#but the most un-internalized

[saviourkingslut]

not to be about opera again but to be about opera again. as an art form it has the reputation of being super stuffy and something for snobs who don't know how to have fun only but honestly this was one of, perhaps even THE main theatrical entertainment for centuries. i wish people knew how hard these things can go and how engaging they can be. like characters kill and die and fight wars and (almost) commit human sacrifice left and right. characters fall in love they mourn they're ecstatic they cry they're furious it's an extremely dramatic and emotional art form! and i understand that opera does not appear approachable bc of the general conventions of the art form but i promise old works can be fun and engaging if you go watch them with some preparation beforehand (reading the libretto helps) - not to mention not all operas are old bc there are so many modern operas which engage with topical events! also the music slaps.

[thenegoteator]

Hello it's the song anon, here this time with some absolute crack.

Consider: Fixer Upper from Frozen as Padmé's braincells during most of AotC. In fact most of Episodes II and III

SDKJFLDSJFKDSFDS

[blackvahana]

The beauty of destruction... To be put on an altar dressed in oils and wafted herb smoke, well fed throughout your life, attended to as much then as now, led not in chains but by the draw of finally hearing the chorus of God's angels... To be laid down on marble stone, and to the song's louder and louder and more clear melody and with its beating pulse to be beheaded, thin slice, a mere moment you barely notice, as swift as a drum tap, on a blade sharpened dutifully to dull your own displeasure... The blood flowing into the exact perfect-messy shapes and forms of crystallised fate and physics in visual form - flow, fluid dynamics, friction, velocity all dragging it into God's calculated, dreaming art - to be embraced by every crevice in the ground like the valleys embrace the sky at home...

That bliss. Ascension and descent. When walking out of your body is paced to the same rhythm and tune as your beating heart was moments ago, the Sun eclipsing the Moon in unification, the way that the rain feels before it is droplets, when it is pathways between Sky and Ocean, to know its own fate before its body does...

[navree]

i do love how many people either forget or just straight up do not know that superman is in death in the family almost entirely because he's in the stupid part of death in the family

[brownbitchshit]

I currently have 700+ followers. And I will urge all of you to read about what is happening in Bangladesh. What has happened in Bangladesh. I am adding irrelevant tags of the fandoms I follow to garner more attention. I apologize in advance.

The government of Bangladesh killed pressumably 950+ people, innocent people, students, all because they demanded a system that will give them government jobs based on merit rather than quota. To suppress the students Sheikh Hasina and its government imposed 5 days of total internet blackout. While imposing this blackout they killed off anyone of the streets. They killed people from helicopters by shooting and throwing grenades. Many kids died in their own homes as the bullet shot them through their window.

Sheikh Hasina and its police took away all the dead bodies and the death registries from the hospital. The official death toll is 200. But various journalistic and medical staff sources confirm the death toll is over 950 in Dhaka alone.

That monster of a PM didn't acknowledge the death of the students. Instead she is crying over the infrastructure vandalism. I request you,rise up and speak out about this. Educate yourself and let other people know. The internet blackout have suppressed the truth at large. The Bangladeshi people are in deep surveillance and the government have made 2000+ arrests on false charges just because they have shared the Information. There is mass fear mongering. I know most of you people are not Bangladeshis and that's why you need to help us and speak up about it. Join your local protests, share the news in your social media, twitter Instagram. I beg you, don't let my people's murderers get away with it. Don't let my people's death be forgotten.

I am attaching some links for you to understand the horror of it all.

This Facebook page Bringing justice to you has documented all the horrors and the massacres that happened on Bangladeshi people. TW : all kinds of blood, gore, death bodies, every single horrible things imaginable but shows what went down.

This ig page is also another page that brings you the horror stories.

https://www.instagram.com/thebangladeshivoice?igsh=YXBpdzQyem54cmZj

Al-Jazeera has been a very credible news source while the Bangladesh was under blackout. They have made several segments. I am attaching the latest one.

UN Human Rights have called out Bangladesh for explanation regarding the crackdown

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by United Nations Human Rights (@unitednationshumanrights)

Amnesty International's report of Bangladesh government using lethal weapon against its people and mass murder

There are many more contents, proof and videos to show you the horrors that was unfolded in the crackdown. Sheikh Hasina killed her people like insects and violated every single human rights imaginable. Please share these. Support us. Help us. I beg you all.

[skybluekoneko]

People saying the UN security council failed because the US vetoed the resolution is a little 'funny' to me because honestly especially with the last couple of years, wasn't that much already obvious? Russia and China veto anything their governments don't like all the time, too, especially if it is related to a war somewhere. For years now, it has always been about the country's own national interests in the UN security council, nothing more.

[heritageposts]

From the Freedom Flotilla, April 27 2024:

On Thursday afternoon, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition was contacted by the Guinea Bissau International Ships Registry (GBISR), requesting an inspection of our lead ship – Akdenez. This was a highly unusual request as our ship had already passed all required inspections; nevertheless, we agreed. The inspector arrived on Thursday evening. On Friday afternoon, before the inspection was completed, the GBISR, in a blatantly political move, informed the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that it had withdrawn the Guinea Bissau flag from two of the Freedom Flotilla’s ships, one of which is our cargo ship, already loaded with over 5000 tons of life-saving aid for the Palestinians of Gaza. In its communication informing us of this cancelation, the GBISR made specific reference to our planned mission to Gaza. It also made several extraordinary requests for information, including confirmation of the ships’ destination, any potential additional port calls, and the discharge port for humanitarian aid and estimated arrival dates and times. It further demanded a formal letter explicitly approving the transportation of humanitarian aid and a complete manifest of the cargo. Again, this is a highly unusual move from a flagging authority. Normally, national flagging authorities concern themselves only with safety and related standards on vessels bearing their flag, and are not concerned with the destination, route, cargo manifests or the nature of a specific voyage. Just like when you register your car, the authorities don’t require you to detail to them every place you are going to go with the car. Sadly, Guinea-Bissau has allowed itself to become complicit in Israel’s deliberate starvation, illegal siege and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Israel is showing the world the extent to which it will go to deny Palestinians the aid they need to stay alive, in direct contravention of International Humanitarian Law, UN Security Council resolutions, and two orders of the International Court of Justice. [...] without a flag, we cannot sail. But, this is not the end. Israel cannot and will not crush our resolve to break its illegal siege and reach the people of Gaza. The people of Gaza and all of Palestine remain steadfast under the most horrific, unimaginable conditions. We take strength from their incredible, inexplicable ability to maintain their humanity, dignity and hope when the world has given them no reason to do so. It is our responsibility to keep that hope alive. WE WILL SAIL.

The Freedom Flotilla, which was set to depart from Turkey on the 27th of April with 5000 tons of life-saving aid, has now been delayed because Israel and the United States has pressured Guinea Bissau to withdraw its flag from the Flotilla's lead ship.

Seeing as how their tactics worked on Guinea Bissau, organizers now fear that Israel and the US will exert the same pressure on whichever country the Freedom Flotilla attempt to register their ship under next.

To help the Freedom Flotilla reach Gaza, please keep an eye out for further updates from the organizers. Right now, as of April 27th, they're asking people to help boost their visibility, and to donate to their member campaigns.

For more info, see their webpage.

[sayruq]

The United Nations said Tuesday it suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity. It also said no aid trucks entered in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the U.S. for sea deliveries. The U.N. has not specified how many people have stayed in Rafah since the Israeli military began its intensified assault there two weeks ago, but apparently several hundred thousand people remain. The World Food Program said it was also running out of food for central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Rafah have sought shelter in a chaotic exodus, setting up new tent camps or crowding into areas already devastated by previous Israeli offensives. Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the U.N’s World Food Program, warned that “humanitarian operations in Gaza are near collapse.” If food and other supplies don’t resume entering Gaza “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread,” she said.

The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court cited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “use of starvation as a method of warfare,” a charge they and other Israeli officials angrily deny. The prosecutor accused three Hamas leaders of war crimes over killings of civilians in the group’s Oct. 7 attack. The U.N says some 1.1 million people in Gaza – nearly half the population — face catastrophic levels of hunger and that the territory is on the brink of famine. The crisis in humanitarian supplies has spiraled in the two weeks since Israel launched an incursion into Rafah on May 6, vowing to root out Hamas fighters. Troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has been closed since. Since May 10, only about three dozen trucks made it into Gaza via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel because fighting makes it difficult for aid workers to reach it, the U.N. says. For months, the U.N. has warned that an Israeli assault on Rafah could wreck the effort to get food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians across Gaza. Throughout the war, Rafah has been filled with scenes of hungry children holding out pots and plastic containers at makeshift soup kitchens, with many families reduced to eating only one meal a day. The city’s population had swelled to some 1.3 million people, most of whom fled fighting elsewhere. Around 810,000 people have streamed out of Rafah, although Israel says it has not launched the full-fledged invasion of the city it had planned. The United States has said Israel did not present a “credible” plan for evacuating the population or keeping it safe. The main agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, announced the suspension of distribution in Rafah in a post on X, without elaborating beyond citing the lack of supplies. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UNRWA distribution center and the WFP’s warehouses in Rafah were “inaccessible due to ongoing military operations.”

An absolute nightmare

[palms-upturned]

Frustrates me to no end seeing people say “what’s your alternative to voting blue? Stage a revolution right now? This second? Get real, you’re posting on your computer instead of firebombing walmarts.” I don’t think that you understand what people are actually doing. I know for myself, I’ve been reading more history and theory than I ever have before. I’ve been marching. I’ve been getting involved with labor activism. I’ve been doing strategic research. I’ve tried to archive and share resources. I’ve watched other people do WAY more than I ever have or probably could. I’ve seen people occupy arms manufacturing sites and hold wildcat strikes and disrupt daily life as much as possible. We’ve all seen this happening at unprecedented levels for months now. And most of all, I’ve seen Palestinians telling us, rightfully full of anger, do not ever go back to how things were before. Do not turn away from what’s happening and your own complicity in it.

This is not something that we can vote our way out of. Our state is built on the same violence being inflicted on the people of Palestine. We helped to build Israel. We are still arming it and funding the “war” right now. Even the most half hearted measures from international bodies like the UN to take the bare minimum of a stance against genocide are quashed by the US. As they always have been, our power and resources are used to reinforce imperial and colonial hegemony. That remains the same no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office. And so does our own struggle for liberation. Meaningful change is never, ever going to come from within. We force the change to happen, as we always have.

If you can understand intersectionality, then surely you can understand this: we are not going to free ourselves by sacrificing colonized people. You may vote blue, and for you it could be a matter of life and death. Believe me, as a poor disabled person in a red state who almost killed myself over medical debt, I know the stakes. But I think you have to own the fact that you are empowering perpetrators of genocide and breaking solidarity with colonized people, not even to liberate yourself, but just to bargain with the oppressor for your life. That Palestinians and everyone else who we have harmed are going to be angry and they are more than within their rights. Instead of deflecting by just assuming that no one else is capable of putting their money where their mouth is and actually trying to lay groundwork for change, just do whatever you feel you have to do and sit with the reality of the situation.

Palestine will be free, we will be free, the whole world will someday be free. But for now, this is where we are, and we won’t free ourselves by operating like crabs in a bucket. Get organized, take care of each other, commit to solidarity. Empower yourself and each other rather than the state.

[soon-palestine]

In a statement that was shared with The Nation, a group of 25 HLR editors expressed their concerns about the decision. “At a time when the Law Review was facing a public intimidation and harassment campaign, the journal’s leadership intervened to stop publication,” they wrote. “The body of editors—none of whom are Palestinian—voted to sustain that decision. We are unaware of any other solicited piece that has been revoked by the Law Review in this way. “ When asked for comment, the leadership of the Harvard Law Review referred The Nation to a message posted on the journal’s website. “Like every academic journal, the Harvard Law Review has rigorous editorial processes governing how it solicits, evaluates, and determines when and whether to publish a piece…” the note began. ”Last week, the full body met and deliberated over whether to publish a particular Blog piece that had been solicited by two editors. A substantial majority voted not to proceed with publication.” Today, The Nation is sharing the piece that the Harvard Law Review refused to run. Some may claim that the invocation of genocide, especially in Gaza, is fraught. But does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it? This logic contributes to the politics of denial. When it comes to Gaza, there is a sense of moral hypocrisy that undergirds Western epistemological approaches, one which mutes the ability to name the violence inflicted upon Palestinians. But naming injustice is crucial to claiming justice. If the international community takes its crimes seriously, then the discussion about the unfolding genocide in Gaza is not a matter of mere semantics. The UN Genocide Convention defines the crime of genocide as certain acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” These acts include “killing members of a protected group” or “causing serious bodily or mental harm” or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Numerous statements made by top Israeli politicians affirm their intentions. There is a forming consensus among leading scholars in the field of genocide studies that “these statements could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent,” as Omer Bartov, an authority in the field, writes. More importantly, genocide is the material reality of Palestinians in Gaza: an entrapped, displaced, starved, water-deprived population of 2.3 million facing massive bombardments and a carnage in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Over 11,000 people have already been killed. That is one person out of every 200 people in Gaza. Tens of thousands are injured, and over 45% of homes in Gaza have been destroyed. The United Nations Secretary General said that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children,” but a cessation of the carnage—a ceasefire—remains elusive. Israel continues to blatantly violate international law: dropping white phosphorus from the sky, dispersing death in all directions, shedding blood, shelling neighborhoods, striking schools, hospitals, and universities, bombing churches and mosques, wiping out families, and ethnically cleansing an entire region in both callous and systemic manner. What do you call this? The Center for Constitutional Rights issued a thorough, 44-page, factual and legal analysis, asserting that “there is a plausible and credible case that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.” Raz Segal, a historian of the Holocaust and genocide studies, calls the situation in Gaza “a textbook case of Genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.”

[madamepestilence]

Just as a reminder as I've just noticed myself - arab.org has more pages to support on

In case you're unfamiliar with how this site works, it confirms ad revenue via your clicks, which allows them to donate money to various funds

These go to:

Children -> UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund)

Fight Poverty -> UNDP (United Nations Development Programme)

Environment -> Greenpeace MENA (Middle East and North Africa)

Palestine -> UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency [for Palestine Refugees in the Near East])

Refugees -> UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)

Women -> UN Women

Do more with your daily clicks! You can help each one once per individual (perhaps per IP address?) per day, letting you help out with six things at once?

US-specific advice for helping Palestine below cut.

Side note I'm keeping beneath the cut since it's relevant to US folks only: if you're really determined to help Palestine, vote for Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D. for President of the United States.

He's the most openly vocal about a free Palestine and is the only candidate who has demonstrably shown he is the most committed and prepared to immediately cease US support to Israel.

Joe Biden isn't going to cave if he gets re-elected. We all know that. Voting third party is a lot less risky than you've been taught - the two party system can replace one or both parties with new parties if they lose public favour.

We have both the people and the ability to unseat the Democratic party and install Socialism, and between Socialism and Republicans, Socialism is going to lock in place immediately and become the dominant political force in America.

Cornel West's Platform

Cornel West's Volunteer Events

Cornel West's Ballot Access Tracker and Ballot Access Plans

Tumblr thread I have of Primary/Caucus polling dates in the US (includes US territories)

Not on your Primary/Caucus ballot? Write-in, "Cornel West," on your ballot, or urge your Caucus representatives to do the same.

In a state where it's difficult for Independent candidates to get ballot access? Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D. thought ahead and has created a new party for those states called the Justice for All Party.

(Addendum: Claudia de la Cruz is not a viable alternative. The Party for Socialism and Liberation has a Conservative 5th Column and has frequent issues with discrimination.)

Free Palestine. Vote for Cornel West.

[reasonsforhope]

Masterpost: Reasons I firmly believe we will beat climate change

Posts are in reverse chronological order (by post date, not article date), mostly taken from my "climate change tag," which I went through all the way back to the literal beginning of my blog. Will update periodically.

Especially big deal articles/posts are in bold.

Big picture:

Mature trees offer hope in world of rising emissions (x)

Spying from space: How satellites can help identify and rein in a potent climate pollutant (x)

Good news: Tiny urban green spaces can cool cities and save lives (x)

Conservation and economic development go hand in hand, more often than expected (x)

The exponential growth of solar power will change the world (x)

Sun Machines: Solar, an energy that gets cheaper and cheaper, is going to be huge (x)

Wealthy nations finally deliver promised climate aid, as calls for more equitable funding for poor countries grow (x)

For Earth Day 2024, experts are spreading optimism – not doom. Here's why. (x)

Opinion: I’m a Climate Scientist. I’m Not Screaming Into the Void Anymore. (x)

The World’s Forests Are Doing Much Better Than We Think (x)

‘Staggering’ green growth gives hope for 1.5C, says global energy chief (x)

Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming Into View (x)

Young Forests Capture Carbon Quicker than Previously Thought (x)

Yes, climate change can be beaten by 2050. Here's how. (x)

Soil improvements could keep planet within 1.5C heating target, research shows (x)

The global treaty to save the ozone layer has also slowed Arctic ice melt (x)

The doomers are wrong about humanity’s future — and its past (x)

Scientists Find Methane is Actually Offsetting 30% of its Own Heating Effect on Planet (x)

Are debt-for-climate swaps finally taking off? (x)

High seas treaty: historic deal to protect international waters finally reached at UN (x)

How Could Positive ‘Tipping Points’ Accelerate Climate Action? (x)

Specific examples:

Environmental Campaigners Celebrate As Labour Ends Tory Ban On New Onshore Wind Projects (x)

Private firms are driving a revolution in solar power in Africa (x)

How the small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu drastically cut plastic pollution (x)

Rewilding sites have seen 400% increase in jobs since 2008, research finds [Scotland] (x)

The American Climate Corps take flight, with most jobs based in the West (x)

Waste Heat Generated from Electronics to Warm Finnish City in Winter Thanks to Groundbreaking Thermal Energy Project (x)

Climate protection is now a human right — and lawsuits will follow [European Union] (x)

A new EU ecocide law ‘marks the end of impunity for environmental criminals’ (x)

Solar hits a renewable energy milestone not seen since WWII [United States] (x)

These are the climate grannies. They’ll do whatever it takes to protect their grandchildren. [United States and Native American Nations] (x)

Century of Tree Planting Stalls the Warming Effects in the Eastern United States, Says Study (x)

Chart: Wind and solar are closing in on fossil fuels in the EU (x)

UK use of gas and coal for electricity at lowest since 1957, figures show (x)

Countries That Generate 100% Renewable Energy Electricity (x)

Indigenous advocacy leads to largest dam removal project in US history [United States and Native American Nations] (x)

India’s clean energy transition is rapidly underway, benefiting the entire world (x)

China is set to shatter its wind and solar target five years early, new report finds (x)

‘Game changing’: spate of US lawsuits calls big oil to account for climate crisis (x)

Largest-ever data set collection shows how coral reefs can survive climate change (x)

The Biggest Climate Bill of Your Life - But What Does It DO? [United States] (x)

Good Climate News: Headline Roundup April 1st through April 15th, 2023 (x)

How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon (x) [Brazil]

Loss of Climate-Crucial Mangrove Forests Has Slowed to Near-Negligable Amount Worldwide, Report Hails (x)

Agroecology schools help communities restore degraded land in Guatemala (x)

Climate adaptation:

Solar-powered generators pull clean drinking water 'from thin air,' aiding communities in need: 'It transforms lives' (x)

‘Sponge’ Cities Combat Urban Flooding by Letting Nature Do the Work [China] (x)

Indian Engineers Tackle Water Shortages with Star Wars Tech in Kerala (x)

A green roof or rooftop solar? You can combine them in a biosolar roof — boosting both biodiversity and power output (x)

Global death tolls from natural disasters have actually plummeted over the last century (x)

Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be (x)

This city turns sewage into drinking water in 24 hours. The concept is catching on [Namibia] (x)

Plants teach their offspring how to adapt to climate change, scientists find (x)

Resurrecting Climate-Resilient Rice in India (x)

[seraphicsentences]

you told me your new man don’t make you nut, that’s a damn shame.

closeted/in denial abby anderson x reader

pt.2 here: all mine

tags: internalized homophobia, smut, cheating, tw:owen, fingering (aa!receiving), lowkey sub!aa

A/N: we do not condone cheating here! unless it’s on owen fuck that asshole. sorry i disappeared for 100 years!! hope this is half-decent enough to make up for it. working on reqs i promise!!!! i love you all my sweet angels <333

please click me!!!

it was undeniable— the tension, between you and abby anderson. your queer sexuality was common knowledge amongst the WLF base, and your reputation as a womanizer quite contributory to the hot topic. on the complete opposite of the spectrum stood abby: top soldier, with the highest leading score in kills, and most importantly, dutiful girlfriend to owen moore.

where she stood on the line of homosexuality was made evidently clear. from the way she scoffed under her breath at the sight of your marked-up one night stands, to her weekly mornings at the base’s sunday service, you had found an almost masochistic pleasure in ticking her off to your best efforts.

you would catch yourself throwing offhand comments towards your latest hookups when she was in ears range. “my dick’s better than any man’s, isn’t that right, baby?”

in the mere corner of your peripheral vision you would see abby’s jaw tighten, gaze hard as she refused to look your way— her own sort of defiance to your antics. a haughty smirk threatened to break across your face. you couldn’t exactly place your finger on as to why you were so enamored with her understated reactions, rather than focused on the pretty, blushing girl in front of you. it became a thrill you craved insatiably, and built up as a wall between you two over the years, bound to come tumbling sooner or later.

~

mid-summer now, the longer days and better hunt called for a compulsory celebration. wlf’s central lounge was buzzing with drunken chatter and alight with the golden hue of mini lamp lights.

your childish bickering with abby hadn’t lessened up any bit, and to much of your delight, had begun to stir up more volatile reactions of hers as they’ve persisted.

you sat across her now, separated by only a couple foot’s distance and a beer bottle, which lay empty and flat on its side.

“spin the bottle? what are we, twelve?” abby scoffed at the idea.

she sat crisscrossed, forearms resting atop her legs, muscles straining against her tight grey shirt, and you couldn’t help but wonder how she, the very picture of masc, was so adamantly straight.

“aw, scared, anderson?” you grinned devilishly.

she physically recoiled, as if the very thought of being intimidated by someone like you burned her mind. haughty self satisfaction coursed through your veins, sick pleasure in knowing you could get under her skin so easily. running your eyes salaciously down her figure, you watched as she shifted nervously. cute.

“es solo un juego, abby,” manny says, shrugging.

“whatever,” she replies, “just get on with it.”

as the rounds go by, you can’t help but take note of the way abby awkwardly averts her gaze from whichever two lucky partakers kiss, no matter the duo. scoffing, she teasingly mouths ‘pendejo’ after manny stupidly grins into his third kiss of the night. you watch her smile disappear in a brief second when the your turn arises.

eye contact unwavering, you stare down abby as the bottle whirls around, waiting for it to select its next target. you can’t quite understand why your heart feels like it’s racing out of your chest the closer the bottlehead gets to nodding the blonde’s direction.

it inches closer. slower now.

a person away— and it stops.

…on the pretty girl next to abby.

abby releases a harsh breath you didn’t realize she was holding, chest rising slowly as she catches some air. you blink.

you cross the short distance between the two of you crawling, abby eyeing you down, before swerving your course of action in the last moment to land yourself in front of the girl next to her. without a moment’s hesitation you tug her in for a kiss, or no, multiple kisses as you tongue the girl down hungrily. she groans into it with a matched eagerness, desperate to get a dose of your infamous mouth.

your eyes flicker open between kisses, expecting to get an eyeful of the top of the blonde’s head, but you’re met with quite the opposite. the piercing stare of none other than abby anderson sends a chill down your spine. her breath hitches— she looks like she’s been fucking caught. and as tempting as the girl in front of you is, you can’t tear your gaze away from her.

you begin to dominate what is now a full-blown makeout session, eyes darkened, breaths unsteady, hands pulling. she just watches, bound to the floor. you watch her watch. and you want her to want it.

you pull away with a final tug on the girl’s bottom lip, feeding off the way abby’s eyes follow the action. someone wolf-whistles in the background, but, even flustered now, you can’t shake the undeniable tension between yourself and abby.

the rhythmic thumping of blood rushing through your skull acted rather as a barrier between your awareness and the continuing rounds. thankfully, you were left as a mere onlooker, free of any further unwanted attention.

abby had gone back to staring at her lap, you discovered, watching intently as she picked a stray hair off her jeans.

“hey anderson,” you called over, her reaction immediate— head jolting up.

her eyes relaxed to a glare once she realized you were the one addressing her, raising an eyebrow in question.

“i think it’s ‘bout your turn, yeah?”

“you fu-“

“solo un juego, abby,” manny cuts in.

with a huff, abby begrudgingly leans over to give the bottle a spin, tapping her fingers against the floor in anticipation.

the bottle stops. so does your heart, for just a second.

you look up. abby looks to owen. the fucking son of a bitch lends no help, smirking, excited that his perverted fantasies have come to life before his eyes.

“c’mon then,” you nod at her, leaning back on your wrists, almost in invitation.

she moves slowly, braid dangling by her shoulder as she scooches towards you, hands coming to a stop on the floor in front of you.

closer now, you can feel the heat radiating off her large figure onto your own, the light brush of her breaths intermingling with your own. yet— she makes no move to get any closer.

you loop a finger around her neckline and drag her in, teeth clashing from the aggression, noses bumping; it’s no fairytale kiss. but then your tongue licks into her open mouth, perhaps merely by muscle memory, or maybe because you secretly want a taste of more, and she fucking whimpers. so quiet, strangled, from the back of her throat, but you hear it nonetheless, and god, you feel it.

the switch up is almost immediate: abby pulling away faster than you can blink, back in her original spot before you know it, wiping at her mouth. but she was too late. you knew what she craved, and you were going to make sure she’d have to beg for it.

~

the party was in full swing now, majority of the room drunk off of wlf’s own brew, which meant everyone was completely fucked up.

you stumbled over to the serving area, leaning haphazardly over the bar to scan the room without falling over. your eyes caught onto a familiar blonde, seated quietly with a group composed of what you assumed to be her usual patrol friends. she’s seated next to owen, the fucker, who has his arm lazily swung around the skank sprawled on the other side of him. your eyes are glued to the visible scrunch between abby’s eyebrows, fingers itching to reach out and press it away.

“who’s the lucky girl you’re sinking your claws into tonight?”

your head swivels towards the voice, met with a concerned look from alex, wlf’s residential mixologist.

“…you good, babe?”

“fuck— yeah, just got a lit, a little dizzy for sec. the answer to, uh- to, your question is no one,” you hiccuped, grinning up at alex as you rested your head against the cold counter.

“uh-huh, sure. i’ll let you have your secrets. i won’t pry,” she quips.

you laugh, miming an imaginary lock over your lips before tossing the ‘key’ away. “what can i say? i’m a gentleman, alex, no, gentlewoman. i don’t kiss and te-“

you’re cut off by another voice approaching the counter, low and slurring, asking for a glass of straight whiskey.

you roll your head over, faced with the towering frame of none other than abby anderson. she’s closer than you expected her to be, causing you to stumble back a step, and then laugh at yourself, muttering under your breath, straight whiskey for the straight girl.

“i think you’ve had well enough, anderson. even with all the muscle on you, man, i don’t know how you got this hammered. i’ll get you some water, honey,” alex jokes.

abby sulks, spacing out as she begrudgingly sips on her water. you doubt she even notices your presence, using the accidental peace as time to really take in her side profile. she’s stunning, in her own, amazonian sort of way. especially now in the hazy golden light of the lounge, the sweaty blonde strands framing her face made her appear in rather close resemblance to a goddess of some type. and all you wanted was to worship her in that manner, treat her body as your temple and such. perhaps the alcohol really was getting to you.

“what’s got you all pouty, anderson? your little boyfriend not doing you any good?”

it’s so comical, the effect your presence has on abby. her head jerks your way at the first breath of your words, and her pinning gaze blows away any of the fog clouding either of your minds.

her demeanor hardens instantly, as she crosses her arms defensively. “fuck off,” is all she manages to spit out.

you take it as an invitation to continue. “like,” you scoff, “there’s no way he knows how to hit all the right spots. does he even try to? how’s his head game, abs?”

her look away speaks volumes.

“oh? god, what a dick.”

“he-“ she tries.

“-i could show you a good time,” you ramble, “i can assure you that i know how to hit all the right spots. your spots— i mean, only if you want me to.”

she gawks at you, her look half full of disbelief and half full of curiosity. and you can tell that you’ve got her hooked.

“i don’t need you,” she mutters, but a glance at her thighs pressed tight together says otherwise.

you smirk, placing your hand down that just so happens to land on her mid-thigh. her muscle jolts at your contact.

tentatively dragging your fingers higher, you speak lowly, stare locked, “you sure, baby?”

the wall comes crashing.

abby’s snatching your hand off her leg in a heartbeat and dragging you into the closest bathroom, shoving you against the door and pushing her lips against yours.

your tongue is dipping into her open mouth almost immediately, desperate to pull another one of her addicting whimpers out.

“shit,” abby curses in between gasps, before leaning back in to just consume more of you. her hands are searching for any part of you she can reach, grabbing at the meat at your hips, thighs, pressing your waist against hers with a groan.

the feel of your body against her own is so different from owens’, but so satisfying in a way she can’t wrap her head around. you fit into her frame like a puzzle piece, and your touches are needy and selfish, but they don’t feel offensive in the way that owen’s do.

you venture a hand under her shirt, tracing along the ridges of her toned stomach, and abby shudders, breaking your kiss to look down at your moving hand. she’s panting against your neck, heavier now, as you slide your hand up under her bra to cup her chest softly, rolling her hardened nipple between your fingers and watching hypnotically as she gasps into your skin.

with her head down at this angle, her neck is perfectly bared, and you can’t deny yourself a taste, can you? you’re sinking your teeth in before you realize it, soothing the marks with a wet lick over, only to tug the skin in between your teeth to suck at.

the quiet noises abby’s trying to muffle against your shoulder now are sending you into a frenzy, your hands now abandoning her breasts to pull her hips closer against yours.

abby nearly cries at the loss of your direct touches, but stops when your fingers return a place far more rewarding. you’ve unbuttoned her jeans now, your hand cupping her over her boxers teasingly, digits pressing over the damp spot in the fabric.

“bet you’ve never been this wet for owen,” you laugh, running a finger over her soaked core.

“don’t bring him up right now,” she pants in return, hips keening to your touch as she grabs your face to press into a sloppy kiss.

you push her boxers down eagerly, teasing two fingers by her leaking entrance to gather her slick.

god, abby gasps, and it seems to be the winning word of the night when she repeats it as she watches you stuff those same two fingers into your own mouth, and again when you stuff them straight into her pussy.

her pretty eyes are rolling back into her skull farther with every thrust against her gummy walls. “look at me while i fuck you dumb on my fingers, abs, look at me,” you beg.

“i c-can’t,” she whines, blushing a deep red and burrowing her face into your shoulder.

you slow your pumps, using your free hand to grab her by the braid and force her look at you. “awh,” you coo, pouting mockingly at her gaped mouth, “cute.”

your fingers buried as deep into her as physically possible, you curl them to hit that sensitive spot you genuinely believe has never even been touched once. and with the way abby lets out her loudest moan yet, you cannot believe otherwise.

“there it is,” you murmur, massaging your fingertips agonizingly slow inside of her, “see what you’re missing out on?”

her only response is a strangled whimper. baby blue eyes big and pleading as they threaten to roll back with every slight movement.

mhm, you goad her on, “that’s your g-spot, baby, feels real good, huh?”

she nods her head vigorously, quiet mhmmhmhm’s trailing out from her bitten lips.

“now if your little boyfriend’s dick is too small to reach it, i guess he can’t help it,” you laugh. “shame, you make such pretty noises when i touch you here,” you let out an exaggerated sigh, picking up your pace abruptly to slam into her spot over and over.

abby’s nearly gone cross-eyed, tossing her head back now as her pussy throbs almost rhythmically with every thrust. she’s never felt so filled to the brim, so overwhelmed with pleasure, and she’s too blissed out to even care about the stupid fucking smirk you’ve got plastered on your face.

“but his mini- dick is no excuse for not touching you here,” you continue, letting loose of her hair to finally touch her poor, neglected, pink clit, rubbing circles harshly into the button.

abby’s heart nearly jumps out of her chest. she’s moaning nonstop and swearing like a fucking sailor, the combination of your actions almost too much for her to physically bear. after a particularly loud oh god, fuck-please, you have no choice but to stuff abby’s mouth full with the bottom of her shirt. and fuck, was that the right move; the way her ab muscles flex and tighten as she nears her release, glistening with sweat, is enough to make you let out a groan of your own.

“‘m- close,” abby cries around the fabric, hips rocking with your motions as she begins to ride out her high.

“there you go anderson, you got it,” you mutter, circling her swollen clit faster now as you fuck into her g-spot repeatedly.

mmmmph is all you can make out, as abby’s walls clamp down around your curled fingers and she digs her nails into your sides, eyes squeezing shut.

her jerking movements eventually slow along with your own, half lidded eyes staring as you slip your cum-coated fingers into your mouth, sucking them clean. the moistened fabric falls from abby’s open jaw as she attempts to catch her breath, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

before you know it, she’s tugging up her soaked boxers and jeans, shoving past you as she buttons them up and promptly bolts out of that bathroom.

well, that was one way to deal with the tension.

she’ll come running back to you before she knows it.

yikes! i just read that over and yikes! lol uh! sorry guys i’m out of practice!! we love abby anderson though and pray that she gets over her internalized homophobia. she’s too sexy for allat.

send me more reqs!! not that i need any more but send ‘em!

[zvaigzdelasas]

South Africa’s genocide case has put the spotlight on a deeper fault line in global geopolitics. Beyond the courtroom drama, experts say divisions over the war in Gaza symbolize a widening gap between Israel and its traditional Western allies, notably the United States and Europe, and a group of nations known as the Global South — countries located primarily in the southern hemisphere, often characterized by lower income levels and developing economies.

Reactions from the Global North to the ICJ case have been mixed. While some nations have maintained a cautious diplomatic stance, others, particularly Israel’s staunchest allies in the West, have criticized South Africa’s move.

The US has stood by Israel through the war by continuing to ship arms to it, opposing a ceasefire, and vetoing many UN Security Council resolutions that aimed to bring a halt to the fighting. The Biden administration has rubbished the claim that Israel is committing genocide as “meritless,” while the UK has refused to back South Africa.[...]

As a nation whose history is rooted in overcoming apartheid, South Africa’s move carries symbolic weight that has resonated with other nations in the developing world, many of whom have faced the burden of oppression and colonialism from Western powers.

Nelson Mandela, the face of the anti-apartheid movement, was a staunch supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat, saying in 1990: “We align ourselves with the PLO because, akin to our struggle, they advocate for the right of self-determination.”

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while South Africa’s case is a continuation of its long-standing pro-Palestinian sympathies, the countries that have rallied behind it show deeper frustrations by the Global South.

There is “a clear geopolitical context in which many countries from the Global South have been increasingly critical over what they see as a lack of Western pressure on Israel to prevent such a large-scale loss of life in Gaza and its double standards when it comes to international law,” Lovatt told CNN.

Much of the non-Western world opposes the war in Gaza; China has joined the 22-member Arab League in calling for a ceasefire, while several Latin American nations have expelled Israeli diplomats in protest, and several Asian and African countries have joined Muslim and Arab nations in backing South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ.

For many in the developing world, the ICJ case has become a focal point for questioning the moral authority of the West and what is seen as the hypocrisy of the world’s most powerful nations and their unwillingness to hold Israel to account. [...]

Israel sided with the West against Soviet-backed Arab regimes during the Cold War, and Western countries largely view it “as a fellow member of the liberal democratic club,” he added.[...]

“But the strong support of Western governments is increasingly at odds with the attitudes of Western publics which continue to shift away from Israel,” Lovatt said.

Israel has framed the war in Gaza as a clash of civilizations where it is acting as the guardian of Western values that it says are facing an existential threat.

“This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told MSNBC in December. “It’s a war that is intended – really, truly – to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization.”

So far, no Western countries have supported South Africa’s case against Israel.

Among Western states, Germany has been one of the most vocal supporters of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The German government has said it “expressly rejects” allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that it plans to intervene as a third party on its behalf at the ICJ.

An opinion poll by German broadcaster ZDF this week however found that 61% of Germans do not consider Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip as justified in light of the civilian casualties. Only 25% voiced support for Israel’s offensive.

But it is in Germany’s former colonial territory, Namibia, that it has attracted the fiercest criticism.

The Namibian President Hage Geingob in a statement on Saturday chided Berlin’s decision to reject the ICJ case, accusing it of committing “the first genocide of the 20th century in 1904-1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions.” The statement added that the German government had not yet fully atoned for the killings.

Bangladesh, where up to three million people were killed during the country’s war of independence from Pakistan in the 1970s, has gone a step further to file a declaration of intervention in the ICJ case to back South Africa’s claims, according to the Dhaka Tribune.

A declaration of intervention allows a state that is not party to the proceedings to present its observations to the court.

“With Germany siding with Israel, and Bangladesh and Namibia backing South Africa at the ICJ, the geopolitical divide between the Global South and the West appears to be deepening,” Lovatt said.

Traditionally, the West has wielded significant influence in international affairs, but South Africa’s move signals a growing assertiveness among Global South nations that threatens the status quo, says Adekoya.

“One clear pattern emerging is that the old Western-dominated order is increasingly being challenged, a situation likely to only further intensify as the West loses its once unassailably dominant economic position,” Adekoya said.

19 Jan 24

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Holy CRAP the UN Cybercrime Treaty is a nightmare

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If there's one thing I learned from all my years as an NGO delegate to UN specialized agencies, it's that UN treaties are dangerous, liable to capture by unholy alliances of authoritarian states and rapacious global capitalists.

Most of my UN work was on copyright and "paracopyright," and my track record was 2:0; I helped kill a terrible treaty (the WIPO Broadcast Treaty) and helped pass a great one (the Marrakesh Treaty on the rights of people with disabilities to access copyrighted works):

https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/marrakesh/

It's been many years since I had to shave and stuff myself into a suit and tie and go to Geneva, and I don't miss it – and thankfully, I have colleagues who do that work, better than I ever did. Yesterday, I heard from one such EFF colleague, Katitza Rodriguez, about the Cybercrime Treaty, which is about to pass, and which is, to put it mildly, terrifying:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/un-cybercrime-draft-convention-dangerously-expands-state-surveillance-powers

Look, cybercrime is a real thing, from pig butchering to ransomware, and there's real, global harms that can be attributed to it. Cybercrime is transnational, making it hard for cops in any one jurisdiction to handle it. So there's a reason to think about formal international standards for fighting cybercrime.

But that's not what's in the Cybercrime Treaty.

Here's a quick sketch of the significant defects in the Cybercrime Treaty.

The treaty has an extremely loose definition of cybercrime, and that looseness is deliberate. In authoritarian states like China and Russia (whose delegations are the driving force behind this treaty), "cybercrime" has come to mean "anything the government disfavors, if you do it with a computer." "Cybercrime" can mean online criticism of the government, or professions of religious belief, or material supporting LGBTQ rights.

Nations that sign up to the Cybercrime Treaty will be obliged to help other nations fight "cybercrime" – however those nations define it. They'll be required to provide surveillance data – for example, by forcing online services within their borders to cough up their users' private data, or even to pressure employees to install back-doors in their systems for ongoing monitoring.

These obligations to aid in surveillance are mandatory, but much of the Cybercrime Treaty is optional. What's optional? The human rights safeguards. Member states "should" or "may" create standards for legality, necessity, proportionality, non-discrimination, and legitimate purpose. But even if they do, the treaty can oblige them to assist in surveillance orders that originate with other states that decided not to create these standards.

When that happens, the citizens of the affected states may never find out about it. There are eight articles in the treaty that establish obligations for indefinite secrecy regarding surveillance undertaken on behalf of other signatories. That means that your government may be asked to spy on you and the people you love, they may order employees of tech companies to backdoor your account and devices, and that fact will remain secret forever. Forget challenging these sneak-and-peek orders in court – you won't even know about them:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/un-cybercrime-draft-convention-blank-check-unchecked-surveillance-abuses

Now here's the kicker: while this treaty creates broad powers to fight things governments dislike, simply by branding them "cybercrime," it actually undermines the fight against cybercrime itself. Most cybercrime involves exploiting security defects in devices and services – think of ransomware attacks – and the Cybercrime Treaty endangers the security researchers who point out these defects, creating grave criminal liability for the people we rely on to warn us when the tech vendors we rely upon have put us at risk.

This is the granddaddy of tech free speech fights. Since the paper tape days, researchers who discovered defects in critical systems have been intimidated, threatened, sued and even imprisoned for blowing the whistle. Tech giants insist that they should have a veto over who can publish true facts about the defects in their products, and dress up this demand as concern over security. "If you tell bad guys about the mistakes we made, they will exploit those bugs and harm our users. You should tell us about those bugs, sure, but only we can decide when it's the right time for our users and customers to find out about them."

When it comes to warnings about the defects in their own products, corporations have an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Time and again, we've seen corporations rationalize their way into suppressing or ignoring bug reports. Sometimes, they simply delay the warning until they've concluded a merger or secured a board vote on executive compensation.

Sometimes, they decide that a bug is really a feature – like when Facebook decided not to do anything about the fact that anyone could enumerate the full membership of any Facebook group (including, for example, members of a support group for people with cancer). This group enumeration bug was actually a part of the company's advertising targeting system, so they decided to let it stand, rather than re-engineer their surveillance advertising business.

The idea that users are safer when bugs are kept secret is called "security through obscurity" and no one believes in it – except corporate executives. As Bruce Schneier says, "Anyone can design a system that is so secure that they themselves can't break it. That doesn't mean it's secure – it just means that it's secure against people stupider than the system's designer":

The history of massive, brutal cybersecurity breaches is an unbroken string of heartbreakingly naive confidence in security through obscurity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

But despite this, the idea that some bugs should be kept secret and allowed to fester has powerful champions: a public-private partnership of corporate execs, government spy agencies and cyber-arms dealers. Agencies like the NSA and CIA have huge teams toiling away to discover defects in widely used products. These defects put the populations of their home countries in grave danger, but rather than reporting them, the spy agencies hoard these defects.

The spy agencies have an official doctrine defending this reckless practice: they call it "NOBUS," which stands for "No One But Us." As in: "No one but us is smart enough to find these bugs, so we can keep them secret and use them attack our adversaries, without worrying about those adversaries using them to attack the people we are sworn to protect."

NOBUS is empirically wrong. In the 2010s, we saw a string of leaked NSA and CIA cyberweapons. One of these, "Eternalblue" was incorporated into off-the-shelf ransomware, leading to the ransomware epidemic that rages even today. You can thank the NSA's decision to hoard – rather than disclose and patch – the Eternalblue exploit for the ransoming of cities like Baltimore, hospitals up and down the country, and an oil pipeline:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue

The leak of these cyberweapons didn't just provide raw material for the world's cybercriminals, it also provided data for researchers. A study of CIA and NSA NOBUS defects found that there was a one-in-five chance of a bug that had been hoarded by a spy agency being independently discovered by a criminal, weaponized, and released into the wild.

Not every government has the wherewithal to staff its own defect-mining operation, but that's where the private sector steps in. Cyber-arms dealers like the NSO Group find or buy security defects in widely used products and services and turn them into products – military-grade cyberweapons that are used to attack human rights groups, opposition figures, and journalists:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/24/breaking-the-news/#kingdom

A good Cybercrime Treaty would recognize the perverse incentives that create the coalition to keep us from knowing which products we can trust and which ones we should avoid. It would shut down companies like the NSO Group, ban spy agencies from hoarding defects, and establish an absolute defense for security researchers who reveal true facts about defects.

Instead, the Cybercrime Treaty creates new obligations on signatories to help other countries' cops and courts silence and punish security researchers who make these true disclosures, ensuring that spies and criminals will know which products aren't safe to use, but we won't (until it's too late):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/if-not-amended-states-must-reject-flawed-draft-un-cybercrime-convention

A Cybercrime Treaty is a good idea, and even this Cybercrime Treaty could be salvaged. The member-states have it in their power to accept proposed revisions that would protect human rights and security researchers, narrow the definition of "cybercrime," and mandate transparency. They could establish member states' powers to refuse illegitimate requests from other countries:

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/media-briefing-eff-partners-warn-un-member-states-are-poised-approve-dangerou

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/23/expanded-spying-powers/#in-russia-crime-cybers-you

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/files/banner_library/cybercrime-2024-2b.jpg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/