#depressing discourse

[infiniteglitterfall]

I do realize this is a real niche post but I cannot tell you how many damn times over the past 10 months I've seen gentiles tell Jews some version of, "Your own holy book SAYS God doesn't want you to have a country yet!"

And it's such an incredibly blatant and weirdly specific tell that they're not part of something that grew from progressive grassroots, but something based on right-wing astroturfing.

1. Staying in your own lane is a pretty huge progressive principle.

Telling people in another group that their deity said they couldn't do X is, I think, as far as you can get from your own lane.

2. It's also very clearly Not In Your Own Lane because I've never seen anyone actually be able to EITHER quote the passage they're thinking of, OR cite where it is.

It's purely, "I saw somebody else say this, and it seemed like it would make me win the debate I wasn't invited to."

3. It betrays a complete ignorance of Jewish culture and history.

Seriously? You don't know what you're referencing, its context, or even what it specifically says, but you're... coming to a community that reads and often discusses the entire Torah together each year, at weekly services... who have massive books holding generations of debate about it that it takes 7 years to read, at one page per day....

And saying, "YOUR book told you not to!"

I've been to services where we discussed just one word from the reading the whole time. The etymology. The connotations. The use of it in this passage versus in other passages.

And then there is the famous saying, "Ask two Jews, get three opinions." There is a culture of questioning and discussion and debate throughout Judaism.

You think maybe, in the decades and decades of public discussion about whether to buy land in Eretz Yisrael and move back there; whether it should keep being an individual thing, or keep shifting to intentional community projects; what the risks were; whether it should really be in Argentina or Canada or someplace instead; how this would be received by the Jews and gentiles already there, how to respect their boundaries, how to work with them before and during; and whether ending up with a fuckton of Jews in one place might not be exactly as dangerous for them as it had always been everywhere else....

You think NOBODY brought up anything scriptural? Nobody looked through the Torah, the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim, or the Talmud for any thoughts about any of this?? It took 200 years and some rando in the comments to blow everyone's minds???

4. It relies on an unspoken assumption that people can and should take very literal readings of religious texts and use them to control others.

And a sense of ownership and power over those texts, even without any accompanying knowledge about what they say.

It's kind of a supercessionist know-it-all vibe. It reads like, "I know what you should be doing. Because even if I'm not personally part of a fundamentalist branch of a related religion, the culture I'm rooted in is."

Bonus version I found when I was looking for an example. NOBODY should do this:

There are a lot of people who pull weird historical claims like "It SAYS Abraham came from Chaldea! That's Iraq!"

Like, first of all, a group is indigenous to a land if it arose as a people and culture there, before (not because of) colonization.

People aren't spontaneously spawning in groups, like "Boom! A new indigenous people just spawned!!"

People come from places. They go places. Sometimes, they gel as a new community and culture. Sometimes, they bop around for a while and eventually assimilate into another group.

Second: THE TORAH IS NOT A HISTORY TEXTBOOK OMFG.

It's an oral history, largely written centuries after the fact.

There is a TON of historical and archaeological research on when and where the Jewish culture originated, how it developed over time, etc. It's extremely well-established.

Nobody has to try to pull what they remember from Sunday school for this argument.

[infiniteglitterfall]

2018: You wanted to punch Nazis.

2024: You repeat Nazi propaganda while covering your asses by calling "Zionists" Nazis.

[infiniteglitterfall]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hamza Howidy (@hamzahowidyy)

This video is why I don't believe the pro-Palestinian movement really cares about Palestinians.

If it did, it would be centering Palestinian peace and human rights activists. It would be coordinating with protests in Gaza. It would know that protests and activists in Gaza exist.

I wouldn't have to dig to find people like Hamza Howidy, Moumen Al-Natour, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, Bassem Eid, the Center for Peace Communications, or the people Hamza mentions in this video.

People would care that Hamas actively threatens, tortures, and executes them. They would care that Hamas has controlled all media in Gaza for 17 years, actively and violently silencing Palestinian voices. They would fight for those voices.

The message I've gotten from this movement for nearly a year, from the first rallies celebrating October 7 through today, has been that Hamas is somewhere between "unimportant" and "goals," Israel is the supreme and only evil, and Palestinians? They're only important when they're dying.

[styxhuntress]

The way Buck is treated is absolutely heartbreaking.

On the surface yes, maybe the 118 does look like a found family unit. And most of them have a good family bond with one another. But not with Buck. (Long rant below the cut)

Buck has the biggest heart out of anyone on the show. He is constantly going out of his way to help people. This is particularly prominent with Eddie, but he does this for so many characters.

He lets Hen, Eddie and Chim stay with him during the lockdown, never asks them to help pay rent, and then later lets Albert stay with him with no complaint.

He is constantly babysitting Chris and later Jee while their respective parents go do other things, and while he clearly loves spending time with them this is definitely a massive favor on his part because babysitting kids is hard work.

He is always there to support them when they need it.

He’s the one that prompts them to check on Bobby in season 1.

He is there for Chim as best he can when Maddie leaves.

When Maddie shows up at his apartment in Season 2 he doesn’t get angry with her for essentially breaking into his home and helping herself to a bottle of wine. And instead helps her settle down with a safe new job and becomes her shoulder to cry on during this period.

He drops everything when Eddie asks for his help, when Eddie mentions issues with childcare and paperwork for Chris Buck introduces him to Carla.

When Eddie has to bring Chris to the station Buck calls ahead so Bobby can get permission.

When Eddie gets shot Buck takes over Chris’s care without prompting.

When Eddie has issues with parenting Chris he calls Buck for help and Buck helps.

When Eddie has a meltdown and takes a bat to the wall, not only does Buck drop everything and run to help him, he also goes further by taking eddie to see the kid they saved the day he was shot.

Whenever Eddie needed anything Buck was there.

When Eddie desperately needed a sub letter so that he could move Buck went and took over the lease.

When he found out Eddie was moving he went and did what he could to help him despite being devastated.

Whenever anyone needed anything, Buck was there. And Buck was always happy to do it.

But when Buck was feeling abandoned after the embolism no one reached out, instead Eddie dumped Chris on him under the pretense of getting him out and about and stop moping for the day.

When Maddie left, no one thought to ask Buck how he was doing. Instead they focused entirely on Chim. And when Chim punched Buck no one at any point stood up for Buck, instead going on about how Chim is under a lot of distress right now as though Buck isn’t also feeling the loss and worry of his Sister up and leaving.

When Buck filed the lawsuit they almost all immediately went and put all the blame on Buck. Hen was the only one to point out that they were all Buck had, that he had no other family outside the 118. Despite that they still punished him, Eddie taking his anger out on Buck because the lawsuit meant Buck couldn’t bail him out and he couldn’t spend time with Chris and never once saying he missed Buck too. He was pissed because Buck couldn’t drop everything and help him. He was accused of being reckless and impulsive and using their own issues for his own gain and for being selfish and stupid and exhausting despite the fact that he was being treated unfairly. He was hurt, and alone and just needed a hug.

When Buck found out about Daniel and distanced himself from Maddie, Chimney started borderline harassing Buck trying to get him to talk to her, despite a) Buck having had a major bombshell dropped on him, getting his entire life put into a new perspective based on this information, and finding out why his parents treated him the way they did and so needing to process, and B) Buck repeatedly setting boundaries and saying he needed space to process and he’d talk to Maddie when he was ready. Chimney completely ignores Buck’s boundaries as though what Buck needs or wants doesn’t matter because Maddie is upset and wants to talk to him, and only her desires and emotional well being have any level of importance and despite asking for space she literally ambushes him at work to force a conversation he is not ready for. And no one else tries telling Chim to leave Buck alone, and then Eddie only has a half assed conversation with Buck despite being his so called best friend, where he basically dismisses Buck’s feelings and tells him he’s over reacting.

When Eddie was leaving and Buck was upset he was repeatedly accused of making it about himself, being selfish, unreasonable, unsupportive and a jerk when he literally just found out from nowhere that Eddie made a down payment just overheard his best friend basically dismiss their friendship (“I have no ties here, everything that matters is in Texas”) he gets judged and berated for being upset, as though he’s not allowed to have feelings, and when he tries to apologize for his snarkiness gets once again berated and when he finally tells Eddie that he took over the lease and thus he can move, aka the ultimate supportive action, not once does Eddie apologize.

When Buck breaks up with Tommy no one bothers to really check in with him on a deeper level, instead they dismiss his wants by stealing his phone so that he can’t call him and then no one brings it up again despite him clearly still being devastated for every following episode.

When Buck gets SA’d by the therapist he is immediately getting made fun of, and accused of being a manwhore and essentially blamed for being assaulted. No one ever, not once, bothers to wonder if he’s doing alright.

And when Buck is still waiting for Abby to come back rather than being supportive or anything like that he gets laughed at for living in his girlfriend’s apartment and being dumb enough to think she’ll come back.

When Eddie gets a new friend he immediately starts spending all his free time with that friend and never inviting Buck, even if they were planning something Buck would enjoy, instead asking if Buck can babysit (his kid is 14/15 at this point and just because he has CP I still think he can spend a couple of hours home alone. He’s not bedridden or anything.) and basically ignoring his supposed best friend in favor of his shiny new friend.

Whenever Buck needed anything he was laughed at, belittled and dismissed. They constantly take advantage of his kindness. Buck gives and gives and gives to them and gets nothing back. He is only wanted when he can be useful and when they need him. They take and take and take and the second Buck needs even a small amount of empathy or help he gets accused of being selfish, needy, exhausting, of making everything about him, of overreacting. He is essentially told, over and over that he is not allowed to have feelings or boundaries. He is not allowed to need help he can only give help. He is only valued when he can do something for someone else and godforbid he ever ask for the same consideration because otherwise he’s being needy. He makes everyone else his priority and never is he anyone’s priority in return.

Until Tommy anyway, he finally had someone who would take care of him, who acknowledged his feelings and showed him they were valid, who clearly adored all of Buck and never asked him for anything and indulged in his quirks and who was happy to be there for him, who complimented him and who overall clearly adored Buck. Even before they were dating when Tommy saw that Buck clearly was feeling left out he went over to his place to apologize, despite not actually doing anything wrong himself.

I seriously think that if Tommy saw how they all treated Buck he’d lose the delusion that they are basically a family really fast and promptly get pissed on Buck’s behalf. He’d also do everything in his power to help Buck realize that he matters as a person.

[luckthebard]

I’m going to say something I’ve been thinking for a long time. Travis/Chetney always bringing up Molaesmyr gets laughs but I think it is the largest factor which is making Matt’s attempt to have the Predathos question be a real debate, and the cast treating it as one not only fall flat for me, but have me ready to be incredibly disappointed in the storytelling of C3 depending on what happens.

Molaesmyr is the most pure example we have of Ludinus’s sins and what happens if he gets what he wants. He contacted Predathos and destroyed a civilization. Not only destroyed it, but twisted the animals, plant life, and people of the city and for hundreds of miles around into horrible, tortured and suffering mockeries of themselves, still haunting a perpetually dying space. That is what Matt presented when we visited Molaesmyr in episode 57 and, because Matt is good at horror and especially body horror, it really landed.

We’ve heard the cast say several times now that the characters definitely want to stop Ludinus from getting any power but after that “we’ll see.” We’ll see what? How is doing any version of what Ludinus wants a victory, even if he’s not involved? How are we considering that it might be fine to let Predathos out to chase/eat the gods or to control after seeing what it did to Molaesmyr? Do the people we saw as twisted and suffering mockeries of their former selves in that dead city not matter to the story at all? Are they just set dressing we’re supposed to forget?

Trying to present any version of what Ludinus ultimately wants, releasing Predathos, as a possible and even potentially correct or admirable endgame was, imo, a huge mistake after seeing Molaesmyr. As an audience of this story, it turns who we’ve been told are protagonists into villains. And while some stories can do that well, I don’t have confidence this one could, in large part because D&D is designed to be heroic fantasy. And seeing the heroes turn to villains at the last second will be even harder to swallow if the story tries to tell us they had a point.

[egberts]

my life would be soooo different if i could just make myself take a shower every day

[infiniteglitterfall]

Yeah. It's not like Hezbollah is a literal terrorist organization that abducts Lebanese, Syrian, and Gambian people into sex trafficking and literal slavery.

It certainly isn't like Hezbollah's stated mission is to destroy Israel. Or like it's been bombing civilian areas in northern Israel for about a year and a half now, to the point that 10% of Israel is on fire and depopulated.

This is obviously a massive land grab straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

It's not like Nasrallah publicly referred to Israel as "our land."

And I think we ALL KNOW that reversing antisemitic beliefs/acts to project them onto Jewish communities is uh... (checks notes) smart, unusual, and a good way to understand what they're plotting.

Obviously if they deleted a frankly unhinged, possibly AI attempt at a """think piece""" that literally everyone on all sides objects to, it's a sneaky Nazi cover-up, like it says in the notes on this post.

Nasrallah has also repeatedly vowed to destroy Israel. “It is an aggressive, illegal and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land,” he said in 2005. “Its destination is manifested in our motto, ‘Death to Israel’.”

A senior Hezbollah source has revealed that the leaders killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday were meeting to plan a ground invasion of Israel, similar to the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas. The source told Al-Monitor that members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force were discussing “plans for a ground invasion at the heart of the occupied territories,” using language that reflects Hezbollah’s stance that all of Israel is occupied territory. The Israeli strike targeted top Hezbollah leaders Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi, along with at least 14 other senior commanders of the Radwan Force, as they gathered in the basement of a residential building in Beirut.... Hezbollah intended to invade northern Israel, seize control of Galilee communities, and commit widespread violence, including murder and kidnappings of Israeli civilians.

Hezbollah has literally always been this way. It's not like Hamas: this is not something it tries to spin with faux-progressive vocabulary, or cover up by calling itself the resistance, or by changing its messaging depending on who's listening.

Even 15 years ago, it was on the same bullshit:

Hezbollah's aim is not to "end the occupation of Palestine," or even to "liberate all of Palestine." Its goal is to kill the world's Jews. Listen to the words of its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah: "If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." (NY Times, May 23, 2004, p. 15, section 2, column 1.) His genocidal goals--to kill all Jews--were proven by two recent statements. He has warned the Arabs and Muslims to leave Haifa so that his rockets can kill only Jews. And he apologized for causing the deaths of three Israeli-Arabs in Nazareth, when a Katuysha struck that religiously mixed Israeli city. Hezbollah also worked hand-in-hand with Argentine neo-Nazis to blow up a Jewish community center, murdering dozens of Jews. Nasrallah is a modern day Hitler, who currently lacks the capacity to carry out his genocide. But he is an ally of Iran, which will soon have the capacity to kill Israel's five million Jews... listen to the current President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denies the Nazi Holocaust, but calls for a modern Holocaust that would "wipe Israel off the map."

Lmao they deleted it

[infiniteglitterfall]

the worst part about the i/p discourse

it's NOT the posters of Nazis with the swastikas on their flags replaced by stars of david. or the pages and pages of blood libel conspiracy theories in instagram posts about why local pride organizers are such big meanies. or the newfound insistence that jews just exaggerate and make up antisemitic incidents to smear the pro-palestine movement....

it's the fact that every. single. time. i try to post anything about any of these things, i end up in a rabbit hole SO DEEP IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TO THE BOTTOM.

Yesterday, I saw a --

YOU SEE? I went to Reddit for a second to find the link to the post about the Melbourne protest this week that had people carrying the Nazi-star-of-David posters. But first, I saw a post that began, "All I see on social media and the news is more and more attacks. Who beat up a Jewish family here, who stabbed a 1 year old in front of a synagouge. Those are two examples, I've lost track of all of the other ones."

and I was like, SOMEONE STABBED A ONE YEAR OLD IN FRONT OF A SYNAGOGUE?!?!

And I started to look that up. AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Two days ago, I saw an article about Cincinnati Socialists setting up a table at North Kentucky Pride without asking, it sounds like, to hand out flyers saying the war in Gaza was Netanyahu's "Final Solution" for Palestinians. Cincinnati Pride organizers alerted the NKY Pride organizers, who kicked them out.

I was like, "okay, well, let's see what Cincinnati Socialists say about it." Then I discovered that their instagram not only "names and shames" the two Cincy Pride organizers and one NKY organizer. Which led to the Cincy ones getting so much harassment and violent threats that they resigned....

But also has a related post that goes on for pages and pages of pure blood libel.

So then I sat there fact-checking all their blood libel and finding out that not only was it untrue and impossible, but half the stuff they referenced didn't even exist.

Then I ended up fact-checking things in the "article" that they'd clearly used as their source. Fact-checking things I found while fact-checking those.

Trying to write a Facebook post about how fucked up it all was. Giving up on the Facebook post after several hours because it made more sense to write it on Tumblr, or at least to write it on Tumblr FIRST.

Then I'm also looking at the post they made "naming and shaming" the organizers, which is like... "the Cincy ones are partners! two days after Hamas's incredibly violent and brutal massacre, one of them changed his profile picture to a photo of them honeymooning IN ISRAEL two years ago! they did it through some group that COVERS A LOT OF THE COSTS FOR HONEYMOONS IN ISRAEL!!!!" and "the other one went to a protest of Hamas's massacre!!! with a sign saying to free the hostages!!!"

oh no. the fucking horror. truly how did these genocidal monsters even end up on the pride organizing committee. this is a shanda scandal.

then I'm responding to people's comments, trying to talk them down from horrible positions. telling people things like, "I know it's asking a LOT, but if people could grasp the idea that "going to Israel for your honeymoon" ISN'T "committing genocide," it would be really great. Or that wanting the hostages freed is actually something that both Israeli AND GAZAN protests have called for, and it's only Westerners who are opposed to it. Or that in fact, saying you "Stand with Israel," a few days after an incredibly brutal attack that burned multiple towns to the ground in one day, killed entire families and their pets, an attack which Hamas has promised to repeat "again and again and again" till Israel is violently destroyed... is opposing that attack, NOT calling for genocide."

then i'm like, "oh, i should edit these images to show the correct info, and i can explain that I drew arrows and added the correct info!" so then i'm doing that and working on writing alt text, and holy shit??? how many fucking hours??? did i spend on this?????? just because i read a frigging reddit post that linked to an article about it?????????

and like. i can go through and debunk all that shit in the comments. (and did. i responded to every single comment that believed this shit.) but ultimately, everyone who pulls this shit has way more reach than I do.

just. like. THAT'S ONE ORG IN ONE PLACE. And it was bad enough that I persevered and finished debunking it and commenting on it today and started telling people about it. Do you even know how many more of those I've seen?! How many I would see if I looked for them on purpose?!

The tsunami of deliberate disinformation is SO FUCKING BAD. All of it is SO FUCKING LAYERED. In any single bullshit post, there are SO MANY horrifically bad and wrong assumptions. So many of them are DESIGNED, BY HAMAS, to lead people down the path to "All Zionists should die! Israel should be violently destroyed!"

There were so many comments on a "Free Palestine Melbourne" group's instagram post (Sydney? Could've been Sydney) asking, pointedly, how many Jews are Zionists. What percentage of Jews are Zionists, again?

One (1) had a response telling them it doesn't matter what the percentage is, no percentage would justify collective punishment of Jews.

The rest all said things like, "Too many."

It feels like constantly being lied to. Just constantly being lied to about things I have looked up and verified myself from solid sources, now and in the past, by people I counted as my community.

Then just now I opened Instagram because I hadn't taken screenshots of a couple of the pics I wanted to add. And I'm hit with these:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jewsinschool (@jewsinschool)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish on Campus (@jewishoncampus)

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A post shared by Jewish and Proud (@jewishpridealways)

Then some brighter posts (including one of a baby bat!!) and then a post which sums up a lot of what I'm feeling right now.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jess Cook (@jessicagcoook)

It's like, yes, that, plus the uncomfortable sense that some people are getting thisclose to going, "Most Jews are Zionists anyway, so YEAH, I DO think most Jews deserve to die."

[am-i-a-boy-or-a-crybaby]

Thoughts from a queer Midwestern teen in love about the DnP Vday video

When I was 13 I shipped Dan and Phil. Hard. Even though they were already out when I found them and I knew Dan’s story, I was too young to truly understand the fear and anxiety he felt surrounding his identity. I never will understand fully even now, but at nearly nineteen years old, I feel it.

I heard about the video from a Pinterest comment. I didn’t know much about it except that it “proved phan” which I highly doubted would be any different from the loosely strung together proof I had seen. Seeing as that loose proof was really all I needed anyway, I decided to watch the video even though I didn’t really believe it would change much.

It did.

The video is jarringly personal and even at the time, having never really dated anyone, I could tell that something was wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be seeing this and not just because it was “the forbidden video”. No, there was something in the visible relaxation in Phil’s voice, yet the nervousness in his “I love you”s that tipped me off.

I closed the video.

Over the next years the video would live in the back of my head. I couldn’t make it leave.

Throughout high school I watched as the world around me turned violent. There was grace for a child who “didn’t know what they were doing”, but not for a senior who “should know better”.

Being gay started to scare me. Finding out I was trans was even scarier.

At 17 I fell in love with a boy just like me who had been my friend for years. Since we got together there has been an understanding not to share too much to strangers. To post each other as vaguely as possible online. In private we are intertwined and the love in our eyes is visible, but when we are out there is nothing more than a small shoulder bump and a smaller smile.

We are still together as I turn nineteen. We are scared. We are surrounded in a land locked state painted red. While I live in a blue county, next year he won’t be so lucky and I will become his favorite secret. A friend to most, a lover to a quiet few.

I rewatched the video. In some ways I wish I didn’t, but I knew I needed to. I understood the video in a different light. I felt a fraction of the horror and embarrassment they must have felt when YouTube glitched, making it public. Tears streamed down my face as Phil described a relationship not that far from my own. Two men, deeply in love, scared for their lives.

I lay in my bed and wonder how they would feel about the video now. In 2025 they brazenly joke about their love and their intimate lives, revealing bits and pieces to us, their fans. Not because we deserve it or because they feel like they have to, but because they’ve begun to take control of their lives. I believe that some small part of them feels that by showing us how to unlearn fear, some scared queer couple will feel just a little less mortified by love, a little less terrified to be seen, and a little more like a cheesy valentines card.

[qiu-yan]

wow this post got depressing really fast. sorry

if you think about it. if you were just some random no-name cultivator who somehow got invited to the phoenix mountain night-hunt, and you heard something about 1. hanguang-jun of the sterling reputation, 2. wei wuxian the demonic cultivator already flouting social norms, and 3. a forced kiss....which would you believe? that lan wangji forcibly kissed wei wuxian? or that wei wuxian forcibly kissed lan wangji?

depressing thoughts.

[infiniteglitterfall]

It is completely unhinged that none of you can tell the difference between terrorists demanding civilians serve as cannon fodder to protect their assets, and a government agency having its HQ in a civilian area instead of, I guess, a military base?!

Fun Fact for all of you who never watched the X-Files: Quantico, the CIA headquarters, is right in the middle of Washington DC. You are not SUPPOSED to have to build government agencies in remote or military areas, because nobody's supposed to be attacking from them.

What Hamas and Hezbollah do is the equivalent of the military setting up a rocket launch site in your driveway and telling you to stay put.

What Nasrallah did was the equivalent of the head of the military holding a bunch of remotes with buttons for all the driveway rocket launchers, and just strolling around the city poking the buttons.

For at least a year and a half.

Until 10% of the country next door was on fire and depopulated.

While running massive international human trafficking rings along with literal slavery.

It's also incredibly obvious that you don't know what the fuck it means for Hamas to use "human shields."

Hamas uses civilian homes, mosques, schools, hospitals, and entire neighborhoods as

combat compounds

shelters where Hamas senior operations can hide

places to store weapons

surveillance posts (including extensive surveillance of Palestinians)

rocket launch sites

and builds massive tunnels right underneath them for both escape and attack. Literally undermining the entire infrastructure of Gaza.

If this seems hard to believe, you must not know that Hamas staged a violent coup in 2007, throwing the Palestinian government out of Gaza, and has ruled it as a dictatorship ever since.

It has had 17 years to weaponize the entire Gaza Strip.

If that still seems like "hasbara," maybe try giving enough of a shit about Palestinians to actually listen to their experiences in Gaza.

And one more thing that's worth knowing: Hamas leaders truly double down on all this, by regularly calling for Palestinian civilians to die while they themselves chill in penthouses in Qatar.

Fathi Hammad, Hamas leader, 2008: [The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children.

This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."

and my own personal favorite:

literal vampire talk omfg

It really is wild to see, after a year of the international community not only defending Israel's mass slaughter of innocents, but essentially condemning the victims as human shields, to see this kind of concern now.

There have been multiple incidents of more than a hundred civilians killed at a time by Israel to POSSIBLY get at Hamas or Hezbollah and each time, the White House and State department defended or shrugged them off. Meanwhile, this is Tel Aviv:

[nothingeverchangeswoy]

"bro this fic is so ass 💀"

So anyway, someone left a comment calling Wander a talking orange hamster and Sylvia a buff dinosaur with depression (which, honestly? Kinda fire branding) and I just had to immortalize it in art.

Behold:

The Small Yet Mighty Cuddler & The Emotionally Repressed Steed (I was supposed to make her a dino, but I deadass forgot halfway through, so here we are.)

Like, sir. Ma’am. Entity. You willingly clicked on a Wander Over Yonder fic and then got mad it was about Wander Over Yonder. Not my fault you came in expecting space war and got bedtime snuggles and toe beans instead. That’s on you.

Also, I love that the galaxy crumbling isn’t the problem���no, the real issue here is that the characters aren’t fixing their spaceship fast enough. My bad, lemme just patch up the fabric of space-time real quick instead of having a little emotional depth. (space walmart deadpool will remember this)

(tl;dr: They were probably rage baiting but idc bc they gave me free serotonin. Thank you, anonymous internet gremlin, for inspiring this cursed artwork.)

[thestrangestthlng]

There’s something special about fandom and its unique five stages of grief (which completely negates acceptance, cuz who’s she? We don’t know her.)

Denial -> Anger -> Bargaining -> Depression -> MPreg

And it’s a beautiful thing.

[johanna-swann]

Re: yesterday's post about Maddie.

I completely agree! Also I'm so glad you brought up her telling the guy to kill himself. I feel like I haven't seen many people talk about that and I feel like the insane one? Like hello???

It's bugged me so much because Maddie isn't just some random person on the street she received training on what to do in these situations and was prepared for people on those calls possibly threatening her personally. She's not in a position where she has to handle this alone or has reason to mistrust the police, but she completely lost it and tried to talk a person into killing themselves?

We later found out the guy wasn't even the killer they were looking for, he ended up as a murder victim. Yet the show only comments on this twice, once by Maddie's supervisors basically applauding her for handling the situation like a pro (???) and once in a conversation with Chimney who only worries how this might've brought back Maddie's own suicidal ideation.

[In that specific situation and coming from Chimney more than okay, but how is this the only time it's brought up?]

Literally nobody cared that Maddie really crossed some lines there. Because she's a victim. And a victim can't be a perpetrator, right?

That's why her stalking that couple in season 3 was never a big deal (she ended up saving a life and looking like a hero while the other abused woman was framed as unhinged and beyond help, so Maddie's actions couldn't have been that wrong), it's why it's never framed as overstepping when she confronts Buck about Daniel before he's ready and in the work place too (Buck may be hurt, but Maddie suffered more and thus can't be blamed for anything), it's why her leaving in season 5 like she did is never held against her (she was sick and in pain so it's fine).

[To be clear, I have no issue with her leaving initially, but the way she broke of all contact and gave no sign of life for months even after she got better? Mental illness isn't some unlimited free pass. That's actually kinda ableist tbh.]

I don't judge Maddie for these mistakes, but I wish we could acknowledge that they were mistakes or better yet that the show acknowledged those mistakes. That Maddie was wrong, that Maddie hurt people with her actions when she could've acted differently. Maddie is in control and responsible for her behaviour, mental health struggles don't absolve you of that. She's not a helpless child who doesn't know any better.

[infiniteglitterfall]

anyway, reminder not to follow outrage porn stars. they get that way by posting pure disinformation and misleading bullshit. (Also please note that "Great Book Robbery" "film" is "in association with Al-Jazeera Films," the pet PR project of the Qatari monarchy:

Far from being a champion of free speech, Al Jazeera, a mouthpiece for the Qatari monarchy, is a purveyor of Islamist extremism, jihadism, and Salafism: Among other things, the channel has aired an interview with the leader of Jabahtu Alnusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot. Moreover, at one point, a guest on the popular show The Opposite Direction, a copy of the American Crossfire, has pledged his allegiance to IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Not surprisingly, during the events of the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera did not side with the revolutionaries, but rather with the Islamists.

(Reminder that "Islamist" does not mean "Islamic" or "Muslim." It's the equivalent of the far-right Christian Nationalist movement: fascism cosplaying as religious.)

In 2019, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE boycotted Al-Jazeera. It immediately claimed this was an attack on free speech.

Qatar is in the habit of backstabbing fellow Arab countries, supporting insurgent groups attempting to topple their governments, and using petrodollars to meddle in their affairs.

Thus, it is preposterous for Qatar to claim that the boycott amounts to an attack on its sovereignty: While speaking of sovereignty, Qatar funds, arms, promotes and embraces Islamist militias and organizations in Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and most of all in Egypt.

Just a random thought but can you imagine how much information about Palestinians and our history exists in Hebrew sources and we don't have access to that bc the vast majority of us don't speak it, let alone read and write it?

esp because Israel destroyed our archives so there's probably information we don't know that was sealed into those archives and are now gone forever

[violetasteracademic]

Vi are you back!? We've missed you so much! Thank you for blessing us with Elriel smut, queen!

Hi lovely anon! Well ... as far as Elriel smut, I never left, my dear! I've put out some of my proudest work on AO3 since stepping away from Tumblr (honestly, my most recent ACOTF chapter might be my favorite thing I have ever written and I have been living my best life with Velaris Memorial Hospital. And I've finally made my foray into one shots!) I've been posting very consistently and am very excited to see where I land for my 1 year AO3/baby's first fandom anniversary at the end of the month!

Am I back on Tumblr?? Sadly, until the ACOTAR fandom is a little more disco and a little less discourse, it's really not my style. I understand there was quite a mass exodus this month from the latest drama, but my personal exodus was a long time ago on an average day because even the basic daily dramas are just not something I enjoy partaking in and witnessing. And artists, writers, creators, and theorists have been quietly leaving this fandom because of the state of it for years.

I respect that the ACOTAR fandom, especially if you are very invested in the next book, is very locked into the shipwar. And if not the shipwar, it's all these little pro IC versus anti IC factions, or bat boys versus Vanserra's, or sisters versus sisters factions, and they are *all* very vicious and unkind to each other. Even without something extremely major happening, most days my feed was filled with trolls being given attention, rude memes about the other side, screenshots of people throwing around insults, finger pointing, ect. I don't think that energy is going to shift any time soon, and everyone has gotta do what they gotta do. But it's not the most inspirational or enjoyable place to feed creativity, and since I've expanded my fandom experience to much more creatively active ones like BG3 and Arcane, I've learned it doesn't actually have to be this way. This is just the way the ACOTAR fandom is. For better or for worse, I'm not sure it will ever change, because it's what a lot of people are looking for and they are gaining whatever it is they need from the environment.

That being said, Azriel and Elain are my blorbos. I wouldn't change a thing about that. I'll probably be writing about my little loves fucking and falling in love a million different ways for years to come, and have been having even more Feysand and Nessian ideas lately! So I'll keep carving out the space that is safe and enjoyable for me while trying to quiet the rest of the noise.

I do think I'll stop by whenever I have a new work that needs a cute lil banner, an announcement, and update to the master list 🥹 especially because a lot of people seem to enjoy getting their fic news on Tumblr! But I've gotta rock the post and ghost for my wellbeing.

I know this is disappointing to some. Especially those of you who have sent me anons expressing your sadness with the state of the fandom, and how exhausting it is. I see you and am hugging you. It's a bummer to come to this space looking for a safe space to connect and find your people and feel like you don't fit in! Honestly, the main reason I'm even responding is because of that. I hope you feel a little less alone. Many, many creatives in the ACOTAR space don't last. I am merely but one of them. And I think I can safely say it's never only one thing that causes people to step away, there's only the straw that breaks the camels back.

Anywho, hope this wasn't too preachy. Im not trying to change anyone's minds or tell them how to behave. I just got a few anons like this and figured it wouldn't hurt to clarify where I'm at with the ACOTAR fandom and hopefully reach anyone who has been feeling similar or alone!

I'm literally just a girl trying to survive an uncontrolled descent into fascism and live in an increasingly unlivable world. But making my favorite characters smash in the garden brings me joy, as I hope it will continue to bring all of you on the hard days!