we rise once more

[we rise once more]

[bladeofavernus]

btw because i know a lot of ppl like this franchise, The Last of Us' creator Neil Druckman is a straight up zionist who was donating to israel as recently as this month. he also has explicitly stated his inspiration for the second game in the franchise was inspired by his thirst for revenge on Palestinians. The whole second installment is, in his words, drawn upon the 'israeli-palestinian conflict'. so like. maybe stop supporting him and this stupid franchise.

source

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[taibhsearachd]

If you literally look at the sources, Neil Druckman clearly references his life experiences as an Israeli to talk about how The Last of Us 2 is about the cycle of vengeance and how it breaks you. The sources for him being a “Zionist donating to Israel” is that he donated to both Israeli and Palestinian emergency response teams.

This post is straight-up antisemitic and lying about the literal sources it presents you. The game was inspired by his initial feelings that he wanted revenge for how some of his countrymen were killed by a mob, AND THEN HOW GROSS AND GUILTY HE FELT FOR THOSE FEELINGS when looking back on them later. It’s about the immediate instinct to violence when that’s not the best response. It’s fucked up to present it as if this man wants to murder Palestinians. What the fuck.

[we rise once more]

[hootenanie]

post my angel of discourse. post for me!!!

[bill-blake-fans-anonymous]

(In a piercing soprano) Horror movies are unethical because the characters are forced to be scared!

[lavendersalve]

(In a warm, resounding contralto) we should ban sex scenes because the characters were children at some point in their lives!

[naamahdarling]

(In a velvety tenor) All children's entertainment is inherently unethical because it's created by adults for the express purposes of manipulating the minds and emotions of young people before they can think for themseeeeeeeelves!

[joasakura]

Y’all not just knocking on the devil’s door, u out here caroling on his lawn

[we rise once more]

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

we have 4 dogs and 2 cats. All of them have an assigned "voice" for when we talk for them, usually but not always to each other.

of the 6 of them, only the baby, Enkidu, "says" that he's "shreepy" when he's tired.

Kiki was, apparently, assigned Bdubs at naptime.

[we rise once more]

So I’ve been playing a lot of No Man’s Sky and I just discovered my new favorite creature. It’s like fairy ogre. They hover around just over the ground with those tiny fast-beating wings. They predict the future. THEY DON’T HAVE BONES???

I named it a Flutterhulk.

[we rise once more]

[norat3]

[we rise once more]

[what-even-is-thiss]

I wish octopus could learn how to read. They could be pen pals with middle schoolers.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Dearest Samantha,

I do not know what a guinea pig is, but it sounds delicious. I hope you have fun devouring it, or playing with it, if that is your preference. Today I hacked a local computer to get more bubbles in my tank and took a photograph of an unsuspecting victim. Do let me know how your human activities are going. And if this "Karen" continues to antagonize your brother, I would suggest smacking her very hard. And do send more canned snacks.

Best Wishes,
Octopus #5, Monterrey bay research aquarium

[we rise once more]

[plasmalink]

hey, i noticed that your fantasy setting has bandits. idk that's kind of problematic :/ they literally kill people and steal stuff? like????? fantasy is meant to be an escape from real life, i just don't get why you had to do this :////

[aa0akaace]

Um your Sci fi story has bad people I noticed, that's kinda problematic :/ I mean it's the future so why are there still bad people and why is there still conflict???? Why did you do this :////

[plasmalink]

would you care to elaborate, that sounds like a story

[sodrippy]

i fear i oversold the similarity, but basically a party member in our campaign complained to the DM about a rogue-class character (a pirate. in a campaign set in the ocean.) stealing bc it was unethical, and that if NPCs got stolen from or killed in future could we all please keep in mind class and status and limit infliction of violence/robbery to only rich NPCs. to top it all off the complaining person had absolutely no problem with the literal mafia character also in our party. i guess white collar crime is allowed in fantasy but physically swiping a watch is where we must draw the line 👍

[we rise once more]

[scientia-rex]

Me: Exercise does not cause weight loss. This is a fact that has been demonstrated so robustly in research that even doctors, who hate and fear evidence, are grudgingly starting to admit this.

Someone reading that post: Cool, but have you considered that exercise leads to weight loss?

Me: I am going to eat you

[scientia-rex]

lololol "does too"

does it? not for women after childbirth

does it? not if you want to see an effect size of greater than 1 kilo (2.2lbs)

does it? not if you'd like to see a maintained loss greater than 3.3% of your body weight

does it? not for people with type 2 diabetes

does it? not for people exercising for their non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Interactive computer-based reminders to diet and exercise are useless.

I mean, I literally went to Cochrane Reviews, one of the best-respected sources for massive meta-analyses, and I just input the keywords "weight loss" and "exercise," and I'm tooling through the results. Every one of the damn things shows that we do not have high-quality research indicating that exercise leads to weight loss. So no. I'm right, and you need to adjust your worldview--ask yourself, if not for weight loss, then why? Re-read those sources: exercise improved muscle density, insulin sensitivity, and cholesterol. It's good for your blood vessels, it's good for your strength, it's good for your brain.

But it won't make you thin. Maybe two pounds, maybe five, but that's about it. If you're looking at short-term, like a year, sure, you can lose weight--but the effort will almost always result in your body going "oh shit, we're living in a famine" and you will regain it, and now, with your body at a new set-point, losing it will be harder. Regaining will be easier. Welcome to the life-destroying yo-yo.

[scientia-rex]

#then what the fuck are we supposed to do?

Exercise and eat lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains because those things will keep you healthier longer, regardless of how much you weigh, and pick up your pick-axe in the ongoing horribly slow and frustrating fight of chipping away at the idea that being fat is a bad thing that means you’re a bad person. I recommend the book Fat Talk for a good place to start.

[we rise once more]

[vampiricsheep]

Werewolf with a cane, brought to you by my achey joints

[we rise once more]

[cock-holliday]

Someone on my idpol post put in the tags “I DO think cis people should tell everyone they are cis tho.” I don’t! I don’t think cis people should need to disclose it. I don’t think straight people need to disclose that. I don’t think anyone should be forced to reveal their gender and sexuality labels no matter what they are, actually!

“It’s bare minimum as an ally” It’s not!!!! They’re not required. They don’t have to. It’s not that they “should”, they very much should not unless they want to. Straight trans people exist, that you desperately want to “out” as an ally and not a member. Questioning people who haven’t made a decision and default to “straight” or “cis” shouldn’t be forced to reveal themselves to you.

A well-meaning asshole in one of my zoom classes once approached me for being one of the only people who didn’t add pronouns to my name and suggested I add pronouns to “show (I’m) an ally.” Buddy, not only am I trans, I am so trans that I was struggling so deeply to distinguish what pronouns I wanted to use, after changing them in the past, and not only use but use in a legal professional setting.

The absence of pronouns wasn’t an absence of support, it was keeping a private struggle private until I knew how I wanted to be addressed. The most bland ass cishet looking motherfucker in the world could be grappling with an identity so complex it would make you puke, OR they could be cishet and it would be equally none of your business until they decided to disclose.

[we rise once more]

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

me and @taibhsearachd in our couples' costumes for the ruffSMP All Hallow's Festival! Desert Duo by way of "one person had a lot of time to plan and one person realized they were playing this character about an hour before they were required on set" XD

(and less anyone be confused, she was wearing a mask, not just Scar's face, a side view!:)

[we rise once more]

Man, there was a time when I was big into Dragonriders of Pern roleplay. And, weirdly, the Neopets forum was a big place for this to happen.

Mostly it was just Hatching roleplays, bc of course people want to roleplay your very special four-dimensional lizard choosing you as their Very Special Person. I only ran a couple, where it was as gender-neutral as it could be while staying technically canon compliant (…if you’re not familiar with Pern sexism… boy I could talk about that for ages).

But anyway, one time I ran a Hatching, and… a lot of people only wanted to get the (gender-appropriate for their character) Best kind of dragon. Gold for girls, bronze for boys. It’s stupid.

I had a green dragon (the “worst” - ie smallest, most agile, but also lowest “ranked” - kind of dragon) choose this one person. They tried to ignore it. They kind of kick it away. They want the gold hatchlings, so they refuse to bond with this dragon I have given them. Another player who has not been chosen shows kindness to the baby, and the dragon bonds with them instead.

There was a gold egg that session (there were always gold eggs up for grabs in Neopets Hatching RPs, you’d do different numbers of other eggs, but there was always at least one gold). It just didn’t hatch. That candidate never got a dragon.

I think I remember them angrily messaging me afterwards. It was hilarious.

[we rise once more]

[aforlorngazeintoyesterday]

anyways reminder that scars of any kind are morally neutral and not bad or harmful to show. if that shit is healed and not a literal open wound it is not fucking bad. it is not okay to shame or trigger warning a normal fucking part of someone’s body, including and especially when it’s a sign of physical or mental illness.

[aforlorngazeintoyesterday]

look every single time I make posts like this someone comes on my post like “not self harm scars though! those are triggering!” and fucking. think about what you’re implying for just one second here. you’re saying that if anyone has ever even once hit a mental point where they harmed themself in a way that left a lasting mark they can never show their body uncensored again. this is okay to you? you think this is fucking okay?

[narrator-navigator-storyteller]

also, to expand on this: do not assume you know what are and aren't self harm scars. i have 'traditional self harm scar' looking scars that are not self harm, just that i have a cat and scar easily. i have scars that do not look like self harm scars that very much are. you do not have the right to go up to someone and ask "hey, what are you scars from so i can decide if i can censor your body?", nor the right to assume the origin of someone's scars in order to censor their body. In general, no one's scars or any other part of their body is your business

[aforlorngazeintoyesterday]

HEY THIS IS A BANGER FUCKING LINE.

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

fr tho my self harm scars are a fucking victory banner for me, because i survived long enough for them to scar and fade so that easily half of them are more or less invisible now.

you don't get to tell me to hide that victory away because it's somehow shameful or bad. More than a decade ago, I fought for my life and I fucking WON.

[we rise once more]

[the-incorrigible-chaia]

How To Be Anti-Zionist WITHOUT Being Antisemitic

Yes! It's possible! But it's not automatic.

This post is by no means comprehensive, but bear in mind rule one of the Internet: You CANNOT tell the difference between a well-meaning yet uninformed leftist, and a neo-Nazi sockpuppet pretending to be a leftist to spread antisemitic rhetoric. Reading and absorbing the information in this post will help you avoid dipping into antisemitic modes of thinking.

1. Don't deny Jewish history in Palestine. There's been a continuous Jewish presence in Palestine ever since the Romans destroyed Judea - and not just the descendants of Jews who stuck around after that; Jews have been making aliyah to Palestine, and specifically the four holy cities (Hebron, Safed, Tiberias, and Jerusalem), for pretty much the entire history of the Jewish Diaspora. Every time Jews got expelled from somewhere, some Jews migrated to Palestine. There was even an attempt, in the middle of the war between the Byzantines and Sasanians in the 7th century, to regain political autonomy in Palestine and reconstitute Judea under the Sasanids (it, uh, obviously didn't succeed.) This is all historical fact, but that doesn't mean any of it justifies apartheid in the modern day. Denying the history doesn't help anyone, it just makes you antisemitic.
2. Don't whitewash the Jewish population in Israel. Ashkenazim only make up about 31% of Israel's Jewish population, less if you consider that the 2019 study would have counted Bulgarian and Greek Jews as Ashkenazim, when they're in fact Sephardic. The majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahim who were expelled from other countries in the SWANA region who wrongly blamed their local Jewish populations for the Nakba. There is an internal racial dynamic within Israel where Ashkenazim hold hegemony, and that is worth critiquing in concert with Israeli oppression of Palestinians, but just saying "Jews are white Europeans" is antisemitic and flatly wrongheaded. Jews are an ethnoreligious group whose members come from all racial backgrounds.
3. Don't invoke classic antisemitic tropes like dual loyalty, or tell Jewish Israelis to "go back where they came from". Most Israelis do not have a second passport, are not eligible for a second passport, and cannot return to wherever they or their grandparents came to Palestine from. Litvak Israelis can't return to Lithuania, their communities were destroyed by the Nazis and then paved over and replaced by the Soviets. Moroccan Israelis can't return to Morocco, they were expelled. American Israelis only make up about 5% of the Israeli population. Jews have always lived on "other people's land", the difference in Palestine is that we're the oppressor, rather than the oppressed.
4. Understand why Israelis fear the Palestinian Right to Return, even if that fear is something you (rightly) oppose. It's true that settlers always become anxious about the people whose land they stole fighting back, but with Israelis this is even more potent due to two thousand years of antisemitism, and in particular, an event in living memory. In 1932, German and Austrian Jews were stripped of their citizenship, becoming stateless, and when the Evian Conference was held in 1938 to address what to do with the Jewish refugees, all 32 countries in attendance refused to take in more than at most 30,000 Jewish refugees, and that "most" was from the USA and the UK. (Except the Dominican Republic, but that was because Trujillo wanted to bring in a surge of Europeans to overwhelm the country's Black population, so...) When my country, Canada, itself a settler colony, was asked how many Jewish refugees would be allowed into Canada after the war, the infamous response was "None is too many." Golda Meir, then representing the British Mandate in Palestine, and later a Prime Minister of Israel who said and did some awful shit to Palestinians, was not permitted to speak or participate in the conference, she was only allowed to observe as country after country refused to accept Jewish refugees in any large number. (Though it should be noted that Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, later the first President and Prime Minister of Israel respectively, actually supported this bullshit, because they thought having nowhere else to go would drive Jewish refugees to Palestine. They were right.) Israeli settlers are terrified of becoming a minority, because they do not trust the Palestinians to be any different from the rest of the world. And again, none of this justifies Israeli apartheid, but it elucidates where the Israelis are coming from, and should inform your anti-Zionist work.
5. Be specific and precise in where your principled anti-Zionism is coming from. To say that "the State of Israel is an openly settler-colonialist venture that has displaced millions of Palestinians and continues to engage in daily human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing" is specific and precise. To say that "Zionists use the Holocaust to play victim and get whatever they want"... do you understand the difference between those two statements? And why the second one might sound like when you say "Zionists", what you really mean is "Jews"?
6. Avoid double standards. Unless you genuinely believe that all white people should be kicked out of the Americas and return to Europe, don't apply that same belief to Israeli Jews. There is no post-Israeli future in Palestine that doesn't involve Jews living there. See points 1 and 4. And just to be clear, avoiding double standards cuts both ways. There is also no just future that involves the continued apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It's evil, fascist, and genocidal for Israeli military officials to say that for all they care Gazans can go jump into the sea.
7. For fuck's sake stop putting the Neturei Karta on my dash. The Neturei Karta are a fringe group of Litvish Haredim who split off from other Haredim in Jerusalem. They're very publicly anti-Zionist while also being visibly ultra-Orthodox, so they get a lot of attention, but they're also Holocaust revisionists who attended and spoke at a 2006 Holocaust denial conference whose other speakers included David Duke of the KKK and several outright Holocaust deniers, and their leader defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a president of Iran who claimed Jews made up the Holocaust. If you want anti-Zionist Jews, there are plenty of us. Check out Jewish Voice for Peace, Independent Jewish Voices, or even the Satmar if you really want Haredim. Don't give the fucking Neturei Karta any oxygen.
8. Finally: Zionism is not a euphemism. Zionism is not "when Jews do a thing I don't like," and a Zionist is not "a Jew I disagree with/don't like". Zionism is a nationalism, and like all nationalisms, it hasn't fully delivered on the liberation it was created to provide, and it's oppressed others in the process. Zionism will never go away until the material conditions that drive Jewish nationalism - that is, global antisemitism - are addressed, and yet the Palestinian right to liberation is not and must not be contingent on the end of antisemitism. This is the fundamental problem at the core of the issue: Zionists believe Jewish safety will only come from a Jewish ethnostate with a Jewish majority, and since everywhere on Earth is populated by someone, it may as well be in Palestine, given the Jewish historical roots there. And they're wrong. They're doing horrific, evil, genocidal things in the name of Jewish safety, and they're wrong to do so. But we can condemn Zionism from an informed perspective, rather than from an ignorant one, and in doing so avoid antisemitism and strengthen our anti-Zionist work. The last thing we want to do is spread Nazi rhetoric in the name of Palestinian liberation.

[we rise once more]

[everythingfox]

So talented