#for all the lies and the hatred and the bigotry

[jewish-sideblog]

I think people forget that the Nazis never said they were the bad guys. If someone says, hey, I’m evil! You don’t let them take over your country. They presented themselves as scientific, not hateful. By their own account, they were progressives, and the superiority of White Europe over the other races was a proven and immutable fact. They had scientists and archaeologists and historians to prove it. They didn’t tell people they wanted to kill the Jews because they were hateful. They manufactured evidence to frame us for very real tragedies, and they had methodological research to prove that we were genetically predisposed to misconduct. Wouldn’t you believe that?

Hollywood has spent the last 80 years portraying the Nazis as an obvious and intimidating evil. That’s a good thing in some ways, because we want general audiences to recognize that they were evil. But we also want them to be able to recognize how and why they came to power. Not by self-describing themselves as an evil empire, but by convincing people that they were the good guys and the saviors. They hosted the Olympics. Several European countries capitulated and volunteered themselves to the Empire. There were American and British Fascist Parties. They had broad public support. Hollywood never shows that part, so general audiences never learn to recognize the actual signs of antisemitism.

People today think they can’t possibly be antisemitic, because they’re leftist! They abhor bigotry! They could never comprehend Nazi ideology coming from the mouth of a bisexual college student wearing a graphic tee and jeans. How could they? The only depiction of antisemites they’ve ever seen have been gaunt, pale, middle-aged men in black leather trench coats with skulls on their caps.

If the Nazis time-travelled from the 1930s and wanted to take power now, they’d change their original tactics, but not by much. They would target countries suffering from an identity crisis and an economic collapse. They would portray themselves as the pinnacle of what that society considers progressive. Back then, it was race science. These days it’s performative wokeness. Once they’d garnered enough respect and reputation, they’d begin manufacturing propaganda and lies to manipulate people’s anger and fears at a single target— Jews.

If the Nazis made an actual return, they wouldn’t look like neo-Nazis. They wouldn’t be nearly as obvious about their hatred. Their evil wouldn’t give them yellow eyes, and no suspenseful music would play when they walked in the room. They’d be friendly. They’d look like you. They would learn what things your community fears and what things you already hate. They would lie and fabricate evidence to connect the rich elites and the imperialists you revile to a single source of unequivocal Jewish evil. It wouldn’t be hard— they already have two-thousand years of institutional antisemitism they can rely on to paint their picture.

If you’re curious why antisemitism today is coming from grassroots organizations, young, liberal college campuses, suburban neighborhoods with pride flags and All Are Welcome Here signs? That’s why. It’s because, as a global society, we’ve forgotten that the world didn’t used to see the Nazis as bad guys. And what is forgotten about history is doomed to be repeated.

[dcdreamblog]

It baffled me for a while why you supported superpowered menaces such as the aliens Superman or Martian Manhunter, or the freak Batman, or the supposed 'goddess' Wonder Woman. Then I saw you were a Luthor hater. Sorry you're a brainwashed puppet of the masses and not a free thinker. The Infinity Inc project should have kept going, by the way.

Oh good, one of you people. I've been prepared for one of you people.

Alright buttercup let's quit the chitchat and get right to the root of things, shall we?

("President Luthor" was a very in depth historical account of the Luthor administration written by political analyst Ronald Troupe. It is the most recommended source on the subject and a book I both own and had to read for a historical ethics class) Luthor, and his supporters are operating somewhere between a deep Randian self delusion as to the nature of power and a very mundane and pitiful kind of bigotry. All mixed up together in a noxious concoction that's been poisoning society at large since the industrial age at the latest and probably far before Randian politics even had a name. Put in order to fully pry apart the Luthorite "philosophy" we need to take them on one at a time. So let's.

In simplest terms Lex Luthor is a bigot. And he's not even a principled bigot. He hates Superman, the Martian Manhunter, aliens and metahumans and magic users because they have power that he doesn't and have the ability to protect themselves from the dominion that he feels he is owed. He knows people are easier to control when they are kept divided from one another and that anger and hatred sells better whether he's selling weapons to Bialyan dictators or selling xenophobia to the American electorate.

Luthor, like so many heartless billionaires before him sees his own success as both anointing and justification. The final stop on the crazy train of the capitalist prosperity gospel. He's rich and successful and therefore is also a moral good because only good people, smart people, wise people are gifted with success and power.

I hate to tell you my friend but that is bunk on every level. Lex Luthor is a snake whose success comes from the kind of underhanded skullduggery that ALL success at that level comes from. He's lied, cheated and stolen everything he has ever gained and he's left broken bodies, homes, families and communities in his wake because he simply doesn't care who gets hurt because HIS prosperity is higher. Because he's a business leader, right? And employer? Because he just plain knows how to get shit done. And that? THAT is why superheroes piss him off so bad. Because every time he sees Superman lift up the rubble from a chemical explosion HE caused. He sees the court fees he'll have to pay when his safety violations are dragged in front of a court. He hates to see the Justice League standing as vanguard against existential threats because he calculates in his head how much he could be strong arming the United Nations to paying out for some kind of privatized security force.

Superheroes are too principled to be bribed, too powerful to be threatened, too connected to be divided and too unassailable to be undercut by the newspapers he keeps in his back pocket. He's afraid of them for the same reason McCarthy was afraid of them in the 50s. Because he knows for a FACT that eventually he will step out of line and they will come down on him like a bag of hammers simply because it is RIGHT. He despises Superman because Superman has power that Lex Luthor knows he would abuse. And so he must convince himself that ALL people would abuse them. Because for all his genius he doesn't have the two cents worth of wisdom needed to feel the yawning, flinty pit where his heart was supposed to grow in at some point. And the best part is even DECADES after the world got to see him for who and what he is, when he got impeached by the representatives of our republic for putting life on Earth at risk to make Superman look bad. TWICE. He still has yippy little terriers like you marching along at his heel. And he wouldn't spit on you if you burst into flames.

[lilacstarryskies]

ive somehow gotten into marauders tiktok a lil…. and OMG some ppl r acc delusional and lowk mean for telling straight up lies to new fans….

like somebody asked what were regulus’ last words and a heavily-liked comment replies “oh its about him and james having a house by the sea” and then said its in the books…. TFFFF

regulus is only mentioned like 3 times i think…. by sirius, by professor slughorn maybe?? and then the moment the golden trio discover who R.A.B is and thats FINE and also ppl shipping jegulus is fine but the lies r not like at what point would be ever discover his last words or wanting a house w james when both of them are DEAD and havent written a letter mentioning it or anything😭😭

and like another post i saw this morning was about luna/barty having an interesting dynamic and the comments were like “oh its becuz he was besties with her uncle evan rosier” and i get thats the fanon but when somebody replies and asks if this is true in the books pls dont say “oh yes lunas mum was a rosier who loved barty jr and thats why he cared for luna”

it simply just NEVER existed 💀💀

im all for creating hcs and stuff cos thats what fandom is about but like having things so wildly out of canon (or plausible but not mentioned) just becoming generally agreed upon kills me becuz now there is no possibility of finding fics which go thru different routes (like pandora lovegood being originally a fortescue, ollivander or malfoy etc)…..

……or just follow canon (like with remus lupins whole characterisation! he’s not some soft uwu boy…. but he isnt some emo punk friends with slytherins…. hes a kind but cowardly guy who wasn’t naturally smart but became studious and who has some anger issues which occasionally pop out‼️)

(also like i remember before atyd got big and i cant imagine how ppl who r ogs in the fandom feel now…. like ive liked it as a kid but only got into the fandom like 2018-ish)

(and i didnt read atyd at first when it got big becuz of how they made remus be in an orphanage when i loved the idea of him having super loving but guilty parents esp cos his dad was an anti-wolf activist but him growing to love wolves but feeling ashamed for how his bigotry resulted in his son’s issue would be SO interesting….. and then it goes even more canon-divergent with the personality lobotomy of remus and then i gave up on both it AND the fandom becuz then everything kinda replicated it with the changing characterisation of the marauders 😭😭)

ALSO ALSO like the whole hatred of dumbledore goes way too far sometimes and it lowkey just takes me back to how pissed the aot, fmab and mha fandom would make characters like grisha jaeger, hohenheim and all might…. like they do have their issues but they aren’t some abusive assholes and i get making ooc fanfics cos do whatever but the sheer amount of fics making them that would kill me. and like grindeldore angst and the tragicness of dumbledores plot is so interesting to me

[authenticcadence18]

sharing this draft in honor of Star vs turning 10 yesterday:

Thinking about Star vs the Forces of Evil and how it was the first thing to really break through the conservative shell I grew up in.

I vividly remember “Just Friends” coming out and, after having been fed lies of “queer people are just pushing an agenda” for years, I finally was like “…..queer people are just living their lives. they want to be seen. they want to love. how is that an agenda.” That scene corrected my entire outlook and set me on my way for a personal journey of discovery and growth. I never looked back.

and that show portrays historical revisionism, racism, bigotry, a main character who goes from gleefully upholding her ancestors’ oppression to leading the charge to dismantle the system upholding said oppression.

and the ending which is frequently remembered as lackluster. Lackluster finale lackluster final villain who simply walks free, eager to continue spreading her hatred in spite of all Star did to stop and change her.

Does that sound familiar? 🫠

Star vs is not perfect by any means. I hate “dangerous minority” metaphors, and the show itself even attempted to course correct on this by season four.

But I will always be grateful to Star vs for being my first stepping stone in realizing LGBTQ rights and breaking out of that conservative shell. I wouldn’t be surprised if it helped others in the same way or other ways.

All this to say. Tell stories. Tell your stories. Change lives. Teach. We need it now more than ever.

[fandomtrumpshate]

2025 Supported Organization: Never Again Action

Under the Trump administration, the world heard horrifying reports of immigrant family separation and child detention camps in the United States. Yet the barbaric treatment of detained immigrants in border camps and in other ICE facilities continued even under the Biden administration.

Now, as Trump returns to office, the fight for immigrants' rights becomes more urgent than ever: he and several leading officials in his incoming administration have declared mass deportation a top priority. Those targeted include several hundreds of thousands of people who gained legal entry into the US during Biden's presidency.

Never Again Action is a Jewish-led mobilization against the persecution, detention, and deportation of immigrants in the United States, taking direct action to raise the alarm about the current system and disrupt its operation, and to catalyze a popular movement for permanent protection for all undocumented people. They work by empowering the public, not making compromises with the powerful. They don’t negotiate with candidates, politicians, or companies–but welcome them to move to the right side of history. They act to change the common sense among the American public, to create the political conditions that politicians will have no choice but to follow.

They recognize that today’s antisemitism, anti-immigrant hatred, and other forms of bigotry uphold one another—and safety lies in the collective struggle against white nationalism and white supremacy. When they fight for themselves as Jews, and for their allies in the immigrant community, they recognize that we are all in this together. Never again means never again for anyone.

They imagine a world where people of all races, identities, and origins come together to tear down the walls that have kept us apart from each other and build a new world.

You can support Never Again Action as a creator in the 2025 FTH auction (or as a bidder, when the time comes to donate for the auctions you’ve won.)

[velvetvexations]

--- somehow i don't think the trans radfem movement thinks aphobia is a fine word to exist

It's almost quaint. Almost.

Why is there a wave of trans radfems defending 4chan boards

I'm going to need to be pointed to this if only because I'm going to get dinged for spreading malicious lies about trans women being "Nazis" otherwise, but lmfao if true.

wtf kind of hill is txttletale dying on now?

I mean she's still a tankie fuck but apparently now she's also getting in on the transmisogynistic harassment campaign game.

isn't "doll" specifically a fetish term? that is really not something people should be applying to other people without making sure it's ok first.

No, it's a Black ballroom term that trans women started running with.

People on this site are taking pissing on the poor to a whole new goddamn level “telling people that this person is/has sexually harassed someone who was a minor is calling everyone with their identity a pedophile”, I’d blame the school system but that really was a choice not to actually read and relay

it's definitely malicious

joan jett in the mv for i hate myself for loving you is like, unbearably beautiful

so true

it’s so obvious that these people choose to isolate themselves in a dimension crafted out of their own self-hatred that they care more about hurting their oppressors (and people who don’t even oppress them) than uplifting people hurt by systems of oppression. sometimes i think i’m bad but then i come across people like that and realise i’m relatively well-adjusted

inspiring innit

post addressed to trans women from a trans woman about trans women –> trfs in the notes: “why are you telling me to be nice to trans men?”

they have their priorities

absolutely wild to say that transunitists are 2010-reddit-style mras and then say things like "afab privilege." yeah those afabs with their wielding of power. and i bet they get free drinks at every bar and their bosses promote them for being pretty, huh.

they get upset at having their logic compared to MRAs because it's implicit misgendering (never mind that they directly call random trans men MRAs and radfems as well) but I'm not sure what they expect when they talk at length about how all of those fucking evil AFAB bitches are just waiting for their chance to screw you over with a false rape accusation

"pick me" is AAVE, and, like all white girls, they're overusing and misusing it until it has no meaning left 🙄

I actually wasn't aware of that. Neat. Disputed? See replies.

a lot of this going on is just reminding me once again of the intense monogenderism that really never gets worked on. It’s super awkward as a multigendered individual and an intersex one

it also just really feels so fucking tone ignorant the way people talk.

society still calls traits of men or masc, some even actively choose to agree while still being a counter to it gender but obviously real trans women don’t so attacking those things would never hurt them, and multigender trans woman who are also men? Obviously fake.

the English language is so fucking insufficient

I honestly wish every asshole who seems to think the ability to mask as complete cis and definitely just your assigned gender is a privilege had to live in my head for the holiday season. I am entirely in the closet with my family because of bigotry I have no other choice than living with my family for multiple reasons I just spent the entire winter holiday pretending to be a woman answering to my deadname being called aunty and sister and daughter and not being able to say jack shit about it without even being able to retreat to the solace of my friends afterwards because they are all busy with their own families. I want those assholes to experience the emotions and thoughts I just went through and come out the otherside and see if they still think that this is a fucking privilege.

Love you anon. <3

that anon telling on themselves so hard saying transmisogynys "far deeper" than transphobia. literally why on earth would you phrase it like that if the point was anything besides "my *special* oppression is way more poignant and meaningful than your boring regular oppression"

lmao right though it's so obviously just trying to mark their thing as having more dramatic flair

do you keep a backup of your blog with a program like tumblthree? there's a lot of valuable posts on it, and tumblr is almost distressingly transitory.

I don't, but noted.

[jewish-vents]

Cw for mentions of the current war, and general i/p stuff

There’s this growing narrative in Jewish spaces that we can’t be mad when Palestinians, especially Gazans, do or say something Jew hating because they’re traumatised, and I just… I can’t anymore. I just saw a Jew say it’s fine if a Gazan calls a Jew a kike because ‘do what you need to do’. NO. I am NOT going to tolerate the most blatant fucking Jew hatred just because it’s coming from traumatised people. Like, I get it, be lighter, make sure to critically evaluate the statement and see if it’s actually bigoted or if it’s just in an iffy tone. Trying to tone police very recently and deeply traumatised people IS bad, but saying that they’re allowed to be as bigoted as they want?? What the fuck???!!!

It’s like how there are a few big Palestinian bloggers here who are very Jew hating. People who literally spreading things like blood libel with ‘Israelis kidnap blonde kids from Gaza’, updated well poisoning, saying Zionists need to fucking die, and then on top of that refuse to talk to Jews who aren’t there to tolerate the rhetorics that are being spread by them. And these people are fucking Jew haters. And they’re harming Jews and radicalising a LOT of people into Jew hatred because their audience is so big.

Palestinians can be Jew haters. Bigotry is never acceptable, no matter the status of the perpetrator. Jewish safety is not less valuable than Palestinian safety, they’re fucking equal because everybody in danger deserves to be safe. Fuck all of you in Jewish spaces who try to spread this shit.

It's worth remembering that, while Jews currently have systemic privilege over Arabs in Israel, there is a history of over a thousand years of Jewish oppression in the Muslim world, and antisemitism is just as baked into Islam as Christianity.

Jews have been ethnically cleansed from the entire Arab and Muslim world, and Arab and Muslim governments frequently deflect attention form their own abuses of their citizens by blaming the Jews. This is as true in Palestine as it is in Egypt and Iran.

The situation is complicated, and grace does need to be extended to those currently suffering because of Israeli action, but blatant antisemitic lies cannot be tolerated.

-🐞

[mariacallous]

“The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep,” Gore Vidal once wrote of the resurgence of the far right in the United States. In the case of the rioting that has erupted across England and Northern Ireland this week and last, old hatreds have been stirred up using new technologies.

The initial spark for the violence that has plagued British towns and cities was the sickening murder of three young girls last Monday in the seaside town of Southport, stabbed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga session. It was the sort of horrific crime that is mercifully rare in Britain. The last comparable attack on children occurred almost 30 years ago.

The only suspect in the Southport murders, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, was immediately arrested. We know Rudakubana’s name only because the judge in his case lifted an anonymity order—imposed as standard when the accused is a minor until legal proceedings begin—because false claims about the suspect’s origins were helping to fuel the racist violence. Social media posts claiming that the attacker was a Muslim, a refugee, a migrant, or a foreigner received 27 million impressions on Twitter/X in the 24 hours after the Southport killings.

Far-right groups descended on Southport the day after the stabbings. We know little about Rudakubana, but on Aug. 1 we did learn that he is a British national who was born in Cardiff to parents from Rwanda, a country with a large Christian majority. This has not prevented far-right thugs from rampaging through towns and cities including Manchester, Liverpool, Sunderland, Rotherham, Tamworth, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Aldershot, and Belfast, targeting Muslims

Many on the right have rushed to attribute the mobs to a sense of disillusion and a supposed social gap between the working class and the “elite”—a group in which they are never keen to count themselves. A few left-wingers have shared similar opinions. It is true that material factors have created a propitious environment in Britain for unrest. After 14 years of Tory government, before the recent Labour victory, the country is a poorer and more resentful place, its sclerotic and creaking public infrastructure barely functioning after years of neglect.

There is much to be angry about. Yet this does not adequately explain the nature nor the scale of the violence, much of which has been driven by a bourgeoning alliance between a right-wing elite and the mob—an alliance that, as Hannah Arendt once put it, rests on the “genuine delight with which the former [watch] the latter destroy respectability.”

For its part, the mob has attacked mosques, set buildings on fire, looted shops, violently assaulted ethnic minority bystanders, attacked cars on residential streets, and thrown bricks at the police. “We want our country back,” they yelled over the weekend while attempting to set fire to a hotel in Rotherham because they believed it was housing asylum-seekers. “P**i Muslims off our streets,” they yelled in Leeds. Footage from elsewhere showed men adorned with swastika tattoos, arms thrown up in Nazi salutes, voices yelling at anybody with brown skin to “go home.” This is not a rage that can, or should, be appeased.

This is not the first time rioting in the U.K. has been driven by bigotry. In Notting Hill in 1958, a mob of 400 white people attacked West Indian residents and their property. In the same week, racially motivated riots also broke out in St. Ann’s in Nottingham. Going further back, the Gordon Riots of 1780 saw an eruption of violent anti-Catholic sentiment.

Despite the atavistic nature of the hatreds unleashed this week and last, many who have taken to the streets this time around are creatures of social media. Several prominent far-right influencers have come out on social media in support of the mayhem with all sails unfurled. Others have been whipped into a near-homicidal frenzy by misinformation on apps such as X.

The kudzu spread of incendiary falsehoods began with the lie, first promulgated on X by the managing director of a clothing company, that the suspect in the Southport murders was an asylum-seeker named “Ali Al-Shakati.” The misogynist influencer Andrew Tate shared the false claim while asserting that the attacker was an “illegal immigrant.” The far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as “Tommy Robinson,” has used X to call for “mass deportations” and described Islam as a “mental health issue.” Meanwhile, disgraced actor Laurence Fox reacted to the stabbings by calling for Islam to be “removed from Britain.”

The mob responded accordingly. The day after false rumors about Ali Al-Shakati had began swirling around on social media, a group of white men attacked a mosque in Southport. The street violence has continued ever since.

Lurking in the background while disinformation is spread is a wealthy right-wing elite that has started to flex its political muscles. Some of the worst purveyors of misinformation have accounts on X only because right-wing billionaire Elon Musk has reinstated them—together with numerous other white supremacist accounts—under the guise of “free speech.”

Musk has spread misinformation about the riots on the app, claiming in one post that “civil war is inevitable” in Britain and amplifying one of Robinson’s posts. Robinson was reinstated by Musk in 2023 and today has more than 800,000 followers. Similarly, though he was banned from X in 2017 for claiming that women should bear “some responsibility” for being sexually harassed and assaulted, Tate was reinstated by Musk in 2022.

The takeover of media platforms by wealthy elites is driven by a right-wing adoption of the Gramscian belief that the conquest of power comes only after the conquest of culture. Musk, the world’s richest man, purchased X for $44 billion in 2022 in order to combat what he calls the “woke mind virus.” Together with renaming the platform, one of Musk’s first actions was to do away with legacy blue checks and open up verification on the platform to anybody with $8.

The move thrilled Musk’s sycophantic fan base, which had previously chafed with resentment at the status differential on the app between themselves and what they contemptuously referred to as the “legacy media.” But it also turned X into the world’s largest vector of misinformation. It is also of a piece with former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s idea of “flooding the zone with shit”—i.e., destroying the traditional media’s ability to give the public accurate information by letting it sink in a deluge of bullshit.

It isn’t only social media where influential right-wing figures have been allowed to blur the distinction between legitimate protest and far-right violence. Ever since the riots began last week, the British television station GB News has often sought to excuse them. Launched in 2021 and co-owned by the multimillionaire hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, since the murders in Southport, GB News has given airtime to an assortment of cranks, demagogues, and grifters. On more than one occasion, the station’s language has come dangerously close to incitement. The leader of the Reform U.K. party, Nigel Farage, who has his own show on GB News, also took to X in the aftermath of the Southport attacks to ask whether “the truth is being withheld from us” by the police about the identity of the suspect.

Earlier this year, Marshall—who as well as owning the reactionary website UnHerd is believed to be trying to purchase the Spectator and the Telegraph—was caught liking and sharing content close to the material that has been circulated this week by paranoid fascist weirdos. In February, the anti-extremist charity Hope not Hate revealed that Marshall had endorsed tweets calling for mass deportations and which suggested a civil war between “native Europeans” and “fake refugee invaders” was imminent.

Many of the presenters and guests on GB News have spent this week mocking Prime Minister Keir Starmer for labeling the riots as far right. Instead, the channel has sought to portray the street violence as driven by the “legitimate concerns” of disenfranchised members of the working class. The idea that the thuggish behavior of recent days is somehow representative of the working class is itself a form of middle-class prejudice—rooted in the unspoken assumption that working-class people are inherently stupid, racist, and violent.

GB News operates on familiar right-wing populist lines. Its prolier-than-thou presenters make superficial overtures to the masses while its modus operandi is to ensure that power is never truly shared or redistributed. But let’s not be too partisan about it: GB News is pushing at a door that has already been loosened by more “respectable” media coverage of migrants and asylum-seekers.

There is a self-pitying refrain on the right that you “can’t talk about” immigration. Yet the big mouths and shock jocks of the right-wing media seldom shut up about it. This time last year, the broadcaster James Whale suggested on Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV that the U.K. “should point weapons” at migrants in the English Channel. Even talking about migrants in this sort of bloodthirsty language is no impediment to getting on. A few months later, Whale was made an MBE.

The suggestion that the violent protests represent the last resort of Britain’s forgotten majority is, of course, laughable. When polled, nearly 50 percent of Britons wanted harsher-than-usual sentences for the rioters, 39 percent the usual norms of sentencing, and just 4 percent more lenient charges.

Less than five weeks ago, Starmer convincingly won a general election against a Tory party that campaigned on the slogan of stopping the boats carrying asylum-seekers to the United Kingdom. In truth, the ghouls who have haunted television studios this week making excuses for the rioters see any Labour government as equivalent to an occupying power. They want their country back because, after 14 years, they feel as if it has been lost at the ballot box.

But if anybody has a right to think of themselves as the voice of the people at the present time, it is the newly elected Labour prime minister. He may not own a television station or a social media app, but he does have a 174-seat majority in the House of Commons. The rule of law—and democracy—must prevail.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Steven Beschloss at America, America:

The last time many of us paid close attention to Kristi Noem, we learned that she shot her own dog because she didn’t like the way it was behaving. She likely included this charming anecdote in her book because she thought it would increase her bonafides with certain people who admire a killer instinct. Noem’s cruel, grotesque behavior—what she described as her readiness to do what’s needed of her no matter how “difficult, messy and ugly”—may have derailed her book tour, but it surely appealed to the violence-loving, dog-hating Donald Trump. Clearly, he wanted a ravenously ambitious Homeland Security secretary who could be his killer without concern about obstacles like justice and laws. On Wednesday, Noem showed up in El Salvador to visit the heinous prison where the Trump regime has deported more than 200 people without due process. The images are chilling—and not only because the cells are over-stuffed with prisoners with shaved heads, stacked on top of each other and reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps.

The photographs and video also spotlight a fundamental denial of human rights—all for the ugly and messy purpose of promoting the cruel and unjust treatment as a deterrent. “Know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people,” said Noem in a video released Wednesday, cosplaying an ICE foot soldier as she stood in front of the cages. This hateful propaganda—in which she called the prisoners “terrorists” without evidence—is brought to you by Trump’s America and the sycophantic former South Dakota governor that 59 U.S. senators confirmed to oversee the nation’s security. Goodbye justice, goodbye even an iota of decency, hello hatred, hello cruelty. Never mind that they are defying the court orders of federal judge James Boasberg by keeping these men there. Experts define terrorism as the use of illegal violence and intimidation to achieve their political goals. But ask yourself: When Noem calls the prisoners in El Salvador cages “terrorists” without evidence, who really deserves that label? Even if these individuals were genuinely determined to be criminals—people who the Trump regime insists are part of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang—the deportation to this prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center would still be appalling. But in a regime that skips evidence and relies on bigotry, violence and lies to justify its actions, we have no way of knowing how many of those deported have any criminal record. We do know of some outrageous cases chronicled by Mother Jones of Venezuelans swept up for the mere fact that they have a tattoo. One is Arturo Suárez Trejo, a new father, a husband and an aspiring pop musician who his wife said has a hummingbird tattoo intended to symbolize “harmony and good energy.” Another is Neri Alvarado Borges, who works at a bakery, helps take care of an autistic brother and has a tattoo in the shape of an autism awareness ribbon commemorated with with his brother’s name. There are Americans cheering for these unjust deportations because they’ve been convinced by Trump’s dehumanizing, demonizing verbiage that immigrants are not deserving of humane treatment. But we can be sure this is not the end—this is just the beginning of this fascist regime’s terror campaign aimed at deterring refugees, savoring cruelty and silencing dissent. They may call deported migrants “the worst of the worst,” but we know they’re lusting to widen their net against perceived enemies.

That was on full display in broad daylight Tuesday in Boston when masked federal agents in hoodies stopped and handcuffed a Tufts University doctoral student and Fulbright scholar. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish national and Muslim wearing a hijab, was put into an unmarked car and shipped off to a detention center in Louisiana, just as Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil was earlier this month. While Öztürk had co-written an op-ed in a Tufts student newspaper a year ago criticizing the university’s response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza, there is no evidence of her supporting Hamas, as Homeland Security officials claimed. One of her friends noted on X: “She does not carry a hateful bone in her body let alone being antisemitic.” Even if she were hateful and antisemitic, a free and democratic country does not kidnap such a person and ship them 1,300 miles away without due process. A free and democratic country relies on the rule of law, respects judicial proceedings and court orders, and recognizes the sacred right of free speech. This will get worse, which is why we all need to be prepared to escalate our public response. Too many media members are still acting as if all this is just an intensified version of the normal push and pull of American political life.

Between Kristi Noem’s sickening photo-op in CECOT in El Salvador and the snatching of Rümeysa Öztürk by ICE, the MAGA psychos are reveling in celebration while the rest of America is rightly disturbed.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Tom Slater

Published: May 1, 2024

The Columbia cranks rant about killing Zionists one minute and demand hot meals the next.

If you want to know what’s driving the Israelophobic protests and occupations at New York’s Columbia University – and many more elite campuses across America – get a load of this clip that has been doing the rounds on social media over the past 24 hours.

In it, one Johannah King-Slutzky – spokesperson for the occupation of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, which was forcibly ended by the New York City Police Department last night, with around 100 arrests – issues her and her comrades’ demands. On top of Columbia ‘divesting’ from Israel and such, King-Slutzky also demanded meals and water.

Apparently, Columbia was refusing to allow the students who were then breaking windows and barricading themselves inside Hamilton Hall to access their usual canteen grub. ‘We’re saying that [Columbia is] obligated to provide food to students who have paid for a meal plan here’, King-Slutzky told a sceptical press conference.

When pushed, she said they were only asking that supplies be allowed to be brought in:

‘Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill, even if they disagree with you?�� I mean, it’s crazy to say because we are on an Ivy League campus, but this is like basic humanitarian aid we’re asking for. Like, could people please have a glass of water?’

It’s all there. The whinging cadence, the ‘like’-strewn patter, the obligatory keffiyeh, the industrial-strength victimhood, the bloke in a crop top stood behind her… King-Slutzky and Co are the picture of trustafarians in revolt. Their anti-Israel bigotry is matched only by their profound sense of entitlement. How dare the university not provide adequate refreshments while we are smashing shit up?

There are plenty of people today likening the Columbia meal-planners to their Sixties forebears – in particular, to the Columbia radicals who mounted their own disruptive demos in 1968. Sadly, even some veterans of Sixties activism are flattering today’s privileged brats with the comparison.

But it’s bollocks. When Columbia students occupied Hamilton Hall and other buildings in April 1968, they did so to oppose the Vietnam War and university plans to build a gymnasium in nearby Harlem, which students argued would effectively be segregated. After a week, police moved in and arrested 700 students.

Today, Columbia students and their off-campus heavies aren’t opposing war exactly. Yes, they oppose Israel’s assault on the genocidal lunatics of Hamas, following the Islamist terrorists’ vicious pogrom on 7 October. But they seem pretty relaxed about warfare against the state of Israel. ‘We don’t want no two states / We want all of it!’, they chant. ‘Never forget 7 October… 7 October is about to be every fucking day for you. You ready?’, screeched one racist cunt outside the gates.

Therein lies another crucial difference between ’68 and today. Today’s students aren’t fighting racism, they are luxuriating in it. Khymani James, a leader of the Columbia protests, posted a video to social media the other week saying ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live’. ‘I don’t fight to injure or for there to be a winner or a loser, I fight to kill’, he said, fantasising about having a scrap with one of those awful Jews. (Given the vast, vast majority of Jews are Zionists, that’s really not overegging it.)

Elsewhere, we’ve seen protesters chant ‘Go back to Poland’ at Jewish Columbians and hold up homemade signs, stating ‘Al-Qasam’s [sic] next targets’, pointing to a group of Israeli-flag-waving students. The Al-Qassam Brigades being Hamas’s military wing. An Arab Israeli was also punched outside Columbia recently, by activists brandishing the pro-Hamas triangle symbol.

I’m willing to concede that some of this unvarnished, violent hatred is being carried out by off-campus antifa types, as is routinely alleged by the protesters’ apologists. Not least because King-Slutzky and yer man in his crop top look like they couldn’t fight their way out of a ball pit. But activists’ alarmingly high tolerance for virulent anti-Semitism, their total lack of condemnation of Hamas or its many campus fanboys, speaks volumes.

As does their expectation of water and spag bol and their apparent shock and horror when the police were called in. The Columbia protesters and their supporters are now trying to portray the clearance of Hamilton Hall as an affront to freedom of speech. Free speech is ‘supposed to be prized’ on campus, one student told Al Jazeera last night.

Being concerned about a heavy-handed response to these demos is one thing. The governor-ordered crackdown on protests at University of Texas at Austin, for example, has been nakedly authoritarian and censorious. But there is no inalienable right to break into and occupy university buildings. (Nor is there an inalienable right to constantly harass Jewish students as they try to move around campus.)

As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) points out, civil disobedience is not the same as expressing an opinion or engaging in peaceful protest. The whole point of it is to break the rules. Indeed, it ‘derives expressive power from the willingness of participants to accept the consequences of breaking the rules’. That these students and junior academics are shocked to be handcuffed for breaking the law reveals a profound sense of entitlement among young ‘radicals’.

We shouldn’t be surprised. FIRE president Greg Lukianoff has pointed to two dispiriting, parallel trends in American universities: a willingness to curtail free speech, all while giving a green light to violent, intolerant protests. At the University of California, Berkeley, where students rioted in 2017 because that tiresome weirdo Milo Yiannopoulous was speaking, the university ‘showed cowardice in its unwillingness to punish the rioters’, writes Lukianoff and Angel Eduardo in a recent op-ed. We saw a similarly rank capitulation at Evergreen State that same year, where marauding students were effectively allowed to chase professors Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying off of campus. Since then, ‘shutdowns and shout-downs have become commonplace’, they write.

Some critics of campus cancel culture have been caught off guard by the pro-Hamas protests. Almost a decade ago, they observe, we were all gawping at the ‘Yale Snowflakes’, those absurd Ivy Leaguers who went into open, teary-eyed revolt because academic Erika Christakis sent them an email saying they should chill out about offensive Halloween costumes. How did babyish offence-taking give way to open support for anti-Semitic terrorists?

But it all makes a perverse kind of sense. Students taught that freedom of speech is a form of violence have begun to see violence as a form of free speech. Young radicals reared on a crude, conspiratorial racial identity politics have begun to apply it to geopolitics, with predictably anti-Semitic results. A new generation of elite youth, overprotected and indulged in equal measure, have come to think they can do no wrong.

So let’s retire the Sixties comparisons. In 1964, when Mario Savio – civil-rights activist and student leader of the Free Speech Movement – was leading a campaign of civil disobedience, aimed at liberating Berkeley students from censorship, his cause was just and he was happy to suffer the consequences of his methods. ‘There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious’, he famously said, ‘you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels… you’ve got to make it stop!’. Meal plans did not get a mention.

At the same time, let’s not pretend that today’s revolting students just appeared, fully formed, from the womb. They are the products of an academic and upper-class culture that has kindled their prejudices and inflamed their intolerance. They aren’t revolutionaries. They’re bigoted brats. And they’ve been pandered to for far too long.

==

Students taught that freedom of speech is a form of violence have begun to see violence as a form of free speech.

This is an important point. The people who insisted that "words are violence" and that "misgendering" someone is as good as murdering them, are busy trying to pretend that their violence and destruction is merely a form of protected free speech and opinion expression.

It's not. They're trying to gaslight society.

If you're too stupid or too ideologically compromised to stand up and go get a glass of water, you probably should remove yourself from the gene pool.

[nerves-nebula]

Every day I’m more and more convinced that despite being largely absent, my dad was the better parent. (Dad rant)

For one thing he’s like a real person who can get vulnerable with us. He has feelings and cares about things. My mom is hidden behind so layers of spite and hatred and bigotry and privilege, I literally don’t know anything about her. She lies and manipulates and shit talks constantly. She never let us know what our dad paid for growing up so we got the impression that he wasn’t giving us very much money at all, when sometimes he was literally giving her like 20k randomly.

There’s a kind of critical family event that happened at some point where my dad gave her some money for my older brother to pay for like college or something, but my older brother got his stuff paid for some other way, so my mom just decided he didn’t need it and spent the money. My brother, being a grade A misogynist, still talks about how Dad was stupid for “trusting a woman with his money” and will sometimes go on insane rants about how dad owes him that money that mom stole from him.

Dad had a life goal & a purpose and has rebuilt peoples homes and entire villages back in Nigeria. He is the reason countless people were able to get an education at all because he thought it was important and cared about it. The only thing my mom cares about is being a housewife and destroying everyone else else’s lives because she married someone who can’t make that a reality for her.

After all the time and money he’s given to her, while he’s like 70 and disabled and NEEDS to be taken care of- she won’t even give him $10 without demanding to know what he’s going to use it for, because she has to decide his reason for wanting 10$ is good enough.

I used to think he was being dramatic when I was a kid, talking about the symbolism behind respect and disrespectful behavior, and how mom is trying to emasculate him, but I genuinely think it’s true now. She’s constantly downplay his (and everyone’s) feelings and opinions. She doesn’t think he’s amounted to anything because all his work (including founding multiple universities!!!) has been in Nigeria, and she doesn’t think of Africa is on par with the US.

Also, and I only just remembered this, but he’s really the only one who took my suicidality seriously. He pulled me out of school for a whole week before midterms just so that we could talk and stuff. It didn’t really help, and didn’t make me want to talk to him about my feelings, and mom was super mad about it- but it was at least SOMETHING. As opposed to the literal NOTHING my mom did and then afterwards admitted she knew I was suicidal. And then forced me to hug her. 

Like hes bad at it, he’s a bigot and a sexist and racist and just plain mean sometimes. But he’s also genuine, he wants to help, he cares about his kids. And when he talks to us, it feels like he is talking to us as people.

My mom didn’t tell me that my sibling was homeless for three years. Actually, she didn’t tell me anything at all. I found that out later from that sibling when they came to visit.

Her favorite trick is to fuck with someone to the point that they explode about something that seems small so that everyone around her will think that they are being the unreasonable person.

Once she forced me to go shopping when I repeatedly said I didn’t want to, and then once we went to the checkout, she mentioned how I would be paying for my own things. She tricked me into spending like $150 a very limited funds that I have been saving up because if I had tried to get out of line or said I wasn’t going to get the coats it would’ve made a scene because we were about to be at the register.

Ok, but now I’m just rambling about shit. The point is. I dunno. The point is that my dad might die soon from medical neglect and financial, emotional, and physical abuse. I guess.

The point is also that my mom has absolutely raised a mass shooter and if my older brother ever kills her and goes on a shooting spree I will be not surprised at all. I’ll be on the fucking news saying nobody who knew him could possibly be surprised by this outcome. Literally everyone saw this coming.

[ammstify]

So um... I finished Persona 3 Reload.

And I'll admit, it hit me a lot harder than I expected.

While I have my own qualms with it, primarily with the story (which its not a bad story one bit! I just wished there was more to it, and it was better built up for some parts) I loved the experience, and its... Left me crying at this moment.

And it's made me realize the importance of being alive right now.

I'm sure everyone in the bloody world knows right now what hell The United States of America is currently facing, and will continue to face. For the last week, I've been in a painful, depressive slump, afraid for everyone in my life that I love and care for...

I don't talk about my writing much here because tbh, I struggle with understanding social media. I wanted to use my Tumblr to one day show my writing, to show the plans my best friend and I have developed for the last 8 years since we met but... I've been struggling with the possibilities of what may happen in the future.

I'm afraid that with just a strike of a pen, all my writing could become illegal because it depicts two men, one cis, the other genderqueer, being in love.

I'm afraid that years of work and typing and imagining will be struck from my drive, and disappear into the endless stream of the digital sphere.

I'm afraid we will never be able to achieve our dreams, because of a choice we don't have a say in.

I'm afraid that I can't be ME, and that the people around me can't be themselves...

And I feel the same way for anyone like me or otherwise. Queer or BIPOC creators or workers, immigrants coming to my country with hopes of achieving a dream, women wanting to become something more, all stricken away because of bigotry, hatefulness, and greed. Stricken away because of people who would rather take than give to those in need...

Not even mentioning the fact that this could affect people elsewhere, I see what Muskrat is doing too. I see what influence my country has over others, and it makes me mad... People deserve happiness, freedom, choice, and the right to exist, and with every news post

It's silly to say, but when I was going through the final month, and looking at the uprising of the Nyx cult? Seeing the way people were so quickly being swept by it, by the lies Takaya was spreading, by the fear overtaking folks as those they love started to believe in this "big death" that was taking them? It made me think of what many people are experiencing right now.

This constant barrage of fear, of uncertainty, wondering what's going to happen as the future is left unpredictable... Watching as people fall to this cultish, abhorrent behavior, overlooking those in need, denying reality, insisting "oh it wasn't a Nazi salute" and for what? Egg prices????

It hit me hard, really hard, and through the week of me playing I felt disheartened, wondering if our homes and towns and cities will end up like that... Places filled with hatred and apathy, filled with trash, rising crimes against the innocent, people dying before their lives have even begun but...

Then, I fought the final boss, and I did the usual endgame rounds of talking to people, seeing how their lives ended up. And not only did these social links, these people I helped achieve their dreams and happiness, I saw this fictional city and people heal.

And seeing all that?

It makes me want to live.

It makes me want to continue creating in spite of my fears. To work hard an achieve my dreams, no matter the cost. To continue doing my best and stand up for the happiness of those that I love, so that we all may have a future, proudly standing under the sun, hand in hand.

And my message to people? To the lgbtq+ community struggling with solace? The immigrants in BIPOC in fear? The women in pain?

Live.

Live and do the things that make you the most happiest. Don't let the world tell you how to live, don't let those in power break you down, don't give UP!

Things may seem bleak now, but your existence and will to live and fight back is stronger than any force in this world.

Maybe this vent is dumb, maybe i'll be harassed to no end, but this story made me want to live. And I know there are people out there that rely on even the littlest of things that make them want to live!

We are all in this together, and even though I can't help the way I want to... Maybe this post will motivate someone who can.

So yeah, that's all I wanted to say.

For now, I'm just gonna keep on living, and write my goddamn heart out.

[sciralta]

Not asking to be a jerk, genuinely curious. I have never understood how the Raf death plot was racist. There were 3 other live interests and only 1 was white. It never made sense to me.

I think that whole thing led to PB not having the balls to do things. So instead of stories like It Lives or Endless Summer where there were real consequences and drama, we get Wake the Dead, where every love interest is safe and it is so dumb.

Oh god why are you asking the white person this.

So there are kind of a concerning amount of people that have this view that racism is just blue in the face, spittle flying, MAGA-type people shouting slurs and crying about CRT. But that really only just shows a limited understanding of what racism is. Racism isn’t just direct hatred or bigotry. When a system functions so that one race is biased for and others disadvantaged, that system is racist.

It had been quite clear well before Open Heart that white (particularly white male) love interests were favoured in the writing over love interests of colour. These white characters received preferential treatment, had more diamond scenes, were better developed, and were often almost ‘pushed’ onto the player character, regardless of whether the player had expressed interest in the past or not. The white male LI was treated as the default.

And why? Because the white male LI sells the best. A biased society that favours whiteness bought the white LIs scenes the most, making the white LIs ‘perform’ the best, and so PB favoured them in the writing. PB would later admit as much in their June 15th 2020 blog post following the massive outcry after the Rafael plot was leaked.

The fact that Ethan was the only white LI (and the only canon white character in the main cast) is precisely the point. His preferential treatment in the story, to the detriment of the other LIs, is probably the most egregious example of this bias in Choices.

And you have to realise that while 3/4 of the love interest were people of colour, Rafael was the only black LI. It’s important to understand just how pervasive antiblackness specifically is. PB had a history of treating its black characters, particularly its black female characters, poorly. Even compared to the other POC LIs in Open Heart, you could quite fairly make the argument that he got the worst treatment of them all. And it’s a history like that that feeds into a pervasive racist notion that black characters are more disposable.

When you combine that notion with PB’s data saying to do more Ethan content and that Rafael is ‘underperforming’ (because they’re not giving him equal focus/treatment), you finally get to the point where PB is willing to inexplicably fridge the sole black LI to create drama and add fuel to the white man’s angst.

Also, I would hope that the implications of a man of colour dying in what is essentially a gas chamber plot are not lost on you.

[fandomtrumpshate]

2024 Supported Org: Never Again Action

Anti-immigrant hatred, antisemitism, and other forms of bigotry uphold one another—and safety lies in the collective struggle against white nationalism and white supremacy. For many American Jews, honoring their heritage means standing with vulnerable people of all kinds in their struggle for justice and recognition. When they stand up for themselves as Jews, and for their allies in the immigrant community, they recognize that we are all in this together. Never again means never again for anyone —not in the United States, and not in Palestine.

Never Again Action is a Jewish-led mobilization against the persecution, detention, and deportation of immigrants in the United States, taking direct action to raise the alarm about the current system and disrupt its operation, and to catalyze a popular movement for permanent protection for all undocumented people. They work by empowering the public, not making compromises with the powerful. They don’t negotiate with candidates, politicians, or companies–but welcome them to move to the right side of history. They act to change the common sense among the American public, to create the political conditions that politicians will have no choice but to follow.

Continuing their work to fight antisemitism and anti-immigrant bigotry, for the past several months, NAA has also worked in cooperation with other organizations to mobilize in support of a ceasefire in Gaza, working to challenge the narrative conflating Jews and Israel, staging protests and demonstrations in support of Gaza and calling for a ceasefire. NAA and its partner organizations argue that the culture and values of Judaism require them to stand up against injustice and oppression everywhere.

They imagine a world where people of all races, identities, and origins come together to tear down the walls that have kept us apart from each other and build a new world.

You can support Never Again Action as a creator in the 2024 FTH auction (or as a bidder, when the time comes to donate for the auctions you’ve won.)

[knivxsanddespair]

Meeting with the Lebeaus.

As the talk was promised at ten, they heard a knock at nine.

Gambit and Rogue exchanged a look of surprise at the early arrival, but they composed themselves quickly and gestured for Rosemary to lead the young man into the living room. Rosemary excused herself to do some heavy homework and would reunite with Wildcard later.

As the two mutants waited, Gambit fiddled with a playing card, while Rogue folded her arms and set her face in a thinking expression.

Rosemary told Wildcard to keep it casual for the meeting, and he wore a Sukajan jacket, a Rebel Eight cap, Converse shoes and jeans. "A pleasure to meet you, maam." He nodded to her. "I am Akio Satoshi Tetsuya, also known as Wildcard." He slightly bowed to Rogue and Gambit.

Both Gambit and Rogue nodded warily in response to Wildcard's introduction. Rogue continued to scrutinize him with a critical eye, while Gambit casually fiddled with a playing card.

"We know who you are, cher" Gambit said, his Cajun accent slipping through. "And we ain't too thrilled 'bout you consortin' with our daughter."

"And I dont expect you to. Thats your job as parents." Wildcard spoke logically, and that stumped them. "May I be sitted, maam?" He asked Rogue.

Rogue gestured towards a nearby couch, her expression softening slightly. "Of course, darlin'. Please, have a seat," she replied, her Southern hospitality shining through.

"Thank you." Wildcard sat down, and so did Gambit and Rogue who looked at him, his demeanor and his attire.

Wildcard smiled. "So, I know you have a lot of questions so, lets do a rapid fire questioning to make it interesting?"

"Sounds good to me, sugah." Rogue smirked to Gambit.

"Gambit goes first. What brings you here today, cher?"

"We are here because Rosemary wants us to get to know each other." Wildcard replied.

"Rogue let out a soft chuckle, a mixture of amusement and skepticism in her eyes. "We figured somethin' like that," she drawled. "But I reckon we may as well get acquainted then."

Gambit nodded, a small smirk playing on his lips. "That's right. So, Wildcard, tell us about yourself. What's your story?"

"Im blessed in a family of a mother, a father and seven older sisters in Osaka, Japan."

Gambit nodded, clearly intrigued by Wildcard's family background. "Seven older sisters, huh? That must've been quite a house to grow up in," he commented, a friendly jest in his voice.

Rogue tilted her head slightly, the corner of her lips curving into a hint of a smile. "I imagine you probably got plenty of guidance and tough love from them all," she observed, envisioning the lively chaos of a large family. "Mah turn. Is there a girlfriend you had before ya'll had Rosemary's heart?"

Wildcard has never lied about stuff like this and would not start now. "Before Rosemary" He showed a picture of a pretty mutant girl with long black with two pairs of eyes beside himself. "I had feelings for a girl at 15, Megumi Junko. A debuting mutant idol."

Gambit and Rogue's eyes widened slightly as they glanced at the picture of Megumi Junko and how pretty she was.

"Mutant idol?" Gambit repeated, his brow furrowing slightly. "What happened? Did you guys break up?"

"Nowhere near that." Wildcard sighed. "...I wanted to tell my feelings for her, but she wanted him to wait until she became a known idol, whos job was to sing and let mutants know they can be more. She had a great debut..until she was chopped up by her human parents out of jealousy and mutant bigotry and hatred. Makes me sick."

Gambit and Rogue's expressions immediately darkened as they listened to Wildcard recount the tragic story of Megumi Junko. Both were deeply empathized with how painful it must have been for Wildcard to wait and hope for a chance to confess his feelings to her only to lose her so tragically.

"Oh no," Rogue muttered, her usually composed demeanor shifting into one of empathetic sadness for Wildcard.

"I spent the whole night and day, finding her parts and sewing them myself to give her a proper burial. She deserved that at least."

Gambit just blinked. "You truly did love her, Cher. Gambit's sorry, no one should lose their love at such a young age."

"I've honored her memory and moved on after I grieved. That is what she would have wanted. Life sometimes hands you a crappy hand. Her parents are rotting in jail, so karma is fair."

Both Gambit and Rogue nodded as Rogue spoke now. "Ah dont mean to downplay anything, sugah. Ya'll had a lot going on fer you, but still, Rosemary is our daughter. How can we trust you with her?"

Wildcard shrugged nonchalantly. "I could have kissed both of your asses and buttered you up right from the start, but that is not who I am. You asked, I answered, no matter how it sounds. My parents taught me to be a man of my word and I stick to my word."

"A straight shooter, non?" Gambit smirked. "Gambit aprecciates that. Not many kids had a backbone as yours. Say, boy. Ever had Jambalaya before?"

"No sir." He shook his head.

"Good, I made some, in the kitchen. You want some, since you here?"

Wildcard just smiled, nodding his head. "Thank you sir."

"Not a problem cher. Least I can do after ya answered our questions, mon ami."

(That took longer tham expected, but here you go @a-roguish-gambit )

[antics-of-a-spiteful-stickbug]

Have you ever thought about just how amazing people are?

Like, the one thing that separates us from other animals is the fact that we cook our food, and we're so connected to art on a fundamental level that we made that an art form as well. That is so amazing to me.

And yeah, some of us are misguided and believe that the process of making art isn't important, or less important than the end product, but I think that mindset is inevitable in a society where profit is centered above everything else.

We're pack animals, of course people will flock to different ideologies and ideas, even if they're unethical, or not ideal. Humans can so easily fall into traps like bigotry, self-hatred, and selfishness, but what I find so beautiful is that we can be educated, and we can change our minds.

Isn't that awesome?? Humans can change themselves on a fundamental level, their ideas, beliefs, and opinions, for a reason so little as "I just felt it was right". You can train yourself to be an empathic person, you can learn how to create the way you want to, you can even learn how to manipulate your dreams at night if you want to!! That's so cool, humans are so cool.

I struggle a lot with my image of people, and that makes a lot of sense considering I'm born female, neurodivergent, and queer in ways I can't even figure out myself, but what I've been trying to teach myself is that I don't want to hate the people who made the mistakes, I want to hate the establishments which enabled and encouraged those mistakes.

Yes, there will always be people who do bad things for their own selfish gain, but the problem isn't the fact that they exist, it's the fact that society has been largely built around and for their existence.

It's hard to be kind in a world where selfishness and cruelty are the keys to individual success in a lot of areas, but the beautiful thing is that so many of us choose to be kind either way.

The human world- the concept of it all that we have right now- may suck in many ways, but I do believe that people will always be human, and that kindness lies at all of our cores if it's allowed to be there.