#btw un written in the post bc I didn’t feel like it

[bumpinbonnie]

Rocker!V or Samurai fan V is so funny.

If youre a corpo it’s a carthatic release to your strict and monotonous schedule. You pray nobody you know finds out because even if your band of choice didn’t have a lead singer that bombed arasaka, your coworkers will take any inch of anti corpo sentiment and run a mile with it. and maybe theyd hate you but you can’t help but find some comfort in that. They know this is fucked, someone does. Someone gets it. Someones telling the truth. Someones finally telling the fucking truth.

If youre a nomad, no matter where youve gone or who youve met - with the bakkers or without - with every stereotype and prejudice imaginable about you thrown at you, there’s people out there who GOT it. And one of them got it enough to do something about it. Maybe you were thinking of him when you decided to leave. To go home for the first time. And if you have to leave here too theyll still be there. He’ll always be, you think.

if youre a streetkid youve heard of silverhand. Every gonk with a gun has heard of silverhand. Dreams of doing it better doing it right shoveling the shit right back at those corpo cunts and you do too. But youre different. When youre done running the streets and fighting for your life and killing gangoons and running and fighting and killing and running you go home and curl up and listen. You listen to their rage and their sorrow and his rage and you think finally. Someone who gets it. Someone whos been heard, who made his point and fucking died for it and made people understand which is more than anyone else in this city can fucking say more than you can say. But maybe one day it wont be. Maybe you’ll be remembered with fire and glory and blood too.

No matter who you are you hear them say the same thing. that there’s no other way that all you can do is be angry and die because the world wants you to be angry and die but at least you can fucking party. but you understand what he means. What he’s REALLY saying. That there IS a way. That something CAN be done. You just have to be strong enough to do it. Strong enough to take it. You are. You are.

[jancys-blue-bayou]

Yeah so Stranger Things 3 was painfully bad

Yeah yeah big negative post about ST3 coming up. Just... holy shit, my expectations weren’t exactly high but jesus I didn’t think it’d be this bad. Wow. Mindboggling to think it was made by the same dudes who made season 1, it feels like a different show. Some of the worst writing I’ve seen in a long while, parts of season 3. This got very long because it was very bad so it’s under the cut. Starting with the few positives and then away we go...

Of course there were bright spots, I thought what we got of Jancy was generally good (just wish there had been more of it. Just like... more lines between them, a few moments could’ve gone on longer...like after the awesome hospital fight scene jesus just let them fucking desperately embrace and profess their love for each other, it was awesome how they relentlessly kept going at the monster to save the other but can we please just have a few more seconds for a comfort moment after?) I liked how they handled the fight btw, apart from the Oliver Twist comment yeah yeah heat of the moment but still felt OOC with that loa a blow. Nancy and Karen scene was nice and um... well Max and El bonding was nice. And um... Mr Clarke! And I kind of dig Murray.

My main issues with it:

- The product placement. Jesus Christ. Okay, ST has always been a show with noticeable product placement. But it’s gone from things like a Coke can prominently on display on a table in s1 (El crushing it with her mind) to literally having a straight up ad for Coca Cola in the middle of a tense scene. That’s the big offender that made me go wow you’re really doing this to yourselves huh, there are many others ofc (everything at the mall ofc, Slurpees being in hyperfocus for a bit, and a lengthy talk about Burger King. These smaller things one by one wasn’t the worst but all combined jesus it was too much, all added together and then bam the Coke commercial was wow... Congrats on the like 80 sponsorship deals and esp the new ST themed arcade hall by Coca Cola hope it was worth completely selling out for.

- Relatedly, the original fucking song. Holy christ talk about jumping the shark. That was the oddest, cringiest, weirdest shit I’ve seen in a long time. Gaten’s a great singer don’t get me wrong, but there’s a time and place for it and an original song stuffed into the middle of the tense climax of the season is not it Duffers. Just a blatant cash cow, hoping to bring in more money via the song.

- Robin. Sorry but holy cow what a Mary Sue. Hey here’s this super cool girl who’s cool™ and funny™ and super smart™ and NOT Nancy (like they seriously for real said in a scene, they actually for real had to pit Robin and Nancy against each other for no reason). And she conveniently has these specific skills needed for the plot (which she gets involved with for no real motivation other than having nothing better to do, lazy writing). Said skills were so over the top unrealistic it completely sucked me out of it. To start with, this random girl in small town Indiana in 1985 speaking French, Spanish and Italian um... does Hawkins High have the most amazing language department or what? Very un-american in that case... and okay then, her knowing those languages wouldn’t help jackshit with understanding Russian. Russian is a notoriously difficult language to learn and it is not related to the Romance languages at all, Robin knowing those languages and oh, having “a good ear” bc she’s in band (?!??! what?!) wouldn’t help her at all. Having the alphabets on the wall and listening to strange words in a foreign language she has no understanding of would never work. No way for her to understand what is she’s hearing, what letters are in the words just, nothing. It’s completely ridiculous. The good thing is she’s a lesbian, crushing Stobin that made me LOL. Btw, I don’t get what age they were writing her as? She’s still in school but later says she and Steve was in the same class, and she knows who Nancy is but Nancy, who is still in school, doesn’t know her even though presumably they’d be in the same year at little Hawkins High? Was it just sloppy writing or what?

- Too. Much. Plotting. What happened to “this season is about the characters” um there was just so much plot stuff and action sequences and barely any character driven moments at all. Those intimate moments that made s1 amazing. Generally regarding plots felt the Russian plot was messy and not well-written also what happened to the US government as the big bad? Unless they’re setting up a big Cold War thing for s4. And felt the zombie thing was wasted, could’ve been used differently like I’d have thought it’d be used like the MF spreading it’s influence over vaster areas and being harder to keep track of etc.

- Too little Will. Will’s whole thing with feeling left out etc was just dropped halfway through it felt very undercooked. His arc was just dropped wtf.

- NO BYERS FAMILY INTERACTIONS WTF. The sequence in the first episode when Jancy has overslept and Joyce wipes the lipstick off Jonathan was cute (but could’ve been even cuter I’d have preferred a short fluffy Jancy moment here just as they wake up before they realize they overslept, bc we didn’t get much pure fluff, and then it’d been awesome if Joyce would’ve just called Nancy into the house to mess with them). But like... that’s kind of it. For the Byers family. Talking to each other in the whole season. When they partnered Jancy with the kids many thought awesome we’ll get Byers bros talking and teaming up (and Nancy and Mike) but there was just nothing. Not even a family hug after the battle at the mall, just Joyce hugging Will, with all this tightknit little family has been through you telling me Jonathan wouldn’t join in?

- No Will and El bonding wtf? SUCH a wasted opportunity. They’ve built this unique awesome connection over s1 and s2 and now in s3 would finally be able to bond normally for real and... nothing.

- Turning Hopper back into an even bigger jerk than he was at the start of the show, neglecting all his character development. What was the point of the whole El and Hopper thing they devoted so much time to in s2 if Hopper’s back at it with the yelling and all now? And jeez his constant whining to Joyce about every man she interacts with holy christ that got annoying. Generally Hopper was such an annoying asshole this season I was so tired of him by the time he “died”.

- TOO MANY CHARACTERS. Jeez, I know I’m on about it all the time but jesus christ there is way way too many characters in this for 8 episodes which hurts the narrative and screentime for interesting characters is just... yeah.

- Speaking of screentime, did we really need that many identical generic fight scenes between Hopper and the Russian guy? Jesus Christ it’s so boring watching fight scenes like that, so repetitive (compare to the hospital fight scene which was dynamic and awesome). Also regarding screentime did we really need to devote so incredibly much of it to Steve and Robin being comedic relief while drugged? Yeah yeah mix light and dark and all that but jesus christ at that point in the narrative shit has hit the fan lean into the dark.

- Totally expected of course but still, the furthering of Steve Memeington. My god they actually had him literally call himself daddy... christ.

- The Billy and Karen/all the other middle age women remains gross and bad in a billion ways. Also completely pointless for the plot, they could’ve come up with any other way to get Billy to the factory. And what did it give Karen in development? Just the realization that yeah I’m tired of my husband but I’m not leaving my family and I’ll stick with him just ‘cause? Okay but did we need her almost sleeping with a kid a year older than her daughter for that? Icky. Also the editing of the scene where Billy hits her was so weird. Also that was weird as fuck.

- The ending. Okay christ my main gripe with this is because of a point above: No Byers family interaction at all! Joyce and Hopper talk briefly about her thinking about moving once or twice but she never talks about it with her kids... obviously she did in the timegap but we need to see that to build to the thing. Having no Byers interactions the whole season and then just oop we’re moving is so weird. I’m also not sure if Joyce’s motivation for moving (her bad memories of Hawkins) would be enough. For sure an argument for it, but an argument against is the one Hopper presents to her (and though he’s not around still there’s still a support system around them there, especially for her kids which she loves above all). Speaking of her loving her kids above all, she knows they love their friends/girlfriend/boyfriend to bits, have walked through fire with them and are each others support system as mentioned, would Joyce really just uproot them from that? There’s also some purely practical things that stuck out to me immediately: the timeskip for the epilogue makes it so they move when the schoolyear is already well under way and Jonathan has started senior year, feel bad for Jonathan there in a number of ways. Also, how the hell did Joyce manage to sell her house and what did it fetch? Her rundown house on the outskirts of a now infamous town with an incredibly bad rep? Even if the buyer bought it for the land the land doesn’t look special, just find it hard to believe she could get much for it. And where did they move? Where did she find a place? And work? Did she have something lined up or? I guess we’ll see.

- Oh and speaking of work, that was another thing that was just dropped, the mall killing downtown and the protests just fell out of the story. But, with what happened to the mall wouldn’t business come back to downtown (possibly reason for Joyce to want to stay if Melvald’s going out of business was another reason to move).

- Sorry but Mileven took way too much space.

- Again, no Jonathan and Will actual brothers bonding. But a whole lot of Steve and Dustin meme fanservice wank.

- Erica is just the sassy black girl trope non stop the whole season and nothing else and it’s so grating and... I was gonna say disappointing but I had no faith in the Duffers regarding this. Just because a bit character becomes a meme doesn’t mean they need to become a main. *cough* Steve *cough cough* Sorry.

- Last but not least, the woobiefication of Billy. Uggggghhhh. Disgusting. And having Max cry over him WTF?!?!?!?!?! staaaaaaahp.

[diamondorloj]

do you know any neutral post that sums up the Israeli–Palestinian conflict because I don't know what to think. I don't want to dislike jews or Israel but it all sounds so bad? Send help

Hi! I super appreciate you asking because I know exactly how hard it is to even find one reliable source.

Of course it all sounds super bad, because Hamas is a well-oiled and functioning propaganda machine with a lot of money and children and parents willing to throw themselves in front of the camera to make Israel bad, and for some reason their pictures are always what get picked up by the media. Plus, there are super loud antisemitic voices everywhere chanting against Israel at every mention. And the BDS is lobbying pretty hard too, so it's very hard to not find a super negative picture.

It's a super tricky conflict. I'm not saying everything went well and Israel is a country with a pristine history. But here's some points to consider that are usually the biggest issues in any ''''controversy'''' around Israel- Jewish people have always lived and practiced Judaism for over 5000 years in Israel. They have been victims of pogroms and hatred and chased in the desert, but they have literally always been there and to say that Israel was a state installed by foreigners for foreigners coming to these lands is a blatant lie.

There are countries with way more questionable borders in existence, yet Israel is the only country to continuously has to defend its very existence.

The United Nations have two organisations for refugees. One is the UNHCR which deals with refugee questions for all over the world, except for one group. And the other is the UNRWA which is an organisation only for the Palestine/Gaza refugees. The differences between these organisations are more than in structure and beaurucracy, they have two different tasks: UNHCR aims to give refugees a home, UNRWA doesn't. When in 1951 the director of UNRWA proposed to give 250.000 refugees a home in different arabic countries, these governments were angry and strictly refused, leading to the director John Blanford to lose his job. Since then, no further attempts have been made.

Furthermore, the UNHCR only defines refugees as people who have actually fled from their homes. Meanwhile, the UNRWA broadens that definition to "people who lost their homes in 1948 and their descendants".

- Israel is the only country that won all their wars for their survival and in self-defense yet had to have the coniditions for peace dictated by the defeated enemies. Even more paradox, this was supported by countries which all defined their borders after winning wars over these territories -- like, look at an old map of Europe and you will see what I mean. Btw Europe, Germany and Poland drew their finite borders in 1990 but I guess Israel is the only ''''artificial'''' state

- One of Hamas' conditions was that no jewish people were allowed to live in Gaza, so for the first time in centuries if not more, there are no Jewish people living in Gaza. Weirdly, it doesn't seem enough because these people are still living somewhere else and not all dead, I guess.

- Hamas literally uses children and families as a shield, regularly raises palestine flags with swastikas and calls protests of throwing rocks, burning tires and attacking soldiers 'peaceful'. It's a terrorist organisation and literally has the destruction of Israel as a defining goal, yet we always expect Israel to work with them. Hamas wants to build a state based on ethnic purity and cleansing of the territory, but somehow everyone thinks it's okay.

- By the way, when the two state solution was on the table, it was refused because they didn't want Israel to even have a bit of Jerusalem, the capital city with which the jewish people has been connected for over 3000 years. Even weirder, this connection is widely known (famously written into the most read world book in the world, the Bible) and yet every country refuses to acknowledge it as the official capital city because they're afraid that terrorists will riot

- Israel is the only country which is continuously attacked by three organisations in the UN which only exist to represent the Palestine agenda and to defame Israel (they're three comitees and I can't remember their exact names even in German, but they're about realising Palestinian rights, researching the Israeli actions in regard to palestinian rights and there's something in the UN-department for politic agendas or somth)

- Every year. Every year, Israel is targeted by more UN-resolutions than all of the other 192 member countries together. No-one can tell me that this number is justifiable in the least, but it is a reality and it paints the picture of Israel in the media.

- Israel is also the only country in the UN that continuously has to defend its existence against other UN-members and that suffers threats from other members all the damn time. And not just any threats, Iran for example continuously threatens to wipe out Israel and supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, both of which are terrorist organisations with the goal of destroying Israel. And destroying Israel means killing all their Jewish citizens.

And we continuously forget that Israel is the only liberal democracy in that area, they're currently conducting investigations into Netanyahu and his regime and it's a country with a rich and vivid discourse nature. They just refuse to let their existence be up to debate, and frankly, neither should any of us.

So, does this mean no-one is allowed to criticise Israel? Absolutely not. It is a functioning democracy and like any country, it is not a moral entity and there is a lot of room for debate. But when looking into the arguments, you should keep in mind that there's a lot of antisemitism hidden as 'Israel critic' when it's just the same old shit. There's a test called "the 3 Ds" (in German) that can function as a broad test to see if you're reading legitimate critics or antisemitic shit:

- Demonisation (are they demonising Israel, for example by comparing Israel to the Nazis or the palestine refugee camp with Auschwitz)

- Double standards (are they criticising Israel for a behaviour or an act that they ignore or belittle when it's different state, for example how is it that Israel suffers resolutions for hurting human rights but China, Iran, Kuba and Syria don't)

- Delegitimisation (when they're arguing against Israel to exist; it's also a double standard bc it's refusing to allow Jewish people to have a state in which they can live a safe life)

I realise this won't directly answer your question and I easily get side tracked, but I feel like knowing about these difficulties and critically reading your sources will help you more than just drawing a timeline of events. Because there's a lot of anti-Israel propaganda even on Wikipedia, on seemingly normal internet platforms and even our big Western media liberally use Hamas material while refusing to show the Nazi swastikas blowing on burning kites they shoot over to Israel ground. And it's hard to be neutral about this topic, because it is a democracy which is never flawless against a terrorist organisation which demonstrates great finesse in painting the picture the way they want it. I don't think we should all be neutral about it. I am firmly pro Israel because I need my Jewish friends who are currently worrying about anti-judaic sentiments on the uprise everywhere in Europe to have a safe haven. I am pro Israel because it is a country with huge efforts and contributions to our world and advancing medicines etc every day. It's a LGBTQ friendly country (contrary to Hamas policy in which gay sex means 10 years of prison). It is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and deserves our support more than a terrorist organisation using their children as human shields. Yknow. Maybe that's not actually a topic to be neutral about.