#taiwan doing it right

[aloeverawrites]

"Lesser of two evils just means your choosing the evil you can ignore."

It means we want less evil to happen as opposed to more evil.

We have two options for what's going to happen. They're both evil. I'm going to pick the one that's going to get less people killed, in every country that the US affects. And I'm going to pick the one that will be easier to improve.

I'm picking my opponent.

[zhuhongs]

just found out the lead singer of taiwans biggest death metal band is also an active parliament member since like 2015.... and is still active as a death metal singer. he's a pretty standard taiwanese center left anti communist from what i could gather. which like as a leftist i dont really agree with but i also dont know enough abt taiwanese politics to like make a full judgement. though he seems to be a standard liberal nothing remarkable, radical, or new, not overtly horrible but just bland. but that was something i definitely did Not expect. apparently he's very pro indigenous rights and self determination for indigenous people but being in a centre left mega party like the DPP does not seem like the best way to achieve that. But yea, just thought I'd share

[waugh-bao]

[ubike-official]

gay ppl are so funny, one of my hinge matches listened to two whole accusefive albums and put one of the songs in her ig mood whatever thingy like gjfjdhdhshs, its sweet but also girl... anyways we're going on a date next week ~

[thistransient]

Complained about my visa problems too much, now I have not one but two friends offering to marry me. Never rains but it pours. 

[vamptastic]

i genuinely don't understand what capitalist countries stand to gain by fighting each other instead of collaborating economically. like why does the us warmonger against china when we would benefit more from trade? ostensibly it's for moral reasons, but regardless of the veracity of any given claim i think the united states has shown itself to prioritize economic success over human rights on a number of occasions especially during the cold war. i suppose i assume most wars are waged on the grounds of economic gain (natural resources, global political power, straight up money in the form of the military-industrial complex) but you could make an equally solid argument that just as many are waged over purely social and political issues- ethnic and religious conflict, blind nationalism, the whims of a dictator. it just confuses me at times, i guess. i have a hard time believing that the united states is bound and determined to wage war against china over human rights abuses, infringing on other countries sovereignty, and neo-colonialism in africa when we've propped up fascist dictators in many a country who've done far worse. is it literally just the association with communism? because surely whatever evil fuckers actually want war know that china is very far from communist right now. is it just nationalism? the idea that we must be on the top of the totem pole, even if our economy would stand to gain from trade? because i suppose i could believe that, but i think if that was true we wouldn't have gotten to where we are today in the first place. blegh. at the end of the day i am also ignoring the fact that many many different groups of people want war against china for reasons ranging from sinophobic jingoist nationalism to a genuine belief that the united states is a global moral watchdog determined to establish ~democracy~ worldwide. but there is a definite slant to media coverage on china right now, genuine attempts at disinformation, and given that the media in the us is so deeply tied to corporate interests it leads me to believe that there has to be some economic motive here, and it frustrates me that i can't figure out what it is.

[chaelinsbitch]

All these years and my mom still thinks that me being into kpop means that I want to marry a korean man. Like

[astoriachef]

Look, I’m obviously less worried about what the Chinese government would do with my data than I am, say the cops, or my employer, but everybody here is forgetting about Chinese propaganda and probably assumes they can “critical thinking” themselves immune to it.

[djtommotomlinson]

if louis had just planned his gig one week later i would have a week off for labour day lol now i gotta book time off and im trying to decide how much time i need

[candela888]

Same-sex marriage in 2003 vs. 2013 vs. 2023

(20 years of change)

More info below:

----

2003:

Marriage : Netherlands, Belgium, British Columbia (CA), Ontario (CA)

Civil unions : France (including overseas territories), Germany, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Rio Negro (AR), Ciudad de Buenos Aires (AR), California (US), New York (US), Hawaii (US), Vermont (US), Canary Islands (ES), Aragon (ES), Catalonia (ES), Andalusia (ES), Extremadura (ES), Castilla-La Mancha (ES), Castilla-Leon (ES), Madrid (ES), Valencia (ES), Asturias (ES), Basque Country (ES), Navarre (ES), Balearics (ES), Quebec (CA), Alberta (CA), Manitoba (CA), Nova Scotia (CA), Geneva (CH), Zurich (CH), Portugal.

----

2013:

Marriage : Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, France (including overseas territories), Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, New Zealand, Washington (US), California (US), New Mexico (US), Minnesota (US), Iowa (US), Maryland (US), DC (US), New Jersey (US), Delaware (US), New York (US), Connecticut (US), Rhode Island (US), Vermont (US), Massachusetts (US), New Hampshire (US), Maine (US), Hawaii (US), Mexico City (MX), Quintana Roo (MX).

Civil unions : Greenland, Colombia, Ecuador, Merida (VZ), United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Finland, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Australia

Recognizes marriages performed abroad : All 32 Mexican states and Israel

----

2023:

Marriage : Netherlands (including overseas territories), Belgium, United States, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, US Virgin Islands, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Malvinas/Falklands, France (including overseas territories), Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Germany, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, Malta, Guernsey, Jersey, United Kingdom, Isle of Man, Ireland, Gibraltar, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, Luxembourg, Faroe Islands, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, St. Helena, Pitcairn Islands, Gibraltar.

Civil unions : Bolivia, Italy, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Aruba, Curaçao, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, Cyprus, Estonia, Liechtenstein 

Recognizes marriages performed abroad : Namibia, Israel, Nepal, American Samoa

----

Future :

Same-sex marriage is under consideration by the legislature or the courts in Aruba, Curaçao, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, India, Japan, Liechtenstein, Namibia, the Navajo Nation, Nepal, Thailand, and Venezuela, and all countries bound by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which includes Barbados, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Suriname.

Civil unions are being considered in a number of countries, including Lithuania, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, Ukraine, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Latvia, Panama, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Thailand, and Venezuela.

----

[baekdaedream]

Within the next year.. really hoping to go to EXO, CBX, NCT Dream, and WayV concerts which is like. A lot.. but WayV’s concert tour will probably be 2024 even if it starts 2023 after the fanmeet tour ? EXO’s concert and Dream’s encore are probably this year though! But CBX I’m guessing earliest 2024 too.. because it’ll probably be like, EXO comeback + concert then Baekhyun comeback + concert ? then CBX comeback and concert? I’d love to go to Baekhyun’s concert too but okay we’ll see what happens..

[elixandre]

hate interacting with cute ppl lmao

lmao @ him laughing and rolling his eyes when the professor was like “he went to stanford so feel free to speak english with him”

and then later he goes “oh i’m so nervous it’s been a while since i spoke english…”

[thistransient]

While I was away, my friend who's down south for a month left his fan for me to borrow. Previously I had either been using my aircon extremely sparingly (only when over 30C at night) or laying on the floor sweating like god intended. The fan's arrival, however, immediately initiated an unprecedented new era of slothfulness. Where at least before there was some motive to go in search of cooler climes (the library, the park at night), now it was entirely realistic to hang out at home, sprawled in front of the device forever. The evils of technology made manifest!

Or so I thought. After a week of this, my paranoia over the one (1) query from the immigration officer was festering, and I was growing cognisant of the fact that I didn't actually want to live out my days in a tiny dark apartment, prostrated at the altar of the artificial breeze. (Or it could also be that I simply don't want to spend the rest of my life in a subtropical heat wave...) I was getting real moody about my prospects, or lack thereof. Today I decided to finally have a go at actually finishing the preliminary test for an editing company whose listing I've come across a couple times (and usually quit halfway through because imagining reading this sort of stuff for 8 hours a day seemed guaranteed to drive me batty). But recently my bff who used to have me proofread his undergrad papers started using ChatGPT to write them, leaving me bereft of grammatical errors to savage (and also the dinners he would trade for my diligent efforts).

So I almost immediately received an email prompting me to move to the next stage, HOWEVER for visa sponsorship apparently the gov't requires either a graduate degree OR a bachelors + 2 years of relevant work experience. No teaching. If blogging and editing for friends counted as experience, I would be golden. Or rather, if I could establish a paper trail for said experience...

[soxcietyy]

thinking about virgin reader asking experienced Yuta (her boyfriend) how to get off using her fingers, for when he’s gone on missions. She tries using her fingers but ends up begging Yuta for his and he fingers her in front a mirror and shows her how to get off, and Yuta praises her and tell her how good she’s doing.

(I need to be euthanized) 😵‍💫

I needed to be euthanized the second I started writing smut.

You’ve only been dating for a few month and higher up are going to be sending your boyfriend to Taiwan soon. Luckily it’s only going to be for a month but it still wasn’t fair. It was always him they sent out and everyone else got sent some place local.

Your sitting in his bed watching him throw a few pieces of clothes in a suitcase. Mumbling to himself about a piece of clothes that he wanted to take but wasn’t sure it was needed.

You remember speaking to Mei Mei about how much you were going to miss him two days ago and she said something you never thought about. Something really scandalous that you never thought of doing on your own.

"Just pleasure your sad days away." Mei Mei said as she filled out some paper work. She was in the same building because the higher ups were also sending her abroad. Not that she really minded at all though. You shook your head from the flashback of a week ago that just played in your head.

"Yuta I’m going to miss you and I just wanted to know if you could …" you couldn’t spit it out. It was so unlike you to say something like this. It was stuck in your throat and you were afraid of getting it out.

Yuta stops and turns to look at you intrigued by how your acting. Now thinking about it this meant you had to take your bottoms off and show him everything, you had yet to do that stuff. How were you possibly going to ask him for such a thing?!

"Go on." He says staring at you with his calm tired eyes.

"How to pleasure - myself…" you whisper.

He stared at you full of surprises. He put the clothes that were in his hands down. "Who told you about this because I don’t think you would come up with such a thing." He tilted his head.

Should you say it was Mei Mei? Or just say it was you so he could actually help you. At the end you said it was all your idea.

You watched him move stuff around on the floor and shuffle next to I mirror.

"You know what? Just ignore everything I said I was kidding obvi-"

"Come here," he cut you off from rambling.

Your throat tightened as he patted the empty spot in front of him. You slowly got off the bed and made your way to him. When you sat down he scooted closer to you so your back was resting on his chest. He gave you a warm smile through the mirror before getting started. He first told you to take your underwear off because you were probably going to get them messy. So you did but told him he couldn’t look because you thought it was the most humiliating thing ever. Once you were done you hid them under you and told him he could look now.

Your uniform had a skirt so he didn’t bother telling you to take it off.

"So now your supposed to get in the mood, or your probably already in the mood if your about to please yourself." He said as he lifted your skirt up, you let out a gasp as he did.

"I assume you’re already in the mood since you’re soaking right now." Yuta let out an amused laugh.

He then makes you put your legs over his so he could open them as much as he needed to with little effort. Grabbing your hand he pushes all of your fingers down other than the middle and ring finger.

"These are the fingers you’re going to use to rub yourself and to finger yourself with." He said as he moved your hand downward. He pressed them on your cunt and began rubbing circles. You jump at the new sudden sensation. It was something you’ve never felt before so it was kind of weird.

"You’ll keep doing this until you get wet or you could also just finger yourself until you get wet. Like thi- actually let me just show you first."

He uses the same to fingers and began rubbing you. You squirm under him seeing how he applied more pressure. You squeeze your eyes shut being consumed by the hot tingling feeling.

"Na ah y/n, you need to pay attention," Yuta said as he made sure you were looking at yourself at all times.

"This is the hole you want to insert yourself in." Yuta said shoving his fingers inside, stretching your inexperienced hole. You let out a whimper as you felt your walls be fuilled up by his thick fingers. Then he starts pumping his fingers in and out of you repeatedly making your legs shake.

"You can go in and out like I’m doing right now or you can stay in there and curl your fingers. Women Usually have their G-spot around this area so just keep messing around till you find it." He said as he curled his fingers. You moan at how good it felt.

"But how am I supposed to know when I find it?" You ask him.

"Oh trust me you’ll know." Just when he said that you felt that he pressed on something really sensitive.

"Ah!" You moan as you tried to squeeze your legs shut but he held them open with his.

"You see? Found it so easily. If you keep messing with that spot you’ll be good but i recommend playing with your clit too and youll finish in no time.

You grind your hips onto his his hand wanting more of this new feeling. You were so drunk on his fingers that you were mumbling nonsense.

"Good girl, enjoying the feeling? Here I’m about to show you how to make it better." He said as he leaned more and used his other hand to rub your cunt.

When he did you were a mess. Your legs were shaking as he rubbed and fingered you. You gripped his arm as you were being overwhelmed with pleasure. You bite your tongue trying to keep quiet because you guys were in Yutas dorm. If anyone heard you guy they would not let you live it down.

You Rock your hips at the rhythm he had going mumbling his name over and over again. You look up at him with a drunk look on your face. Looking as if you were begging for something.

"What is it love? Use your words." He says as he plants a kiss on your head.

You hesitate to speak but said something anyways because he was going slow and you wanted more.

"Faster Yuta." You say

He complies and starts going faster, way more faster than you wanted actually. You shake your head as you repeated the same words. "Wait, wait wait, slow down!" You say wanting to scream. It was so overstimulating that you started to kick your feet unconsciously. You start rambling and pulling on his hand so he could stop. No matter how you tried to stop him he continued.

It felt weird, something in you was feeling really off and you were scared. It was coming, something was coming. "Yuta I think in going to come" you blurt out.

"Oh yea?"

And with that he just stopped.

You look at home wide eyed. Was this how it felt like to finish? If so it wasn’t what you hopped for.

"Finish yourself off, I need to know if you actually learned something." He said as he leaned back a bit taking a rest from the hard work.

"You want me to finish?" you say timidly.

He nods as he waits for you to start.

You slowly insert your fingers inside and you’re immediately disappointed to see that it did not fill you up right. Still you curl your finger and somehow feel the pleasure but not like Yuta did for you. You then began to rub your swollen clit.

Looking in the mirror you could see how he watched you. Looking at how you play with yourself and you facial reactions. Was he always doing that? If so you couldn’t a while ago because you were too immersed into the pleasure.

"Stop looking at me and focus on yourself." He says making you look back down.

You continue for a few minutes and even if you did feel good it wasn’t as good as Yuta. You look at him with pleading eyes through the mirror.

"You barely just got started, how are you already asking for help?!" Yuta says as he leans over you once more. "Here I’ll finger you and you rub yourself."

"No I want you to do everything Yuta." You say pouting.

"This is me teaching you how to play with yourself for when I’m gone. It kind of defeats the purpose if I help."

"Please! I need you to teach me how to come." You say.

"I know what you’re trying to do and knowing me I’m going to give in and yea I’m giving in but only because you look so cute begging like that." He says as he starts again.

Your wet cunt was leaving his hand soaked in your juices. The wet sounds of his hand hitting your entrance. You moan as he looks at you.

"Good girl, you liked being fucked by my fingers?"

You nod as he starts to rub your clit giving it a few slaps before getting started. You were back to the same feeling that you loved. Once again your hips started rolling as he praised you for being such a good girl for him.

It didn’t take long for you to be over the edge again. You were twitching and moaning his name out. Tears threatened to spill out of the corners of your eyes. You started to shake your head and you threw it back on his shoulders.

”No what sweetheart? Did I accidentally make you dumb by just using my fingers? You’re so adorable like this my little airhead." He peppered you in kisses.

You toes began to curl and that when he knew you were about to come. You grip onto his arm as a wave of pleasure hit you.

"Common, cum for me sweetheart, be a good girl and come all over my fingers. Fuck, that’s it, oh yea look at all of that. Wow you came so much, Such a good girl, I need you to come like that every time You think of me." Yuta praised you as you went slack over his body.

"That wasn’t hard was it? Wait did you just fall asleep?"

[matan4il]

An incomplete "there's a good chance the icon you love and support is a Zionist" list

🌟 Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, whose family was murdered during it. Lemkin is responsible for coining the term "genocide," and for every legal provision that exists today against it. His work against genocide was inspired by his Zionism.

🌟 Martin Luther King, Jr., who did not only support Israel and its right to security, a fellow participant at a dinner with MLK shortly before his assassination quotes him as having stopped a student attacking Zionism, and replied, "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism." He also encouraged Americans in 1967 to support the Jewish state, as Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran, endangering Israeli citizens by cutting the country off from its oil supply.

🌟 Emma Lazarus, a Jewish American poet, whose words ("Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free") are engraved on the Statue of Liberty's pedestal, after they helped raise the money needed for its completion. Drawing from the value of Jewish solidarity, she also wrote, "Until we are all free, we are none of us free," adopted as a slogan by intersectionality (while many in the movement exclude Jews from it). She was a great supporter of establishing a state for Jews in the Jewish homeland, having argued for this idea years before the word "Zionist" was even coined.

🌟 The 14th Dalai Lama, the leader of the fight against the occupation of Tibet, who was invited in 1994 to Israel, at a time when China's communist regime did its best to prevent his visits anywhere in the world, and who came to Israel more than once, talking about the 2000 years long Zionism of Jewish culture in exile as an inspiration and role model for Tibetans. "Among Tibetan refugees, we are always saying to ourselves that we must learn the Jewish secret to keep our traditions, in some cases under hostile circumstances."

🌟 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who spoke more than once about how her pursuit of justice is a continuation of that very same thing in Jewish tradition. She had repeatedly referred to American Zionist Jews as sources of inspiration. For example, in 2018, during her fifth visit to Israel, in a speech she gave when receiving the Genesis Award, she mentioned two such women, Emma Lazarus and Henrietta Szold.

🌟 Nelson Mandela had an ambivalent view of Israel, but repeatedly recognized its right to exist, which makes him a Zionist, he also called upon Arab states to do the same, and was favorable towards the Zionist Jews who supported him during his underground days. Mandela being critical of Israel and still a Zionist is an apt reminder that criticizing the Jewish state and opposing its very existence are NOT the same thing, and only one's antisemitic.

🌟 Felix Salten, the Jewish author of Bambi (the book Disney's movie is based on). The tale was originally a metaphor for Jews suffering antisemitism, something Salten personally had to cope with. He was also an ardent Zionist, feeling the self-liberation at the core of this ideology suited his idea of how to deal with Jew hatred.

🌟 Sun Yat-Sen, who helped end the rule of China's last imperial dynasty, was its first provisional president, and is nowadays honored as an important Chinese leader in both China and Taiwan (sometimes referred to as "Father of the Chinese Nation"). He was an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism. Among other instances of expressing that, he wrote in a 1920 letter to a leader of the Jewish community in Shang Hai about Zionism that it is, "one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of Democracy cannot help but support wholeheartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserves an honorable place in the family of nations."

🌟 Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay Jewish sexologist, nicknamed among other things "The Einstein of Sex" and "The Father of Gay Liberation," because his medical and scientific work on human sexuality, as well as social advocacy for women's, gay and trans rights, was nothing short of pioneering. He was persecuted by the Nazis to the point where he died in exile. They broke into his institute of sexual research, where the world's first clinic performing sex reassignments surgeries was located, and burned down the institute's library. Hirschfeld had attended a Zionist conference following the Balfor Declaration of 1917, and his work on sexual liberation found inspiration in young socialist Jewish Zionist workers he met during a visit to the Land of Israel in 1931-2.

🌟 Marcia Langton, a professor and prominent Aboriginal rights activist from Australia, who has been leading the fight against racism and for her community. She spoke out against the hijacking of native rights movements by terrorist sympathizers and antisemites, and has clearly stood against all loss of life, including that of Israelis.

🌟 Felix Zandman, a Holocaust survivor whose work on resistors is integrated into many smartphones, laptops, cars, satellites, hospital ventilators (saving many Covid patients), airplanes and more. Whenever the anti-Israel crowd is scrolling social media on their phones, they're enjoying the work of a Zionist, who enthusiastically supported the State of Israel, and even introduced an important improvement to the Israeli Merkava tank, which has likely saved many Israeli lives, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, and others like him, since Israel's high tech is considered only second to Silicon Valley (going back to at least the 1990's). If they truly wish to boycott everything that's been "contaminated" by Zionism, they should probably just boycott technology.

🌟 Rosa Parks, an African American leader of the civil rights movement (and someone who personally demonstrated how one can resist without turning violent). She was one of 200 notable black American leaders who publicly organized to express their support and respect of Zionism as the Jewish right to self-determination, and Israel as the manifestation of that right.

-> Like I said, this is VERY incomplete, even just in terms of how the overwhelming majority of Jews are Zionist, and have been since the inception of Judaism, which is itself Zionist. Over the years, this led to many non-Jewish human and native rights champions to be supportive of Zionism, too. Take note of who is being vilified, when the term "Zionist" is ignorantly used as if it means anything other than belief in the equal right of Jews to liberation and self-determination in the Jewish ancestral land. Especially when it is used as being inherently evil.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[claudiafekete]

personally I'm not going to get involved in the discourses of protests in China, and here's why -

the hatred and condescension directed at Taiwanese people.

Can't read Chinese? Well, here's the English translation:

pic 1: "taiwan has not been and is not part of china". I do long for freedom and democracy, but I honestly can't accept such kind of view point. I cannot accept Taiwan Independency. I cannot accept that you renounce the unusual bond between Mainland and Taiwan, as if it's true that Taiwan should be independent, and rightly so. I'm against despotism, and against the tragedy imperialism has done to China - the Taiwan problem now. "Defend our sovereignty, punish the traitors" has been the slogan ever since the May fourth movement. pic 2: KMT won by a landslide in the reginal election in Taiwan this time. DPP will fucked up itself sooner or later. Now there's large scale protest in the occupied area. 2022 has seen the human rights movement in China, and we'll see National Assembly held. The real Republic of China is in mainland. Those idiots who seek Taiwan Independence should be left in Taiwan to rot on their own. It's their own fault for looking down on us. After we have freedom and democracy we'll become one of the world's financial centers, and Taiwan will turn into a wasteland. Go eat shit, Taiwan Independency. pic 3: It's true that people from both sides of the Taiwan strait are a family. Thank you. (The reply below: No, we're just seeing you as other human beings. We would have done the same if it were people in US today. Please stop callously forcing others into the same category as yourselves. That's quite annoying.) pic 4: People in Taipei standing up in solidarity with Chinese people. That's what "both sides of the Taiwan strait are one dear family" should look like. pic 5: I have an idea: without the communist party, with people from both sides of the strait enjoying freedom and democracy, we'll be able to find a peaceful solution to it all without effort. Reply below: Same race, same destiny. Our path will be joined. Reply at the bottom: Chinese descendants from all over the world, now facing CCP roughly destroying Chinese culture together. We have been united again!

Look, I do respect the protestors and hope they'll reach their goal despite my stressful life and empathy fatigue. I do think that it's important for stories to be out, for news to circulate.

But excuse me for not being part of the discourse when I don't know when the patronization will be thrown in my face. Please excuse me for not wanting to be stripped of my autonomy. I cannot join the fight, only to have guns pointed at me by so-called comrades or family.

I've never found anyone below me just because they live in mainland China or anywhere else in the world. Forgive me for having no desire to be put into that position either. Thank you.