#jewish medic anyone?

[dill-picle]

[nsfw)

making mercs are circumsised headcanons is dumb.png

let those skins hang brother

[artoatsblog]

The "who's the most normal Merc?" Question has always been fun because if you go by a very specific brand of normal you can answer, with a completely straight face, soldier

Like if you're around small Midwestern towns you'll probably see the comparison between him and that older guy who always goes to Walmart who you don't really know What he does for a living but still manages to own a lot of guns who tend to have some... Interesting views on the government, honestly if anything soldier is a toned down version.

[ramlionbam]

as an intersex jewish person i have a lot of thoughts about circumcision as a religious practice, at least with regards to judaism.

primarily, i believe that it should be something that jewish adults decide on, rather than something done as an infant. a ceremonial / spiritual bris for infants should be done instead, and then, as an adult, the decision can be made. but i also understand that doing it on infants is traditional, and changing an ancient tradition is difficult and can take a long time. so i don't have any ill will towards jewish parents who make that decision for their infant child, even if that's not the decision i would make.

there are several reasons for my conclusion.

one is that, in an ideal world, traditionally-gendered practices determined by assigned sex will be accessible regardless of assigned sex or gender identification. this also means reducing practices that forcibly assign children different roles and customs by sex, and instead providing children with the tools to choose what roles and customs they want to engage with. circumcision is one of those practices.

another is that, as an intersex person, i'm very pro-letting-people-choose-when-they're-adults. circumcision can be done later on in life, and as far as a quick search tells me, it's not a very painful or difficult procedure. however, the inverse procedure, foreskin reconstruction, does not produce the same results as having a natural foreskin; you can graft skin onto that area, but it won't be the same.

however, a lot of people are very... weird about the religious practice of circumcision. considering that two of the more well-known religions that practice circumcision (judaism and islam) are both religions that experience a lot of bigotry directed towards them, i think it's fair to say that people need to be careful with the language they use when discussing this practice and to be respectful of the religious importance and history of it, or else to instead listen to the voices of people who are from communities that practice circumcision.

This is asking about the practice of parents deciding that their child should have this surgery for religious or aesthetic reasons. This is not asking about circumstances where someone might need it for medical reasons, nor adults making that decision for their own bodies.

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[divinemackerel]

your posts have been fucking fantastic the past hour. jewish medic is so real to me. also i hope u have/had fun at the show and qna!!!

THANK YOU! I am going to be sick OBSLWBDN after the QnA ill probably post more jewish medic stuff to calm my nerves bc they are EVERYWHERE.

I love jewish medic. Genuinely one of my fav hcs and im going to write a whole fic about it eventually LOL <- it is still in the planning process.

[determinate-negation]

im making this post for @wafans-blog because she is trying to reach the goal of 80k by sunday august 18 in order to evacuate her sister and brothers families who are trapped in gaza. wafa went to egypt before the war for medical treatment and has been separated from her family since and is extremely worried about them.

throughout my life ive read so many historical stories about jewish refugees from nazi germany where peoples families were separated and never saw each other again despite searching for years after the war, people who were deported to their deaths a day before they were planning to escape, people who acquired the right papers just after it became useless for them anyways, people whos lives depended on the whims of strangers, border guards, officials, workers, passerbys- on whether they would choose to help someone or do nothing. the actual difference between life and death made into completely arbitrary decisions that are out of the control of those suffering, for the most part. this is the type of existential situation that is created when a people are targeted for destruction, like in the genocidal war israel is waging on gaza right now. i cant help but think about everything ive been told about history since i was young when i see what is happening in gaza today. i dont want that to happen to anyone else.

wafa told me earlier today that the situation now is gaza is getting worse and worse for her family members. the other day they were forced to evacuate at 1am and sleep on the street, leaving behind everything they had in their tents because of another idf bombing on areas previously deemed "safe." they have a young infant, salem, with them who was born during the war and has only been exposed to suffering and devastation. salem is sick right now and theres very little access to medicine or any of the resources that a newborn baby needs. its really urgent that they raise enough money to register them for evacuation so they can join wafa in egypt when the border opens soon, god willing.

out of so many arbitrary decisions that life is reduced to under the conditions of a genocide, one of the less arbitrary ones is that anyone on here, especially those in the west who likely have a higher income in a stronger currency than non-westerners, could help someone today escape death.

i really implore people to donate. especially if you have a degree of disposable income or economic security– consider your life circumstances and how much you can actually afford to give to help save something that really can not be monetarily quantified, which is human life. please donate to this campaign and help reach its goal. if you cant donate, share this with someone who can.

$65,035 raised of $80,000

[zingay]

No Israeli was raped, no Israeli children were beheaded, the hostages are treated better than Israel treats anyone who isn't jewish, and even the stupid zionist bitch everyone is martyring is apparently still alive and being treated in a PALESTINIAN HOSPITAL

Meanwhile, Palestinian people have been routinely raped by IOF (men AND women), are being bombarded nonstop in a way never seen before, babies and children are being pulled out of rubble dead, their only exits blocked or destroyed, a complete blockade and shutting down all food transport, electricity and water, medics and press being targetted to cover everything up, Israelis have telegram groups filled with images and videos of Palestinians getting killed and laughing at it, and all of these war crimes are being documented by the fucking facist in charge himself on twitter

Even all their allies are being threatened with war, the Egyptian border already bombed in an attempt to prevent humanitarian aid, Lebanon's border bombed to prevent anyone from providing military aid

And SOMEHOW all of you are mad at the Palestinian people? Calling them savages and animals? You make me fucking sick and I hope you know you're ignorance and stupidity is empowering the violent colonisation happening right now

[snarky-badger]

Places to donate to help Palestine

PCRF.net - They did over a 100 medical missions in 2022 (Palestine Children’s Relief Fund)

Middle East Children's Alliance - A Non-profit organization fighting for the well-being and rights of Middle Eastern Children. They also have a link to a 'tool kit' to help spread information about the Gaza Genocide. I'm linking to it directly HERE

Anera: Where Hope Finds a Way - They provide everything from food, medicine and hygiene kits. $30 equals 16 blood bags - an essential thing for helping doctors help people survive horrible physical trauma.

UNICEF.org - Link to where you can donate to help UNICEF get aid to those suffering in Palestine.

And because I know damn well that lots of people don't have the extra funds to donate money - you can help by simply clicking here once a day. It donates ad revenue. Click to help Palestine

[I wanted so much to find other places people could donate that weren't in the US or Canada, but I was having problems figuring out how to ensure that they were reputable. If anyone knows of any, please reblog and add the links!]

And some basic informational sources for those who want to understand what's really going on other than the misleading information from the media.

BDS - The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement works to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians. Offers actual news about what's happening.

Decolonize Palestine - In depth information about the history and origins of Palestine. Also has a great 'debunked myths' section that lists almost all of all the lies the Media has been peddling.

Mondoweiss - An independent website devoted to informing readers about developments in Israel/Palestine and related US foreign policy. (Be aware: Some articles show disturbing images of the horrors happening in Gaza.)

Petitions I found with reputable track records (there are a LOT of fakes out there)

Canada:

Independant Jewish Voices Canada - Gaza on the Brink Ceasefire Now! - Prewritten letter to Justin Trudeau and Mélanie Joly calling for an immediate ceasefire, and for an end to the collective punishment of Palestinians. Just sign your name and it sends a letter!

There are several other ways (Including email addresses to various people/companies, as well as physical addresses you can mail letters to) listed here.

DON'T send threats/hate mail. That does nothing but make them double down on their current stances. Be polite. You don't have to take a happy tone, but be polite.

United States:

USA - Tell Congress: Stop Fueling the Gaza Genocide - Demanding an immediate ceasefire and for Humanitarian Aid to be allowed into Gaza.

Jewish Voice for Peace - You can use their form for send a letter to Congress to demand that they should focus on de-escalation instead of sending money and weapons to Israel so they can continue their genocidal war against Palestinians.

Jewish Voice for Peace (part 2) - Fill out this form and inform President Biden that he should call for a ceasefire and stop supplying money and weapons to Israel.

[wilwheaton]

In case you haven't noticed … When they say "woke," they mean Black. When they say "Soros" or "globalist," they mean Jewish. When they say "parents' rights," they mean Christian zealots' rights to overrule all other parents, ban books, and dictate lessons. When they say "freedom," they mean freedom to inspect your son's genitals and log your daughter's periods. Freedom to indoctrinate and impose an agenda, just like they accuse their opponents of doing. Freedom to restrict voting and overturn elections. Freedom to deny medical treatment so women die and kids kill themselves. Freedom to wield the power of the state and applaud vigilante violence against anyone who disagrees or looks different. Today's Republican Party serves exactly three groups: the NRA, untaxed billionaires, and bigots who want white supremacist theocracy. To say you're a Republican is to say you have exactly two values: privilege and hate.

Paid for by Eric Grevstad, Bradenton, Florida

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

By the way, for anyone who is still confused about messianics and why I have such a problem with them (as do the vast, vast majority of actual Jews - one of the few things we can virtually all agree on) think about it like this: they are like the Crisis Pregnancy Centers of the Jewish world.

CPCs deliberately market themselves in ways that imply that they provide actual medical care, pregnancy resources, or information on abortion, only to get their clients in a vulnerable situation and then accost them with forced-birther bullshit and massive guilt trips to convince them to keep their darling baby that I'm totally 100% sure will be the next Mozart if you only gave Jesus a chance!

Messianics do this by marketing themselves as observant, devout orthodoxim with deep Torah learning, mystical insights, and a unique perspective on living a life of mitzvot....... who happen to believe Yeshua was Ha-Moshiach, and worship him as a god, but this totally isn't avodah zarah because Yeshua told them so! Also *toot toot* the shofar to bring in our Sunday Sabbath!

It's fine to want to keep an unplanned pregnancy and it's fine to get an abortion. It's not fine to try to trick people into making a major decision that could ruin their lives.

Similarly, it's fine to be a Xtian just like it's fine to be a Jew. It's not fine to be a Xtian playing offensive dress-up as a Jew to trick Jews into worshipping Jesus.

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

I want a bar mitzvah after I've finished medically transitioning (the last step will be bottom surgery). i will definitely not be the right age and idk if anyone will agree to this because im not 13, I just think itd be a nice way to celebrate finally living life as a jewish man.

you are all invited as long as you're not a child when it happens. you are encouraged to bring food, alcohol, and anything guinea pig related. there is no dress code but you are encouraged to dress your best. whatever that means is up to you you can wear a suit of armor if you want

[elliescoolerwife]

Nazi dumbfuck

Being against murder and genocide is not a nazi ideology but go off I guess.

If anyone is nazi, it’s zionists.

Lets take a look:

In particular, the Nazis embraced the false idea that Jews were a separate and inferior race. - Israeli politicians have called palestinian children the “children off darkness” and israelis “the children of light”. Also, they’ve called Palestinians animals and not humans and therefore should be treated as such.

the Nazis referred to Jews as a “parasitic race.” - there is posters around Israel and on the internet created by Israelis where they compare palestinians to parasites - saying that they’re parasites to the israeli soil and needs to be removed.

Nazis wanted to separate Jews and Aryan Germans. They tried to force Jews to leave Germany. Not only do Israelis see Palestinians as animals, they’ve displaced 2 million Palestinians. Do you have any idea of what’s going on in Rafah rn?

Those whom the Nazis identified as non-Aryans (including Jews) were persecuted and discriminated against. Israelis have murdered 700.000 palestinians and removed their access to water, food and medical care. Israelis have been protesting by sitting in front of vehicles with medical equipment so gazans don’t get help. Israel have been dropping white phosphorus for 10 years so Palestinians either 1. Get burned. 2. Get killed by the water they drink that contains that white phosphorus. PS! White phosphorus is illegal but not when israelis do it🤡

the Nazis carried out forced sterilizations of certain groups whom they considered inferior.. lets swich our focus from Palestinians and lets take a look at the black people in Israel, lot of them ethiopians, that have been forced to sterilize themselves because israelis don’t want “black” in their jewish line. They want to keep it “clean” and not let black genes, especially not when those black people have converted and aren’t “real” jews. Do you remember who also wanted to keep their race clean? Does it sound familiar?

The Nazis believed that races were destined to wage war against each other. For them, war was a way for the Aryan race to gain land and resources. Specifically, the Nazis wanted to conquer territory in eastern Europe. They planned to remove, dominate, or murder the people who lived there. They believed that Aryan Germans should control this land because they were the supposed master race. Israelis believe that they are Gods chosen people and therefore owns that land. They have removed, dominated and murderer Palestinians who live there to take that land from them, claiming they are the superior race because God chose them. Therefore, they have every right to take that territory from the indigenous people.

Nazis also falsely claimed that all Jews were an existential threat to Germany and that they had to be destroyed. Israelis claim that this “war” will not be over until total victory - meaning until every Palestinian is dead or removed. They celebrated when north gaza looked like a desert, because the “parasites” who was a threath to Israel is now gone. And now Netanyahu is telling these parasites to leave Rafah, the claimed “safe space” or else they get murdered there too. And lets remember that Israelis don’t discriminate. They murder all Palestinians! Muslims, Christians, jews. All of them. And anyone who supports them.

And don’t even dare to say the Hamas because Israel never cared about Hamas nor did Hamas exist when this started. They have claimed that they need to murder children in order to prevent them from growing up and joining hamas. Children. Women. Elderly.

Bold of you to ask this anonymously, though.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Hi! I really appreciate your nuanced and informed thoughts. Apologies if you've already answered something like this somewhere, but I'm only occasionally on Tumblr these days.

My question is what do you think about calls for academic boycotts as a means of protest? (Against Russia and Israel, most recently - curiously, I've never seen any suggestions for an academic boycott against, say, China, due to persecution of Uygurs and Tibetans. Cynically, I'm guessing this is because Chinese academia is simply too big and too financially integrated into global academic publishing profits for anyone to imagine a boycott, whereas Russian and Israeli academics are much less visible and much less profitable.)

I often sympathize with the feelings of those calling for boycotts, but it feels like it's useless at best and counterproductive at worst to cut off potential regime critics from international support, making them more dependent on keeping the regime happy for funding. I've seen some of what happens in an academic community (Hungary) that is poorly integrated with the international academic community when a repressive government start going after insufficiently nationalist research, and it's not great - entire fields of study the government doesn't like pressured out of existence, or only hanging on because of external EU funding. I have trouble seeing how essentially helping a regime stamp out dissenting voices is a good way to protest that regime. I also fear that if dissenters feel that the international community rejects them and views them as no different from the regime that they will be more likely to embrace apathy for survival.

I'm not sure how to respond to calls for academic boycott in a way that opens dialogue about these concerns, and I also recognize that I may be missing something. I'd love your thoughts on this issue if you have any!

imo academic boycotts are the political equivalent of punching parallel/down.

especially, since, as you pointed out, many academics in the boycotted nations are already dissenters. that said, i do think it's bullshit that these calls for boycotts aren't extended to china.

there's another aspect here, though, which i think was best presented in The Good Place: in a globalized economy, such simple measures as not buying that tomato or using that app or talking to that one israeli medical researcher don't have the impact we'd like to think they do. everything is soo layered and interwoven and codependent and opaque, that we can't truly know what decision we're making and what kind of impact it will truly have without expertise in international finance and tax law and supply chain ethical management.

in our world, as it exists, money and hard power are the only things which will effect change. they're the only things that matter. shitting on some russian grad student who just accessed the closed soviet archive of Khanate-era mongolian literature, or the israeli social scientist researching the intersection of public health and addiction won't do anything, except keep the West in the dark about Mongolian literature, and blocking findings valuable for public management of those struggling with addiction.

if universities and 18-22 year olds want to effect change, go for the wallet. research which defense contractors give money to which university labs/departments, target the administration of those departments, and make as big and loud of a stink as possible. i don't think the individuals calling for these boycotts want to do that though. it's dangerous and scary and requires them to actually put themselves at genuine risk. it's easier for them to just attack academics living under shitty governments, harass jewish students, and call it praxis.

but that's just my (cynical, lowkey depressed) take.

[matan4il]

On Friday, during Passover, a terrorist attack took place in Israel. The terrorist attacked an 18 years old girl on the streets of Ramla, stabbed her in the back, leaving her seriously wounded, as he ran away. The girl was in the city visiting a friend, whose father and brother heard the girl's screams and chased the terrorist. The dad, a civilian with a personal weapon, neutralized the attacker. The girl's state has since improved, but she's still hospitalized.

There is footage of the terrorist chasing the young girl down the street, stabbing her in the back without even stopping, causing her to collapse to the ground, as he continues, and flees the scene.

The anti-Israel protests on college campuses in the west are horrifying to watch. They were bad enough when they started on Oct 8, while Israel wasn't even counting its dead yet, because we were still fighting terrorists invading our country and endangering our civilians, so Israel's army was still not free to do anything in Gaza, but these protests have somehow gotten so much worse. They've become more openly antisemitic (we've seen more and more people doing the Nazi salute, and using signs calling for a "final solution," the whitewashed Nazi term for their intended annihilation of all Jews):

They are now more openly calling for blood (in the past week or so, we've seen no calls for a ceasefire, instead we've heard chants to kill Zionists, to burn Tel Aviv, for Iran to fire rockets at Israel, meaning at its civilian population, and to globalize the intifada, a wave of anti-Israel terrorist attacks. During the second intifada alone, over 1,200 people in Israel were murdered). They've also become more physically violent, with more and more Jewish and pro-Israel people being assaulted, and even requiring medical care:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish and Proud (@jewishpridealways)

I've been seeing so much, and it's being talked about on the news here more than you can imagine. The presidents of Israeli universities even did something unprecedented, that they've never done during any of Israel's former conflicts, no matter how bad those got. After publishing repeated calls for foreign universities to fight antisemitism and protect their Jewish students, the presidents of Israeli universities have now published an open letter, lamenting that the problem might be beyond the capacity of university presidents abroad to solve, and addressing Jewish students, stating they have a safe space here, offering them any assistance with pursuing it.

The worst protests are in the US, at Ivy League universities of all places, but I've heard horrifying things about universities in Canada, France, Australia as well... I feel like I can't really do this subject justice in just one post, so if I only share with you one last thing about it, this following vid would be it, because it's bigger than just the protests, and at the same time, partly explains how so many people have been recruited into them. It's a typical example of how in this complex conflict, real facts (such as vids filmed on the ground) are often taken out of context and manipulated to present a simplistic narrative, in which Zionists (i.e the overwhelming majority of Jews) are presented as intrinsically violent and evil, while ignoring and even lying about the anti-Jewish violence at play:

Jews and Jewish allies abroad, please take care of yourselves! And don't let all the hate get to you... Just because there's a lot of them, doesn't mean they're right. Or even that they're the majority. They just give that impression by being more vocal than anyone else, and taking over public spaces, pushing everyone else out.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I start giving some very *very* Christian family members religious pamphlets from non-Christian religions as gifts?

To be clear, I am writing this while firmly believing I'm NTA but I am angry and don't trust my own judgment too much right now.

Background and Players: My Son (19) was adopted out as a baby by his incubator behind (my husband, 40) his father's back. He was abandoned at 4 by his adopted family because of behavioral issues related to what his incubator was putting into her body while she was pregnant with him, and went into foster care with people I will call Amom and Adad. Adad is a pastor in his 90s and Amom is a pastor's wife in her 80s. When Son was 13 and I had been with Husband for 5ish years, we had been told (by someone from his incubator's family but we didn't know that at the time) he was non-verbal and "mentally an infant" and that trying to pull him out of the routine he had would just be incredibly harmful to him, so we had given up hope of finding him and having a relationship with him. We got a phone call one day, a worker who was looking for a medical history for Son. Husband spent close to 3 hours on the phone with her, answering questions and asking anything he could squeeze in. Turns out, we had been lied to about his mental health just... completely. He's impossible to shut up and he graduated high school last year despite, you know, *gestures vaguely at everything* and I am incredibly proud of him. Half an hour after that call ended, she called back and told us Son might be interested in meeting us, was it okay for her to pass on our contact info. A month later, Son, Amom, Adad, Husband and I were sitting in a restaurant together and a month after that we went to their place for a week to spend Christmas with them. This is when they informed us that they had finalized his legal adoption a couple of weeks earlier. 2 years after that, my QPP moved in with us, and another year later 16 year old Son asked if he could move in with us. He still does.

The Issue: Son wants a continuing relationship with Amom and Adad, but due to the previously mentioned substances used by his incubator, he has memory and time management issues so I have to regularly remind him to contact them. I have no problem doing this, but the contact we have had with them over the last few years has soured me on their company. I've got no problem reminding Son to contact them and organizing rides for him to visit (usually QPP and I driving him, the trip is a couple of hours each way) but I'd rather never speak to them myself if it can be avoided. It didn't start out this way, but over the years they have made it very clear that they don't respect anyone else's beliefs. Not just us, like there was one night where they were going off about some Danish surgeon saying publicly that he was Muslim first, Danish second, and they were trying to convince us to be terrified by that. The conversation ended awkwardly when Husband asked if Adad was Nationality or Christian first (because that's different you see). We have found books on the bookshelves in the guest room about how any kind of queerness at all is demonic possession, one of which they wrote. They talk about things like being sent on a mission by their god to save as many (and I hate that these are quotes) "brown heathen children" by making them Christians as possible (Son and his adopted siblings are all First Nations, Amom and Adad are as white as I am), or how Jewish people are evil for stopping Christians from claiming their suffering because "Jesus was a Jew so aren't all Christians also Jews?". Amom once spent a week trying to convince me to go to church with her and share the details of my childhood sexual abuse with the entire congregation because "it will show God you are ready to be forgiven". QPP is a shintoist and after they found that out, we started seeing more literature about the Japanese, specifically during WWII, around their house when we visited.

We have politely made it clear that we are not interested in Christianity, especially not their version. Multiple times. We thought it was finally over after Son had a meltdown at them at his graduation ceremony because he wanted JUST ONE conversation with them that wasn't about Jesus. He was in tears trying to explain that to them, and their response was to tell him he needed to come back to church so they could lay on hands and chase all the demons making him say these horrible disrespectful things to them out of him. He was supposed to stay with them for a few days to visit after that, but by the time I tracked him down and got him calm, he didn't want to go anymore. They seemed to stop after that, like they actually backed off and I think I got maybe 2 emails that didn't mention God or Jesus, not even a "God bless" in the sign off. We were optimistic. Son was late organizing it but we dropped him off (at his request, he's worried that Adad won't make it to next Christmas and wanted to see him) at their place on Boxing Day. We did not hang around, we did not send gifts, we didn't even reply to the Family Christmas Email (it had a video of a Jordan B Peterson rant embedded in it and I've told them before that we are not interested in anything that sack of hateful arrogance has to say please stop putting him in my inbox). We have done everything we can to make it clear that we do not want a relationship with them for ourselves, including outright directly telling them politely to their faces that we will not stop Son from seeing them but we don't feel comfortable around them and don't want a relationship with them for ourselves. Son came back with "gifts" from them - a study guide for a specific Bible book (I got John, Husband got Michael, QPP set his on fire before we saw who it was) and a bag of candy that looked like it came out of a thrift store (I got the same one they always get me, which I laughed off the first and second and third time and explained I couldn't stand them because my abuser used to give me one when he was done. Husband is diabetic and got York Patties. QPP actually got something decent though, $20 for gas).

I have managed to keep my "I'd rather you hadn't bothered actually" rantingvto Tumblr, which i don't think they even know exists, but I'm still pissed about the Bible crap as "gifts". I am considering changing tactics completely and being super friendly, mirroring their energy, and giving them the same treatment they've given us. I want to make excuses to visit so I can explain the finer points of shintoism and Celtic paganism in every single conversation. I want to give them books for gifts, books like The Tao of Pooh and The Gospel of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I want to wrap cash in pamphlets about The Invisible Pink Unicorn and leave it on their fridge.

QPP and husband think I should give myself more time to calm down and just keep ignoring it and playing nice when I'm forced to play at all but like, IT'S BEEN 6 YEARS.

What are these acronyms?

[utilitycaster]

Hot take: with the way the campaign is going, Ashton is getting dangerously close to turning into someone who has a "don't tread on me" flag. Fully "the reason I am upset by people getting stepped on by the boots of those in power is because the 'little guy' (me) doesn't have the opportunity to be the boot". Which makes all of the people at the beginning of the campaign acting like Ashton was a 'true leftist' punk instead of a bitter and angry person with no direction in life and next to no principles hilarious in retrospect. People love to forget that sometimes the ones rebelling against those in power have a busted view of what power is, does, and who is currently wielding it.

Hi anon!

So I'm broadly in agreement. I don't think this is a terribly hot take not because it's wrong but because I've just reblogged like 5 pretty popular posts that are all saying "Ashton's teetering on the edge of full manifest destiny/blood and soil/humans are the virus ideologies" which all go rather further than just a shitty libertarian flag*.

I have a post in queue somewhere to this effect but there's a weird very Tumblr/Twitter/otherwise terminally online belief that anyone who's experienced systemic oppression is automatically going to have Good Politics from it when that's simply not true. Plenty of people look for someone else to blame, and they blame another oppressed group they don't happen to belong to, or something utterly unrelated. Like, I think a lot of punks are genuinely trying to live in a world that is unkind to them, but a lot of punks do so by taking a fuckload of drugs and kicking the shit out of someone who looks weird. I made this post YEARS ago, literally, very early in the campaign; it is ahistoric to act like punk automatically equals leftist when it started as an aesthetic to sell clothes at a London boutique and when homophobic, misogynistic, and racist subcultures were rampant within it. We remember and uplift the punks who weren't like that, but something that really gets me is like. I know some metalheads and a lot of them are REALLY open about having to learn to spot the metalheads who are here to talk about Norse Superiority vs. the people who just want to scream about Satan for fun. For some reason a lot of people in the CR fandom acted like punks were exempted from this and that's a fast track to being very easily swayed into these ideologies; it's literally "you are not immune to propaganda, but I am" and like. bud. you're not.

It feels related to the weird way people treat Liliana. I am still, to be honest, low-key furious that several white southerners are like nooooooo you should be sympathetic to people in cults, because it could happen to anyone and it's like. well. you see. I am Jewish. I am not hanging around anyone who is white and southern and in a cult long enough to find out if they want to kill me, and it's appalling and indicative of how sheltered and ignorant you are of other perspectives that you would have the gall to demand this. They're entitled people who demand that people most at risk from violence do the work of dismantling it - not them, oh certainly no, they're too busy playing Elden Ring or some shit. There's a certain kind of Tumblr user that claims to be leftist and yet extends a thousand times more sympathy and understanding to their neighbor down the road who openly flies a Confederate flag and definitely voted to deny them medical care, than to people who have a cringe "childless cat lady" bumper sticker and voted to reinstate said care and will bad-faith cherrypick why this is actually very radical of them (if not outright lie) and they have rather transparently claimed Ashton as one of their own.

As I said during Downfall, some of it is people who love the taste of the boot as long as they think it might end up on their foot one day but some of it is just people who are so nihilist they'll let the world burn and ignore that perhaps other people are also living there. Like, a big reason why, even when Dorian was angry at the gods, I never felt the same way about him as I did for Ashton is because Dorian was angry about what happened to Opal and Cyrus. Dorian wanted an option that would hurt the fewest people, and his main experience was seeing a god overtake Opal and hurt people! And as he saw new perspectives and heard from others he incorporated that, and I don't agree with everything he says but he really has been thinking about people other than himself, and increasingly I can't say the same for Ashton. The moment at the end, where they say that apologizing would be for them, was promising; but it also feels like Ashton learned this lesson with the shard and completely forgot it and was like "THE GODS WILL KILL US SPECIFICALLY" and the fact that the gods they literally met in person didn't do so seems to have failed to sink in. This is a character obsessed with their own highly specific experiences, insistent that there is someone ALIVE to blame and not their shitty dead parents, and defined by refusing to hear anything that will conflict with what they already believe, and that's REALLY fucking bad for a hero and a fast track to right-wing reactionary politics.

*ngl the Don't Tread on Me flag is darkly hilarious to me because it's available as a vanity Virginia license plate, which means there's a LOT of people who are like "I shall express my distaste for the government by paying the government 25 unnecessary dollars per year solely to have a customized license plate." Deeply indicative, frankly, of this mentality. I mean I don't hang around anyone who has one because they're probably fucking shitty, but I am going to laugh about it in private.

[ezrazone]

(image drawn by ezra d.m., featured in a terrified child played by jeremy strong) im ezra im a jewish cultural worker primarily in comics and a big time sicko (medically disenfranchised advocator and aggravator of the “post-pandemic” fantasy) from the usamerican midwest. i believe in global solidarity with palestinians and all people against the american empire. i block transmisogynists and zionists on sight. i am helping the campaign by @save-mohamed-family get more traction right now. mohamed is my dear friend and i am greatly concerned for the wellbeing of his family as they survive genocide. please consider donating, sharing, and making your own promotional posts to assist mohamed and his family. published comics by me available to read for free: a terrified child played by jeremy strong, 2023, self (limited in stock, new print edition coming 2025) primavera or how i broke up with my mother, 2023, self (in stock) penistown motel, 2022, self (out of print) i dream of tom from succession, 2022, self (in stock) my shop is under construction, thank you for your patience. you can always inquire via ask box about print editions of my work. i am also currently trading copies of my comics for the price of shipping with evidence of donations to my personal friend mohamed's campaign.

recorded workshop offerings free to watch: experimental mini-comics for all!, 2024, three remote lectures hosted thanks to the minnesota state arts board creative individuals FY2024 grant

live performances: a terrified child played by jeremy strong LIVE, 2024, with music composed and performed by may klug as a part of her FALSIES cabaret at the southern theater in minneapolis (recording coming) reviews of my work: believing and understanding: hagai palevsky on a terrified child played by jeremy strong by ezra david mattes and the crafting of the new self, 2023 on SOLRAD aquifers of color: a review of a terrified child played by jeremy strong by c.s. garcía martínez, 2023 for the cartoonist cooperative journal literary criticism of work by other artists: everyone's wearing white at the end: ezra david mattes on EDEN II by k. wroten, 2024 on SOLRAD links: instagram website letterboxd ao3

i am a communist first and an artist second. i frequently share my thoughts here on intellectual property abolition especially as it relates to our current understanding of transformative works here on the fandom website. all of my work is free to read, remix, and to create new works inspired by and improving upon my interpretation of symbols that cannot possibly belong to anyone in any sense other than via capitalism's self-perpetuating mechanisms of artificial scarcity and exploitation.