#not just this site i mean the world in general

[dalishbarmitzvah]

(moving right on past the obvious and very bleak "lots of people will flat out never be persuaded to care about jews and the best you can hope for is that they are not actively happy about jewish suffering"...)

to sum up what follows (mostly, honestly, me wandering through my own work to understand), tldr:

people genuinely do not know. they do not seek out our stories, are not given them by sources they , being truly informed about current events is very complicated, and most people have poor critical reading skills, have not learned how to consume varied sources, and do not know how to synthesise from varied sources before coming to conclusions or forming strong opinions, nor do they feel that is a requirement

the 24 hour news cycle, digital news outlets, and social media have created a media news climate in which people are more likely to believe they know things than they are to actually be informed on things, and is more likely to both create and maintain echo chambers (now filled with people who believe that it would be impossible for them to be in an echo chamber)

goys are generally not incentivized to do the work to seek out or stay up to date on things involving jews, israel, or antisemitism, and are less likely to encounter them, less likely to engage with them deeply or deliberately or often, and are less likely to be able to recognize propaganda, falsehoods, stereotypes, and fearmongering present in any reporting they do encounter.

centrist news outlets are doing the world a major disservice by being largely silent about jewish issues or israel beyond the most bombastic headlines, and neither right-wing nor leftist outlets are picking up the slack in any honest way, as both peddle very narrow, very biased perspectives when and if they bother sharing them at all.

in regard to mainstream journalism at large: they are failing to do their actual jobs (thourough, nuanced, non-biased news coverage) largely because of the broken way that people get their news (see #2) and the ways in which that has deincentivized journalism from coverage of anything less likely to get clicks and views. people don't click on stuff they think is too confusing, not relevant to their lives, too boring, etc. 24 hour news becoming the norm means doing away with the kind of informed person who would read their daily or weekly paper(s) cover to cover (or at least all the actual news parts). that same person, faced with an endless barrage of articles to click on, can never finish reading, and is, therefore, less likely to start reading things that challenge them or their perspective than they might have been if they had encountered them in print. for the increasingly rare news-reading goy, this means less clicks on articles related to jewish or israeli issues, which in turn means that the sites they're clicking on are less likely to pay anyone to write those articles

many people get their news almost exclusively from their social media feeds, which are curated to show them more of what they've already engaged with, and less of anything else. video content condensing articles skimmed from sources trouble by everything i already mentioned is in no way a balanced news diet, but for a lot of people, that is all they get - alongside a chillingly common pressure to form and hold strong stances on basically every single issue you can possibly imagine, with negative social consequences for admitting you don't know or don't have an opinion on something.

in this context: people facing a constant barrage of overexposure to news and perspectives from all over the world are lead to believe that everything that is happening is something they're aware of, and, as a logical inverse, that if they haven't seen anything about something, that it may as well not exist, not be happening, and not be real. (again, see #2).

compassion fatigue. just like we can't know about everything, we also cannot care about everything. and, let's face it: not caring about jews comes very naturally to most goys. this is the part where i say that i understand your outrage, but on a very real, practical level, you must understand that we are a minority many people know next to nothing about (though they often think they know about us, which is another problem), and that goyim who do not share their lives or communities directly with jews who remind them of their jewishness fairly regularly are unlikely to be very aware of us or what we're facing.

so this is the one thing you can do something about: you can be unavoidably jewish in the lives of non-jews, and it will remind them that jews exist, that we are real and complex beings who are worthy of attention and love. you can discuss these issues, publicly or personally, and it will prompt them to learn more, and to see more in places they may not have seen it before otherwise. you can remain steadfast and informed, and you can share what you know, believe, and feel, with people who would otherwise never have a glimpse of it. you can succeed where major news outlets are failing: you can be the reason why at least a few people do know and do care. it will take patience, it will take work. it will not be easy, or painless, or short... but it will also not be thankless. be jewish. live jewishly. share your jewish perspective with people you are in community with. show them that you have it to offer, and encourage them to seek it. this, too, is tikkun olam.

aaand under the cut is the Long, Somewhat Meandering Version that i came back around and synthesized down into that still-too-long-still-didn't-read up there. in other words, that up there is the Post, and what follows is rough draft. it's worth keeping there enough for me, for my own notes, but it's a lot of words and they're not all in the best order, so.

OK. SO.

first off, it would probably help if sources that aren't israeli or jewish reported any of it. it's become very obvious to me that very few people, for reasons both more and less valid, trust israeli news sources, or seek them out. even people who read multiple american newspapers to get perspective on issues don't bother with reading outlets that are actually involved in events discussed directly. maybe if some more western journos would sprout some fucking integrity for once and source back or platform voices on the ground there, it would help a bit.

i mean, sure, plenty of people will never give a shit, either because they've got deep-seated antisemitic tendencies, or because they're just blindly apolitical (or, charitably, some perhaps because they're focused on their direct communities. i know some people really are that way, and honestly good for them). but i think, perhaps because jews are culturally raised to be critical readers who are deeply informed about the world around them, and trained from a very young age to see patterns and connections in things, that it doesn't occur to us that a lot of people are just profoundly not like that. as a result, it's easy to see antisemitism in places where it's actually genuine ignorance - and a lot of that is very difficult to combat.

it takes real, significant effort to seek out varied sources for your news, and it takes real, significant effort - not to mention learned, practiced skill! - to sift out a more holistic image of the truth by reading between the lines and seeing what is reported where and by whom and in what ways... and also what isn't. and what i keep seeing in my own critical news reading (which is far from fully comprehensive!) is that you have to go pretty far from the sources most people are most familiar with to see beyond a few very curated images of what's happening in israel, what's going on with the hostages, what's going on globally or domestically in america or in various places in europe with jews there, etc. we see the jewish story all the time, because we live it, and we look for it, and we know how to.

but the reality is that the average goy doesn't even know enough about jews, or israel, to know that not all jews are israeli or zionist, not all zionists believe the same things, not all israelis support everything the israeli government is doing all the time, and not all israelis are jewish. they frankly barely know what jews are, except that they are Other. so how could they possibly know enough to see patterns rippling throughout the entire world beyond in varied and nuanced and horrifying ways. they will never, ever see the patterns we see. they have not been trained to do so, and they are, by and large, not going to take the genuinely immense time and effort it takes to get to that point.

so, maybe they don't know because they

people only see what they see in the sources they do see (obviously) - and those sources are very, very narrow in what they report on. the only western sources that are talking about it are far right or so-"left"-we're-accidentally-reinventing-fascism-here-too type sources, and they paint the issue in the strokes that aids their preexisting perspective (which is never truly a human one for jews, nor for israelis). most people aren't going to be picking up the jerusalem post anytime soon, but they might read the new york times or the washington post or a local paper (or, more likely, watch cnn or msnbc. or fox. or whatever.). so they're only getting what those outlets report on - and they just really don't report much on the human details of things like this. so that's one thing that could be done - centrist sources could report more, could print journalism that's closer to the source more often. but people might skip those articles. i've read studies that indicate that's exactly what people do - that digital newspapers specifcally make it so much easier for people to simply never encounter or engage with stuff outside their bubble, because you choose what to click on, and you choose when to stop, and so few people read "the whole paper" anymore (or even could, considering how many things are just published scattershot, random articles dropping all throughout the day!) so it would help some if that reporting was better, but honestly, with the kind of shape that news media is in right now... that's far from straightforward.

but of course, that's only applicable to people who even consume primary news sources to begin with... and increasingly, i encounter more and more people who are willing to freely admit that they have opinions and thoughts and believe they know things about stuff they haven't even done the basic research or reading on. and frankly, i don't know how we deal with that! the news-opinions zeitgeist we're in right now is frankly weird as fuck: people are less educated, from less diverse sources, on average, while also feeling pressure to have strong opinions and thoughts that they cannot (and should not) possibly form on their own. the way so, so many people consume news increasingly from algorithmic social media streams has done immense damage - people intrinsically believe that shit they saw on tiktok is Reporting (there have been studies showing that people tend to view news/opinions coming from people they percieve as familiar to them as being more likely to be truthful, and that that translates to, y'know... people in your phone who absolutely you do not know in real life and should not be trusting that way!). carrying on from that: if they DON'T see something "reported on" within in their circle/on their feed, then that means it's not happening. not even just that they don't know about it, but literally that it's not real. because we all know everything about everything. all the time. it's right there. the algorithm feeds it to us constantly. people think that if something was happening, surely someone would have mentioned it to them by now. i don't think people are mostly aware of this, at all, either... and that makes it all the more insidious.

used to be, people knew that there was plenty they didn't know about, because they knew how hard it was to learn about things that happened far away.... but now, with anyone in the world* being able to hop on their smart phone and say 'hey i'm from the other side of the planet and here's what's happening here*' (*at least, allegedly)? i think people genuinely don't consider that things might be happening that they haven't heard about. we hear about everything, all the time. 24 hour news cycle. digital newspapers. tiktok influencers sharing bite-sized news stories distilled from articles you haven't read to know if they actually read them either, from sources you're not familiar enough with to discern how much trust to put in them. videos of people in the worst parts of war zones staring directly at you and begging you for help you cannot possibly give them. but most people don't see images of released hostages. they don't see headlines from israeli journalists - not the deep propaganda, and not the honest ones. they don't see images of israeli activists or protestors who are fighting alongside and for their palestinian neighbours. if they see anyone on the ground in the area at all, they see desperate begging, and they see hamas propaganda - and it never occurs to them that parts of this story are missing... because we all see everything all the time. if it were happening, if it were real, then we would know. surely, we would have seen it already.

it makes it all the more funny when you hear people spout off about how jews are controlling the media or israel is controlling america or whatever nonsense... like surely, if any of us, the israeli state included, actually were controlling any of that, they would make it a little bit harder for people to avoid ever knowing anything firsthand about any of it.

so what can we do?

we can help them see us, hear us, know us, and love us. not everyone, not the ones who refuse, not the ones who hate us and won't budge. but we can be present in our communities and visible to our colleages and friends.

people are not going to notice and not going to care about things they have no reason to notice or care about. they're not going to form a nuanced perspective on israeli politics or modern pogroms or whether or not ben shapiro has ever heard of pikuach nefesh or not. they're not going to understand what jews are and aren't, what we can be, what we have been, what's happening to us. they're not going to see news that isn't being reported where they get their news... unless they see YOU.

it can be maddening, to have such a tiny little impact, but also incredibly gratifying. i am one of the only visible jews in the small town where i live, and i am very visible, and i never, ever shut the fuck up about it. people who know me at all know that i am jewish, and by talking to me, i can help them understand, and learn, and pay attention, and be vigilant on our behalf. i have seen it work. i have heard people tell me that they started noticing antisemitism in news sources they used to read - and that they stopped trusting them because of it. i have had people ask me for where to look for more information on issues they had heard only whispers about and didn't trust their ability to google on their own (which i really, really appreciate). i have had people tell me how grateful they are to know me and to learn from me. without me, they would likely have either never been prompted to have those thoughts, or they would have never pursued them very far, because they would have lacked a trusted sounding board. i know, for a fact, that people on (mostly) all sides of the political spectrum around me have come closer to seeing jews, and to seeing jews as human, because of me.

i have helped leftists gain perspective on israel, showed them how to see through propaganda (israeli, hamas, and evangelical), how to notice antisemitic slogans and rhetoric, taught them about the realities of israeli mandatory service, shared about my mom's experience living on a kibbutz, taught them some of the history of zionism and of the state of israel. because of me, people i know are telling people i don't know that "from the river to the sea" derives from a sentiment of violent antisemitism, and because of me, people i know are aware that israeli activists and objectors who share their concerns about the israeli government exist and fight alongside their palestinian neighbours to make their country a better place, and they know that palestinians generally do not support hamas. and i have helped people more to the center and right learn more about all of that and more. i have taught people what judaism is, what it is to me, and what it is to people who are very different to me. i've taught them how someone can be secular, atheist, and still very much jewish. i've taught them about where those guys in funny hats fit into the continuum between the ba'al shem tov and me, how we are alike and how we are different - how we have been forced to change in different ways, to adapt. i've taught them about the history of zionist movements, about jewish anarchists and socialists, about pogroms, about talmud, about tu b'shvat. people who believed, before me, that eretz yisrael was an empty wasteland before the first zionist settlers arrived to bring it to life, and people who believed that it was a thriving arab community that faced a military invasion before the state of israel was established, both have a bit more perspective on a very complicated history, because of me. because i exist, because i will not touch money on shabbos, because i will not shut my mouth, because i wear my beard and my payos and i cover my head, because i am not ashamed of who i am, because i have taken the time to be educated and to unapologetically assist in the education of others, people in my small town in the pacific northwest know about israel as a real place, and jews as a real people - whether or not we live there, and in all our many, many complex and nuanced perspectives on it.

i don't mean to tokenize yourself or reduce yourself to being a public service. but i do mean to push back when you hear someone discussing an even they've clearly only heard on very limited perspective on. i do mean that people who know they have at least one jewish friend (or acquaintance/community member/coworker/whatever) are more likely to notice, more likely to think critically, when things involving jews, or involving israel, are brought up. and to be clear: if you do this, you have to get really good at not telling people they're wrong or stupid, because people will shut down if you do that. you have to learn how to show people that their perspective is lacking without just telling them that they're ignorant. no one wants to listen to someone who's just telling them that they're a dumber, worse version of themselves than they realised. get really comfortable with asking people where they learned something or what they've been taught in the past, and then with how to break down and reconstruct from there, if necessary. honestly, once people feel safe to not know things around you, it gets much easier for you both to simply fill in the gaps.

and i guess, what i mean is that every single day that a goy learns what tikkun olam is and what it means to jews, that that does a very real bit of the work of tikkun olam, because you have helped create a goy who knows something about jews, and what they know now is that our culture teaches us that the world is beautiful and it is broken and it is our sacred duty to help mend it.

so, to answer your question: that's what it takes. it takes remembering that the world is made up of so many little pieces, so many souls, so many fractured little shards that were once contained within spheres that once emanated from the same great oneness - and it takes reminding other individual little shards that they are also a part of the same thing as you, that you come from the same place they do... and that your paths to and from that great oneness are different, and none of them less beautiful than any other.

you can try and fail forever to mend the whole world in one day, and never make any real progress, and it will crush your soul into an even finer powder as you do.

there will always be some people do not care about us because they hate us, or at least, they believe that they do because they have been taught to, but i do not believe they will ever be the majority. most goyim do not care so much about us, simply because they haven't realised that they could love us, because they haven't gotten to know us, because they don't even know how much they would like to. if we are going to reach those goyim before the hateful ones do, we just have to keep at it.

and so long as we do not, in fact, control the media, i'd say we have a lot more chance of changing things, changing how and if people see us, by simply refusing to get out of their line of sight. it is much, much easier to hate or to hurt someone you can't see and don't know. stay where they can see us. become a welcome sight. teach them how to see what we see. the world is not illuminated by guarding of the flame, but rather by the kindling of others from it.

be light. share light. don't ever buy into the isolating darkness and its insistence that we are alone in a silent and unfeeling world, because we are not, and that only benefits those who would seek to destroy us. we are not alone, and we do not have to be alone. the universe is not doomed to a shattered eternity.

(and as for your grief and your anger? direct that at the people who benefit from all of us little people remaining ignorant of each other, remaining divided. goodness knows, there are certainly plenty of them. and i, for my own little part, do not intend to give them the satisfaction.)

Jewish hostages emerge from 16 months of underground captivity emaciated, broken and bewildered, looking for all the world like concentration camp survivors, and the world is silent.

Returned female hostages give graphic and horrifying accounts of sexual assault and torture, and the world is silent.

Antisemitic abuse and hate crime has skyrocketed, Jews are traumatised and terrified and in deep pain, that is celebrated and laughed at, and the world is silent.

THE WORLD IS SILENT.

WHAT WILL IT ACTUALLY TAKE FOR PEOPLE TO GIVE A SHIT??

I just don’t understand. I never will.

[superbellsubways]

sick of it here

[fatnutswizard]

tumblr has the least amount stem resources of any social media i have frequented like usually the best we got is a pic of someones notebook with a header and two basic notes....

[butchlifeguard]

vital part of the Kids Cant Read discourse thats KILLING ME is that the only opinions we see are from english teachers. this is fine when the discussion is ostensibly about literacy but i think we should pass the phone to math teachers and computer science teachers. because im a little suspicious that the focus on stem for the past 20+ years could be a contributing factor

[waywardsalt]

bellum probably wouldnt know how to kiss

[happy10thousandyears]

Con thoughts

[gibbearish]

idk looks pretty clearly posted to me, kinda seems like you just. didnt read the rules and then broke them lmao

Today's sponsored post is to inform everyone that Reddit's r/Art community is run by pigs with no lives. At best, I was mildly annoying initially. They just slung mud. If this is what a community touts as its “best,” it's trash.

[trainsinanime]

I've seen a number of people worried and concerned about this language on Ao3s current "agree to these terms of service" page. The short version is:

Don't worry. This isn't anything bad. Checking that box just means you forgive them for being US American.

Long version: This text makes perfect sense if you're familiar with the issues around GDPR and in particular the uncertainty about Privacy Shield and SCCs after Schrems II. But I suspect most people aren't, so let's get into it, with the caveat that this is a Eurocentric (and in particular EU centric) view of this.

The basic outline is that Europeans in the EU have a right to privacy under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an EU directive (let's simplify things and call it an EU law) that regulates how various entities, including companies and the government, may acquire, store and process data about you.

The list of what counts as data about you is enormous. It includes things like your name and birthday, but also your email address, your computers IP address, user names, whatever. If an advertiser could want it, it's on the list.

The general rule is that they can't, unless you give explicit permission, or it's for one of a number of enumerated reasons (not all of which are as clear as would be desirable, but that's another topic). You have a right to request a copy of the data, you have a right to force them to delete their data and so on. It's not quite on the level of constitutional rights, but it is a pretty big deal.

In contrast, the US, home of most of the world's internet companies, has no such right at a federal level. If someone has your data, it is fundamentally theirs. American police, FBI, CIA and so on also have far more rights to request your data than the ones in Europe.

So how can an American website provide services to persons in the EU? Well… Honestly, there's an argument to be made that they can't.

US websites can promise in their terms and conditions that they will keep your data as safe as a European site would. In fact, they have to, unless they start specifically excluding Europeans. The EU even provides Standard Contract Clauses (SCCs) that they can use for this.

However, e.g. Facebook's T&Cs can't bind the US government. Facebook can't promise that it'll keep your data as secure as it is in the EU even if they wanted to (which they absolutely don't), because the US government can get to it easily, and EU citizens can't even sue the US government over it.

Despite the importance that US companies have in Europe, this is not a theoretical concern at all. There have been two successive international agreements between the US and the EU about this, and both were struck down by the EU court as being in violation of EU law, in the Schrems I and Schrems II decisions (named after Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist who sued in both cases).

A third international agreement is currently being prepared, and in the meantime the previous agreement (known as "Privacy Shield") remains tentatively in place. The problem is that the US government does not want to offer EU citizens equivalent protection as they have under EU law; they don't even want to offer US citizens these protections. They just love spying on foreigners too much. The previous agreements tried to hide that under flowery language, but couldn't actually solve it. It's unclear and in my opinion unlikely that they'll manage to get a version that survives judicial review this time. Max Schrems is waiting.

So what is a site like Ao3 to do? They're arguably not part of the problem, Max Schrems keeps suing Meta, not the OTW, but they are subject to the rules because they process stuff like your email address.

Their solution is this checkbox. You agree that they can process your data even though they're in the US, and they can't guarantee you that the US government won't spy on you in ways that would be illegal for the government of e.g. Belgium. Is that legal under EU law? …probably as legal as fan fiction in general, I suppose, which is to say let's hope nobody sues to try and find out.

But what's important is that nothing changed, just the language. Ao3 has always stored your user name and email address on servers in the US, subject to whatever the FBI, CIA, NSA and FRA may want to do it. They're just making it more clear now.

[lettersiarrange]

Since I just checked my ask box for the first time in a hot minute:

Just a note that tumblr doesn't tell me when I have new asks or messages and I rarely check my notifications. Helpful corrections of misinformation/any messages in good faith are appreciated (though it's possible I won't see them until weeks later, sorry), but if something I reblog angers you enough you feel the need to get hostile in my askbox on anon, I reccomend the unfollow button.

I'm also not comfortable posting asks asking for any sort of donations/directing people to your blog for donation purposes, sorry :// I just don't have time to vet asks like that

[ai-art-thieves]

It's Time To Investigate SevenArt.ai

sevenart.ai is a website that uses ai to generate images.

Except, that's not all it can do.

It can also overlay ai filters onto images to create the illusion that the algorithm created these images.

And its primary image source is Tumblr.

It scrapes through the site for recent images that are at least 10 days old and has some notes attached to it, as well as copying the tags to make the unsuspecting user think that the post was from a genuine user.

No image is safe. Art, photography, screenshots, you name it.

Initially I thought that these are bots that just repost images from their site as well as bastardizations of pictures across tumblr, until a user by the name of @nataliedecorsair discovered that these "bots" can also block users and restrict replies.

Not only that, but these bots do not procreate and multiply like most bots do. Or at least, they have.

The following are the list of bots that have been found on this very site. Brace yourself. It's gonna be a long one:

@giannaaziz1998blog

@kennedyvietor1978blog

@nikb0mh6bl

@z4uu8shm37

@xguniedhmn

@katherinrubino1958blog

@3neonnightlifenostalgiablog

@cyberneticcreations58blog

@neomasteinbrink1971blog

@etharetherford1958blog

@punxajfqz1

@camicranfill1967blog

@1stellarluminousechoblog

@whwsd1wrof

@bnlvi0rsmj

@steampunkstarshipsafari90blog

@surrealistictechtales17blog

@2steampunksavvysiren37blog

@krispycrowntree

@voucwjryey

@luciaaleem1961blog

@qcmpdwv9ts

@2mplexltw6

@sz1uwxthzi

@laurenesmock1972blog

@rosalinetritsch1992blog

@chereesteinkirchner1950blog

@malindamadaras1996blog

@1cyberneticdreamscapehubblog

@neomasteinbrink1971blog

@neonfuturecityblog

@olindagunner1986blog

@neonnomadnirvanablog

@digitalcyborgquestblog

@freespiritfusionblog

@piacarriveau1990blog

@3technoartisticvisionsblog

@wanderlustwineblissblog

@oyqjfwb9nz

@maryannamarkus1983blog

@lashelldowhower2000blog

@ovibigrqrw

@3neonnightlifenostalgiablog

@ywldujyr6b

@giannaaziz1998blog

@yudacquel1961blog

@neotechcreationsblog

@wildernesswonderquest87blog

@cybertroncosmicflow93blog

@emeldaplessner1996blog

@neuralnetworkgallery78blog

@dunstanrohrich1957blog

@juanitazunino1965blog

@natoshaereaux1970blog

@aienhancedaestheticsblog

@techtrendytreks48blog

@cgvlrktikf

@digitaldimensiondioramablog

@pixelpaintedpanorama91blog

@futuristiccowboyshark

@digitaldreamscapevisionsblog

@janishoppin1950blog

The oldest ones have been created in March, started scraping in June/July, and later additions to the family have been created in July.

So, I have come to the conclusion that these accounts might be run by a combination of bot and human. Cyborg, if you will.

But it still doesn't answer my main question:

Who is running the whole operation?

The site itself gave us zero answers to work with.

No copyright, no link to the engine where the site is being used on, except for the sign in thingy (which I did.)

I gave the site a fake email and a shitty password.

Turns out it doesn't function like most sites that ask for an email and password.

Didn't check the burner email, the password isn't fully dotted and available for the whole world to see, and, and this is the important thing...

My browser didn't detect that this was an email and password thingy.

And there was no log off feature.

This could mean two things.

Either we have a site that doesn't have a functioning email and password database, or that we have a bunch of gullible people throwing their email and password in for people to potentially steal.

I can't confirm or deny these facts, because, again, the site has little to work with.

The code? Generic as all hell.

Tried searching for more information about this site, like the server it's on, or who owned the site, or something. ANYTHING.

Multiple sites pulled me in different directions. One site said it originates in Iceland. Others say its in California or Canada.

Luckily, the server it used was the same. Its powered by Cloudflare.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what to do with any of this information.

If you have any further information about this site, let me know.

Until there is a clear answer, we need to keep doing what we are doing.

Spread the word and report about these cretins.

If they want attention, then they are gonna get the worst attention.

[hussyknee]

Yeah the people in the notes going "obviously the government isn't the people" are missing the point, which is that being white and western and therefore a beneficiary of the colonial order consistently breeds racism and apathy towards the suffering of Black and brown and Global South people. Ireland maybe a little better than the rest of Europe but at the end of the day there's still no incentive to interrogate their privilege. Praising it inordinately for showing the bare minimum of decency allows them to cover up all the ways they're also complicit and uninvested. Give the privileged an inch and they take a mile.

anyway in the past week the irish government has voted down two motions which would have condemned the genocide in gaza.

i need everyone to stop lionising ireland as if its not also a european government with strong ties to the us. american weapons pass through shannon airport and will continue to, because yesterday the motion to stop that was voted down 83 to 50.

other governments have done much more but somehow people still act as though ireland is the ultimate palestinian ally and exempt from criticism on its handling of palestine bc it was once colonised, even though that past experience clearly isnt being taken into account by the irish government when creating policy.

i live here i know there’s a lot of public support and sympathy for palestine, which is great, but that isnt reflected in government, and i think ireland should be treated like other countries whose governments have done nothing.

[snekdood]

im not gonna say you cant use the n word w a hard r on a almost fully anonymous tumblr account where you claim to be black-

I will say that it makes you 100% more suspicious and worth keeping an eye out on you bc usually its neo nazis pretending to be black that spam saying the n word w an r and use tumblrs weird trust for almost fully anonymous accounts to their advantage to get away w it

you can say it, but, if you Are a neo nazi pretending to be black, I will say, you're not doing a good job of convincing me rn that you actually are.

[galadrieljones]

It speaks volumes when Lavellan calls Solas a "terrible liar" in the Cobbled Swan. Rook is, of course, confused by this. "He's the god of lies," she says. But Lavellan clarifies, because that's not what she means. She means that he can't tell "lies of the heart." That is why he had to turn her away, because he actually could not deceive her.

Varric, very early in the game, also refers to Solas as "sentimental." He says to Rook, "He could burn the world down, and the thing that would make him cry is a single flower with blackened petals."

There's something very interesting about the elven god of lies and deceit, who unwillingly wears his heart on his sleeve, essentially creating a new version of the world in which all sources of raw, magical *emotion* that, according to him, used to imbue it with so much life and beauty have been compartmentalized from the more brutish, harsh aspects of the physical world. Because he, himself, has had to do this very thing to his own heart. He's "split." A very cool archetype. When he tells the Inquisitor to "harden her heart to a cutting edge" in Inquisition, he is projecting. Solas has built a "veil" within himself, to protect his more stern, militaristic identity as The Dread Wolf from the effusive, soft, and intelligent man that is Solas. It's the only way he can get anything done. Perhaps we should more aptly call him the god of stoicism and compartmentalization.

It's also interesting how well characters like Varric seem to know Solas, because it communicates that Solas did open up to the people of the Inquisition, during which time he "played the role" of quiet, unassuming Fade mage. Perhaps this wasn't a role at all, however, and perhaps this is why he is failing so spectacularly now. Who he really is is just this man who fell in love and made friends and found a home within a community where he did not have to cut off his emotions in order to lead. This was the "breach" in his plans, so to speak. It tore his world apart.

The whole story of Veilguard actually starts because Varric knows he can appeal to Solas's emotions and that this has a high chance of working to some degree. It's important to remember that while Varric didn't change Solas's mind at the ritual site, he was able to keep Solas talking long enough for Rook to sabotage his plans. Solas entertains Varric's pleas, because, sort of as Rook guesses with Lavellan at the Cobbled Swan, in some ways, Solas wants to be stopped. He wants someone to pull the reins on him because he is too prideful to stop himself.

Thinking back to Trespasser, I remember we all sort of knew this right away just in reading his body language. I remember someone making a whole post about it, and how he will not allow her to get too close to him. When she approaches, he takes a very measured step back. And later, as he takes the anchor, a task which requires him to take her hand, we see exactly why this is. He breaks down, calls her his "love," and kisses her. He is so stern and so measured and in "control," but then, all it takes is a single touch from the woman to whom he showed a glimpse of his true heart, his true self, to bring him to his knees.

The Veil as a narrative manifestation for how Solas tends to seal his own raw emotions away from others in order to function as the revolutionary general he had to be for centuries is a very beautiful construct to me.

[inkskinned]

i have a fever. let's imagine pokemon world dash discourse together. (sorry i do not have darkmode.)

🤳🏻 pokestopit reblogged team-sprocket

👻 gengaydar Follow

For the last fucking time owning a gengar is NOT graverobbing. what is actually wrong with you people

#gengar #why am i even still on this site #i don't have a gengar but like. what's even going on over there #is marowak graverobbing now too??

💅 deerlinguist reblogged givemeyourstrongestpotion

👩‍❤️‍👩 lightscreend Follow

farfetch'd is like the most edible pokemon just because he comes with his own aromatics. pop that bad boy in the oven with some oran berries.... don't mind if i do

⚧ feministforcepalm Follow

@dyketraining tags pass peer review

🚣🏼‍♂️ magicarpaltunnel reblogged haxorsus

🐦‍⬛ corvikite Follow

I love to hate things and people. And when I turn out to be RIGHT and that person is a DICK? All parasocial relationships are bad and evil unless I am right about hating someone and then parasocial relationships are good actually

🪐waterbubbil Follow

We all thought about the same person let's just be honest here....

🎀 contest-winrar Follow

For me it's always going to be people who keep Pokémon without any thought as to their enrichment and needs. You do not need a fucking Arcanine, you live in a studio apartment and don't walk more than a block a day. You think you want a Gardevoir but are you okay with having an unknowable creature reading your thoughts every waking moment of the day? Even while you do... the nasty?

It drives me crazy because people see a Champion and think they have the time, energy, money, and space necessary to raise a Dragon type. Unless you have generational wealth, let me spell it out for you: you do not have the funds for a Dragon type. And yes! Charizard is on that list, guys! You can't even afford to feed yourself!

📯 jessiejustlickme Follow

local tumblr user declares the poors only get rat pokemon. maybe a bug pokémon if we are very good. we must grovel in the streets amen

🎀 contest-winrar Follow

Laugh all you want but I'm serious. I have heard of someone who is living with a MR. MIME like it's her HUSBAND!!!! That's fucking GROSS. These are creatures that TRUST us and NEED us.

Did you know that most Ponyta prefer to be in a herd? Are you going to have the space for that? Did you know that if you don't properly care for certain fire species their flame goes out? Sure, they're cute when they're small: but unless you're a rancher or a Gym Leader... I'm sorry. You're gross to me if you think otherwise. I hate people like that.

And for the record, rat and bug Pokémon are very valuable from an ecological standpoint. They hold an extremely important niche. People like you would rather they be hunted to extinction because they're pests, not pretty. It's disgusting.

🐦‍⬛ corvikite Follow

anybody in this thread smoke weed

#NOT THE RATS FOR THE POOR PEOPLE... GIRLLLLLL #the thing is they're not like... wrong.... #like i agree with the sentiment #my friend tried to get a slyveon just by like. playing catch a few times #.... like you do need to try.... #also fyi i have a large species so i'm biased #grovyle my baby . my man. u are costing me like so much in pokepuffs per month

👁‍🗨 badsol

why are we all talking about what pokemon to eat tonight lmafo

#.... obviously jigglypuff. homegirl is 90% cotton candy

🪅 feebassguitar reblogged metrognome

🫖 sinisteacher Follow

Like okay I got into science because I love to learn but the more I find out about how we've classified Pokémon types the more insane I feel. What do you mean there's no singular true indicator? What do you mean that there are several conditions which completely alter their base type?

Literally today my lab partner and I got into a very serious discussion about Luxray. That thing is a fuckking dark type!!!!! I'm sorry!!! I don't care what Bulbapedia says!!!! anyway i threw a pokeball at him and it swallowed him whole and now i'm going to jail for unlawful imprisonment of a TA

🍙 thesandwichking Follow

there's something, like, very dystopian about the idea that if u put an ugly hat on ur favorite little creature it changes like. the DNA. like. do other pokemon look at what you've done and cower? that's their friend... similar but changed... forever having known a life that is entirely alien to them...

🐳 wailordsupreme Follow

.... Are we going to ignore that OP swallowed a human into a ball???

#yes we are. #my friend loves those hats but I think they're so ugly #and stupid #if i wanted a specific type imma get that type..... #typesetting #show james

🧗‍♀️ backpacksandcavesnacks reblogged eevee-lotion

👑 lemmegrabmyballs Follow

ROUND 5 of 6 (see blog for more)

PLEASE REBLOG FOR VISIBILITY:

✍️ dreepydrabbles reblogged ash-hole

☠️ marrowhackoff Follow

just saw someone say writing omegaverse fanfic of your pokemon is bestiality. ma'am this is the monster fucking site. you should be grateful that it's only omegaverse.

#the things i've seen would melt your eyebrows clean off your face #..... typhlosion they could never make me hate you baby #i know that's not what's in your heart

🪽 honey-tree-skies reblogged gymcrawler

🐛 youngstirjoey Follow

Okay say what you will. But shorts really are comfy and easy to wear

🛀🏽 intimidatecutsyourattack Follow

Sorry bud. But. Investing at 3 notes

🐛 youngstirjoey Follow

don't do this to me. i h avue a wife . and chi ld

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

I didn't want to update this post, but I'm doing it anyway, and it's long. Be glad I'm putting a "Keep Reading".

The point of this post isn't that your local fascist can be anyone. The point of this post is that y'all can't recognize dangerously bigoted rhetoric for love or money. The point is that the people who have been raised to know when things are getting dangerous have been sounding the alarm bells for... I don't even know how long. I heard the first alarms in 2018 with Marjorie Taylor Greene's antisemitic dogwhistle-filled Facebook post about space lasers causing wildfires, and people have only gotten more vocal about what they've been seeing since then. We have been getting very loud, and a lotta y'all haven't been listening or have been falling headfirst into the rhetoric yourselves - your bigotry isn't righteous just because you believe in universal healthcare or whatever.

You can read all you want about Hitler's rise to power, or Mussolini, or any other of the I-don't-even-know-how-many authoritarian regimes, but that doesn't do jack shit unless you understand the rhetoric and when it goes from off color remarks to blaming a country's problems on groups of people. Bigotry is baked into the fucking foundations, and a lotta y'all know it but can't recognize it.

The point isn't that the sweet old lady who runs the community center can also be a rabid bigot and still be a bastion of goodness in the community, it's that some of us have been taught that it doesn't matter what that sweet old lady does once she mentions offhandedly how she wishes conversion therapy wasn't so looked down on anymore, or how the Jews have all the money, or how killing disabled people isn't a bad thing because they don't contribute to society. But no one listens when we point out that, with those beliefs unmasked even once, her being in charge of the community center is dangerous. Does that make sense? It doesn't matter who's saying what or whether you agree with them on other things or how nice they are if they say something like that and you know what they mean.

And a lot of us have been saying just that. Yet, now that the worst is happening, all the people who wanted to write us off are posting their revelations as if all of us thought Nazis and other rabid bigots were a mythical big-bad instead of the people who murdered our families and would gladly shoot us dead right along with them.

“I never understood how the Nazis rose to power until this year-“ don’t say that like we’re all in that position. Some of us have always known how it happened because we never had the luxury to not understand

[waywardsalt]

really sitting here like ooooh i wanna work on the ganonbeck fic i need to plan out my space au i need to polish my next ph fic plan out finish the damibeck smut plan out a bellumbeck fic- *opens word and starts writing warrior cats fanfiction*