#I was at a concert when I remembered this

[for-those-who-wait]

Literally read through the entirety of a dull blade while talking to @a-concert-just-for-me over the course of two days. I then proceeded to copy and paste basically every single piece of conversation and analysis into three gigantic comments. By the way, please read the fic, it's GREAT and it deserves more attention

Believe me when I say that if I talk about your work to someone, I will absolutely let you know if I remember to lmao

"should we tell authors on ao3 when we have discord conversations about their fics" i don't speak for everyone here but if y'all ever find a group chat discussing my fics you can should must and WILL send me screenshots of the whole damn thing. inflate my ego. gimme

[thefluffiestbird]

Do you ever get emotional over the fact that Andrew only genuinely smiles once in the series and it’s when Kevin finally acts out agains Riko and the Moriyamas by redoing his tattoo???? Because I do.

[fail-eacan]

My parents and their friends were discussing this idea a few months ago. It was supposed to happen at a parade, I believe. I remember my mom’s friend speaking enthusiastically about placing a Palestinian child in a manger surrounded by rubble and I remember being horrified by the fact that she clearly had no idea it was antisemitic.

I spoke to my mom afterward. She’s very anti-Israel- an academic, they both are. I said something like, “Don’t you think it’s antisemitic to use Christian iconography to imply that Israel, commonly thought of as a Jewish state, killed the christian God? Isn’t that one of the most classic examples of antisemitism like… ever?”

She just stared at me for a while and said something about Jews today claiming everything was antisemitic, even when it isn’t.

I went to an event held by Ithaca College’s Hillel last year. It was a Holocaust survivor, speaking about his experience, at the campus center. There was a security officer in full bulletproof gear with some sort of huge gun in his arms, watching the entrance.

My friend told me her Temple was taking volunteers to guard it during services because they were worried someone might come attack them.

I met a Palestinian, once. She wrote a song about violence and generational trauma. There was a choir concert where they performed it. Maybe in Watkins Glen? A few hours outside of town. It was beautiful.

I read about a Palestinian boy who when asked what he would do when he grew up said, “Children in Gaza do not grow up.”

I knew an Israeli. A girl, in my fourth grade class, named Gili. She could hardly speak English. My same friend from before became close with her. I didn’t really notice her throughout middle school- perhaps she went to Boynton, or LACS. But I saw her at IHS. She was just another one of my classmates, until she wasn’t. I didn’t notice that I hadn’t seen her in months until we were discussing war and involuntary military service in my English class. Someone said they knew someone who had been drafted into the Israeli army. I have never felt so close to the war as that moment. I hope she is safe.

I have known Jews all my life. At least while I was there, Jews were a fairly high percentage of the student population at Belle Sherman. My grandmother (a family friend, who became my grandmother when all of mine died in early childhood) is a Jewish Holocaust survivor. She has a wonderful sense of humour, and the most beautiful laugh. She has been a consistent part of my life, but is growing frailer. I can hardly bear to think about how it will be when she is gone.

My friends were mostly Jewish growing up. I knew so many Cohens as a kid I thought it was a very common name even outside the Jewish community. I didn’t realise Judaism wasn’t a huge religion (I conceptualised it as slightly smaller than Christianity) until I was in 9th grade Global History. My teacher showed us a pie chart of world religions. Judaism was hardly even there. We looked at “most common religion by country”. I was shocked that only Israel had Judaism.

I was at an afterschool program in which a few other kids and I made jewelry together out of metal wire, jeweler’s saws, brass sheets and resin. We often had political conversations. This was before Oct 7, years before, when I was in middle school. My instructor was Jewish. We were discussing Israel for whatever reason. She said she didn’t approve of how Israel treated Palestinians, but the idea that there was a place in the world that was majority Jewish was very important to her. “You never know what will happen” she said, “when you look through history we have never been safe, and we never will be. I do not approve of the modern politics of Israel, but it represents a kind of safety to me that I can never have anywhere else. I went there once, on a birthright trip, as a young woman. I remember the potency of being in the majority for the first time in my life.” I nodded, and we discussed it more. This woman, a girl, and myself. Later, the girl’s father was accused of antisemitic remarks. Later, my mother was accused of the same. The girl and I were friends. I heard she was bullied because of what her father was reported to have said.

When I was in elementary school, I was reading a book. One of those “Dear America” or “I Survived”, one of those children’s historical fiction series that I was so fond of. It was about a young girl escaping the Nazis. My mother scoffed at it and said, “they should write one of those about a Palestinian child, there’s already so many books about the Holocaust.” She was right, but she was also wrong. There should have been one about a Palestinian child. There wasn’t one. And also, there being one about a Holocaust refugee had nothing to do with that. She saw them as one or the other. Many people did, I came to find out.

When October 7th happened, posters went up around Ithaca. “KIDNAPPED” they proclaimed in large, bold lettering, “Taken by Hamas terrorists.” One of those posters had a “Free Palestine” sticker on it.

On my walk home from school every day I cross over a bridge. Someone spray-painted “LET GAZA LIVE” on the concrete. Someone else painted over that, “LET ISRAELIS LIVE” if I hadn’t known what it said before, I wouldn’t have been able to figure out the message. Either of them. It was hard to read- all the same colour, faded from rain and scrubbing.

My favourite message is over by the boulevard near Gimme! Coffee, the one that runs along one of the creeks downtown. I was walking home with my friend. We had grown somewhat apart lately. I was relived to walk with them. They stopped, at an innocuous house along the boulevard somewhere. I stopped, too. “We grieve for all Palestinians” my friend read, “We grieve for all Israelis” then underneath, “End the war in Gaza”. My friend nodded. “I like this poster,” said my friend. I agreed. We are all humans looking to live lives free from violence and terror. We are all cast into stereotypes judged on the actions of extremists who happen to share some identities with us. You are Israeli, people say. You want to murder Palestinian children, you want to steal people’s homes. You are Palestinian, people say. You want all Jews to die, you torture Jews and strap bombs to your hospitals.

I wonder what would happen if we in America could see places like Palestine and Israel the way we see our own twisted and beautiful country. Our leaders want us in constant conflict. They make money that way. Our leaders are extremists. They are elected over and over again, no matter how hard we as individuals try to fight against that current. Our fellow citizens are tricked by hateful rhetoric and vote and act against their own interests to feel a sense of belonging. We are Americans and we do not agree with our government’s actions. We are humans.

It is shameful how my community is acting. Ithaca is against collective punishment until they hear that there are some Jews, somewhere, who are hurting people. Ithaca is opposed to terrorism until there is an opportunity to throw stones at a place of worship.

People look for excuses to hurt Jews.

When I look around and see the numerous examples of Jewish lack of safety that surround me on every side, I’m reminded of that afterschool teacher. A safe place for Jews, as she said. A place Jews can defend themselves and be together. Somewhere to go when it gets ugly elsewhere. When Jews are under threat, once again.

She did not agree with Israel’s actions, and she also believed that Israel was necessary. And now when I look at Ithaca New York, my hometown, where I have lived my whole life, a place with more Jews than most others in this country, a place of education and learning, a liberal stronghold, after just a year of intensified American interest in Middle Eastern politics I have to agree with her.

I don’t know what I’m saying, really. Unconnected anecdotes that I’ve been meaning to share but I don’t have a thread to string them all together. I don’t know if they’re even relevant. I am a seventeen year old goy in Ithaca New York.

I'm feeling fucking sweary today. I just found out that some of our local pro-Hamas anti-Israel "Christians" have put up a Christmas "creche" with the baby Jesus wrapped in a kaffiyeh under a sign saying "stop the genocide."

Jesus was a Jew, not a Palestinian. It's quite possible to denounce Israel's destruction of Gaza without resorting to the ancient antisemitic charge that the Jews killed Jesus.

This is what was posted to Facebook today:

[killjoy-prince]

House M.D. but it's when a character says the name of the episode

[herewegobebe]

TAEMIN | 'The Rizzness' ✦ Metamorph

[crewicide]

The Protomen - Protoman gif board

x x x . x x x . x x x

[dreamings-free]

we have NOT talked about this enough!

..or at all really ?!

[9w1ft]

no thoughts about the latest show or the upcoming ones?

i guess i kind of feel like emotions are high in general and we are so close to the end of the tour anyways so instead of ruminating on the possible meaning of the latest shows or the upcoming ones i want to wait until the shows are over before putting thoughts together! right now im just watching it play out.

[nostalgia-eh52]

[leatherface-headspace]

lassie can hear the high pitched frequency that lights and electronics make

[julla]

briefly scrolled though the bigbang subreddit like recommended and - true, it definitely is active! which is fun. one of the first things i saw is that someone got into listening gd bc they knew him from the shoe world 😭😭 i mean that's just amazing lmao

[clubpenguist]

ive made this post before but Shoutout to Cripples who listen to punk and embrace the subculture but cant attend gigs, either due to our own disabilities or general inaccessibility. we can still engage in the subculture from our homes! and anyone who calls you a poser for that probably is an ACTUAL poser wearing shein clothes standing in the back of the room shaking in their poshmark boots cuz theyre scared of messing up their tiktok eyeliner in the mosh pit lmfao. REAL punks are anti-ableism and will share music with you and bring you back merch from the gigs you couldnt attend

[arcsin27]

[watching twitter takeover #7] why is there so much shadamy in this good god

[finally watches murder of sonic let’s play] ohh

[somethingsgottasaveyou]

everyone: you don't need to go to 2 concerts of the same show

me: you're right, i'm going to 4

[schnaf]

22 days until ode's 22nd birthday

day 22 aka THE COUNTDOWN IS OVER - ode's past birthday brrrr ppoppos

[awfullybigwardrobe44]

Do you ever experience some of your favorite media and be like “Wow actually I love this so much I’m going to cry”

And it’s something normal people would look at you weird about 😅