#THEY WILL STRIP AWAY YOUR RIGHTS SYSTEMATICALLY | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

batsplat · 5 months ago

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“the issue was that valentino had thought that he could fix that bike - and while obviously he did influence that project, it was still several years away from being particularly close to being fixed. those two years are all about frustration, of trying to make changes to the bike and nothing working... which was enough to make valentino willing to accept yamaha's terms as long as he could get back to a point where he was competitive again. because he had begun to doubt himself, because after two miserable years of injury, a bike that oscillated between throwing him off and just being slow, the tragedy he and the sport suffered at sepang 2011... well, more than anything else, he just wanted to enjoy himself again”

sorry to copy whole chunks of your work into your inbox and idk if you meant it to sound this way or if it’s an accident but reading this part you could have also been talking about marc’s last years at honda (heartache! my god, my chest twisted) and his switch to ducati and it’s rather interesting… that this happened at almost the same age for them… through almost the same situation………. idk, as different as they sometimes seem, it’s almost like they are meant to be viewed as two versions of the same

(x) maybe a teensy bit on purpose lol

yeah, look, obviously there's plenty of notable differences between the two situations - from how serious the injury was to the personal tragedy valentino went through during that time to the disparity in their ages (three years doesn't sound like a lot but in this sport it kinda is). personally, I didn't really doubt that much that marc could be a title contender again, but from the way he speaks about it, talking during this last presser that he was considering retirement at assen last year... look, some of the stuff early this year was expectation management and of course he's perfectly capable of lying about this stuff, but he very obviously did have some serious doubts about the extent to which he could be competitive again. this is the thing, right... he just hadn't been able to fight at the front of the field for so long, plus he was on a bike that is just ideal for slowly stripping away the confidence of a rider. if you're constantly unexpectedly crashing because you just can't trust the feedback you're getting from the bike, that's just psychologically incredibly tough to deal with (incidentally broadly an accurate description of the ducati during the early 2010s)

which is where the parallels with valentino really do come in, don't they... it's the confidence, the way for the first time in their careers, it's really been systematically stripped down... all this self doubt, the way they're struggling to find themselves again. of course, they'd both gone through rough patches before - the 2006-07 period for valentino, 2015 for marc. they've had a few knocks, it's not as easy to shrug off injuries any more, they know there's no guarantee they'll measure up to the riders they once were. I compiled valentino talking about marc's injury here, but most relevant is how he compares it to his own 2010 injuries. so you have this in july 2020:

I think it's interesting that valentino acknowledges that it helped he knew his title charge was over after the broken leg, to force him to give it up and just focus on his recovery. it's easier, right - if he'd been in marc's situation, it's entirely possible he would've tried to race the following week too. I also think this is an interesting way of framing his actual recovery process, where he *checks notes* still came back way sooner than everyone expected,leading to speculation he didn't really believe his title charge was over - plus kept delaying surgery to the shoulder to the off-season even though it was very obviously hampering him, which then continued to be an issue the following year. like, okay, great job, you didn't try to ride a motogp bike WITH A BROKEN LEG, but also "I only thought about getting better" doesn't quite match up with your actions buddy

as valentino acknowledges, the sport does have a history of near-miraculous comebacks... I feel like these days people only remember 2010 and not the 2017 knock-off

and of course marc's ill-fated decision has to be seen within this context. the ways in which he was influenced by the comebacks from other riders in the past (the most famous of which is probably jorge assen 2013) and by how he himself had a habit of somewhat improbably recovery timelines after constant off-season surgery. from the vale race recs post *wink wink* *nudge nudge*:

valentino also compares his own mugello injury with marc's in september of 2020:

so you also get valentino agreeing with the parallel between honda's situation in 2004 and 2020. of course, the situation in 2004 wasn't as dramatic for honda - but in both cases, they went into that season fully expecting to win that title and instead found themselves underperforming and losing

moving on to comparing the injuries: valentino says his initial injury was worse, but it was marc doing the crazy fast comeback that really fucked him over (which is all true). he talks about why it's so tough... the "physical side" of the pain when you ride the bike but also "on a mental level if you have any fear". how this leaves a "mark on all riders". not particularly hard to draw any parallels here, he's already doing it for us

and lastly in november 2020, again with reference to his own 2010 injury:

talking about how eventually it becomes not just about the career but also about quality of life... how it was a tough period for him because he was just in constant pain... "sometimes you need time"... again, not really much to add, is there. the following years are a brutal double whammy of sorts: not only are you attempting to recover from your worst career injury, not only are there massive reasons why you're suffering (chronic pain, personal tragedy), but also you're suddenly uncompetitive in a way you've never been before in the premier class. you know there's a real possibility your time at the top of the sport is over... that even if you get back on a competitive bike, there's no guarantee you'll be able to come close again to being the rider you once were. you've ridden a bike that's gradually sapped your confidence, your ironclad trust in your own ability to be able to master any bike... you've spent so much time away from the top positions, and you've also made way more high profile mistakes that you had at any stage of your career. for valentino, the most memorable one is obviously jerez 2011 - which, yeah, you can write it off as just a dumb error in the wet, but it's not the kind he'd make if he didn't see this as his one chance to get a big result this early in the season with the crap bike and the crap shoulder (this is 'ambition outweighs talent'). for marc, it's silverstone 2021 (as martin says afterwards, "I hope he can learn from this one and improve for the future", which is great snark lol), portimao last year (y'know, the home crowd booing him)... arguably aragon 2022 the first lap, but that one's not quite as bad a misjudgement (admittedly, he maybe should've called it a day after the first collision). obviously, valentino was never a particularly crash-prone rider until he got on that ducati - but it's worth remembering marc wasn't really known for this kind of error, where he was collecting other riders and causing them both to crash. all of this isn't fun! it's also just kind of humiliating! they're used to so much success, and now they're getting barely any of that - while also occasionally having to go around apologising to other blokes for annoying errors they weren't really making back in the day!

then from marc's end, you've got this quote from 2014 (credit to this post):

of course, knowing marc, there's no way he's not thought about the parallels between his current situation and valentino's back in 2013. and, look, obviously it's not one to one. valentino was three years older back then, his injuries were serious but considerably less so than what marc went through, the competitive landscape looks completely different now than it did in 2013... but this isn't about drawing direct comparisons, it's more about the associated feelings for both of them... all this self doubt, all this pain, the way they just weren't having fun any more... this is the first order of priority, rediscovering the joy. personally I reckon they were being more or less sincere at the start of that journey in not primarily thinking about securing more titles. of course, that changes once they realise they can be competitive again... but while the doubt remains, it's not the main thing they're concerned with

that's the fun thing about qatar 2013, isn't it? there's no point in valentino's entire career where he would have been less invested in whether he ended up winning or losing a fight like that. the whole point wasn't the end result, it's that he was even capable of fighting like that again... of having fun again, battling with a top rider, with the star of tomorrow. given his weekend up to that point, he wouldn't even have been expecting to do so right before the race! really, beating marc in that race was just a bonus. in a different way, the same thing was obviously true of marc: making his debut in the premier class and immediately getting to fight his hero, ending up taking his first ever premier class podium. because of some cruel alchemy of timing and circumstance, you've managed to capture them both at the precise moment where they really are just happy to be there, made their first fight with each other a moment of pure, undiluted ecstasy. such a sweet moment for the pair of them, where they found themselves able to fight each other and had every reason to relish it. you really couldn't have scripted it better

and like you say, they are two versions of the same rider! it really does feel like their careers should be read in conversation with each other! obviously valentino frequently acknowledged this himself early on, saying it wasn't an 'exaggeration' to call marc 'the next valentino rossi'... the ways in which marc had modelled himself after valentino, including of course copying some of his most famous overtakes. beyond their rivalry and conflict, there is also continuity between the pair of them. their entire feud hinges on how it can feel like a blessing to face another version of yourself... but it can also become a curse. the reason why they grew so close in the first place and why things got so ugly between them is fundamentally the same. neither of them have ever really forgotten about the similarities between the pair of them either. mutually inescapable until the end, I fear

incidentally, for context, here's what valentino was actually saying at the end of the ducati years. first of all, he pays casey his dues for being able to succeed on that bike:

you'll note that while he says the experience hadn't broken him (though "I don't think so" isn't particularly firm either), he does talk about how psychologically tough riding that ducati was. also, like I mentioned in the post that this one is a follow-up to, the really big frustration is not even about the riding as much as it is in the utter failure in bike development terms - where nothing they did actually worked:

he describes this as his first wrong career choice (although in other places he has also defended this decision), while also paying credit to his ducati team. crucially it followed on from all these rolls of the dice that had worked, the most major ones being probably the switch to yamaha and later the switch to bridgestones:

he says he's uncertain about whether he'll be able to fight for titles and even race wins again, stressing the importance of the valencia test (which is when he knew he was in serious trouble back in 2010):

and he talks about being the number two rider back at yamaha (while of course flipping it around again to ensure he's putting pressure on jorge):

same principle as with marc, some of this is expectation management and avoiding putting too much pressure on himself, cf marc's constant talk about being content if he could just fight for those 'top five top six positions' again (lol). but crucially valentino didn't know what would be possible

he does also talk a bit about his successors to the seat:

the thing about the ducati during this time, right, is that it was a very bad bike. honda decided to be a bit more dramatic about this post-2020, but these are two broadly analogous cases of massive decline for a manufacturer that had recently won a championship. casey came in for 2007 as a 21 year old insanely talented rider who wasn't too familiar with another bike (certainly not one as friendly as the yamaha) and was able to do something special with that capricious package... but he also talks in his autobiography about how ducati became far too complacent once that title had been won. it's not just mystery illness that explains the progressive decline in his results at ducati during the following three years - it was hubris from ducati, their refusal to listen to their riders while preferring to insinuate their riders simply weren't following the right diet or just weren't exercising enough. valentino switched to this poor package at an age at which adapting to a new bike is just categorically harder, and he failed in making any real progress with that bike for the following two years

that being said, at the end of the day ducati's situation back then isn't a million miles away from what you've seen with the honda - albeit in a different era where this performance decline wasn't punished quite so badly in championship standings because the margins now are a lot slimmer. casey did the equivalent to what marc did in the late 2010s, and put a somewhat evil but obviously fast bike into championship contention for two of his four years at ducati. he jumped ship at the right time, valentino jumped onto it at the wrong time and swiftly realised most of the ship was by this point underwater. look, just some interesting context imo! feel free to ignore. if you're interested in a more in-depth read about what was actually wrong with the bike in 2011, here you go - the short version is "front end feel". which is of course the ideal way to ruin confidence... if you can't trust the feedback you're getting, you can't trust yourself, simple as

#i prefer not to state my actual takes on anything i just vaguely allude to them while burying them within walls of text #but don't apologise!!#//#brr brr #batsplat responds #idol tag

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submissive-humiliation-slut · 9 months ago

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You never forget your first time

It's true.

I never have.

My very first time experiencing online use and abvse… fuck - it is literally burned into my brain.

I should add that everything was with my eager and wholehearted consent… but danmmmmm….

I was chatting with this very interesting dominant on a discord channel and one thing led to another and we agreed that we would play… He invited me to a private room.

Before accepting the invite, I asked if it would be safe in there with him (half joking).

And it just flipped.

He became curt. And said,

“If you want safe… go somewhere else.

Don’t ask.

Don’t question.

Just do.

Or don’t. Fuck off…”

And he just left.

I sat there with my heart beating fast and my mind racing. Should I just go elsewhere? But this is what I wanted… I have no idea what he will do but I was so so so hot and horny that I just meekly accepted the invite and went in.

There were 5 people in that room. Him and four others. Four men and a woman.

They spent the next 12 hours systematically using, abvsing, r4ping and degrading me… in every way possible. And I was made to replicate as much of what was happening by doing it to myself as possible.

They started by tying me up standing… stripping me… groping me… they made me grope myself with my arms in the air and legs apart.

The men were a pack. They used and abused in every way you can think of.

They fucked me thoroughly multiple times. I had to ruthlessly fuck myself with one dildo in my pussy and one in my mouth to replicate what they were doing to me. I was sore and hot and messy… with sweat and drool staining me…

When they had all cum on me and in me the first time… they made me tell them my most depraved fantasies while edging to them.

In real time, I was naked and writing in my office having roughly fucked myself with my two thick dildos but at no stage was I allowed to cum… even by accident.

I was then asked to go to each of the men and the woman and degrade myself by convincing them to slap my face, my breasts, my clit… if I did not convince them I had to choke myself with a belt in r/l while they thought about it. I had to beg until they accepted.

Every action they described I was made to relive in my home in real life.

I was dehydrated, starved and sore… but the thrill was unbelievable…

A few hours in, they invited others to come to the room and I was the cheap slut who had to give them luxurious blowjobs before they abvsed me…

Six hours in, I was a hot, sweaty, smelly, grimy mess… and that was only the halfway mark.

The real pain started later. They tied me in various poses and made me collect my drool as I deepthroated my dildo. They made me collect the drool in a bowl… later this was to be poured down my face and body.

The face slapping was the worst. I had to wear makeup the next day as there were slight hand prints on my face that took a full day to go away.

The woman it turned out was the most cruel of them all. She started out as the fluffer. By the end she was finding each bruise on my battered body and sadistically pressing down on them while I groaned in pain as she rubbed her cunt over my mouth, not letting me breathe…

Gosh… how I am not cumming right now is requiring me to summon all of my self discipline…

I never forgot that day… and I never will.

It is still my go-to experience to edge to.

To all the submissive humiliation sluts out there… what was your first time? Please do share….

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oh1thehorror · 9 months ago

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Wrote a silly little fic about my best girl Ito and the trans experience :P I also wanted to explore the friendship between Jekyll and Ito, and Rachel and Ito.

This thing is filled with scientific and historical inaccuracy; it’s not a source of information, it’s a story. But I hope you enjoy because I enjoyed writing it ^^ ♥️

Category: Gen

Fandom: The Glass Scientists (Webcomic)

Relationships: Dr. Henry Jekyll & Virginia Ito, Rachel Pidgley & Virginia Ito

Characters: Virginia Ito, Rachel Pidgley, Dr. Henry Jekyll

Language: English

Word count:3,184

Summary: This won’t do, at all. She needs to investigate a solution to this feeling, naturally. Maybe if she can pinpoint the exact source of perplexity and worry, she can go about systematically and logically eradicating it? Yes, logic always works to help her calm down, just solving the problem like it is a maths equation or a chemical reaction can work wonders.

Wait. A chemical reaction?

OR Virginia Ito does some research- with the help of her two friends, Henry and Rachel. She also learns about acceptance along the way.

Can I prick your finger for science? (For self discovery?)

Ito doesn’t know what’s wrong.

She feels it; with every fibre of her being, brutal and cold, hugging at her shoulders and arms and stomach and legs, but she doesn’t know what it is. She’s been scrutinising it in the mirror for at least 10 minutes now- she’s wasting precious time when she should be studying- and she still can’t quite place her finger on it.

After all, there is no way it can be that same feeling of dread she’s been feeling for years, every time she looks in the mirror. No, it can’t, because she’s got long hair now, and everyone calls her Virginia, and ‘she’, and her life’s amazing because she can go out in amazing dresses.

But when she strips it all away, and stands with only soft linen covering her body, she feels something wrong. It makes her shameful, and a hint helpless, and she can’t stop looking at all the things wrong with her body.

Oh. It’s back. It’s stalking her. It’s not going away.

Which is honestly so rude of this feeling, curling itself dully in her stomach, trying to make her feel horrible about her body. How dare her mind play tricks on her and tell her she isn’t a woman? when she’s so clearly standing in front of the mirror, with shoulder length hair and a soft smile and a closet of warm colours that skirt her ankles.

This won’t do, at all. She needs to investigate a solution to this feeling, naturally. Maybe if she can pinpoint the exact source of perplexity and worry, she can go about systematically and logically eradicating it? Yes, logic always works to help her calm down, just solving the problem like it is a maths equation or a chemical reaction can work wonders.

Wait. A chemical reaction?

Of course, if the source the feeling stems from is this uncomfortableness in her own skin, is the doubt that she is really a girl because she looks like a boy beneath the layers of cotton and padding, then the solution would be to modify some part of her to change that, would it not? And is the human body not just a cluster of chemical reactions? Surely there was something organic that meant she was born this way, with spindly arms and a disappointingly flat chest, and differentiated her biologically from, say, Rachel? Right, and in such a case, all she would have to do is understand this compound to manufacture it artificially, and, in theory, once she’d prevented the compound in her body right now that made her look this way, and replaced it with said compound, it would work?

It seems too far-fetched, and Ito is a chemist, not a biologist. But then again, a society for rogue science seemed too far-fetched and yet here she was. What could she truly call impossible anymore?

“Doctor Jekyll?”

“Please, call me Henry.” He smiles at her, calm and practised, that same smile he’d given her the day he took her hand and led her to this palace of wonder. “Can I ask you a question?” She starts, looking up from the old notes he’d shown her, staring at him across the phials lined in metal on the table, one or two bubbling with some mediocre experiment she’d sought after to keep her excitement momentarily distracted.

“Of course you can, Ito.”

“You’re a biologist, right?” She approaches the subject cautiously, like she’d learnt to over the years, after the rejection and disgust of her own people, frowning in some places over her conduct towards the incoming topic, of the eagerness to change into something they thought her not. But they are gone now- and despite England itself being so uninviting too- something tells her, maybe, she can find peace here.

“I have studied biology and medicine, this is correct.” Henry raises a tentative eyebrow, as if contemplating her words, and what she may ask of him.

“Well…I’ve been thinking.” Pause.

“This is the perfect place for that, go ahead.” His ease relaxes her shoulders slightly, but there’s still the edge of fear about what he might do when she next asks, “This is an absurd topic,” Ito prefaces hastily, nerves getting the better of her.

“We’re rogue scientists, I’m sure it’s not too absurd.”

“But, say a..if a man wanted to appear as a woman- likewise, a woman wanted to appear as a man- and by this I mean, sound like, feel like, look like; is there, hypothetically speaking, some sort of biological chemical which differentiates the two and could potentially be…replaced?”

Henry studies her face carefully for a moment after she’s finished speaking. She cannot bring herself to meet his eyes, lest she find disgust or anger there like she had so many months ago, but she is certainly aware of his measured movements, of the stiff way he gives her his full attention and places his hands on the desk. Hot shame flushes her cheeks and regret roils inside of her, threatening to tear open her heart.

But then, respite, as he sighs softly. “Yes, I suppose.” Henry explains carefully, taking a seat opposite her. It’s all Ito can do to keep her breath from catching and her hands still. She glances up at Henry (mentor, kind of saviour, friend), and studies his eyes for a moment or two to find no hate all- surprisingly- just confusion and some concern.

“Biologically speaking, development of gendered characteristics begins when a child comes of age- when their body begins producing amounts of substances called hormones. Female hormones produce the desired effects of a woman’s body and emotion. Male hormones produce a deeper voice, more hair, a difference in emotion- anything that is different between me and you, is different because of the levels of each of these chemicals in our bodies. However, Ito, there is not much more I can tell you about them. They are a fairly new discovery, with very little knowledge surrounding the subject.”

Silence befalls them when Henry finishes talking, and Ito thinks on his words for a while. Soon, the atmosphere grows awkward, stiflingly so, and she can feel the way Henry’s gaze worries over her with healing curiosity.

“Forgive me for asking,” he clears his throat, voice stilted, weary. “What sort of research do you plan on undergoing?”

“I’m studying change.” Ito replies, somewhat uneasily.

“Change how?”

She panics, glancing away and racking her mind for the best way to explain. So far, and by his reaction, Henry has in no real way given her reason to worry at all, or let the feeling of her stomach roiling with fear latch itself to her. It infects her now, though, like growing disease, and she really dreads her downfall if she so much as opens her mouth.

“My hair wasn’t always this long.” She murmurs softly, a hand instinctively hovering near her hairdo. She meets his eyes begrudgingly, if somewhat fearful, and begs him silently to understand what she means. The last time she said it out loud, a world seemed to end.

Henry opens his mouth as if to press further, ask again because he didn’t quite understand. But then, she spies understanding dawning in his eyes like resolute kindness, and he nods gently, some semblance of a reassurance playing the smile on his lips. Something eases in Ito’s chest, like the world has lifted its fear from her shoulders.

“I see.” Is what he says next. “I won’t pry. But..” He looks like he’s contemplating something for a moment or two. Ito holds her breath, waits for ‘but I wouldn’t want you in the Society anymore’ or ‘but such conduct is improper and you’ll always be a male beneath it all.’ What she gets is; “You’re safe here. And so is your secret with me, if you want me to keep it.”

“Please do.” She answers hurriedly, anxiety still ebbing at her skin, she’s so sure her ears are deceiving her.

Again, Henry gives her a nod and that smile. “For what it is, you are a really courageous young lady, Virginia. And I’d hate for anyone to harm you so, if you find yourself ever in trouble, please don’t be afraid to speak to me.”

Ito lets out a shuddering breath at that, and the last whispers of panic fall away like snow sliding from glass. Henry’s smile is genuine, and that seeps out into his words, the way he looks at her like he means what he has said. Ito cannot seem to comprehend it, but at the same time, what is there to imagine?

“Thank you.” She feels something like tears blur her eyes and wipes them away hurriedly. ‘Lady.’ She seems to realise belatedly, as she sits there and looks at him. ‘He called me a lady.’ Her heart skips a beat, and then Henry chuckles slightly, getting up from his seat and returning to his work. “You’re very welcome, Virginia. I wish you the best of luck in your research and change. I’m sure you’ll do some marvellous things.”

Previously, Ito had convinced herself- ever since that fated day she left Japan and never looked back at the faces of the ‘family’ who hated her- that she would not rely on the validation of others for her comfort or happiness; that she was a woman no matter whatever anyone said or did or called her. She still retains that sentimentality, of course, but Henry’s words loosened something against her heart.

It felt good to be seen for who she really was.

Her mentor’s words had left her puzzled, she will admit. The substance she was looking for certainly existed biologically, but contemporary discovery meant that there was very little information on it, despite her searching for hours in local libraries for any type of biological papers on the topic. It made Ito somewhat distraught and her patience thin in some places, but the prior feeling of dread that had her so disgusted with herself had dulled down to manageable, so at least that was a plus.

Her excitement had been insatiable so that she sprung to work as soon as she could, grabbing her cloak and making for the libraries on foot, after she’d assessed every book on human biology available within the Society itself. The walk had served another purpose too; Henry’s reassurances had left her head reeling oh so delighted, but paranoia had followed it and some good old, polluted air was in order to clear her thoughts.

It hadn’t done much; perhaps given her space for a few epiphanies, none of which she could really claim because most of her walk was just the numb thought of hiding herself, of the way Henry had reacted with the most genuine attitude, of whether or not he meant it at all and she was truly safe.

This was proving quite difficult. Perhaps it would be safest for her to fall back on that mentality; if Jekyll did tell the other Lodgers (she doubts he would, inside, he’s too kind-), and they all gave her difficulty for it; well, it wasn’t new to her, was it? Would it hurt like her ‘family’? She doubts it, with how new this all is to her. Alas, no matter their reaction, she’d stick to her ideology through the thick and thin of it; once it came down to it, Ito didn’t need anyone to love herself.

As she traverses the hallways of the Society, back up the winding steps to her laboratory, she spots Henry midway to her room, walking somewhat briskly. For a moment, Ito is shocked (she’s not sure why; he is the leader of this place, after all- it’s only natural for the man to be working), but then she regains her composure and he waves warmly at her. “Good afternoon, Virginia. Is your research going well?”

“Well, not…I don’t have much information.” She replies, trying to avoid stuttering as her thoughts slot appropriately and calmly back into a coherent fashion. The way he treated her, his words, the distinct calmness in his voice of speaking to a friend made it impossible to think that she had worried over him betraying her like that. He did, after all, vow to her safety. (Who's to say he’ll be the only one like this? Is there good to this world?)

“Then you get your own information.” He reassures, and Ito’s mind stills, focuses solely on her project. He’s right; this is her passion and she won’t spend it worrying away about the possible perceptions of herself from others. “Is that not what rogue science is?” She finishes, not missing a single beat.

Henry smiles at her. ‘Yes.’ She thinks. ‘Acceptance is possible.’

Exasperated, but with newfound energy, Ito pushes open the door to her lab, fingers already coming up to frantically undo the broach holding her cloak around her shoulders.

She hisses in abrupt pain as something pinches her finger, and when she draws back, there is red beading at the very tip of her forefinger. It seems she was too frantic, because now she is bleeding lightly.

Ito rolls her eyes, sucking on the blood flow to stop it whilst she hangs her cloak up. Then, she walks over to her desk, arrayed with notes and the stray pages of copied out biology papers, a few phials nested amongst them.

Hold on. Blood.

She draws her finger back expectantly, and frowns down at it for a moment before something clicks. Of course! Blood transports every substance in the human body one way or another, and therefore must include hormones. The logical solution would be to study the reactions of human blood to distil it and gain a better understanding of the substance hidden within it.

Ito takes a clean phial and holds it under the running drip of her pricked finger, letting some of the liquid gather enough so she can test it.

Now, she wonders; will blood from other people breed the same results as her own?

“Rachel!” Ito calls out, hurrying down the corridor as she spots the day manager, strolling about. Rachel looks up with a confused squint of her eyes, and then smiles when she clocks Ito’s excitable figure walking towards her.

“Hello Virginia, I trust your day is going well.”

“Why yes, thank you. It quite is; it’s going fairly better because you’re just the person I need right now.”

Ito swears Rachel looks a hint nervous at her words, something red at her cheeks. It’s only faint. “I see. What would you need me for?”

“Can I prick your finger?” Ito asks, without quite thinking it through, far too excited about the breakthrough she’s looking for. If Henry’s previous words are anything to go by, to study the differences between what makes a female and a male, she’d need a sample or two of blood that wasn’t hers. And Rachel had been one of the kindest people to her since she’d arrived. And this really didn’t seem like a crazy request. Nope.

Mmhmm.

Oops.

Rachel gives her a weary look at this, eyes scrunching slightly at the corners. She seems slightly taken aback and yet not too surprised. “You want to prick my finger? For?”

“A blood sample; I’m researching something.” Ito beams, trying not to let embarrassment consume her, though she’s sure her cheeks are burning scarlet.

“Well,” Rachel blinks, and it seems to fall into place, now. Perhaps she was used to this sort of request from the other Lodgers? “I certainly prefer that wording…what are you researching?”

“Change.” Ito replies as easily and steadily as she could. She’s not wrong; it’s what she’d told Henry. But she doesn’t quite want this to escalate like that conversation had- not yet at least. Not from paranoia or anxiety but…she doesn’t know. It’s ok.

“The changes in biological structure.” She finishes, explaining away the blush on her cheeks somewhat proudly. Rachel chuckles softly. “I see. Well, yes, I suppose you can prick my finger.”

Ito gives a nod of thanks. “But Ito, please, next time just ask for a blood sample.”

Virginia blinks owlishly. “Asking someone to prick their finger is so much more fun.”

Rachel rolls her eyes in mock annoyance but there is no real hint of the emotion there.

Ito’s heart flutters at the encounter. With time, she finds that perhaps, she can tell Rachel.

“Henry…” Ito greets her mentor, one morning over a cup of tea, with the sweetest smile she could possibly muster because she’ll be very close to figuring this out and cannot contain her hope. Also, because she loves making Henry confused but unrelated.

Henry lifts an eyebrow in confusion. “Virginia?” He prompts cautiously, placing his teacup back on its saucer. The ceramic clinks against itself. “I have a request.”

“This early in the day?” Henry huffs lightheartedly, “What would you like?”

“Can I prick your finger? For science?” Ito doesn’t give herself time to hesitate, holds up a finger innocently in demonstration and stares Henry down.

He stares back, eyes wide in half suprise, but honestly, what was he expecting? “Pardon me, please rephrase that?”

“I would like a blood sample…for my research.” Ito elaborates, sheepishly shrugging her shoulders and lowering her hands.

“Well,” Henry sighs, his familiar smile making home on his lips. “Certainly an odd way to ask.”

“You and Rachel are no fun.” Ito informs him as he goes back to sipping his tea.

“Yes, yes. You can have a blood sample, Miss Ito.”

Ito is sure she’s spent more time than strictly necessary and healthy in close proximity to her desk, writing out notes and observations, so much so that it’s maybe the early hours of the morning.

Her lab, and herself, right now, are not the prettiest of things they could be; dyes staining the cuffs of her dress shirt- she’ll keep this one for experiments, she supposes; table scattered with filter parchment and observation reports; frantic notes scribbled into her book in hopes of her groundbreaking discovery.

She is right on its door- so much so that she can feel the end of her days dreading her dress, or her hair, or the mirror. It’s at her fingertips now, with distilled blood smeared over pages and dyed to identify the substances.

She’s pinned the chemical structure, the slight differences between female and male. The blurred line in between is tangible. Anything like this is tangible, truly: all she needs is the correct chemicals, varying amounts of carbon and water and phosphates, the make-up of her wants.

What she’s really missing is none of that; just to scrutinise it long enough until all her pieces fall together in the puzzle, slot into a wider picture and give her the right scope.

Bingo.

‘Well,’ She thinks, as it all lines up and the melody flourishes with the final shift in view and recipe. ‘This- change- is who I am.’

Ito smiles. It’s maybe the widest she’d ever smiled. She can’t wait to tell Henry.

#the glass scientists #tgs #the glass scientists fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #tgs henry jekyll #tgs rachel #tgs ito #trans fem character

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inspiredbycalliope · 19 days ago

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Everyone on the left got very comfortable bitching about the Democrats and whatever foreign policy they were pursuing with regards to Israel-Palestine and conveniently forgot about the fact that when you elect your officials, you are electing them for your home policies first and foremost.

In a country like the US which is very geographically insulated from foreign conflict, "what's it got to do with you" is the first question you should be asking about conflicts abroad. That is not to say that these conflicts do not exist and don't warrant your time, sympathy, or perhaps even money, but in this hellscape, they should not be your priority.

The US has myriad problems on its own soil. You have a dysfunctional oligarchical structure, complicated by a messy federal system. Lobbying has gotten out of hand, your politicians are all bought and paid for, your voting districts have been gerrymandered, your small government has been destabilised and your Supreme Court has been loaded with a bias that does not serve the people or its intended purpose. Your once-flexible laws have become fossilised and your politicians are terrified to change them (partly because their lobbies are too strong!), which means you actively enable gun violence, and destroy basic human rights like bodily autonomy. The oligarchy I mentioned has systematically destroyed any and all labour movements that protected your blue-collar workers, and even those who were once privileged as white-collar workers have had those privileges stripped away until they are slaves to a system that only extracts value and does not provide any of the benefits that once built the middle class. You are divided along lines of identity politics, you have been underdeveloped intellectually by a schooling system designed to set you up for a life of slavery to the American Dream which has convinced you that you are all temporarily embarrassed billionaires. In reality, you will never own your own home. Your middle class is dwindling. Your wealth is in the hands of a miniscule group of people that through the whims of social media you worship, whether on the right or the left.

And in all of this, you chose to take a stand over a situation thousands of miles away that does not impact your daily life. You allowed yourself to be manipulated, once again, by foreign players whose policy for the last century has been focused on their home ground. The propaganda that has worked overtime in the last six months to make Palestine the issue that the Democrats could never conquer found its mark.

Yes, the US may be the world's overwhelming global power, but change does not come from the President. The GOP has gleefully and patiently demonstrated this year by year since the 1970s. They have won at every level of government, from your school boards and town boards, to your lowest levels of judges, to the mid-level circuit judges, all the way to the top. They are everywhere. They planned this and they were not quiet about it. But you allowed this to happen. You did not go out and vote every time the opportunity arose, for anything, even when it did not concern you directly. You didn't vote for the school board when you didn't have children, you didn't vote in the town you didn't have many friends in, you didn't do anything. And when the presidential election came around, you expected things would miraculously change.

And so now I look at the election result in the US and I am left cold. I am left unsurprised. Your last ditch attempts over the last week to remind people that "splitting the vote" and "voting third party" or "not voting at all" were the wrong things to do are too late. You spent too long navel gazing at your own choice about an issue which will never touch you while your world burned around you.

And now, either this post will get lost or it will get a lot of hate... Either way, I remain firm in this opinion. You have not failed yourselves in one night. You have repeatedly failed yourselves, over and over, at every level, for decades. This is just the final expression of that failure.

#kill the american dream #fun games #my hellscape and capitalism tags #probably nobody will read this

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a-queenoffairys · 9 months ago

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You! What are your thoughts on trans people, especially trans women?

I'm 100% pro trans rights. Humans are wonderfully complex and diverse beings and I think that's something worth celebrating. Everyone should have the right and the support to experiment with their own presentation, appearance, pronouns, etc. so they can find what works for them, what makes them happy.

I don't often post about current events on here, but I have been keeping up with the news when I can. I really detest the people who claim to be "protecting women and children" while they systematically strip away our existing rights in an attack on trans people. There is nothing feminist about oppression. Those morons do not speak for me and no matter how many times they insist they have the best interests of "real women" like me at heart, I know that's not true. Trans women are not a threat to cis women, nor to womanhood in general. In fact, the idea that there is this one singular universal experience of womanhood is false and downright stupid when you actually stop to think about it. Everyone's experience is different. I do volunteer work in a girls/women-only space and I would gladly welcome trans girls/women into it. The more the merrier.

In recent years I've been finding more trans voices to listen to and I've learnt a lot about gender and the state of the world we live in. But I know there's always still more to learn. I will never intend for my words or actions to be transphobic, but my knowledge is not complete and there's always a chance I might do/say something offensive without realising it. If that happens, I welcome people pointing it out so I can correct it and do better in future. The same goes for anything that comes off as -phobic or offensive towards any minority group.

Trans men are men. Trans boys are boys. Trans women are women. Trans girls are girls. Nonbinary people are rad. Trans people deserve all the support, love and respect and I hope someday we can create a world that accepts them for who they are.

#ask aqof #//I've also been playing with trans stuff in the stories that live in my head #//it's been pretty liberating

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renmorris · 2 years ago

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one thing about swap au that I Have Thoughts About that i was never able to put into words until I saw your post was - the way that Harry in Kim’s position is sorta flattened and sanitized? Like “well now! in this au Harry’s got his shit together and he’s emotionally healthy and stable” like did we play the same game? Kim? Mr. Kitsuragi? Canonically more repressed than the guy who drank his entire memory away, that Kim? He’s cynical. Brooding. Twitchy. Reaches for his gun way too much. Constantly on edge. The Composure artwork is based off his face because the image he portrays that is so foundational to his entire being that “you can’t even turn it off when you’re lying in bed at night” (quote from the composure description) hides so much of his personality underneath that I can’t help but think “Ah! we’ve fallen for the carefully constructed facade I see!”

Yeah.

It’s an au so utterly disconnected from how either of these guys actually are. It just strikes me as so absurd and tone deaf. It assumes that Kim and by association this Harry are nice well adjusted people.

The total erasure of Harry’s disabilities aside…Kim isn’t a nice well adjusted guy in canon. He's very unpleasant. He’s got a twitchy trigger finger with a death count. He’s refuses to make hard calls or speak up when Harry asks and then throws Harry under the bus for those decisions once they’re made. He barely stands up for Harry at the second tribunal because he freezes in the face of conflict and authority. etc etc

And all of these traits are very much tied to the systematic racism he endures as a cop of Seolite descent. Kim can’t afford to make mistakes or stick his neck out and make the wrong call. He can’t talk back to authority figures. Because he’s not Harry.

My final thoughts are that the entire au is just absurd. It’s like a bunch of people decided to just discard everything the canon is about. The trauma of the racism and disabilities that have made Kim and Harry who they are don’t exist anymore. It’s shallow, and frankly kind of cruel to take this narrative away from people who don’t get to see themselves in stories or see themselves treated with love and care.

Also why would anyone think it’s ok to completely strip a character like Harry of his disabilities? I feel like I’m yelling at a wall. I shouldn’t have to say don’t magically fix disabled characters, right? Am I going nuts?? What year is it?

#disco elysium blogging

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news4dzhozhar · 11 months ago

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Inside Israel's torture camp for Gaza detainees

In early December, images circulated worldwide showing dozens of Palestinian men in the city of Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, who were stripped to their underwear, kneeling or sitting hunched over, then blindfolded and put into the back of Israeli military trucks like cattle. The vast majority of these detainees were civilians with no affiliation to Hamas, Israeli security officials later confirmed, and the men were taken away by the army without notifying their families of the detainees’ whereabouts. Some of them never returned.

+972 Magazine and Local Call spoke with four Palestinian civilians who appeared in these photos, or were arrested near the scene and taken to Israeli military detention centers, where they were held for several days or even weeks before being released back to Gaza. Their testimonies — along with 49 video testimonies published by various Arabic media outlets of Palestinians arrested in similar circumstances in recent weeks in the northern districts of Zeitoun, Jabalia, and Shuja’iya — indicate systematic abuse and torture by Israeli soldiers against all of the detainees, civilians and combatants alike.

According to these testimonies, Israeli soldiers subjected Palestinian detainees to electric shocks, burned their skin with lighters, spat in their mouths, and deprived them of sleep, food, and access to bathrooms until they defecated on themselves. Many were tied to a fence for hours, handcuffed, and blindfolded for most of the day. Some testified to having been beaten all over their bodies and having cigarettes extinguished on their necks or backs. Several people are known to have died as a result of being held in these conditions.

The Palestinians we spoke with said that on the morning of Dec. 7, when the Beit Lahiya photos were taken, Israeli soldiers entered the neighborhood and ordered all civilians to leave their homes. “They were shouting: ‘All civilians must come down and surrender,’” Ayman Lubad, a legal researcher at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, who was detained that day along with his younger brother, told +972 and Local Call.

According to testimonies, the soldiers ordered all the men to undress, gathered them in one place, and took the photos that were later disseminated on social media (senior Israeli officials have since chided the soldiers for sharing the images). Women and children, meanwhile, were ordered to go to Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Four different witnesses separately told +972 and Local Call that while sitting handcuffed in the street, soldiers entered homes in the neighborhood and set them on fire; +972 and Local Call have obtained photos of one of the burned houses. The soldiers told the detainees they had been arrested because “they didn’t evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.”

An unknown number of Palestinian civilians remain in the northern part of the Strip despite Israeli expulsion orders since the early stages of the war, which led to hundreds of thousands fleeing southward. Those we spoke to listed several reasons why they did not leave: fear of being bombed by the Israeli army on the journey south or while sheltering there; fear that Hamas operatives would shoot them; mobility difficulties or disabilities among family members; and the uncertainty of life in the camps for displaced persons in the south. Lubad’s wife, for example, had just given birth, and they feared the dangers of leaving their home with a newborn.

In a video filmed at the scene in Beit Lahiya, an Israeli soldier holding a megaphone stands in front of the detained residents — who are sitting in rows, naked and on their knees, with their hands behind their heads — and declares: “The Israeli army has arrived. We destroyed Gaza [City] and Jabalia on your heads. We occupied Jabalia. We are occupying all of Gaza. Is that what you want? Do you want Hamas with you?” The Palestinians shout back that they are civilians.

“Our house burned down in front of my eyes,” Maher, a student at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, who appears in a photograph of detainees in Beit Lahiya, told +972 and Local Call (he asked to use a pseudonym for fear that the Israeli army would retaliate against his family members, who are still being held in a military detention center). Eyewitnesses said the fire spread uncontrollably, the street filled with smoke, and soldiers had to move the bound Palestinians a few dozen meters away from the flames.

“I told the soldier, ‘My house burned down, why are you doing this?’ And he said, ‘Forget about this house,'” recalled Nidal, another Palestinian who also appears in a photograph from Beit Lahiya, and asked to use a pseudonym for the same reasons.

‘He asked me where it hurt, then hit me hard’

More than 660 Palestinians from Gaza are currently known to be detained in Israeli prisons — most of them in Ketziot Prison in the Naqab/Negev desert. An additional number, which the army refuses to reveal but could be as high as several thousand, are being held in several military bases including the Sde Teyman military base near Be’er Sheva, where much of the abuse of detainees is alleged to be taking place.

According to the testimonies, the Palestinian detainees from Beit Lahiya were loaded onto trucks and taken to a beach. They were left bound there for hours, and another photograph of them was taken and circulated on social media. Lubad recounted how one of the female Israeli soldiers asked several detainees to dance and then filmed them.

The detainees, still in their underwear, were then taken to another beach inside Israel, near the Zikim army base, where, according to their testimonies, soldiers interrogated them and severely beat them. According to media reports, members of IDF Unit 504, a military intelligence corps, carried out these initial interrogations.

Maher recounted his experience to +972 and Local Call: “A soldier asked me, ‘What’s your name?’ and started punching me in the stomach and kicking me. He said, ‘You’ve been in Hamas for two years, tell me how they recruited you.’ I told him I was a student. Two soldiers opened my legs and punched me there and punched me in the face. I started coughing and realized that I wasn’t breathing. I told them, ‘I’m a civilian, I’m a civilian.’

“I remember reaching my hand down my body and feeling something heavy,” Maher continued. “I didn’t realize it was my leg. I stopped feeling my body. I told the soldier that it hurt, and he stopped and asked where; I told him in the stomach, and then he hit me hard in the stomach. They told me to get up. I couldn’t feel my legs and couldn’t walk. Every time I fell, they beat me again. My mouth and nose were bleeding, and I fainted.”

The soldiers interrogated some of the detainees this same way, photographed them, checked their ID cards, and then divided them into two groups. Most, including Maher and Lubad’s younger brother, were sent back to Gaza and reached their homes that same night. Lubad himself was part of a second group of about 100 detained in Beit Lahiya that day who were transferred to a military detention facility inside Israel.

While there, the detainees regularly heard “planes taking off and landing,” so it is likely that they were held at the Sde Teyman base beside Be’er Sheva, which includes an airfield; this, according to the Israeli army, is where detainees from Gaza are held for processing — that is, deciding whether they should be classified as civilians or “unlawful combatants.”

According to the IDF Spokesperson’s Office, the military detention facilities are intended only for questioning and initial screening of detainees, before they are transferred to the Israel Prison Service or until their release. The testimonies from Palestinians who were held inside the facility, however, paint an entirely different picture.

‘We were tortured all day’

Inside the military base, the Palestinians were held in clusters of around 100. According to the testimonies, they were handcuffed and blindfolded the whole time, and permitted to rest only between midnight and 5 a.m.

One of the detainees in each cluster, whom the soldiers chose because he knew Hebrew and was given the title “Shawish” (a slang term for a servant or subordinate), was the only one without a blindfold. The former detainees explained that the soldiers guarding them had green laser flashlights that they used to mark anyone who moved, changed position because of pain, or made a sound. The Shawish brought these detainees to soldiers standing on the other side of the barbed wire fence surrounding the facility, where they were punished.

According to testimonies, the most common punishment was being tied to a fence and having to raise their arms for several hours. Whoever lowered them was taken away by the soldiers and beaten.

“We were tortured all day,” Nidal told +972 and Local Call. “We knelt, head down. Those who didn’t succeed were tied to the fence, [for] two or three hours, until the soldier decided to let him off. I was tied up for half an hour. My whole body was covered in sweat; my hands became numb.

“You can’t move,” Lubad recalled of the rules. “If you move, the soldier points a laser at you and tells the Shawish, ‘Get him out, raise his hands.’ If you put your hands down, the Shawish takes you outside, and the soldiers beat you. I was tied to the fence twice. And I kept my hands up because there were people around me who were really getting hurt. One person came back with a broken leg. You hear the beating and screaming on the other side of the fence. You are afraid to look or peek through the blindfold. If they see you looking, it’s a punishment. They will take you out or tie you to the fence too.”

Another young man released from detention told the media after returning to Gaza that “people were tortured all the time. We heard screaming. They [soldiers] said to us, ‘Why did you stay in Gaza, why didn’t you go to the south?’ And I told them, ‘Why should we go to the south? Our homes still stand, and we are not connected to Hamas.’ They told us, ‘Go down to the south — you celebrated [the Hamas-led attack] on October 7.’”

In one case, Lubad said, a detainee who refused to kneel and lowered his hands instead of keeping them raised was taken behind the barbed wire fence with his hands cuffed. The detainees heard beatings, then heard the detainee cursing a soldier, and then a gunshot. They don’t know if the detainee was actually shot, or whether he is alive or dead; in any case, he did not return for the rest of the time that those we spoke to were held there.

In interviews with Arabic media outlets, former detainees testified that other inmates held at the facility died next to them. “People died inside. One had heart disease. They threw him out, they didn’t want to take care of him,” one person told Al Jazeera.

Several detainees who were with Lubad also told him about such a death. They said that prior to his arrival, an elderly man from Al-Shati refugee camp, who was ill, died at the facility as a result of the conditions of detention. The detainees decided to go on a hunger strike to protest his death, and returned their rationed pieces of cheese and bread to the soldiers. The detainees told Lubad that at night, soldiers came in and severely beat them while handcuffed, and then threw teargas canisters at them. The detainees stopped striking.

The Israeli army confirmed to +972 and Local Call that detainees from Gaza died at the facility. “There are known cases of deaths of detainees held in the detention facility,” the IDF Spokesperson said. “In accordance with the procedures, an examination is conducted for every death of a detainee, including an examination regarding the circumstances of death. The bodies of the detainees are being held in accordance with military orders.”

In video testimonies, Palestinians who were released back to Gaza describe cases in which soldiers put out cigarettes on detainees’ bodies and even gave them electric shocks. “I was detained for 18 days,” a young man told Al Jazeera. “[The soldier] sees you falling asleep, takes a lighter, and burns your back. They put out cigarettes on my back a few times. One of the guys [who was blindfolded] said to [the soldier], ‘I want to drink water,’ and the soldier told him to open his mouth and then spat in it.”

Another detainee said he was tortured for five or six days. “‘You want to go to the bathroom? Forbidden,’” he recounted being told. “[The soldier] beats you. And I’m not Hamas, what am I to blame for? But he keeps telling you: ‘You are Hamas, everyone who remains in Gaza [City] is Hamas. If you weren’t Hamas, you would have gone to the south. We told you to go south.’”

Shadi al-Adawiya, another detainee who was released, told TRT in a videotaped testimony: “They put cigarettes out on our necks, hands, and backs. They kick you in the hands and head. And there are electric shocks.”

“You can’t ask for anything,” another released detainee told Al Jazeera after arriving at a hospital in Rafah. “If you say, ‘I want a drink,’ they beat you all over your body. There is no difference between old and young. I am 62 years old. They hit me in the ribs, and I’ve had trouble breathing ever since.”

‘I tried to take the blindfold off, and a soldier kneed me in the forehead’

The Palestinians that Israel detains in Gaza, whether militants or civilians, are being held under the 2002 “Unlawful Combatants Law.” This Israeli law allows the state to hold enemy fighters without granting them prisoner of war status, and to detain them for extended periods of time without standard legal proceedings. Israel can prevent detainees from meeting with a lawyer and postpone judicial review for up to 75 days — or, if a judge approves it, up to six months.

After the outbreak of the current war in October, this law was amended: according to the version approved by the Knesset on Dec. 18, Israel can also hold such detainees for up to 45 days without issuing a detention order — a provision that has concerning ramifications.

“They don’t exist for 45 days,” Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, told +972 and Local Call. “Their families are not notified. During this time, people can die and no one will know about it. [You have to] go prove it happened at all. A lot of people can just disappear.”

The Israeli human rights NGO HaMoked received calls from people in Gaza regarding 254 Palestinians who were detained by the Israeli army and whose relatives have no idea where they are. HaMoked petitioned Israel’s High Court in late December, demanding that the military publish information about the Gaza residents it holds.

A source in the Israel Prison Service told +972 and Local Call that most of the detainees taken from Gaza are being held by the military and have not been transferred to prisons. It is likely that the Israeli army is trying to obtain intelligence information from civilians while using the Unlawful Combatants Law to imprison them.

The detainees who spoke to +972 and Local Call said that they were held in the military facility alongside people they knew to be members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. According to the testimonies, Israeli soldiers do not differentiate between the civilians and the members of those groups and treat everyone the same way. Some of those arrested in the same group in Beit Lahiya almost a month ago have not yet been released.

Nidal described how, on top of the violence the detainees experienced, the detention conditions were extremely harsh. “The toilet is a thin opening between two pieces of wood,” he said. “They put us in there tied with our hands and blindfolded. We would come in, and pee on our clothes. And that’s where we drank water, too.”

The civilians who were released from the Israeli military base told +972 and Local Call that a few days later, they were taken from one facility to the next for interrogation. Most said they were beaten during interrogations. They were asked whether they knew Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, what they thought about what happened on October 7, which of their family members was a Hamas operative, who entered Israel on October 7, and why they did not evacuate south as they were “asked.”

Lubad was taken to Jerusalem for interrogation three days later. “The interrogator punched me in the face, and in the end they took me outside and blindfolded me,” he said. “I tried to take the blindfold off, because it hurt, and a soldier kneed me in the forehead, so I left it.

“Half an hour later, they brought another detainee, a university professor,” Lubad continued. “Apparently, he didn’t cooperate with them during the interrogation. They beat him really brutally next to me. They told him, ‘You’re defending Hamas, you’re not answering questions. Get down on your knees, raise your hands.’ I felt two people coming toward me. I thought it was my turn to be beaten and cramped my body to prepare. Someone whispered in my ear: ‘Say dog.’ I said I didn’t understand. He said to me, ‘Say, the day will come for every dog,’” implying death or punishment.

Lubad was then released back to the detention cell. According to him, conditions in Jerusalem were better than in the facility in the south. For the first time, he was not handcuffed or blindfolded. “I was in so much pain and so tired that I fell asleep, and that was it,” he said.

‘We were treated like chickens or sheep’

On Dec. 14, a week after he was taken from his home in Beit Lahiya, leaving behind his wife and three children, Lubad was put on a bus back to the Kerem Shalom Crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. He counted 14 buses, and hundreds of detainees. He and another witness told +972 and Local Call that soldiers told them to run and said that “whoever looks back, we’ll shoot him.”

From Kerem Shalom, the detainees walked to Rafah — a city that has turned into a giant refugee camp in recent weeks, housing hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. The released detainees wore gray pajamas, and some showed Palestinian journalists injuries to their wrists, backs, and shoulders, ostensibly as a result of the violence they suffered in detention. They wore numbered bracelets which they had been given when they arrived at the detention center.

Euro-Med Monitor, a Geneva-based human rights organization with several field researchers in Rafah, told +972 and Local Call that they estimate at least 500 Gazans were released to the city in recent weeks after being held in Israeli detention, recounting testimonies of harsh torture and abuse.

The detainees told journalists that they didn’t know where to go in Rafah or where their families were. Many of them were barefoot. “I was blindfolded for 17 days,” one of them said. “We were treated like chickens or sheep,” said another.

One of the detainees who arrived in Rafah told +972 and Local Call that since he was released two weeks ago, he has lived in a nylon tent. “Just today I bought shoes,” he said. “In Rafah, no matter where you look, you see tents. Since my release, it’s been very hard for me mentally. A million people are crowded here in a city of 200,000 [prior to the war].”

When Lubad arrived in Rafah, he immediately called his wife. He was glad to hear that she and his children were alive. “In prison I kept thinking about them, about my wife who is in a difficult situation, alone with our newborn baby,” he explained.

But on the phone, he felt that his family wasn’t telling him something. Eventually, Lubad discovered that an hour after his younger brother had returned from his detention at Zikim Beach, he was killed by an Israeli shell that hit a neighbor’s house.

Recalling the last time he saw his brother, Lubad said: “I saw how we were sitting there in boxers, and it was terribly cold, and I whispered to him, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, you’ll be back safely.’”

During his detention, Lubad’s wife told their children that he had traveled abroad; Lubad isn’t sure they believed it. His 3-year-old son saw him stripped of his clothes on the street that day. “My son really wanted to go to the zoo, but there is no zoo [left] in Gaza. So I told him that on my trip I saw a fox in Jerusalem — and indeed, when I was interrogated, in the mornings, some foxes passed by. I promised him that after it was all over, I would take him to see them too.”

In response to the claims made in this article that Israeli soldiers burned the homes of detained Palestinians in Beit Lahiya, the IDF Spokesperson commented that the allegations “will be examined,” adding that “documents belonging to Hamas were found in the apartments in the building, as well as a large quantity of weapons,” and that shots were fired at Israeli forces from the building.

The IDF Spokesperson said that Palestinians in Gaza were being detained “for involvement in terrorist activity,” and that “detainees who were found not to have been involved in terrorist activity and whose continued detention is not justified are returned to the Gaza Strip at the first opportunity.”

Regarding allegations of ill-treatment and torture, the IDF Spokesperson said that “any allegations of improper conduct in the detention facility are thoroughly investigated. The detainees are handcuffed according to their risk level and health condition, according to a daily assessment. Once a day, the military detention facility holds a doctor’s lineup to check the medical condition of the detainees requiring it.”

The detainees who spoke to +972 and Local Call, however, said that they were examined by a doctor only upon their arrival at the facility, and they did not receive any subsequent medical treatment despite their repeated requests.

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the-bjd-community-confess · 5 months ago

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Mod: this is in response to one of these subthreads/spinoff confessions but I can't tell exactly which, so sorry if I linked the wrong one Anon.

I don’t know what kind of reading comprehension you have, but the post was in no way claiming that “straight people oppress [me] or anyone else by just existing” it was calling out a queerphobic person in the comments of a clearly tongue-in-cheek post for saying that queer people are starting to *oppress straight people* by existing in a visible or comfortable way.

And for the record- a lot of ways that cisheteronormative people “just exist” is oppressive to queer people as part of “just existing” is a bigot’s right to free speech and protest which typically involves displaying hate speech and images/logos/symbols directly related to (or even notably tangentially related to) the oppression and sometimes violence against queer people.

I can’t just “go outside” to feel better as people are trying to take my rights away and many people who just freely walk around wish me ill or may even feel provoked to harass or be violent toward me or people like me. I read doll drama as an escape from the day to day of living as a queer person in a place that’s slowly, but systematically stripping away my rights as a person.

Chronically online people and people actually experiencing a situation or condition are not the same thing and your comment shows that it’s clearly you who needs to go out and connect with nature and other people to understand how dumb your take is.

~Anonymous

#BJD #ABJD #BJD Confessions #Community Confessions

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agentoffangirling · 5 months ago

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Apartheid is defined as “a particularly severe form of institutional discrimination and systematic oppression based on race or ethnicity.” Nowhere within Israeli borders do Palestinians face institutional discrimination. They have representation in government, access to jobs and living, and are well represented culturally and religiously. The occupied territories is a different story, but the only reason those territories are occupied in the first place is because of terror groups threatening Israeli lives. I’m not saying that this is okay, and ideally, there would be no occupation AND no terror groups but that’s not the world we live in. Security matters. That’s not Israel’s fault. It’s Hamas’ and Hezbollah and every other group that wants Israel dead.

Many of the actions of the Israeli government are atrocious and it is ignorance to pretend otherwise. But as I’ve stated before, the actions of the current government do not reflect the goals of Zionism or Israel as an idea.

I read the sources from Human Rights Org and Amnesty International. The former talks entirely about occupied territories, specifically the West Bank (because, if you recall, Israel left the Gaza strip entirely). And while occupying a territory is not good, it’s not part of the structure of Israel’s political system. Within the state of Israel itself, there is no apartheid. Palestinians have the same rights as Israelis.

And one could make the same case for Gaza: it is an apartheid state. There are exactly 0 Jewish people in Gaza yet nobody seems to be troubled by that and instead are so quick to point out the supposed apartheid in Israel. [1/?]

Apologies for answering so late. Just as before, I'll lump in your other responses with this one for simplicity

The West Bank and surrounding areas aren't occupied due to "security", they're occupied because Israel can. Because they want to claim the land, they want to take over and strip away any bit of Palestinian sovereignty. And Israel is apartheid. It isn't this paradise they want you to believe it is, Palestinians have to go through checkpoint through checkpoint through checkpoint and are constantly denied the same liberties an Israeli would have. There are roads specifically for Israelis that Palestinians are barred from using. Actually listen to them, don't let Israel try and convince you that everything is perfectly fine and that there is no injustice, because there is

The Israeli government is exactly what Zionism is. They don't hide it. It's not a bid to keep people safe, as there's been report after report that they knew about the attacks beforehand and didn't do anything to stop it. The true goal of Zionism is to get rid of Palestinians under the guise of "safety" for the Jewish people. That is what they're doing right now, that is what they've always been doing. It has always been political

Israel "left" the Gaza Strip, but they just replaced the more obvious occupation with policing everything that comes in or out. They burn the native olive trees and heavily tax outside goods, if there are any, to make them entirely reliant on Israeli goods. Just because a place is void of somewhere does not make it apartheid. Gaza is not apartheid because no Jewish people reside there and you are fully aware of this. There is no evidence to your claim that due to the majority of the population being Palestinian makes it apartheid. You know this

There is little evidence that suggests Hamas uses civilian shields. This is an Israeli lie used to justify the bombing of hospitals and homes and schools. The IDF is fully complicit in carrying out these orders and they are also not a source you should be using. "They warn them 24 hours in advance" and they still murder civilians. 24 hours to leave their homes, their entire livelihoods for "safe zones" that just end up being raided days later

Decolonizing Palestine means giving the land back to Palestinians. It means dismantling the state of Israel. As I've said, there is nothing about safety and peace about Zionism and is entirely about taking Palestine. When you look at DNA tests of Ashkenazi people, much of it lands in Europe. I'm not saying that you are entirely European, I'm saying that you cannot claim a place is your home when the closest tie you have to it is from thousands of years ago

How exactly do you free them? Is it by funding a terrorist group so no actual authority can be created in Palestine? Is it by murdering women, children, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and so on? If you want to talk about October 7 so bad, let's talk about 1948. Israel will not stop at a two-state solution, they will continue taking land. Why would they stop at something that benefits them so much and no one is saying anything against them? That is why I am against a two-state solution, because history has shown that Israel will not stop. That is wishful thinking

Israel is the "only democracy in the Middle East" because the West has destroyed any chances for democracy to take root in other countries. Every single time, the United States interferes. Many times Israel has interfered so they can continue keeping power. Palestine doesn't need to "exist as a nation" in order to be considered one. They are a people with their own culture that has existed through thousands of years. The culture Israel wants to destroy. Israel cannot be a legitimate state while they are occupying the land, and it is only through giving the land back to the Palestinians can they actually be left alone in peace without a certain something creeping on their borders

Oh, you mean the hostages that were gifted birthday cakes? The hostages who talked about the kindness they were dealt? The hostages who were prevented about speaking about their experiences because they weren't deemed bad enough? The hostages who were bullied by their peers for that very reason? The hostages Israel killed in their own missions? The hostages who were waving white flags yet were gunned down by their own people anyway? We can talk about them all you like. Shall we consider the thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel as well?

#all eyes on rafah #free palestine #isnotreal #palestine #free gaza #gaza strip #rafah

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jordanianroyals · 9 months ago

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Queen Rania of Jordan's Interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour (11 March 2024)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Queen Rania, welcome back to our program. Can I first ask you… it is Ramadan. It has just started, and I wonder what your reflections are for yourself, for your family, for Muslims around the world, celebrating, or maybe that’s not the right word – marking – Ramadan this year in the middle of this war?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, you know, Christiane, Ramadan for us is a month of worship, charity and compassion for our fellow human being, and I think this year we're welcoming these holidays with very heavy hearts. Ramadan is typically defined with family gatherings, people coming together, sharing a meal and breaking their fast together. But what is it like for the people of Gaza today who are now hungry and thirsty in tents or makeshift shelters… who are mourning their dead and mourning the life that they had just a few months ago? You know, Christiane, since the beginning of this war, Israel has cut off everything that is required to sustain a human life: food, fuel, shelter, medicine, water… It has been going on now for five months, and it’s left the people of Gaza completely reliant on outside assistance. And actually, it has systematically denied and delayed a lot of that assistance, occasionally bombing some of the convoys that bring this assistance and shooting some of the people who are trying to get whatever scarce resources that they can get.

According to the UN, every single person in Gaza today is hungry. Over a quarter of the population – that's more than 550,000 people – are one step away from famine. Experts say that they have never seen a population descend into such mass hunger so rapidly. I mean, I'm hearing of people just eating whatever they can get their hands on including grass, or they're having to grind bird feed or animal fodder just to make bread. And in the north of Gaza, people are not on the verge of starvation; they're actually dying of starvation. It starts with the most vulnerable: the elderly, the wounded, babies... We're hearing of an increasing number of babies who are dying from severe malnutrition and thirst, and if things don't change, I think these cases are going to be spiraling throughout the Strip.

This has been a slow-motion, mass murder of children, five months in the making. Children who were thriving and healthy just months ago are wasting away in front of their parents. Starvation is a very slow, cruel, and painful death. Your muscles shrink, your immune system shuts down, your organs give out. Imagine being a parent, having to go through that, witness your child going through that, not being able to do anything to help. It is absolutely shameful, outrageous, and entirely predictable, what's happening in Gaza today – because it was deliberate.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Queen Rania, we have been reporting systematically what you are describing. In fact, a lot of the world, is now, and has been, reporting this severe hunger, the statistics, the pictures you are talking about. I wonder whether you think that is the reason why, for instance, the United States, the UK, other nations which are allies of Israel, have started to really ramp up the need to deliver aid. Like the airdrops that Jordan has been involved in, you see the US doing it, you see the idea of a floating pier in order to bring much more aid via the sea. Do you think the message that you’ve just described has actually now gotten through?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, look, let me just be very clear about what these air drops are. They are us resorting to desperate measures, in order to address a desperate situation. These air drops are literally just drops in an ocean of unmet needs. And King Abdullah has said from the very beginning, they are neither sufficient, nor are they a substitute for humanitarian access at scale. So countries should not use them as a way out, nor should they be viewed as an excuse for not doing what needs to be done. And that is implementing an immediate and sustained ceasefire; opening all access points into Gaza, particularly land routes; streamlining the inspection process; and making sure that there is safe access within Gaza so that the aid can be distributed.

Every moment counts. Children are starving as we speak. So every moment and every meal counts. And so, I think now we're past the stage of trying to talk Israel into doing these things; we need to actually start using measures and political leverage to get them to do those things.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can I ask you to describe what Jordan has done? First of all, you’re sitting in an airbase…I believe behind you is some of the goods and humanitarian items that will be dropped. Tell me when they’re going to be dropped into Gaza, and how has Jordan’s experience been with, for instance, its hospital there, with the air-dropping?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, look, the reason why we started doing these air drops is we found that, after trying so hard in vain to persuade Israel to open the access points, the land access points, that we had to do something; we couldn't just sit idle and watch people starving. And so, King Abdullah started organizing these air drops. But I have to emphasize that the need is much greater than what we're being able to provide.

As it stands today, there are trucks, there's tons of food in trucks that are miles away from people who are starving. So the hunger is not a natural disaster. This is a man-made, an Israeli-made disaster. It is deprivation by design. No matter the volume of the aid going in, nothing is a substitute for a ceasefire. Delivering aid under bombardment does not stop the destruction, the death, and the heartbreak. We cannot save people from hunger only then to bomb them to death. So again, an immediate ceasefire is the number one priority.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, clearly, Hamas has said that it wants a long-term ceasefire. As you’ve heard, not only the Israeli government, but also the US president said, that when they thought there was a possibility of a ceasefire, and a release of hostages, and you know, much increased aid into Gaza. The last thing we heard was that it’s up to Hamas to sign on. What does Jordan believe to be the sticking point with a ceasefire?

QUEEN RANIA: Look, I'm not privy to the specifics of the negotiations. What I do know is that, from a humanitarian perspective, we need to secure a ceasefire as soon as possible so that aid operations can be restored at scale, so that people can start burying their dead, so that they can start healing. This has been going on for way too long. And this is not a time to hold out for political victories. There are no victories to be had, as long as this war continues. There's only loss after loss after loss.

And I believe that the international community really needs to weigh in. Israel has been able to operate with impunity, and that has really affected the credibility of many countries in the West. Now, I'm happy to see that some nations have changed their positions, have shifted. A country like France, we're very grateful to President Macron, who has called for a ceasefire and who has been with us executing these airdrops right from the beginning. Countries like Spain, Belgium, Ireland, South Africa, Latin America, all these countries are asking for a ceasefire. We've seen solidarity from the global public, and, you know, exceptional solidarity from the global public. And that's sometimes created a rift between the public and their own leaders, including places where you are, where the public is wondering when are their governments going to start taking more decisive positions?

It's just that every time a child is being pulled out of the rubble, the credibility of countries, even like the United States, their values of equality, justice and human rights, they're called into question. People in my part of the world are not only angry, they are disillusioned and disappointed. Many people admired western values, and now they're having to rethink their worldview, because they're asking, you know, how come human rights are granted to some and denied to others.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, president Biden publicly urged no offensive into Rafah – saying that I cannot sit back and see another 30,000 deaths in Gaza, and said to Israel that it would cause more damage to the Israeli cause than benefit Israel. Then Netanyahu responds saying: my red line is: no more Hamas, no more threats, and by the way, no state! No two-state solution. So, what is Jordan thinking about not just the immediate, but the day after? Because clearly you are the country – one of them – that does believe in two states, and does have a peace treaty with Israel?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, look Christiane, I think it's no coincidence that we're witnessing one of the most violent episodes of this conflict under one of the most hardline, racist governments in Israel's history. Prime Minister Netanyahu, by his own admission, says that his policy was based on ‘divide and conquer’; covertly propping up Hamas in order to undermine the Palestinian Authority, and then say there's no partner for peace.

Last year, even before October 7, we had set a record in terms of settlement expansion and construction. Just last week, the Israeli government approved plans to build 3,500 more illegal settlements on occupied West Bank land. And sure, some of its allies condemned those plans. But, as in previous cases, there's condemnation, but then the plans are carried out. As long as Israel is allowed to get away with breaking international law – as long as its allies don't hold it accountable – it will just increase its sense of impunity.

So, for years, Israel talks peace, but then condemns it to death by settlements, making a contiguous, independent Palestinian state less viable by the day. And, for the longest time, we hear the international community talking about a two-state solution, while allowing Israel to create a one-state reality.

And so, you know, I think the time for trying to persuade Israel to do the right thing has long passed… When you look at the horrendous reality that's in Gaza today, it is hard to believe that Israel's being unfairly singled out – that it's being held to a higher standard. Critics of Israel merely want it to do the bare minimum, which is just abide by international law.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Obviously, you were received at the White House along with the King. You also went to Capitol Hill, where some of the strongest support does reside. What message did you deliver on Capitol Hill, and what did you hear from them?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, I think a lot of people need to know more about this conflict, to really understand the intricacies of it, to understand that this is one of the greatest historical injustices. And, to understand what the root cause of this issue is, to understand that this conflict did not begin on October 7, that it was a result of years of occupation, of settlement expansion, of human rights abuses, of disregard for international law. And this is what led us to this point.

You know, if we look at Israel today – you know, sometimes you hear the Prime Minister justifying the war by saying that he is doing what the public wants, and that the overwhelming majority of Israelis support this war. Well, you know, I refuse to believe that an entire population can look at what's going on in Gaza and be okay with it.

In Israel, the dehumanization of Palestinians is systematic, it's ingrained, it is ubiquitous… They believe that ‘if we don't kill them, they're going to kill us.’

And so I blame hardline Israeli leaders for keeping their people in this perpetual state of fear of an existential threat that doesn't exist, and making them feel like just killing Palestinians and killing Hamas is going to be the solution to the problem. The real solution to the problem is to end the occupation. Palestinians do not hate Israelis because of who they are. They hate them because of what they're doing to them.

And so, the greatest guarantee for Israel's security, and this is what I said to the Americans: If you want to safeguard Israel's security, there is no better way to do it than through a just and comprehensive peace. No army in the world, the strongest army in the world, the most proficient intelligence, whatever, will not guarantee Israel's security as much as a just and comprehensive peace would. We, in this part of the world, need to find a way to share these holy lands in peace.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I mean basically the Israeli public does support the war because: a) they want their people back, and b) they don’t want to live side by side with Hamas at all, ever again. They don’t want to be in that situation or under that threat. And you said it doesn’t present an existential threat.

Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I mean the question is: if it was you , and you were to give a speech, or a visit to the Israeli people, who said to you that Queen Rania: you may have a peace treaty with us, but look what Hamas did to us on October 7. What would you say to them about how they should – I mean you’ve talked about the history… but there is such a trauma that everybody we talked to now says it’s still as if it’s October 7, even though Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ratings are in the dumpster. They don’t support him. But they do support the idea of not having that threat anywhere near them anymore.

QUEEN RANIA: You know, I would say that, as devastating and as traumatic as October 7 was, it doesn't give Israel license to commit atrocity after atrocity. And Israel experienced one October 7. Since then, the Palestinians have experienced 156 “October 7s.” They have been going through this every day. And prior to October 7, they have been living in 50 years of oppression, of occupation, of having their movement restricted, having every aspect of their lives dominated, being humiliated.

If I were to speak to the Israeli public, I would say, if you want your peace and your security, you have to address this big injustice that's on your doorstep. There is no shortcut, there is no security measure that is going to bring the more hopeful future and the stability that you want in your lives, other than finding a way to live with Palestinians.

Israeli leaders must stop treating the existence of Palestinians as an inconvenient truth, as a demographic challenge, as a lawn that needs to be mowed every now and then. Palestinians are here to stay. And so we have to find a way to live with one another. And we have to be able to re-humanize, to be able to see our humanity reflected in another's eyes. You know, an Israeli mother should understand that a Palestinian mother cares about her children just as much as she does. And there's just no way around that. I don't believe that peace is just about politics – peace is about state of mind. It's about – it's a culture, it's about values. And those are the values that really need to be addressed, and they're long overdue.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Queen Rania thank you very much for joining us.

QUEEN RANIA: Thank you, Christiane.

#Queen Rania #interview #video

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