdid the alcohol and weed and I just felt terrible. The next day I felt immense guilt. How could I party? How could I dance when those at Nova were killed when they were dancing?

Then the antisemitism started online. I watched antisemitic tropes just start flying around social media. It's what made me start posting about the war and antisemitism online. My blog turned from clown posts, my special interest, to a space where I could get my feelings off my chest.

Then the antisemitism started in real life. Whenever I wore my magen david, I would get called slurs. I had to start avoiding certain parts of town because of it.

I also felt highly isolated at work. I didn't know who I could speak to about what I was going through. My office is made up of mainly leftists. No one really spoke about the war at work, which in a way made it worse. I didn't know who was normal about jews and Israelis and who weren't.

The harassment got so bad that my partner at the time was begging me to stop wearing or at least hide my magen david as he was afraid that I would be physically attacked.

There were times which I hid it, and I still experienced antisemitism because I have a very jewish nose.

I experienced this for MONTHS.

At one point in time, I tried venting to my friends at the time about the antisemitism I was facing. One of them said that they hadn't seen any antisemitism so they didn't know what I was talking about. I called what they said weird, and they started on this whole tirade that I'm only calling them antisemitic because they're arab. I think this was in November. I looked at their blog and found posts denying oct 7th, saying it didn't happen. I took screenshots in case i needed them in the future. Oh the foreshadowing.

About two months ago, a new person was invited to the friend group discord server. This new person made some pro hamas comments and said they were a resistance group. I explained with proof that Hamas has said that they wanted to kill jews. This was the start of a downfall of my friendship with my ex friends.

2 weeks after that, one of my ex friend vents about the war, and in their vent they dehumanized Israelis. I decided to check all my friends social media posts. I found post after post after post with blood libel, oct 7th denial, antisemitic tropes, dehumanization of Israelis and jews, and posts in support of groups which want jews dead, such as the houthi which have "curse to jews" in their slogan. That new person added to the discord server literally sent a few messages explicitly saying that they support the houthi.

I take a few days to process things and decide enough is enough, and that I need to unfriend them all. I email my local synagogue and get accepted to join after being screened by them to verify that I was in fact jewish and not some antisemite wanting to harm the congregation. I end my friendship with my ex friends with an essay of a message stating what they said, why it was antisemitic and that I do not feel comfortable or safe being friends with them anymore.

Two of them reached out to me to try to fix things. One hasn't really done much, she only didn't ask if my family was safe after Oct 7th + never called out any antisemitism the friend group did. However our friendship could not be repaired as her boyfriend was one of the worse perpetrators of antisemitism.

The other one who reached out supported groups who had tied to Hamas. I asked them to no longer support SJP, and they refused with the excuse of "I already avoid so many activist groups because of white supremacy, it's too hard to avoid SJP. I had to bite my tongue. I wanted to scream at them "why the actual fuck are you attracted to so many groups who engage in white supremacy that you need to actively avoid them? How hard is it to avoid one more! Write a fucking list if you need help remembering!" But I didn't say any of that, I just told them that if that's their choice then we can no longer be friends anymore and I blocked them.

Going to synagogue was amazing. I felt so welcomed and have made some new friends. Reconnecting with my jewishness after not going to synagogue for years was good. It was exactly what I needed. However, it was the cause of the end of my relationship with my ex.

He had his parents force his culture on him since he was a child and hated every second of it. When he immigrated here, he assimilated and wanted nothing to do with the culture from the country he was born in. Whilst he was fine with me participating in jewish culture, he didn't want it brought into the relationship at all. He was fine eating jewish food if i cooked it, but he didn't want to learn about jewish culture or do anything regarding it. I wasn't expecting him to convert, all I wanted was for him to learn the basics about jewish culture, maybe surprise me with some recipies from my childhood like I've done with sri lankan recipies from his childhood when he told me that he's craving them, attend jewish markets when they happen. I did not at all expect him to convert or to become immersed in jewish culture, I just wanted him to make an effort to support my jewishness.

We were looking at marriage and children in the next few years and were discussing how to raise them. I wanted them to learn about their jewish culture as children and it would be up to them if they participated in it or not as they got older. He didn't want that at all. He viewed it as them being "indoctrinated" into judaism. I told him that I feel like he just wants to date some white girl who has a default culture of our country and that I could never be that, I would never throw away my jewishness to be that. And he agreed that he did want someone who just had the default culture of our country. So we broke up. To be fair, I had been thinking about breaking up for months due to other issues, but that was the one which made me go "this relationship cannot be fixed, it has to end or I will be unhappy forever".

On its own, it doesn't seem too bad, but after going through so much antisemitism, the one person who is support to support me, who is suppose to love me, couldn't do that as long as I was actively jewish and participating in jewish culture.

And that's not even a complete list of everything I have gone through since Oct 7th. And I can't make this post without mentioning the amazing jews in my phone, who have been there for me since the start. You have made this hellscape bearable.

Like I said, goyim don't know what it has been like for jews since Oct 7th

[laineystein]

How do you make peace with the IDF storming into hospitals and UN schools? How do you make peace with the news that the IDF opened fire on Israeli citizens on October 7th? Why do the Palestinians deserve to be chased out of their homes since 1948? Do you know about Rachel Corrie? Do you know that the IDF has killed a record breaking amount of journalists? I don't understand how you can be so close to this tragedy and act like it is anything other than genocide.

You make peace when you understand international law and learn that the only war crimes being committed are being committed by Hamas. We’re not storming hospitals or schools. International law also states that as soon as a faction begins using an area for military purposes, it is no longer protected. It is no longer a “civilian” area, even if civilians still reside there. So many sources (that notably hate Israel and Jews) have come out confirming that Al Shifa is Hamas HQ. Many sources have come out confirming that Hamas is using schools to store weapons and indoctrinate children *and* that NGOs like the UN have turned a blind eye.

You make peace when you learn to educate yourself instead of falling victim to jihadist propaganda. The “Israelis killed their own people on October 7th” lie has been debunked. No sources could be found confirming that and the IDF and the Israel Police both came out saying that was factually inaccurate. If you know reporting out of those groups you know that when we’ve fucked up, we admit it. This was all a fabrication to excuse terrorism and continue to wrongfully demonize Israel.

You make peace when you deal with actual facts. There was a two-state solution planned before 1948 and then four countries attacked Israel and we defeated them all which lead to what y’all refer to as the Nakba. BUT!!! The Jewish population did not want their Arab neighbors to leave. Arab nations encouraged the Nakba. Arab nations have always used the plight of the Palestinian people to further their agenda of demonizing Israel in an attempt to eradicate it and kill Jews. But if we’re going to talk to about being expelled from your homes - Jewish families were expelled from Gaza in 2005 when we gave the land to the Palestinians. Do you care about that? Where are the Jews in Iraq? Yemen? Afghanistan? Syria? Sudan? Morocco? Feel free to talk about how those people were ethnically cleansed from those countries - but if that doesn’t interest you then your activism might be performative and you might just hate Jews.

I know it is not genocide because I’m so close to it. I spent all of last week ensuring the safe passage of Palestinians out of Gaza, into the South. I had Palestinians thank me. I administered aid to Palestinian children and the elderly. I watched them pray to Allah that Hamas would go away. What happened to my people on October 7th was an attempted genocide - something that Hamas has admitted to. What we are doing in Gaza is working to prevent a genocide, one of Hamas’ own doing.

Please read a book. Please get off social media. Please stop regurgitating lies fed to you by influencers and antisemites that did not care about this conflict before October 7th. You clearly need to be educated and messaging an IDF soldier on anon isn’t the way to do it. I have better shit to do. Yalla bye✌🏼

[decolonize-the-everything]

"Hamas is not a terrorist group. It's is a resistance that has been fuming for 75 years of colonialism, of occupation, of murder, of rape of little children, of women.

That's what they are. They are resistance.

Everything- everything that they do is justified. Every single thing. Every single thing they have done is justified."

"Ma'am there were children murdered, there were babies headed."

"Babies beheaded? Really? Please educate yourself. Please watch the news because as a news reporter you gotta check the fucking news. Because they said that that shit was fake, kay? Multiple times. Different channels. Even Biden himself, his ministers and his idiots said himself that that news was fake. There is no 40 beheaded babies."

"There is no 1300 deaths?"

"There's no evidence- there's no evidence whatsoever. There's no photos whatsoever. Hamas is a muslim group. They would never do that because it's against Islam, that's number one. And that's something they show-"

"Do you really believe that?"

"There is evidence of Israeli women saying that 'they gave us water,' they gave us food,' 'they gave us a place to sleep comfortably,' 'they gave us clothes.' They got them to cover up out of respect.

This is actual women having interviews talking about when they were hostages. Or [She stutters] Sorry, when Hamas members were coming into their house. This is actual Israeli women saying how they were. Even at some point a Hamas fighter told one of the women "Can I have a banana to eat?"

He asked if he could eat a banana that was in her home.

Does that sound like a fucking terrorist to you?"

x

[a-very-tired-jew]

Conversations with a younger colleague about I/P conflict

In my department there is a grad student who is friendly with myself and a few others of the openly nerdy ecologists. We actively talk about anime, video games, TTRPGs, etc... We've also all collaborated on research together because we generally study the same thing, and being a grad student we are also letting them helm their own research to carve their own path. The research topic that links all of us is decomposition ecology.

Meaning, we study death, how it effects the environment, and all the things having to do with it. Often we have our own terms that we define and use, but we also work within the framework of various medical and legal definitions nationally and internationally. Recently this student has been talking to me about the I/P conflict because it has dominated their social media feed. Like many young adults, this is their first I/P conflict and their first exposure to anything regarding that region. As such, they have come to me to talk about things knowing that I am Jewish. Not out of maliciousness, but because I am the only person they talk to that has any sort of connection to it. Over these past months they have repeated the "genocide/Holocaust" rhetoric that we have seen Western Activists use to make the conflict the Worst Thing Ever. Our conversation went as follows: GS: I can't believe they're committing a Holocaust on them after what they went through. Me: How is it a Holocaust? GS: They're committing a genocide against the Palestinians. Me: They're not doing either one, but let's touch upon the first thing you said. How? GS: They're killing them in large numbers! Me: Oh...oh...that's not what made the Holocaust the Holocaust, you know that right? It was years of systematic dehumanization that culminated in what we know. There were death camps, torture, experimentation, and so much more than simple "killing in large numbers". GS: Damn public school education... Me: You didn't really go over it too much did you? GS: WWII was, like, a week I want to say. Me: *sigh* yeah, not surprised at all. GS: Okay, so a genocide then? Me: GS, what do we study? GS: Decomp Me: and that involves? GS: Death Me: One avenue of which is mass casualty events which a number of our friends have published on. GS: Yeah! I read those papers, they were really good. Me: They were, but do you remember conversations we had about them and what differentiates mass casualty events from one another? GS: Cause? Me: And...? GS: Shit. Intent. Me: Exactly. Has their been an official stated intent to commit any genocide? I mean, you've got the bigots in the government like Ben Givir and the shit they say, I'll give you that. But has the official stance been genocidal? GS: No. I don't think so. Me: What has it been? GS: To get the hostages back and get rid of Hamas. Me: Uh huh, and what has been Hamas's stated intent? GS: To kill Zionists. Me: And before 2017 when they changed the wording in their charter? GS: ah fuck...it's Jews isn't it? Me: Ding ding ding. GS: So that's why no one in the group has said it's a genocide... Me: Correct. Humanitarian crisis brought about by war? Yes. Mass casualty event? Certainly. But genocide? Well, there's a reason no one in our circle has endorsed the term. And remember, we're considered experts on death. GS: I got puppeted didn't I? Me: Yep. GS: Shit. The only reason this went so well is due to our friendship and mentor/mentee dynamic. They already trust me to not lead them astray, be informed, and address the holes in their knowledge. Hell, they help me be a better scientist as well with how they bring in new and novel techniques that I didn't know. But they're still getting a lot of their info from TikTok and IG, and they've talked about a lot of BS from those two particular apps these past few years. This is just the latest (they had a TikTok induced anti-GMO trend for a while, it was bad).

[notaplaceofhonour]

really fucking tired of this cycle of

*goy keeps talking about how October 7th was good actually*

*Jew says it’s bad actually*

goy: “why are you still talking about something that happened months ago, omg get over it 🙄anyways things that happened 70+ years ago were worse & Israel has done worse since”

like if we respond to someone else talking about oct 7, we get treated like we brought it up. and then our collective dead are constantly pit against each other by people with no stake in the conflict, like fucking points in a sports game.

& when it comes to talking about jewish & israeli trauma we have to treat oct 7 like a singular isolated event disconnected from the broader context of violence against jews & israelis, which we would never be expected to do for palestinians (nor should we). but we have to ignore the near constant attempts to murder israelis that have been made practically every single day of this war (and many days in the years long before) (and if successful probably would have already leveled the country by now) just because israel defends its people (and I am talking true defense, like the iron dome, not the offensive against hamas) while hamas actively puts its subjects in harm’s way.

like what, would you be happier if both sides had 36,000+ dead? if israel stripped the entire iron dome program away & let hamas & hezbollah’s rockets blow tens of thousands of Jews away, would that be satisfactorily “equitable” to you fucking vulturous ghouls? or if roles were reversed & more israelis finally did die, would you start doing this shit to the palestinians? if that happened, would you be this shitty to palestinians, denying their trauma, attacking them for talking about it?

because if so, how can you not see how much of a fucking monster you are. and if not, then stop fucking doing it to us. it’s no less monstrous when you do it to us.

how is it so fucking hard for you fucking vultures to not be so fucking heinous?

[luxurychristmaspudding]

The Immortals | On Call

summary: frankie tells the boys about you.

pairing: neighbour!frankie morales x f!reader. platonic triple frontier boys (minus tom lol)

ratings/warnings: 18+, MDNI. mostly frankie pov. beers and a bbq. description of a panic attack. the boys shipping the bis.

wc: 2.7k

an: one more little thing before we send these guys off into the sunset <3 p.s. - apologies if you saw this last night - i posted it real late and then decided i hated it this morning lmao. thank you for your patience <3

series masterlist | main masterlist

divider from @saradika-graphics

Arrived safely! Margarita secured!

It’s the last text he has from you, accompanied by a photo of said cocktail held up next to your face as you grin at the camera, eyes lit warmly by the sun. He’s smiling at it, tapping out a fat-thumbed, slow response with the tongs in his other hand, distracted from the grill. So focused on you, he almost doesn’t notice Santi saunter up beside him. Almost, but by then it’s too late anyway.

He looks up at Will’s I swear to god, Fish, if you burn those sausages one more time- just as his phone is snatched from his hand, Pope lurching away as he tries to grab it back.

‘Oh!’ the shorter man yells, ‘I’ve got it! I know why he’s so dis-’ before Frankie yanks the device away from him. 

‘Knock it off,’ he grumbles, a little gruffer than he means it to be, but Pope only smiles wider, eyes full of mischief. Frankie stuffs the phone back in his pocket, and miles and miles away, you watch the tiny bubbles of a reply disappear before turning back to your friends.

‘Who is she?’ Santi goads, stepping closer to nudge him with his elbow. ‘Hot date?’

Frankie shakes his head, the tips of his ears warming.

‘Who’s who?’ Will asks from his chair, eyebrow raised as he takes a pull from his beer.

‘No- nothing.’ Frankie says, but his cheeks are aflame as he squints into the smoke of the barbeque. Santi notices, because of course he fucking does, pinching Frankie’s cheek as he coos -

‘Aw, come on, hermano. Who’s the lucky lady?’

Frankie lands a sharp elbow to his ribs, muttering a Fuck off, Pope, and Santi pulls away with a croak. 

‘What are we talking about? Who’s Frankie seeing?’ Will pipes up again.

‘Pretty lady’s sent Frankie a selfie,’ Santi grunts, massaging his side. ‘I wanna know who it is.’

Frankie grits his teeth. They know about you - of course they do. They knew about you from the moment you’d moved in. The cool new neighbour, the teacher, the new best friend, the babysitter. And they’d wanted to meet you. Smiling over the stories Frankie would tell them, replying to the pictures he’d send them of cookies, hama beads, Lego cities. 

‘We’re just friends,’ he says. 

The air is still for a moment before Will snorts. 

‘Bullshit.’ 

Frankie flips him off as Pope looses a gleeful chuckle, returning to his seat and his beer. 

‘We’ll wait,’ he says, ‘Plenty of time.’

Benny catches the end of it as he emerges from the back door, hopping down the porch steps with a fresh crate of beers in his hands. 

‘Time for what?’ He asks, dropping the box on the grass and cracking one open before bringing it to Frankie. 

‘Jesus Christ,’ he groans, taking it from the younger man with a grumbled thank you as he turns back to the grill.

Will and Santi are laughing, watching each other with sparkling eyes over the fire pit. 

‘Time for what?’ Benny asks again, looking between the men. 

‘Frankie’s got a lady friend. We’re trying to find out who it is.’

Benny swings back around to look at him, eyebrows high on his forehead as a slow smile spreads across his face. 

‘Oh?’ He grins, ‘Come on, Fish. We’re all friends here.’

Frankie shakes his head again, eyes fixed on the sausages. 

‘She’s not - it’s not - it’s not like that.’

‘So you’re fucking?’ 

Frankie whirls round to Santi. 

‘Pope.’ He hisses, brandishing the tongs at him. Santi holds up his hands. 

‘Then what?’

Frankie sighs, lowering the flame on the grill. 

‘That’s the neighbour,’ he says, throwing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of your house. ‘It’s her.’

They’re quiet. Too quiet. 

‘That’s your neighbour?’ Pope says, dumbfounded. 

‘Yes.’

‘But she’s -’

‘I know.’

Will shoots Santi a confused look. 

‘Way too good looking for our Fish, here.’

Benny points a finger at him, settling down in his seat the same time as Frankie. 

‘I’m taking that personally.’

‘Good.’ Will says. ‘Now, show us a proper picture, asshole.’

Frankie runs a hand over his face, cheeks burning. There’s a funny feeling in his gut - guilt, nerves, excitement. He looks them all over before Santi slaps his knee. 

‘Come on, cabròn. We’ve heard so much about her.’

So he shows them. Pictures of you and Lucia, you and him. Ones he took without you realising, moments where he just couldn’t help himself. And his favourite - you on his porch, beaming and squinting at the sunset. Warm and tired and beautiful after the beach, a single strawberry lace dangling from your fingers. 

It makes Will chuckle, Benny smile. Santi lets out a low whistle. 

‘So there she is.’ Will says, and Frankie can only grin back. His eyes are sparkling, cheeks tinged with pink. The blonde man cocks his head at him. ‘You like her.’

Frankie shrugs. 

‘You really like her.’ 

It’s quiet again for a moment, only the crackle of firewood to be heard. 

‘So. Are you fucking?’

The question earns Pope a sharp smack up the back of the head from Benny, Will shooting a Santiago across the flames. But all three of their faces turn back to Frankie. 

He looks up to the heavens. 

‘No,’ he says. ‘She had that breakup last year. And I don’t even think she’s into me like that.’

Benny laughs into his beer, taking a pull before speaking. 

‘No offence,’ he says, ‘But you wouldn’t know someone liked you if it hit you across the face.’

Will snorts, jerking his head in his brother's direction.

‘He should know.’

Frankie groans, leaning back in his chair, scrubbing at his cheeks. 

‘She drew the picture on your fridge.’ Benny says. It’s a statement, not a question. Frankie nods. ‘I think she likes you.’

‘You could tell from a picture?’ Will snarks, and Benny rolls his eyes. 

‘She drew ‘em all close together. So she either likes you or just - I dunno - likes you. Actually, maybe I have no idea.’

Pope chuckles. 

‘Miller, you are a true wordsmith.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Fuck off, Casanova.’

Still laughing, Santi knocks his beer against Frankie’s. He meets his eye.

‘Make sure she can come next time,’ Pope says, and Frankie pulls a face. ‘I’m serious. We’ve been waiting ages to meet her. She sounds cool. She sounds really fun -’

‘And we’ll help you work out whether she likes you or not.’ Will finishes. Frankie looks down at his feet, his shoes in the grass. He fiddles with the label on his bottle, thinks of what it would be like to have you here. Have you laughing at the jokes, swapping stories with the boys. Have Santi teaching you how to dance, have you sharing a whisky with Will, fucking around on the grill with Benny. And he’s sure they’d love you. So sure, in his heart, that it makes his stomach twist. His worlds blending together, the people he loves most in one place. You’d fit, as snuggly here, as you have next door.

‘I’ll ask her,’ he says, ‘When you come over next month. School will be out by then.’

When he looks up, Benny is smiling at him.

‘I’m looking forward to meeting her.’ He says.

He smiles back, all shy and excited, before Will clears his throat and nods in the direction of the barbeque.

‘Sausages better not be burning again, lover boy.’

The sausages are well-done, but edible. Frankie takes his time bringing them to the table, making sure to finally send you that text back.

You deserve it. Have fun, stay safe.

Your little face above it, grinning at him. The sight of it makes his heart swell - his heart hopeful. He scrolls back, above his safe travels text, to the last one you sent, also with a picture. Lucia’s stuffed whale - plush, pale blue, tucked up in the guest bed upstairs.

She’s given me a little friend in case I get lonely. Think I should take the hint?

He’d laugh-reacted to it at the time, in the midst of completing his paperwork for the evening before dashing back home. But now he wonders if there was more to it, a question he should have been brave enough to answer.

He can barely remember the blur and flash of the streetlights as he’d carved his way through the streets, the quiet of easing his way inside the house. You’d left the hallway lamp on so he wouldn’t trip over the array of shoes by the door, and he’d added his boots to them, right next to your trainers. 

The door had been locked, all lights off within seconds, before he’d crept up the stairs. The house silent and still around him, warmth right in the belly of his home. He’d checked on Lucia first. Cocooned in her duvet, only her face visible. Soft cheeks plump against her toy dog, her fingers curled around its scruffy neck as she breathed easily and deeply. Her book of bedtime stories on the dresser, dog-eared at the place where you’d finished reading to her. Her nightlight on, she’d smelled of lavender when he’d crouched to kiss her forehead, breathing in her curls. 

He’d stopped at the guest room next. Opened the door a crack to make sure you were okay, only hoping in the smallest way that you were still awake. Instead, he’d been greeted with the slope of your shoulders, covered by the t-shirt he’d insisted you borrow, the tangle of your hair. The way your leg was crooked at an angle, your hand beside your face on the pillow. Cheek smushed against the cotton as he watched your breathing, the sweet lax of your face as you slept. 

Something warmed in his stomach when he saw that you were, indeed, cuddling the whale Lucia had given you. It pulled at the strings of his memory, something you’d told him about sleeping with a stuffed animal into your late teens. He’d smiled. And then he went to bed.

He doesn’t remember what the dream was about. 

Could only see bursts of fire, darkness - could only hear shots and screams. Could only feel a deep, spiralling panic; a void that waits deep inside him, that creeps and bleeds sometimes into the night. 

And then he was awake.

Shivering, covered in sweat, his breathing heavy and ragged. Heart beating so fast he clawed desperately at his chest, trying to squeeze it, trying to silence it. 

And you were there.

Sat in front of him in his t-shirt, face taught with worry, hands out like you were approaching an animal.

Frankie, it’s me. It’s me, baby, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re at home, you’re safe. You were dreaming. You were dreaming.

It was like he couldn’t see you at first. Eyes blank and wild, body heaving, pulling against the sheets wrapped around his legs. You’d stood to pull them off, to free him, still speaking in that soft, gentle tone. It’s me, you’re safe. 

You’d pulled his scrabbling hands from his chest and he’d let you, let you hold one tight as the other dropped away, as you’d placed your other palm to his heart. And fuck, it was going so fast. So fast you wanted to cry with worry, with the need to take this blind panic from him. You’d kept it there, firm, looking into his eyes, still speaking, waiting for him to come back. Trusting that he would.

And then there he was. Still sweaty, still gasping, but there was clarity. Recognition. His fingers slipped against yours before gripping them, clinging to them like you were pulling him out of it, out of some dark, faraway place.

I’ve got you. It’s me, you’re okay.

He’d nodded. Mouth trying to form his reply - okay, okay - Bug? - like he was pleading. You’d moved closer, hand sliding from his chest to his shoulder, and it was like his whole body surrendered. Shuddering as you held him close, as he cried with relief, with shame.

Everything he hid from Vanessa, everything he tried to hide from Benny, spilling and unspooling before you, and yet you didn’t flinch. Didn’t even bat an eye. 

You’d sat up with him most of the night. Talking it through. The blood, the bullets, the guilt. The drugs. What happened in Colombia, everything he hadn’t told you, told anyone. You held him through the shakes, box breathing together until his heart rate slowed.

You’d stayed. Quiet and warm, solid against him, an arm wrapped around his waist.

He could never usually sleep after a nightmare. But he did with the soft sweep of your fingers on his forehead. 

When he woke, you were gone. A sorrowful feeling in his chest, one which tugged at his lips. Fixed as soon as you knocked on his door with tea, when you sat next to him and ran your fingers through his curls.

He pulled you down next to him, holding you tight to his body, staring up at the ceiling.

‘I’m sorry.’ He’d said.

‘Don’t ever be sorry, Frankie.’ You’d breathed into his chest.

He didn’t need to know how you cried in the guest room after you’d left him. Didn’t need to know how much it hurt watching him hurt, doesn’t need to know about the guilt, the gratitude you feel every time he picks you up and pieces you together. Doesn’t need to know how you’ve worried you won’t ever be able to do the same for him.

He doesn’t know how you laid beside him in agony for hours. Scared to leave, scared to stay. How you’d longed to lay there with him, but feared it would be too much to wake up beside him. Wondered whether you were weird for thinking it would be too much, knowing you’d think nothing of it if he were someone else. 

And you don’t know how he pulled the pillow you rested on closer, inhaled the scent. How he dreamed of kissing you awake. 

The logs crackle in the fire pit, the only light in the garden bar the string lights looped through the trees back to the porch.

It’s been quiet for a while, though he can still hear Pope and Will in the kitchen, chattering about some baseball game. Benny clears his throat from the chair beside him.

‘I’m happy for you.’

It shouldn't do, but it surprises him. In the years that have passed since the heartbreak between them, Frankie has only ever wanted good things for the man he loved. 

He should have known Benny would feel the same.

He shakes his head.

‘Ben, we don’t even know if -’

Benny holds up a hand.

‘Regardless,’ he says, ‘I’m happy for you, Fish. I’m so - glad you have her next door. And I really hope it turns into something.’

Frankie swallows, a knot pulling tight in his throat.

‘I’ve got a good feeling about it.’

He chuckles.

‘Thank you.’

Benny smiles, the firelight glinting in his eyes. Still handsome, just not the person meant for him.

‘How does she make you feel?’

Frankie shoots him a look, and he shrugs.

‘I have a theory. Humour me.’

Fish rolls his eyes, but the answer is easy. He says it into the flames.

‘Safe. Warm. Good.’

Important. Loved. Understood. 

He lets the words hang there for a moment, wishing you were here. Wishing for you to come through the front door right now and never leave.

When he turns his head, Benny is looking at him with the gentlest smile he’s ever seen. It makes his throat burn, his eyes water.

‘Do I get to know the theory?’

Benny shakes his head, picking at his bottle label, that small smile still there. He takes a deep breath.

‘I don’t know how she feels about you. Not yet. But, Frankie - I’m glad you found each other.’

It lands right in his heart, the goodness that it’s delivered with. And he thinks Benny’s right. 

Obviously right - you mean so much more than he could ever have imagined. But you found each other. Led, perhaps, by things he hasn’t always believed in. Fate, stars, ghosts. Everything that came before that didn’t fit quite right - Vanessa, Benny, Annie. Parts of wholes who loved parts of wholes.

But he knows, knew from that moment on his porch after the beach - that huge, swooping feeling - that he loves you, wholly.

That he understands, now, just how much good two people can do for each other. 

[qqueenofhades]

The thing that confuses me about the "don't vote" left (not the "I don't want to vote", I'm talking explicitly the "don't vote" left. I don't agree with the "I don't want to vote" left either but I can understand their logic) is they lose me at the final step of the logic. I've tried to connect the logic here, even if I don't agree with a political position I do try to understand where people are coming from (empathy for someones situation is not the same as cosigning it), but I just can't connect the dots here in a way that isn't deeply cruel. Does United States politics prioritize the lives of those in the US (and often white) over those in the Global South? Yes, it's a fucking atrocity. We should continue to make noise about it, cus Biden has used less drones and that shows progress, even if it's not enough. The part where I lose the plot is where the conclusion to this injustice is to let even more people die? Cus that's kinda how I see the idea of not voting: I can pick between shit and more shit, and at the end of the day, I'm picking whoever allows the most people to make it to the next day. Given Trumps stance on everything but specifically climate change, I feel like Biden is pretty significant harm reduction.

I don't think both things can't be true: that every life lost is a travesty we should not forget AND the more people we can save is worth fighting for.

The thing is, I have seen nothing among the "don't vote" far left (and I am talking here specifically about the people who both loudly announce their intention not to vote and try to convince others to do the same) to convince me that they actually care about harm reduction or stopping genocide. They only care about what makes them look the most Correct and/or superior to the Democrats. They yelled bloody murder about Obama using drones, they went dead quiet about Trump using them even more (even when he nearly started WWIII by assassinating the Iranian general Soleimani with one), and then said nothing at all when Biden reduced the drone program to almost nothing and withdrew the US from a failed war in Afghanistan it had long ago lost. Now they will yell all day about Israel/Hamas (something that Biden did not start and has had no direct military role in responding to) but they don't care about Russian genocide of Ukraine and Syria, Chinese threats to invade Taiwan, etc, because those governments are "anti-western/anti-American" and therefore should be defended. Their opposition to human suffering is extremely conditional and rests on whether they can look good out of it, and they never interrogate the hypocrisies of their own ideology.

Likewise: every country in the world prizes its own citizens above those of other countries. It's just a basic fact. Yes, the US has a grim history of intervening in other countries and causing untold civilian damage (especially during the Cold War and then in post-9/11 War on Terrorism). Yes, that legacy is complex and needs to be acknowledged. But literally none of that will be fixed, not to mention all the vulnerable people in America itself who will be punished, by Trump getting into power again. Biden is not just a grudging "lesser evil," but has done a lot of truly good and helpful things, regardless of the Online Leftists' constant lies, misinformation, and misrepresentation. If you spend all your time announcing what a champion you are for non-American marginalised people and/or those undergoing terrible suffering, and then deliberately and knowingly adhere to a course of action that will increase that suffering tenfold not only for those people but your own neighbors, friends, and family, then no, I don't believe you are a brave champion of social justice. You just want to know what categories of people you can gleefully and righteously punish and make to suffer for not believing the same things as you, that makes you just as dangerous as the right-wing fascists, and I can and will call out your ass accordingly.

[still-searching-for-something]

Out of curiosity, I opened the r/columbia subreddit to a post about the Jewish experience in Columbia, expecting to see wall to wall blood libel and Hamas supporters, but amazingly…

There isn’t.

There are some ignorant comments, but they were almost universally downvoted. Most everyone was talking about how moronic and unrepresentative of the Jewish people JVP is, comparing them to the German National Jews and to Yevsektsiya. I saw people complaining about how supporting the 2SS got you called a genocidal baby killer. And even someone pointing out how giving Palestinians a state immediately after October 7th was a massive security threat for Israel—and being upvoted! On r/columbia! The subreddit of Der Stürmer University!

Maybe I should feel relieved by the fact that everyone is coming to their senses and antizionism is being correctly identified as a form of antisemitism, but like… I remember how fast and enthusiastically they betrayed the Jews in their lives. The world jumped right back into antisemitism like it was a drink they were relapsing with. So fast. I won’t forget being excised from the queer community and being slandered, being called a genocidal Zionist every day, being warned not to walk out in my kippah.

I am glad that my most dire fears of this being the beginning of pogroms or an intifada of terrorism against Jews worldwide are thus far seeming to be untrue, but I still feel scorn and disgust at the queer community, at my friends who called me a “fucking Jew”, and at some of my heroes being pieces of Jew hating shit. And I’m not inclined to give the goyim who’ve shut their mouths a slap on the back and a hug for deciding not to hate us anymore. It’s like they think they deserve a medal? For doing the bare minimum of… not hating Jews? After nearly a year spent hating Jews?

Congrats on noticing antisemitism is bad again. I can’t wait for them to go back to old ways once the conflict flares up again next year. I do so wonder how many Jewish students they’ll beat next time. How many Stars of David will be tucked under shirts. How many kippahs left at home. How many Jews they’ll kill and celebrate the murder of.

Fuck these Jew haters, man.

[frustratedasatruar]

I've seen a number of antizionists argue for the immediate destruction of Israel on Anarchist grounds.

Lets just pretend for a second that this is an argument that they are making in-good-faith.

I'm an Anarchist. I don't like states.

This said, Israel seems like it may very well be the worst state to start with trying to dissolve? Like, if a state's territory is reorganized into autonomously self-governing communes, there will be a transitional period between when the State's military was defending its boarders and when the communes are able to organize the same. There would be a hiccup, even in somewhere like Israel or Switzerland where everybody's been in the military, in the territory's ability to resist outside invasion.

And Israel is constantly under immediate threat of foreign invasion.

And its not as if Israel has any kind of strategic depth; its the size of New Jersey! You very much cannot trade land for time there!

And all of Israel's neighbors are, at best, hard right authoritarians who would not tolerate any kind of leftist movement any where near as much as the current Israeli state, and, more practically speaking, have actively genocidal ambitions against the Israeli people.

These are not good conditions for getting a Free Territory off the ground!

Like, it would be one thing if, I dunno, Italy and Spain were already reorganized into Anarchist systems and were potentially willing to intervene against anyone trying to crush a nascent Israeli Black Army. I would still be weary, as Israel is still very very small and her neighbors actively want to eradicate her populace, but I would feel space to talk about that because maybe, if everything went right, that could be managed. Theoretically. (In the real world, there is also the question of Antisemitism to contend with, and to what degree that would have a depressive effect on the willingness of christian communes to come to the aid of Jews. There are far more than enough Strasserites in the modern day for this to be a very real concern.)

But that is not the world we live in. Pragmatically speaking, it is absurd to want to build up a global Anarchist movement starting with overthrowing Israel.

Like, fuck, if the Southern Levant is where you want to start, I would advocate somewhere like, I don't know, Palestine, where anarchist militants would have a negotiating position with the Israelis; able to offer an end to Hamas or other terrorist-groups' ability to operate in territory the anarchists control, in exchange for IDF ambivalence or even material support.

You know, a type of deal that could never in a million years be struck between Israeli anarchists and Hamas.

Even if I imagine a scenario where Anarchy replaces the modern State-based global paradigm, I just can't think of any mechanism by which Israel wouldn't be in at least the latter half of territories to be reorganized thusly... at least, not without wildly unacceptable risk of mass ethnic cleansing.

I can only conclude that any anarcho-strasserites who actually think Israel is a remotely realistic nation to focus on dissolving are high on their own supply.

[theredqueenandthebloodwyrm]

I see we’re just reposting things without sources for some reason?? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s because the tweet used the magic word “Zionist” which is taken to be “irredeemably evil and vile person”. For context, the context which that tweet purposely left out (and yeah I’m going to say it’s fucking purposeful) is this article by the NPR. Inside this article the allegedly pro-Palestine posts on social media were fucking videos of the Hamas on October 7th. So, yeah if you’re reposting antisemitic stuff (blatantly antisemitic too), fuck you.

The images that came out of Israel on October 7 were brutal and graphic, and the images coming out of Gaza for months now are constant, also brutal and horrific. All this violence is being shared on social media, and as KQED's Lesley McClurg reports, that's affecting the mental health of Americans with loved ones in Gaza and in Israel. A warning - this story contains descriptions of violence. LESLEY MCCLURG, BYLINE: Some of the footage Shoshana Howard (ph) saw on social media months ago still haunts her. A video appears to show a Hamas fighter pulling an Israeli hostage from the trunk of a jeep. CNN aired a clip of the video. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Her face is bleeding, and her wrists appear to be cable-tied behind her back. MCCLURG: It looks like blood is seeping through the back of the woman's sweatpants. SHOSHANA HOWARD: And that broke me - and then seeing friends calling it liberation. MCCLURG: Howard, who is Jewish, couldn't believe people she knew were writing comments online that, to her, felt inhumane and anti-Jewish. HOWARD: That's when I started to have night terrors, and I was ending my days going into my closet and just would cry. MCCLURG: She couldn't stop thinking about her cousins living in Israel. As the days passed, it became harder to focus on her life and work in Oakland. HOWARD: Like, I just was so fragile. MCCLURG: And then recently, she felt shamed by a friend who told her her grief doesn't matter when so many Palestinians are suffering.

Is it “making the argument” to point out the hypocrisy of saying the Houthis (a terror organization) are protecting international laws and human rights when there’s documented evidence of Houthis perpetrating slavery, diverting humanitarian aid, and so on? Or you know, is it providing necessary context that readers might want to know?

And the comments below that tweet are awful (with a few exceptions rightfully pointing out accuracy of said community note and how slavery is in fact bad).

Antisemitic Tweet #1: This is what all community notes have become now. Total Zionist propaganda machine.

Antisemitic Tweet #2: There's been an influx of "community notes" that are clearly just people trying to protect the narrative.

Antisemitic Tweet #3: It's like the Israeli Bot accounts that change the community notes to favor Israel.

Already reblogged multiple posts explaining what's wrong with the Houthis with sources attached, so linking those now to save space (rather than adding ten different links).

This? This is what you say on October 7th, 2023?

Shaun: Lot of reaping being condemned by the sowers today. Shaun (cont.): I'm talking about politicians who stridently oppose all options except those which lead to violence and then act shocked violence occurs. Their condemnations of violence are worthless while they ignore their hand in the apartheid causing it.

October 7th was an attack against civilians where hostages were taken, people were murdered, people who advocated for peace were harmed, killed, and so on.

I also noticed a tweet not too far down from that one which said the following:

Lots of people in these comments very mad that Palestinians aren't being victims of occupation in the right and proper way.

No, people are mad about civilians being massacred and taken as hostages by a terrorist organization. The lack of empathy is something.