#which is the people who are supportive because its The Right Thing To Do

[pharmacity-weekly]

THE PHARMACITY WEEKLY- FIRST EDITION- 9/23/2024

The first edition of the Pharmacity Weekly is here! For those of you who may not know, Pharmacity weekly is a weekly newsletter summing up the events of the project SEKAI pharmacy community. Inspired by @daily-vitamin-ena and the many other blogs that have popped up surrounding her, this paper's goal is to bring the entire pharmacity together! Thank you all for the MAJOR support this past week, I genuinely wasn't expecting so many people to enjoy this so early on, otherwise I would’ve polished things up here before going around, haha.. You can read more about the blog here! So, without further ado, here’s your FIRST PAPER!

PHARMACITY IS BOOMING-

The pharmacity is in full swing, and whilst many are on hiatus, lore is still coming left and right! Currently, we have Vitahona and their group reuniting for better or worse!! Vitasaki and the mysterious person + SakiAI, Vitaairi giving us the truth, and Vitan seems to have us going through quite the rollercoaster, with what's presumably anon passing out or dreaming constantly. I will be covering different lore every week, so please don’t be afraid to check out the lore threads to catch up! @daily-vitamin-tenma-siblings has made a community discord server! Linked here !! There's lots of silly things going on, it’s also open to both audience and pharmacity mods~

NEW PHARMACITIES-

new to the pharmacity? Pop into our asks and we’ll try to boost ya!

There’s only 2 new pharmacies as I’m aware of this week, which are- @vitalapis-daily and @daily-sekai-rin-vitamins ! Everyone welcome both Fumi and Pharmacist Adi <3 ____________________________________

LORE IN DEPTH-

Keep in mind that this bit of the newspaper will almost always have SOME guessing. The lore wouldn’t be Pharmacity lore without its ominous secrecy, after all..

Anywho. VitaAiri ( @daily-vitamin-airi ) seems to have us in quite the pickle! What were those memories, no one is quite sure yet. But, it seems anon has returned to taking their daily Vitairis consistently, for better or worse. Memories of hers seem to linger.. or are they ours?

VitAn ( @daily-vitamin-an ) seems to have anon passing out often, dreams floating them to places they really shouldn’t be.. they’d like to tell Anthea, but what exactly, the audience hasn’t decided. Their last lore post was an open ended question, maybe if anon answers a certain way in the reblogs or asks, we’ll get more info.

VitaHona ( @daily-vitamin-honami ) has dumped so much fucking lore on 22/9/24 10:48 MST that the summary would not do it justice. Mod bee will post that summary when she can because. how the fuck am i supposed to summarize lore that started FEBUARY 2023. YOU INSANE BITCH/LH

And of course, let’s not forget!

VitaSaki ( @semidaily-vitaminsaki ) whose lore arc seems to have recently began this month~! A missing Saki Tenma found in a computer, her AI an almost perfect version of her, and of course the mysterious person getting… no asks? Cmon guys, I thought we were after the mystery here! Even if the audience isn’t sure about trusting them, it’s still worth trying to ask both rather than one or the other~! Let’s go looking for some answers in those asks yall, chop chop!

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PAPER UPDATES-

Temporary section of the newspaper~! This’ll be a quick section that lets yall know how far I am on threads like lore or theories, as well as any huge changes to the blog!

MODERATOR SITUATION-

I (mod bee) have successfully dragged an irl into the pharmacity~! She'll be helping me run the blog overall, and our oc lores may intertwine a bit~ She also runs @vitalapis-daily , so be sure to follow that if you'd like to peek into her lore!

LORE THREADS-

Mod bee got VitAiri confirmed updated, and I just need to go through and make the buttons. Thank god VitaAiri’s Pharmacist wasn’t too vague this time, otherwise my work would be cut out for me!

Next in my lore queue is:

VitaHona (drafted, unfinished though)

VitaNene (not started)

Tenmamins (not started)

VitaSaki (not started)

VitaRui (not started)

These are blogs/accounts mod bee will be at least LOOKING into lore for. Each blog will have their own doc that’ll be sent to their respective mod(s) and checked for accuracy, as well as asked if they’d like to keep reentry or sideblog posts!

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END OF PAPER! Thank you all for the support once again!!! We'll see you all on the next edition~ - Akko and Fumi!

Have questions or suggestions? Send em over in our asks!

[kacievvbbbb]

Idk why I find the fact Mihawk writes Y/N Reader inserts so funny but so true and I have reader inserts blocked on here like I hate them but oh my god so in character for him.

And he does not give a shit. Absolutely go king and getting fantasy dicked down by all the hot guys in one piece world I support! Also him being a sengoku shipper iconic. I was say maybe he thinks about Kuzan but I think he’s out off by his general laziness and apathy and not in a fun apathetic way like Barsolino in a depression way. ( he’s looking in a mirror and does not like it.) but if he learns Dragon used to be a marine and friends with Akainu he’s making the most toxic relationship of them friends to enemies to nemesis type shit.

He’ll write a new book and it will be a sensation and no matter the fact he changed the names everyone with a brain cell will be able to figure out who it’s about.

Sorry this took so long to reply! but

YES YES YES!!! I don't really like self insert stuff either but it's so in-character for him I'm so obsessed.

And yeah it really is just the adventures of reader as they travel across the grand line getting dicked down is definitely one of his most beloved and acclaimed series. Shanks goes hot and cold on that series a lot because while the idea of watching mihawk getting dicked down by another man is very hot Shanks is also a jealous man and he is very jealous of these "fictional" men. He tries to find out if mihawk has ever fucked any of them in real life and maybe 👀.

Also yeah I just threw in the marine thing because I thought it was funny but I'm glad it stuck out! 😂. I don't think he self ships with any of the marines (maybe in his GILF era sengoku or fujitoro) I think because none of the really strong marines appeal to him but he would fuck smoker if he was stronger. and just because I remembered dude and I think it would be so funny imagine if his only self x marine ship is with Ryokugyu (the tree admiral) I think he'd hate him in life but he's not blind. I think this realllllly pisses shanks off because he does not like him and honestly its a bit of a snake eating his own tail because a lot of the reason he doesn't like him is because of Mihawk's fanfiction of him.

I think Mihawk's natural reaction (mostly because it's mine) is to ship Sengoku with Garp but he hates Garp and even the thought of picturing him in that way is enough to make him want to pour his ears to bleach his brain. I think it be funny if during one of his lackadaisical checking out marine headquarters rooms (because realistically who is going to stop him) he stumbles upon and old picture of Garp Sengoku and Tsuru when they were young and he is very intrigued by thetwo hot young men then he notices that one of them is Garp and he almost throws up, the thought wont leave him alone tho.

Also yes i don't think Mihawk actually knows dragon but he has definitely heard of him and being Garps son is enough cause for pettitness in his eyes. Dragon's identity is a little harder to parse out I the books but Akainu's is so fucking obvious. And it is a loved and well-cherished series. Anytime that Mihawk attends a warlord meeting or just genuinely has an unpleasant interaction with akainu (which is every interaction) he puts pen to paper. It'd be funny if this was the most "tame" series though more focused on the fictional romace which confuses dragon and pisses akainu off even more because what? do they think he can't take it? and mihawk is very pleased with himself. he drops a new edition right before he goes to any warlord meeting so he can watch akainu seethe in real time as the new talk of the town takes root (this series specifically is very popular in marine towns)

as for the real life identities. I think he definitely makes it a bit hard not to protect anyone. Still, because he thinks it's fun to make people guess and adds to the mystery so there is definitely a fan club (which Shanks leads) dedicated to putting the clues together on just who all the different men are (shanks needs this for....research purposes 👀) some of them are obvious if you're in the know like the Benn ones or Crocodile while others are just plain obvious because the Red Haired Emperor is definitely shanks like if you know shanks you know its him there is only two people with hair that red. It's not kidd( it does give both kidd and shanks a bit of a reputation of some islands because his book counterpart is infinitely more dashing and "masculine" that shanks' bum and kid's manica energies) and I think he makes the Akianu ones very obvious to anybody that literally even if you've just ever heard of him you know its him just to fuck with him.

[mrgaretcarter]

It's really physically painful to me how willing people are to overlook even the possibility of romance between women in fiction and also how much they simply do not admit that they have this resistance, and I know, I know, that's how it always is, I know that even in real life people will see pictures of women literally kissing on the lips and still say they seem like very good friends, and yet it never stops being so incredibly frustrating because it's so pervasive even from people who would consider themselves open minded or allies

[gibbearish]

kinda frustrating how we've spent the last few months acknowledging how a lot of well intentioned but guilt trippy social justice posts are like specifically designed to worm into ocd ppls brains and then now every single post abt palestine is "i dont care how bad your mental health is, i dont care how bad looking at all this makes you feel, if you don't read every single post you see on this topic in full you are a horrible person and directly contributing to their deaths. 'waaaah my mental health' well at least youre not being bombed, did you think about that??" and its like. i absolutely get where youre coming from but you dont get to complain that guilt tripping is bad then turn around and use it anyways because you think the cause youre using it for is worthwhile. like. everyone thinks the cause theyre using it for is worthwhile, thats why theyre using it. but its still a shit way to do it

[monachopism]

being jewish with zero affiliation to israel and rather a generational line of activists for palestine is a hard line to walk and sometimes i wish i could just fall off

[yakityyaku]

very funny (irritating) to me that everyone whined and yelled about stupid rainbow capitalism and how performative wokeness/allyship is a net bad we should all refuse to support and now like.

tumblr is doing nothing for pride and target isn't selling much (if any) of their pride collection offline except at certain stores (in democratic areas, basically) and build a bear has a much tinier collection than normal and all the actual pride stuff is on their "adult" website (not sure if it's in stores, but pride = adult is a hell of a message)

there are genuinely good criticisms for performative allyship in all its applications. it shouldn't be the only thing we expect from people and companies. but if all the shit I see being called performative stopped tomorrow then in terms of the LGBTQ+ community especially we just. wouldn't talk about queerness or queer issues or celebrate pride or do anything.

open your fucking eyes. we are very close politically to having gay marriage rolled back. now companies are basically being let off the hook to even make a miniscule effort (which matters to the people who don't have access to any other kind of support in their communities! which normalizes the community in public spaces!) because the only reaction they have gotten over the last few years are negative ones from BOTH sides.

we are so entrenched in discourse at all times for the sake of our OWN performance of who is the wokest and who is REALLY an ally or a good community member that we have basically handed over all the work of activists of the last several decades to the other side because we'd rather scream at each other over fucking chicken restaurants and shit than the real life backsliding that's happening.

and this goes for other shit too. feminism, poc rights, all of it.

also. trans rights aren't discourse and aren't just culture war arguments. in case any terfs think they can spin this to be antitrans.

[vaspider]

While I'm writing things that I've been intending to write for a while... one of the things that I think that a lot of people who haven't been involved in like... banking or corporate shenaniganry miss about why our economy is its current flavor of total fuckery is the concept of "fiduciary duty to shareholders."

"Why does every corporation pursue endless growth?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.

"Why do corporations treat workers the way they do?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.

"Why do corporations make such bass-ackwards decisions about what's 'good for' the company?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.

The legal purpose of a corporation with shareholders -- its only true purpose -- is the generation of revenue/returns for shareholders. Period. That's it. Anything else it does is secondary to that. Sustainability of business, treatment of workers, sustainability and quality of product, those things are functionally and legally second to generating revenue for shareholders. Again, period, end of story. There is no other function of a corporation, and all of its extensive legal privileges exist to allow it to do that.

"But Spider," you might say, "that sounds like corporations only exist in current business in order to extract as much money and value as possible from the people actually doing the work and transfer it up to the people who aren't actually doing the work!"

Yes. You are correct. Thank you for coming with me to that realization. You are incredibly smart and also attractive.

You might also say, "but Spider, is this a legal obligation? Could those running a company be held legally responsible for failing their obligations if they prioritize sustainability or quality of product or care of workers above returns for shareholders?"

Yes! They absolutely can! Isn't that terrifying? Also you look great today, you're terribly clever for thinking about these things. The board and officers of a corporation can be held legally responsible to varying degrees for failing to maximize shareholder value.

And that, my friends, is why corporations do things that don't seem to make any fucking sense, and why 'continuous growth' is valued above literally anything else: because it fucking has to be.

If you're thinking that this doesn't sound like a sustainable economic model, you're not alone. People who are much smarter than both of us, and probably nearly as attractive, have written a proposal for how to change corporate law in order to create a more sensible and sustainable economy. This is one of several proposals, and while I don't agree with all of this stuff, I think that reading it will really help people as a springboard to understanding exactly why our economy is as fucked up as it is, and why just saying 'well then don't pursue eternal growth' isn't going to work -- because right now it legally can't. We'd need to change -- and we can change -- the laws around corporate governance.

This concept of 'shareholder primacy' and the fiduciary duty to shareholders is one I had to learn when I was getting my securities licenses, and every time I see people confusedly asking why corporations try to grow grow grow in a way that only makes sense if you're a tumor, I sigh and think, 'yeah, fiduciary duty to shareholders.'

(And this is why Emet and I have refused to seek investors for NK -- we might become beholden to make decisions which maximize investor return, and that would get in the way of being able to fully support our people and our values and say the things we started this company to say.)

Anyway, you should read up on these concepts if you're not familiar. It's pretty eye-opening.

[mynqzo]

reposting this information to it's own post because asker was a racist.

What's going on right now in the Republic of Georgia / Sakartvelo? A new legislation just passed that official bans - human rights essentially, gay-marriage, gender-firming care and surgery, any 'promotion' of queer identity. Soon after this legislation passed, trans model Kesaria Abramidze was murdered as a direct consequence of this.

Why is this super extra bad? Besides the several many lives at stake, the safety of queer families and the lethality of hate crimes, Georgia's wish to enter the EU is falling to a complete simmer due to this, soon to be extinguished completely. Here is an article about the international reaction to this legislation:

What can you do to help? The biggest thing we currently rely on is international push back especially from the EU members and the possible overturn of this in the upcoming election. It does not help that this law is implemented due to greedy fucks and Russian puppets in Georgia who benefit from this. source:

You might hear many refer to this as 'Russian law' which is due to the fact that Georgia, under this puppet-leadership mimics Russian laws like the 'Foreign Agents Law' that was put into work only a few months prior the law assumes 'only receiving foreign funds makes an organization a foreign agent.' and I don't think I have to explain how horrendous that is.

We also rely on our president to veto the legislation before it goes into 'full effect' (though the consequences and effect have already begun) but even with this the political party which instated this legislation argue to over-ride her veto in parliament. source:

The most important thing right now is vocal pushback, and public support of the queer community. with what happened to Kesaria (may she rest in peace) a lot of trans people are fearing for their lives, and queer families no longer can remain in their own country if they want to continue to be themselves in any way.

Spread love, a lot of it like as much as you can offer to queer Georgians everywhere.

[timemachineyeah]

Keep seeing posts in solidarity with the WGA strike that say things like “no one cares about your favorite shows” and “fuck your tv show. I hope it gets canceled” and while I understand and agree with the underlying sentiment, which is clearly “Real people are more important than fictional ones, you dipshit” I don’t like the framing because, well, it feels shitty to dismiss the importance of the work made by the workers we’re trying to defend.

No one cares about your favorite shows more than the writers do.

No one understands the power and importance of tv and film more than the writers who created them.

No one loves tv, movies, games, and stories more than the people who fought tooth and nail in an incredibly competitive and underpaid profession for the chance to be part of it.

They know it’s important. They know it changes lives. They know it can be more than just a story, more than just a bit of entertainment. They’ve loved and respected this medium, continue to love and respect this medium, more than you ever will.

The person who wants a show to get canceled the least is the writer who poured their everything into making it good.

TV and movies are great, actually, and you are not wrong to be invested and care about them. That’s what the writers gave you. That’s what the writers wanted when they wrote it. That’s why they wrote it.

Which is why we respect them when they make the call that this strike and its demands are worth risking it.

The people on that picket line do not want their shows canceled. They want to keep writing them. They can’t, not under the current conditions.

So we accept the risk with them and support them.

But I don’t want to berate the power and importance of their work, the value they put into it and the love they have for it, in the same breath that I am defending their strike. Worthy shows will likely get canceled or derailed and that will be a tragedy worth mourning. The writers know that better than anyone.

So when they say something else is even more important, we listen. And when your favorite show gets ruined, you make sure your fully justified anger and grief is pointed in the right direction - at the CEOs who killed it.

[thebreakfastgenie]

It is extremely disturbing how many posts I see claiming that Roe v. Wade was overturned on Biden's watch and blaming him and the Democratic Party for it. It's disturbing on a number of levels.

First, it was Trump and Bush-appointed justices who handed down the Dobbs decision. This is a flagrant example of blaming Democrats for things Republicans did, and not coincidentally is one of the the most widely felt differences between the two parties. As a result, it's usually the first example Democrats and their allies point to; this misappropriation suggests a deliberate attempt to undercut that fact.

Secondly, and related to the first point, it obfuscates who the real enemy is, and I am comfortable using word "enemy" to describe the Republican Party because of the policies they advocate and enact. The truth is that states controlled by the Republican Party were where the effects of Dobbs are most severely felt, while states controlled by the Democratic Party are passing laws to protect abortion. It is important to know which party opposes abortion and which party supports it. If the Republicans gain control of the House, Senate, and White House, they will pass a national abortion ban, as they have done at the state level in several places.

Thirdly, blaming Biden for Dobbs demonstrates a very concerning lack of understanding of how the government functions. The judiciary is its own branch of government; judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. It doesn't matter who is president when a decision is handed down, it matters who was president when the justices were appointed. People sometimes react to this by moving the goalposts and claiming the real issue was a failure by Democrats to "codify" Roe v. Wade. I am not sure what "codify" means in this context, and I'm not sure they are either. One thing it does not mean is that congress can pass a law saying "abortion is legal forever." Republicans could easily repeal such a law and it the federal government cannot necessarily prevent states from restricting abortion at the state level. Roe v. Wade was a ruling stating that the constitution guaranteed a right to privacy, which included the right to have an abortion. This prevented abortion restrictions in a way federal law cannot. That doesn't mean passing federal law protecting abortion is a bad idea, but it isn't a foolproof protection. It's fair to argue that the Democratic Party and the left of center generally were complacent about abortion. The form of this complacency was not taking the courts seriously, while the right spent fifty years openly filling the courts with anti-abortion judges.

The last thing that worries me is that this is popping up phrased almost the exact same way all over the place. I am afraid that it is not merely incompetence, but intentional misinformation, that is then repeated by the incompetent who believe it.

I know some will probably dismiss this post as being from a "vote harder" liberal Biden supporter, but whatever your feelings about Biden, the Democratic Party, or the democratic process in the U.S., you should care about the truth. The truth is that Roe v. Wade was overturned by Republican-appointed judges and abortion bans are being enacted by Republican elected officials, and Joe Biden opposes these things. You can do with that information whatever you wish, but you denying it is dishonest.

[ursie]

Brennan’s statement on Palestine :

[ ID: Statement from Brennan Lee Mulligan, on Instagram. It consists of three black squares with plain white text. The text reads as follows:

"I'm calling on my government officials to immediately demand a ceasefire and de-escalation in Gaza.

I applaud anyone and everyone calling for peace, with the understanding that real peace only exists if it deeply and honestly accounts for and fully ends violence in all its forms. Real peace addresses and corrects wrong-doing in the past and guards against it in the future. It goes hand in hand with justice and requires truth, restoration, reconciliation, reparation.

Peace cannot co-exist with collective punishment, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. It cannot co-exist with blockades, embargoes, or with 2.2 million people, half of which are children, trapped with no hope of escape or political recourse. it cannot co-exist with murdered journalists, bombed hospitals, or years of protesters being shot and killed at the border. it cannot co-exist with illegal settlements, segregated roads, and the silent, imperial chill that settles over the gaps in the violence - the unspoken geopolitical consensus that a group of people need to unflinchingly accept permanent subjugation and occupation.

My hear breaks for every Israeli person who lost loved ones during the attacks of October 7th. It breaks for every Ukrainian person who has lost their loved ones. It breaks for every Congolese person who has lost their loved ones. I do not speak on behalf of Palestinians now because some lives are worth more than others. I speak on their behalf because I, and all Americans, have a responsibility to pressure our government because we are responsible for this. Some have said that this situation is complicated. The Unites States government clearly disagrees. It has definitively, categorically, militarily chosen a side, and I do not agree with that decision.

In wiring this, I have been wrestling with what I am sure many people like me wrestle with: There is a powerful narrative surrounding violence in the Middle East that asserts and ever-moving goalpost of self-education and study in order to even be qualified to have an opinion. As someone with a love of research, I have at times in my life fallen into the trap that I am not educated enough clever enough, or aware enough to have a worthwhile perspective, and that three more articles and two more lectures and one more book will do the trick. Unfortunately, democracy doesn't work that way - we, the citizens of any democracy, cannot possibly be experts on every aspect of the policies of our governments, and yet if we do not constantly weigh in an make our voices heard, the entire experiment falls apart. Not only do people constantly doubt themselves and the things they can see with their own two eyes, but old shortcuts for political action can fall apart as well: This specific issue exists along a raw, charged and unique faultline in American Politics. Nobody I grew up with has ever challenged me on my support for abortion rights, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, none of it. The people in my country who would despise me for those positions are, for all intents and purposes, strangers to me. But there are people who I've broken bread with and shared honest affection with who will see the words I've written here and incorrectly conclude that I do not wish for the security, dignity and happiness of them and their loved ones, and that breaks my fucking heart. Full-throatedly condemning the actions of the Israeli government while battling rampant anti-semitism at home is an urgent moral necessity, and doing so is made unnecessarily challenging for the average person to navigate by the pointed obfuscations of cynical opportunists, bigots, and demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum who see some advantage in sowing that incredibly dangerous confusion.

So, I'm calling my representatives. I'm having hard conversations with friends and family. I'm here, talking to you. I should have done it sooner. If you're Israeli and hurt by this statement, know that I want freedom, dignity, security and peace for you, and that every ounce of my political awareness believes whole-heartedly that the actions of your government are not only destroying innocent lives, but doing so to the detriment of you and your loved ones' safety. If you're American and feel lost and confused - I understand and empathize. This, the whole country, only works when we get involved. I am constantly haunted by the specter that maybe I missed some crucial piece of information on this, or any, important world event. I'll just have to make my peace with that self-doubt and trust my gut by going with Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations, etc. And if you're Palestinian and reading this: I unreservedly support your right to life, to freedom, to happiness and human flourishing, to full enfranchisement and equal rights, to opportunity, prosperity and abundance, to the restoration of stolen property and land, and to a Free Palestine." End ID ]

[gothhabiba]

Hi, this is very ignorant. I'm trying to read as much as I can on Palestine and Zionism but there is one point I cannot find an answer for. Given that Zionism is not Judaism, given that at the beginning most Jewish people did not share this view and was actually supported by christians with antisemitic views, given that it was conceptualized as a colonial project that could only be actualized by ethnically cleanse Palestine, one thing I don't know how to disagree with Zionists is the idea that Jewish people do come from that land. Even if European jews are probably not genetically related to the Jewish people from there, I think Jewishness is something that can be constructed as related to that land. This of course does not mean that Palestinians are not natives too and they have every right to their land. However I don't really know how to answer when Jewish (Zionists) tell me that Jewish people fled that land during the diaspora. Other than "yeah but the people that stayed are native that underwent christianization before, arabization later, grew a sense of nationhood in the 19th century and are Palestinians now"

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what "indigeneity" is to believe that it means "whoever has the oldest claim to the land." Rather, to describe a people as "indigenous" is a reference to their current relationship to the government and to the land—namely that they have been or are being dispossessed from that land in favour of other private owners (settlers); they have a separate, inferior status to settlers according to the law, explicitly; they are shut out of institutions created by the settler state, explicitly; they are targeted implicitly by the laws of the settler state (e.g. Israeli prohibitions against harvesting wild thyme or using donkeys or horses for transportation); the settler state does not punish violence against them; &c. &c.

It is a settler-colonialist state that creates indigeneity; without one, it is perfectly possible for immigrants to move to and live in a new location without becoming settlers, with the superior cultural and legal status and suppression of a legally inferior population that that entails.

If all that were going on were some Jewish people feeling a personal or religious connexion to this land and wanting to move there, accepting the existing people and culture and living with them, not expelling and killing local populations and creating a settler-colonialist state that privileges them at the expense of extant populations, that would be a completely different situation. But any assertion of the land's fundamental Jewish-ness (really they mean white or European Jewishness—the Jewish Arabs who were already in Palestine never seem to figure in these arguments) is a canard that distracts from the fundamental issue, which is a people's right to resist dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

Decolonize Palestine lays out some of the ethnic and cultural history of the region, but follows it up with:

So, what does this all mean for Palestine? Absolutely nothing. Although the argument has many ahistorical assumptions and claims, it is not these which form its greatest weakness. The whole argument is a trap. The basic implication of this line of argumentation is as follows: If the Jewish people were in Palestine before the Arabs, then the land belongs to them. Therefore, the creation of Israel would be justified. From my experience, whenever this argument is used, the automatic response of Palestinians is to say that their ancestors were there first. These ancestors being the Canaanites. The idea that Palestinians are the descendants of only one particular group in a region with mass migrations and dozens of different empires and peoples is not only ahistorical, but this line of thought indirectly legitimizes the original argument they are fighting against. This is because it implies that the only reason Israel’s creation is unjustified is because their Palestinian ancestors were there first. It implies that the problem with the argument lies in the details, not that the argument as a whole is absolute nonsense and shouldn’t even be entertained. The ethnic cleansing, massacres and colonialism needed to establish Israel can never be justified, regardless of who was there first. It’s a moot point. Even if we follow the argument that Palestinians have only been there for 1300 years, does this suddenly legitimize the expulsion of hundreds of thousands? Of course not. There is no possible scenario where it is excusable to ethnically cleanse a people and colonize their lands. Human rights apply to people universally, regardless of whether they have lived in an area for a year or ten thousand years. If we reject the “we were there first” argument, and not treat it as a legitimizing factor for Israel’s creation, then we can focus on the real history, without any ideological agendas. We could trace how our pasts intersected throughout the centuries. After all, there is indeed Jewish history in Palestine. This history forms a part of the Palestinian past and heritage, just like every other group, kingdom or empire that settled there does. We must stop viewing Palestinian and Jewish histories as competing, mutually exclusive entities, because for most of history they have not been. These positions can be maintained while simultaneously rejecting Zionism and its colonialism. After all, this ideologically driven impulse to imagine our ancestors as some closed, well defined, unchanging homogenous group having exclusive ownership over lands corresponding to modern day borders has nothing to do with the actual history of the area, and everything to do with modern notions of ethnic nationalism and colonialism.

I would also be careful about mentioning a sense of "nationhood" or "national identity" in this context, as it could seem to imply that people need a "national" identity (a very specific and very new idea) in order not to deserve genocide. Actually the idea that Palestinians lacked a national identity (of the kind that developed in 19th-century Europe) is commonly used to justify Zionism. Again from Decolonize Palestine:

This slogan ["A land without a people for a people without a land"] persists to this day because it was never meant to be literal, but colonial and ideological. This phrase is yet another formulation of the concept of Terra Nullius meaning “nobody’s land”. In one form or the other, this concept played a significant role in legitimizing the erasure of the native population in virtually every settler colony, and laying down the ‘legal’ and ‘moral’ basis for seizing native land. According to this principle, any lands not managed in a ‘modern’ fashion were considered empty by the colonists, and therefore up for grabs. Essentially, yes there are people there but no people that mattered or were worth considering. There is no doubt that Zionism is a settler colonial movement intent on replacing the natives. As a matter of fact, this was a point of pride for the early Zionists, as they saw the inhabitants of the land as backwards and barbaric, and that a positive aspect of Zionism would be the establishment of a modern nation state there to act as a bulwark against these ‘regressive’ forces in the east [You can read more about this here]. A characteristic feature of early Zionist political discourse is pretending that Palestinians exist only as individuals or sometimes communities, but never as constituting a people or a nation. This was accompanied by the typical arrogance and condescension towards the natives seen in virtually every settler colonial movement. That the early settlers interacted with the natives while simultaneously claiming the land was empty was not seen as contradictory to them. According to these colonists, even if some scattered, disorganized people did exist, they were not worthy of the land they inhabited. They were unable to transform the land into a modern functioning nation state, extract resources efficiently and contribute to ‘civilization’ through the free market, unlike the settlers. Patrick Wolfe’s scholarship on Australia illustrates this dynamic and how it was exploited to establish the settler colony.

[artbyblastweave]

Playing through Fallout:New Vegas for the first time in years. And I'm developing a newfound appreciation for the damage done to the intended pacing of the narrative with the addition of the Courier's Stash. I wake up in Goodsprings, and as part of the extended tutorial you have Ghosttown Gunfight, the fairly self-contained faction war between Goodsprings and the Powder Gangers. And the design intent, I think, is that this is probably supposed to be a pain in the ass, with only one or two avenues of support available to you given the low level at which you'll pick this one up. Six Powder Gangers, some in body-armor, would be a serious threat, and committing to fighting against that with your dinky 9mm and a varmint rifle seems like a rough time! An actual uphill battle, doing the right thing instead of the easy thing. Fortunately, Benny inexplicably left my handy 40mm grenade launcher in the grave with me, so I cleaned up.

I'm working my way south, and, you know, in a version of the game where Benny didn't inexplicably leave my handy 40mm grenade launcher in the grave with me, this would have been the knock-on effect of my "good" Karmic choice in defending Goodsprings; the road south is littered with powder gangers who'd have been neutral had I not kicked the hornet's nest. As it stands? Free experience. I hit Primm, and fighting through the cramped hallways of the Bison Steve I encounter an enemy armed with what was clearly supposed to be the first heavy weapon I'd encounter in the world. Tight Corridors. Inexplicable Grenade Launcher. I clean up. South I go to the Mojave outpost, Nipton, that whole thing. And clearly, clearly you aren't meant to take a swing at Vulpes here, right? You're supposed to take it in, get a sense for the legion. In the version of the game that shipped you're supposed to get bodied if you try to kick the beef gate here. There are allowances in the game for if you pull it off, sure, but I did try with just the service rifle, without the glorious first-strike capabilities afforded to me by the 40mm grenade launcher that Benny inexplicably left in the grave with me. It didn't go very well!

So now I'm dogged by Legion hit squads on my way to Novac, which I get the distinct impression was not the point in the game at which this was supposed to start happening to me, because I am gathering up some pretty expensive equipment, all sold for space. I punch through to Vegas, and at this stage, the clear developer intent is that you need to spend some time milling around Freeside or Camp McCarran in order to gain access to the Strip- do odd jobs to scrape up the money, buy the forgery from Mick and Ralphs, gain monorail access, get your science skill high enough to hack the robot. Get the lay of the land, get a feel for the people, send some time stewing in the human cost of House's walled garden before you head in and hear the pitch from the big man himself.

Except I've got 5000 caps from selling off all the legion killteam equipment. In I go!

And the fun thing is, right, the Courier's stash can't be diegetic, but it is having a very direct impact on the world here. A top legion guy just went down to my inexplicable 40mm grenade launcher. Whatever else I'm roleplaying as, I am roleplaying as a guy who woke up in the possession of an inexplicable 40mm grenade launcher, and neither I nor my character can plausibly ignore that fact given its terrible bloodstained utility. I play a man, a man who would be a good man, a man nonetheless bewitched by the terrible resolutory power of the grenade launcher. My best friend, the inexplicable 40mm grenade launcher! My worst enemy, the inexplicable 40mm grenade launcher!

[autogyne-redacted]

Let's Talk About Security Culture: Why Keeping Secrets is Cool and Sexy

It's a natural impulse -- if you love crime -- to want to talk about how great it is. And if you hate America, it's only natural to want to share your dreams for its future with the rest of tumblr dot com. It can feel brave and transgressive. And there is a drive to share your soul with the world at the heart of social media. Surely I should be posting the most concrete implications of my politics, right? This is the poster's curse.

Security Culture refers to a set of "best practices" developed over the past several decades, largely (in a US context) coming out of radical environmental groups as they faced intense state repression, infiltration and entrapment. If you're not familiar, there's some fascinating crimethinc write ups to give you a window into that world:

Much of it boils down to: don't talk about crimes, past or forthcoming with people who don't need to know about them, and be mindful of the possibility of surveillance and infiltration. And, we can support each other as a community in minimizing risks, with an eye towards enabling bold action rather than getting bogged down in fears and anxieties. The guidelines that make sense for AG-based trouble-makers are different from the guidelines that make sense for posters, but plenty of common principles apply. To speak briefly to our position here as posters:

First, it bears saying that long term anonymity is extremely nearly impossible to maintain. Unless you've never accessed Tumblr without a vpn, and avoided connections with other ppl who can be associated with you/your location, and never shared pictures without scrubbing metadata, and a bunch of other 100% consistent steps, it's trivial for the state to know who you are.

Second, just because something isn't actively being prosecuted now doesn't mean it can't be prosecuted later. The priorities of the state change and a shift in power towards the right or a growth in radical action from the left can suddenly make it a priority to destroy anarchist networks or just find a few ppl to prosecute as examples (who probably weren't that plugged into larger networks before getting arrested. Advocating for specific anti-government crimes or declarations of intent to commit such crimes are likely prosecutable even if charges don't stick they're an easy vector for legal harassment.

Third, it's worth thinking about heat as separate from prosecutability. There are modes of engagement that may not be directly criminalized but signal that you are someone worth watching. Some people choose to be public in ways that make heat unavoidable. But it's worth noting that heat isn't strictly individualized, that it persists over time but also is going to shrink over time.

It's easy on here, ime, to see yourself as a proud member of the crime fandom but not much of a content creator. And it's easy to feel like you've generated an amount of heat where you're locked into that role. But heat you generated 10 years ago is probably pretty well gone. Heat you generated 5 years ago has faded substantially. It's worth thinking about how the world might shift in the coming years and what doors you want to keep open.

The non-individualized nature of heat also means that leaning into the spiciest of anti-state positions will make it a bad idea for people who are acting out those positions end up tied to you. Loudly talking about how "more people should be doing [X/Y/Z]" unfortunately sets you up to remain distant from people who might be doing or thinking about doing such things.

Which brings me back to: keeping secrets is sexy. Not spelling everything out builds intrigue. You can lay out a theoretical position and leave working out the practical implications of that as an exercise for the reader. There's value in opacity. The poster's curse and the drive to confess are extremely convenient for the state, but we can resist them. We can hold dreams in our hearts that we refuse to offer up to the posting spectacle.

[batboyblog]

I'm seeing a worrying amount of idiots on tumblr dot com push that "Kamala hates trans women" and I am losing my mind at how they are pushing it, constantly, saying she is a proven transmisogynist, despite it being a complete lie and her actively working behind the scenes to help trans women in prison. Is there like, sources that could help debunk this shit because I'm at my wits end as these people scream and cry and vomit trying to get biden to drop out but then are like "eghhhh still don't wanna vote for a transphobic cop..." when she's NEITHER-

Isn't the internet wonderful? first rule NEVER examine your priors! ALWAYS! hang onto whatever the first hot take you had on a subject to THE DEATH!

"Kamala is Transphobic!" over here in reality

past that trans and LGBT rights groups have been quick to endorse her like

Advocates for Trans Equality

Human Rights Campaign

just today 1,100 LGBT celebrities, lawmakers and leaders endorsed her

“The intersection on the issue of reproductive care and trans care, and the ability of families to be able to have care for their children and their families, is really, again, an intersection around attacks that are on an identity,” -Vice-President Harris, 2023

any ways the root of the idea she's transphobic comes from one case in 2015. Two inmates in the California State Prison system sued to get GRS, which as inmates would have been covered by the Prison system. It's worth noting here, both women got what they wanted, one was paroled and got the surgery covered by California Medicare while the other serving a life sentence was ultimately covered by the prison system.

Two things are important to bear in mind here, 1. Part of the job of California Attorneys General is to defend the state when it is sued, thats the job, 2. It seems early on in the case Harris was not personally aware of it, about 1,000 lawyers work in the Cali AG's office and so the AG cannot be personally aware of every case, and check this quote from the Lambda Legal lawyer handling the case:

“The California AG’s office shifted its handling of these cases significantly after now-Sen. Harris took over,” Renn said. “Initially there was language in briefing for the state that glaringly misunderstood the medical necessity of transition-related medical care and was patently offensive. But then, there was a dramatic change, which seems to have gone along with important policy shifts.”

Link

in 2019 Harris talked about the case and working after it was settled to change the policy of the California State Prison system

"When that case came up, I had clients, and one of them was the California Department of Corrections. It was their policy. When I learned about what they were doing, behind the scenes, I got them to change the policy," Harris said.

"I commit to you that always in these systems there are going to be these things that these agencies do. And I will commit myself, as I always have, to dealing with it," Harris said.

Any ways Harris can consistently spoken out for and supported Trans people, banned the hateful Trans panic defense when she was AG, in the Senate supported the Equality Act, during her 2020 campaign for President she drew attention to the hate crimes against black trans women while holding herself accountable for the 2015 case. As Vice-President she drew fire voicing support for Dylan Mulvaney during the hellish Bud Light backlash. Her Husband Doug was tapped to host the first ever White House Trans Day of Remembrance

basically you're looking at a great ally who clearly supports trans rights, who was involved in a case, which involved two people who got the surgeries they were looking for paid for by the State of California, close to 10 years ago now, there's evidence that both she moved the case in a better direction when she took over it and also that she changed the polices of the state to before more gender affirming.

[ultfreakme]

"Gojo should've gotten to live as a person-" THAT’S THE POINT. That is the ENTIRE point of JJK. Every single character who died was someone who "should've gotten to" do a lot of things. Riko should've gotten to live for herself, Geto should've had the chance to be a teenage boy given support and safety, Junpei should've gotten to live without fear, Nobara should've had the chance to let people in without fear, Nanami, Yuki, Mai, Higurama, EVERYONE.

Here's the thing, Gojo is on this list. Gojo isn't the exception because JJK at its core is a story about how overarching systems destroy people; bullying, capitalism, sexism, etc. And this system does not need people to run it. Which is why killing Kenjaku didn't stop shit because yeah he started this mess but its grown beyond him. Fuck, it was there before him.

This is also why despite Sukuna & Uraume being the only ones who are actual threats, nothing is better. The cast got rid of the higher-ups, jujutsu tech as it is, is no more. The major families are dismantled. This should be a victory. This is what the Sashisu gen pointed out as the problem but things have never looked more bleak.

Why? Because the problem isn't Kenjaku, Sukuna, curses, sorcerers or curse users. It's the existence of Cursed Energy itself. This has been pointed out multiple times by Yuki. Its the system and Gojo has been complicit to the system for a long, long time. He's also it's victim. Gojo says he's the exception a lot, but as everyone has rightfully pointed out, he was nothing more than a weapon to jujutsu society.

JJK has followed a very clear pattern to every character right from Geto to Junpei to Riko; characters are representatives of systems of suppression, and they will not escape it. I can't recall a single character that's escaped unscathed, much less alive.

Is it disrespectful? Yes. Is it demeaning? YES. There has not been a single character death that's been dignified in JJK. It's all on a scale of bearable to absolutely horrifying. It is genuinely wild seeing people resort to threatening the author AGAIN. Calm the fuck down. You are entitled to feeling upset about how Gojo has been treated but Yuta stans are being calm despite Yuta arguably suffering the "he is a weapon" thing WORSE. It's still a fictional character and JJK's narratives never treated Gojo with any exceptions despite the character saying otherwise.