#including KO!

[plaza-prom]

I got to meet the original voice actress for KO from the Lakewood Plaza Turbo pilot today! She was very nice!

[maskerat]

ref sheet of little ghost for my Hollow Knight interpretation/retake. I'm not sure how to call it yet, it's less of an AU but more than canon - just the way I'd interpret all the events, and things we don't see in-game.

[genosoffline]

panalangin ko sa habang buhay

[phoenixyfriend]

Why I think it's important to understand the geopolitical anxieties of Israelis

Oftentimes, it feels like even recognizing that those anxieties exist is viewed as siding with Israel in the current conflict.

And I think that it's... weird, to do that. Dismissing the anxieties wholesale makes it harder to resolve the situation. Addressing them directly is possibly the only way to resolve the situation, because America.

Let me explain.

This will have three parts:

Why the propaganda works

How it affects current policy

How we can pressure the (mostly US) government about Israel using what we know about propaganda

Why the propaganda works

A lot of it is just propaganda, yes, but a lot of it is based in history, and a lot is also sort of self-fulfilling at this point. They have had reason to believe that some of their neighbors want all Jews dead or gone for a long time (see: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen), so it's not that it comes from nowhere. When over half the population is either Mizrahi Jews who fled from nearby countries that were happy to have a place to kick their Jewish populations out to, or their descendants, it's not hard to see that 'if someone else is in charge, we'll have to flee again.'

You could tell the French in Algeria to go back to France, but are you going to tell Mizrahi Jews to go back to the ME countries that they left? Sure, some left willingly, but that kind of wholesale eradication doesn't happen unless there's some degree of systemic discrimination or threat of violence. You cannot send Yemeni Jews back to Yemen.

The threat is real. It is not as large as the propaganda claims. It does not in any way justify nearly 30,000 deaths, half of them children. But the threat is not just imagined.

The fact of the matter is this: the propaganda is fueled by actual violence and legitimate fears.

And unless those fears are recognized and accounted for, Israel cannot be talked down.

Being told that a threat does not exist when recent history clearly shows otherwise is not going to convince anyone. I cannot emphasize this enough: even if the far-right government is replaced tomorrow, those fears will persist.

Israel's current government is violently and militarily opposed to restructuring itself in a way that allows for either a secular democratic single state, or a truly free and independent Palestine in a two-state solution. Due to mandatory army service and large scale propaganda, many have been taught since early childhood that the only way for Jews to be safe is for Israel to exist and to be so incredibly overpowered for their size that other nations won't invade them. The fact that both distant history and more recent, across the world, is filled with antisemitic discrimination, feeds this paranoia. A lot of people are out to get them, and have been since well before Israel was established. The destruction of Judea, the Edict of Expulsion, the expulsion of Jews from Spain, pogroms, the Holocaust, the near-total eradication in Yemen, Jordan, and Syria, and so on... this shit keeps happening. Some of it long ago, some if it very recent.

But it does keep happening, and that is why the propaganda works. That is why the fearmongering has teeth. It has happened before, over and over and over again, and it is being loudly threatened again. The propaganda works in Israel, and it also works in Jewish communities, and non-Jewish people who just happen to hear it, based elsewhere in the world. Like America. (This is important.)

Before moving forward, I need to make this clear: There are Jewish Israeli activists, both within Israel and without, that are vocally against Israel's actions against Palestine. Some are organized, and some are individuals. Some stories even go viral: Israeli-born Natalie Portman's been criticizing Netanyahu for years and politicians have called for her citizenship to be stripped for it. Tumblr loves the story of the Swiftie Twitter that went to jail for refusing to join the IDF, and that's very common; plenty of young people get months-long prison sentences, sometimes multiple times. Right-wing mobs go after Jewish Israelis who speak in support of Palestine in any way, and these things get violent.

(In that same article, it also talks about how Israeli Palestinians are suffering much, much worse under the government's crackdown on free speech.)

How it affects current policy

The thing is, there are only really four ways for this to resolve:

Israel wins. They succeed in pushing Palestinians out of Gaza by killing anyone who doesn't comply, and take it over for themselves. (This is bad.)

Israel is cut off from any and all support from abroad, both 'here, you can help yourself with these guns' and 'here, we will fight your enemies for you,' and is very suddenly at risk of invasion, mass murder, and removal from the Palestinian Mandate by those groups they fearmonger about, the ones that include slogans like "death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews." (This is also bad.)

Israel is convinced to stop attacking Gaza, possibly through the threat of no more support, and settles in to figure out a solution with Palestine, whether two-state or secular single state or whatever, and normalizes relations with neighbors enough that they can start cutting back on their military. (This is the best option.)

A foreign power or coalition of powers invades and forces Israel to stop, and oversees a transition from military state to peaceful state while protecting from outside attack, like was done to Japan and Germany following WWII. (This one is... interventionism is bad, but also almost 30k people have died with no end in sight, so it's starting to look like a real possibility.)

We can all agree, I hope, that the first option is not an option. That is Bad.

I also hope we can agree that the second option is not an option. A number of Israelis may be settlers in the traditional sense of the word, but a lot of them are refugees from neighboring countries, survivors of the Holocaust, or descendants of such. "Just go back where you came from" doesn't work when many of them came from places that were also saying 'go back where you came from' because Israel now existed to expel them to. It's also been around for 75 years now, and some three-quarters of the population were born in Israel. Expelling them all, even the ones that were there before the early statehood aliyah? It's... I don't know. I understand in theory why some activists push for it, but I do think it is fundamentally different from any comparative colonization or settlement.

(Note: I do not include Israeli colonies in the Palestinian West Bank. Those do need to be returned to their owners. Give people their houses and land back.)

The third option is the one that most people, I think, would like to see happen. However, the Israeli government is clinging to the propaganda that they will be eradicated as a Jewish people if they do not forcibly take power where they can, and they are spreading it out among Israelis. Dissent by Israeli Jews may not be criminalized, but the society around them sure isn't receptive to it. The recent invasion of Gaza has also inflamed tensions across the region, which means that even countries which were slowly normalizing relations, or at least.

Netanyahu has not been convinced, and by all appearances cannot be convinced. The only thing that may force his hand is the threat of no more military aid, so he suddenly has to start conserving what missiles he does have in order to fend off a possible attack instead of continuing to hammer on Gaza.

Sounds great, right? This is why we are all (I hope) calling our senators or representatives or whatever your country has to tell them to stop supporting Israel monetarily or with military aid. This is why I keep giving suggested topics for Americans to call their senators about, even if I'm just one voice, and there are much louder ones saying the same thing, but better.

And yet, the Senate passed the aid bill. They snuck it into a Veteran Affairs thing as a last-minute amendment, but they passed it, and any failure in the House will have little to do with sympathy for Palestine and a lot to do with domestic border policy.

So... Americans are also pretty convinced of the whole 'if we stop supporting Israel, they will be invaded and killed off by the Iran-backed militias' thing. Many do feel sympathy for Palestinians, hence the 'Israel, you need to knock that shit off' comments, but they also are genuinely of a belief that the Israeli propaganda of 'we will be overrun by antisemitic Muslim extremist militias and exterminated like in the Holocaust' is true.

Like. Either they fear for Israelis due to the antagonistic forces in the region, or they belong to Christofascist ideologies about how supporting Israel is the way to avoid suffering in Armageddon.

You can't get to the latter on ethics or morality or whatever. You can only rely on ulterior motives (the border things) or telling them 'your reelection is in jeopardy, change your mind or you're going to be voted out.'

The former, though... you can. They believe the things that Israel claims and has been claiming since 1948, with regards to threats.

And if you acknowledge why the propaganda works, you can address it.

How we can pressure the government about Israel using what we know about propaganda

If you say that there is no threat to Israel from Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or so on, you will be dismissed as an idealist who hasn't done any research. If you say that Israelis should be left to their own devices, you will be viewed as cruel, and if you say they should be removed and the land given back to Palestinians, you will be laughed away (silently, but it'll happen). You cannot convince the American government with these tactics.

What can you say?

Israel is making things worse for itself in regards to these exact threats. Pushing on Gaza is making neutral and nearly-normalized countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia less inclined to get in the way of the 'death to Israel' militias. The campaign is creating a whole new generation of extremists who will join the militias out of a desire to prevent more of these deaths by Israeli hands, and that will only increase the threat to Israel.

Destroying Hamas isn't going to do shit if Hezbollah, Iraq, Iran, the Houthis, and so on, invade. Especially if twenty years down the line, all those orphans that Israel just created these past few months start a new Hamas for revenge because, hi, look how many orphans you just created.

Netanyahu is working against the interests of the Israeli people. He is trying to remain in power, and the Gaza war is a distraction from the charges being levied against him.

Netanyahu has a vested interest in seeing that Donald Trump is elected, as they are much closer than the at best strained relationship with Biden. This is very complicated but if your senator or rep is a Democrat, it is relevant.

Israel's continued offensive is leading to the risk of millions of Palestinian refugees entering Egypt and destabilizing them, which, in an already unstable country in an already wobbling region, is going to risk another war across the Middle East. The US still has not pulled out all troops from the last one.

The US cannot afford, monetarily or in terms of foreign relations, to aid in causing a new regional war.

If Israel slows, halts, and withdraws peacefully from Gaza, tensions will settle enough to avoid possible invasion by those hostile forces they're so worried about. The UN can, if necessary, deploy forces to maintain relative stability until peace treaties are worked out. We'd like to avoid option 4 if possible.

The only way I can see to convince the US government to stop supplying weapons to Israel is to push on the fact that continuing to do so will, due to Netanyahu and his party's actions, put Israel in more danger rather than less.

There are other things to say to your senators, and I'll be making a post about that soon (not today, but probably this weekend; stuff like Michigan, UNRWA, international reputation), but in regards to just the geopolitics surrounding the propaganda, this is it. This is why we have to understand it. Because the way we get the United States government to stop giving aid to Israel to defend itself is by telling them 'this is putting them in more danger due to their head of state's aggression.'

This was very long, but I've seen a lot of misinformation and a lot of generalization, and a lot of it is... not great. Well-meant, sometimes, but not great. I felt it necessary to be very clear and very specific. I'm anticipating a lot of comments to the effect of "you forgot about this" and "but that doesn't excuse their actions" and "well, not all activists believe--" and I know.

I know.

But I've had people say "Nobody is advocating for the removal of all Jewish Israelis" to my ask box hours after I was talking about Yemen, a country that enacted a removal of all Jews and largely under the control of a group that has a slogan about doing just that to the Jewish Israelis.

So let me be very clear that I have seen a lot on tumblr recently, a lot of it extremist, and I'm not pulling any of this out of my ass or making up a guy to be mad at. I may not know everything on this topic--I may not even know much at all, given that it covers centuries of conflict due to the Ottomans--but I've been listening to hours upon hours of news from a variety of sources (Al Jazeera, BBC, NPR, and more) every day just to make sure I understand.

Please trust that, even if I get some things wrong, even if I don't cite every detail or generalize just a bit here and there, that I mean well. Please trust that I am making this in good faith and am trusting you to respond to it in kind.

Call your reps. Write them an email. Donate to a Palestinian charity.

It's a slog, but we can make a difference.

[akemi-snow]

KakaIru + Those Four Guys From Naruto

I'll assume you've seen the original versions with the canon couples. (I'd link it but have no idea what the OG really is). Now it's the gae version.

[summerslushies]

some icons lol

[littlecello]

Hi folks! I come to you today with a request. I have a friend who has been in a really shitty situation the past few months, and this week made the decision to leave her abusive household and find shelter at a refuge. She is okay, she has found a great supportive place, but unfortunately she currently has no income whatsoever and very little in terms of savings.

If you can, please consider buying her a ko-fi, even just one of these would help immensely. This friend is incredibly dear to me, I have known her for over a decade, and I want her to have a good start into what is basically going to be a new life.

If you can spare even a few quid, it would make a huge difference. And please, signal boost this as much as you can - my friend has had a terrible time since the beginning of the year, and I really want her to feel as loved and supported as she deserves to be. Thank you. 💖

[imma-ghost-bunni]

✧⊹ Available on my ko-fi and gumroad! 🐇⊹✧

❤️‍🔥 the Ultimate Studio Ghibli Desktop Set 🌿

⊹✧ ko-fi & gumroad ✧⊹

I absolutely adore Studio Ghibli and its beautiful worlds and characters, so I created this massive desktop theme set! My main goal when making this set was to really do as much as I possibly could, go big or go BIG, because there are SO MANY amazing movies and characters and everyone has their favorite and I wanted to do my best to have something for everyone! 🌿🌸🩷 (That's how it ended up with 123 icons 😅)

This set is for anyone who would like to bring some Ghibli magic to their desktop! ♡✧⊹ (it also works so well with notion too!)

I appreciate all reblogs of this post - it helps me so much! (˶♡o♡˶)/

[sgt-celestial]

An updated pricing guide for my Ko-fi requests! ☕

[hercarisntyours]

Could you tell me more about your take/takes on human Elita?

And do you have any ideas for Human Optimus? I'd like to hear that too 😁

ofc!! I have stuff for tfone, aligned/prime and earthspark but as of rn only aligned is the most developed followed by earthspark lol, but I'm gonna include all of them so there's gonna be quite a bit

My tfp Elita is Argentine with major face claim inspo from Anya-Taylor Joy!! (who I think would be an AMAZING elita if they do another celeb cast for her) with her name being Ariel Caballero (meaning knight/horseman)

(this art is like almost 2 years old lmao 😭) she had strawberry blonde hair and a plethora of pink suits (like 2 years ago I had a humanformers boarding school au so a lot came from that) and she's sisters with chromia and moonracer! She'd be first lady (with op being prime minister ?? president ?) and military commander, and the niece of alpha trion! her not being in tfp gave me a lot of free reign omg 😭

I do have a human OP design!!! only tfp rn tho 😭 i'm thinking of ones for tf one and genuinely earthspark reminds me of a basic ass european descent grandpa so that's basically it for es 😭

He's Greek-Persian! (tho, general Achaemenid empire descent), I can't remember the name I actually gave him but I do remember Orion was his first name (he either had pax, a greek surname or a persian one 😭)

(ref by kibbitzer for the one on the right!!!!) Also old art lmao, he wasn't developed as far as elita was but i don't think that'd be a shocker based on my account 😭 He actually has freckles now but at the time of drawing those he didn't :')

back to the regular elita programming nowjdks

My earthspark Elita is Japanese!

Bushida Aeri is her name :) Bushida meaning warrior and Aeri being from ariel. I don't have many drawings for her but there's thesee

the first one is an old design for her but I still think it fits, the second being a younger Elita so like ig when she'd be Ariel in earthspark time line and the bottom is my most recent sketch of her!! I don't have a face claim inspo for her but Elita in general (not just earthspark) has always reminded me of Irene of Red Velvet! both leaders in pink lmao

For tfone there's like nothing new at all except this art

Esita Won, she's of Indian and Chinese descent, but mostly Indian, she probably speaks Punjabi or Tamil (ik completely different areas of India 😭), she reminds me of that one desi older sister who takes no crap and is not afraid to beat your ass and also makes the best curry idk

I noticed a lot of Elita's helm designs lean into traditional east Asian hair styles and clothing so I really wanted to represent those parts of her designs and the franchise's Japanese heritage :))

(omg i didn't realise how long this would end up being 😭😭)

[thedevildeer]

Yohan’s comments on Jun’s posts that I found so freaking cute T~T

a bit awkward ❤️

Dancing a little ❤️

Walking a little ❤️

Smiling a little ❤️

Woah that’s impressive~~~~❤️

The way they are written in similar pattern makes my heart burst ngl 😭 he’s freaking adorable 🥹

[damienns]

Lena Luthor | Season 4 Episode 7: Rather the Fallen Angel

ko-fi

[retroautomaton]

Bettel Keychains Pre-Order! 🎩💎✨

Trying something new out, and made two Bettel keychain designs! One of the classic little funny man, and a more punk/metal outfit, both for $10! Also trying Pre-Orders out for the first time, with just a little week-long window, that’ll be delivered at the beginning of November!

You’re more than welcome to contact me, if you’ve got any questions!

On Ko-Fi ☕️✨

[technically-human]

There are currently 6 requests left on my inbox, and it might take me a while to do them all, but don't worry, I've received them 💕

[phoenixyfriend]

Calls for Action, Call Your Reps: 2/13/24

This is USA-specific, as that is the place I live and know.

Find your elected officials.

Today, much of my information is coming from Democracy Now!, which I generally listen to as a podcast (functionally, it is a radio news broadcast, like NPR or BBC), and I am quoting from the text versions on their website.

The Senate passed a $95 billion military funding package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in the pre-dawn hours this morning. But the bill’s fate remains unclear after House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the measure over its failure to include hard-line immigration restrictions. This comes after Johnson and other Republicans rejected an earlier version of the bill which did contain the border crackdown they had demanded. Johnson has told Republican congressmembers he will call a House vote on a stand-alone funding bill for Israel.

From the same page, we are hearing that President Biden is urging Israel to refrain from invading Rafah, where a million or so Palestinians are currently sheltering, but is not actually threatening any kind of repercussions for said invasion. Reports from both official sources (e.g. the Hamas-run health ministry) and less official (e.g. American doctors returning from relief services in Palestine) indicate that over half of the deaths in Palestine are children.

I am not going to pretend that I know what is going through Biden's head.

Both House and Senate:

Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, THEY are not well supported, and western officials did not do their duty in investigating the claims before cutting funding. This arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked. Many sources are also claiming that the evidence is flimsy at best.

Urge both Senate and House to refrain from funding Israel, or to at least put some strings on it. The IDF cannot be given funding without some regulations on what they can do with it. They have proven that they are unwilling to take steps to protect civilians.

FOR THE SENATE: Urge your senator to put their support behind Bernie Sanders and his motion to restrict funding to Israel until a humanitarian review of the IDF’s actions in Gaza has been completed. Cite it as Senate Resolution 504 if your Senator is right-wing enough to react negatively to the mention of Sanders by name. NOTE: This resolution was TABLED by the Senate on 1/16, but it is being brought back in as conditions continue to escalate.

FOR THE HOUSE: Urge your representative to put their support behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s petition for the US government to recognize the IDF’s actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and put a stop to it. ALTERNATELY: recommend that they support House Resolution 786, introduced by Rep. Cori Bush, Calling for an immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.

On the House Floor this week, to call your rep about:

H.Res. 994: Married persons tax break. Vote nay. Loses billions in tax revenue and explicitly targets green energy.

H.R. 2766 and H.R. 4039: Condemnation of China's actions against the Uyghurs. Can't tell you which way to talk on this. Seems good on the surface, but given who's presenting it, I worry there's something worse tucked into the text. Hopefully someone can provide a better take.

H.R. 3016: IGO Anti-Boycott Act. Vote Nay. This appears to be intended to force US companies to do business with US allies instead of participating in boycotts. This appears, to me, to be an attack on movements like BDS. To Dem Reps, argue that this refuses the right of peaceful protest to US citizens. To Republican Reps, argue that this is a dangerous government overreach and that it is not the right of the government to force US citizens to purchase products and materials from specific foreign partners.

H.Res. 966: Condemnation of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7. Vote Nay. We know sexual violence is bad. Hamas has already been condemned for their actions. This is, at best, lip service. It is a waste of time. There are much bigger, more impactful things to work on, and this is going to waste time and resources in the Senate if it passes.

If you wish to support my political blogging, I am accepting donations on ko-fi.

[redge]

from here

Aqua with all those accessories? Melt with black nail polish, the pearl necklace and glasses?! The attitude?! Also, this really feels like how they would be posting for a cover page of a magazine on the OnK universe, them being actor celebrities and all. 👏