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#palestine

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@zaylewismusic explains how terrible slavery really was. He describes the horrors people faced long before boarding.

#video

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i hate being on my corny shit but sometimes mass movements and protest movements can be very beautiful. they bring out the worst and best in humanity. during the arab spring, when people were camped out in tents in tahrir square, there were so many beautiful moments that it convinced a whole nation to believe in a better future. i find it difficult to talk about now but it was the collective sense of community—the feeling of being responsible for everyone, for living on principle instead of self-preservation for once in your life. many people risked their lives for other people during the protests. people died for strangers who were no longer strangers. sometimes it was also small things: funny signs, doctors volunteering medical aid, people giving out food and water, muslims protecting churches, christians protecting muslims while they're praying. things like that. and i've seen a lot of people and countries have protest movements since then and i think everyone feels the same way, when you're within a mass movement, there is a sense of hope and determination that is so much stronger than fear. everyone falls in love with their country, everyone falls in love with their people, suddenly a country you hate is a country you're willing to die for

these kind of protest movements were easy to call beautiful and easy to call powerful bc they were so obviously against a tyrannical force. and yes while the regimes did call the protestors everything from spoiled kids to infiltrators to traitors, the world usually saw it for what it was. and the protestors had a sense of pride about it. the eyes of the world are on us, we matter, we're making a difference

truthfully i think the campus protest movement has escalated so suddenly and is so maligned that nobody is taking a moment to call it what it is. it is very brave and it is very beautiful. in some ways i find it more touching than protest movements for your own country and your own future, because while the protests for palestine are also about what it means to be a citizen of a nation complicit in genocide, many of these protestors are just there because they care about palestinians. some of them are there against their better interests; risking their academic careers, their personal safety, their future. in the case of anti-zionist jews many are risking their communities and their familial relationships. i just saw a video of a USC student in the middle of a literal police riot where her classmates are being brutalized by cops being asked if she's scared and she said "no, i think the children in gaza are more scared than i am." on a human level, this is so moving. it's truly the best and bravest of america there, and it's so sad to me that some people can't see that.

last week speaking out for palestine was risky, but this week it has taken personal and physical bravery to show up, and people (mainly young people of color) have absolutely shown up. this is no small thing. it really isn't. its a historic thing. and i promise you if you think i'm exaggerating by comparing US campus protests to arab spring protests—a lot of arab spring students are on US campuses right now and they see the parallels too. the response to the protests has been american in the way america was in the 60s and 70s, but it is starting to take the shape of a broader and much more global crackdown, where militarized police brutality is the norm. this is familiar to everyone in sudan, in egypt, in palestine. university campuses and students go from safe havens to targets for punishment overnight. things are changing very rapidly right now; a lot of the things said about college campuses last week don't apply as of today.

there is a sense that these protests are full of spoiled and innocent kids and that is transparently not true. these are people (including grad students, faculty, etc) who have also experienced upheaval across the world and in their own communities. the fact that they're receiving the same treatment on university campuses now as protestors did in ferguson, as people have on their streets, means that while US colleges are profit-oriented neoliberal institutions and their administrators are fascists, their student bodies are on the forefront of history once again.

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#palestine

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It’s easy to lose sight of some of life’s simple pleasures when you’re mired in the politics of a land you’re forbidden to enter. But every now and again we deserve to be reminded of just how beautifully the sea sparkles in the Gaza Strip, or just how high the rainbows over the West Bank’s grassy hills can go, or just how easy it is to visualize the earthy way of life in villages wiped away in 1948. 

Source: Sixteen Minutes to Palestine

#palestine

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Applejack (human) and Applejack (horse) studies.

#mlp

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a study of Fallout Foods… (a commission for @leporidaefluff) Click here to view my commission information. 100% of the proceeds of this commission have gone to fund my local humane society!!! Thank you!!! :)

____________________________________________________________

WHAT’S FOR DINNER?:

@leporidaefluff‘s OC Raider, Kanin’s Lunchbox.

Razorgrain Roll

Oven baked cross buns topped with egg wash. Commonly paired with mashed wild tarberries or mutfruit that is scavenged along the way.

Palate - Nutritious and light. Hard crust.

Emergency Drinking Water

Sometimes contains the hint of metal as some containers are prone to rusting from the interior.

Palate - Clean and refreshing.

Sharp Cheddar

Made from either Brahmin or Radstag milk. Revered by high society as a valuable commodity as it pairs well with luxury items such as wine – commonfolk tend to favor it as a topping to accentuate relatively bland or flavorless food items. Wheels of cheddar can be found in most any pantry across the wasteland.

Palate: Rich and rigid. Very dense and firm.

Deathclaw Jerky

A common snack food rich in protein for traveling wastelanders. Usually identifiable as it is usually smoked with the skin still on it and peels off easily once it is dried.

Palate: Chewy and bland without spices. Usually is heavily seasoned with a family recipe to add flavor.

Pepper Brahmin Jerky

Usually sold by farmers that rely on brahmin as a food source. Pepper (and pepper substitutes) are commonly used as a spice to help bring out the flavor as weeds can commonly be found in the wild as an easy harvesting alternative. 

Palate: Soft and fatty. Spicy. Sweet.

Dog Treats

Any miscellaneous meats that may be considered too tough or inedible for human consumption. Many small towns and villages have begun marketing dog treats to traders and travelers to use up every part of a butchered animal that they can.

Palate: Woof! Wooof! Ruff ruufff! Woof.

Artist Notes

To other people that have commissioned me: I am working on several different pieces at the same time and am also starting a new job next week, so please be patient with me while I get to every one of them.

I have been trying to make steady content, which has proved more difficult than I initially anticipated as I had another hiccup in my professional life, was suddenly unemployed, had to find different work to pay the bills, and then suddenly had good news thrust in my lap earlier this week that I wasn’t anticipating (now I am reeling and slightly panicking over it). But I will make a post about that another day once things calm down again.

One thing I have started doing is prompting my clients to give 100% of the proceeds of my commissions to certain charities that I have personal emotional investments in. Northwoods in particular is important to me because I adopted both of my cats from them and they have done a fantastic job at giving animals a second chance and funding programs and events to give people the chance to raise a healthy pet. Eventually I will be drawing up a list of the different charities for clients to select from but that will have to wait until I have time.

I am just getting over a cold so it has been difficult finding inspiration. But I think I’m on track in the right direction at least!

Hardest part - The jerky was a challenge…

Fun part - I LOVE DRAWING BREAD!!!

NUMBER OF ACCUMULATIVE LAYERS IN ENTIRE PIECE - 129

#fallout

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Wallpapers from The Art of Fallout 4 - Part 1

#fallout

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you brought this upon yourself

#fallout #homophobia

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i'm reinstalling modded fallout new vegas and this is how it feels

#fallout

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Not sure if you’ve been asked this before, but what are your favorite/essential mods for new vegas? I’ve only ever played it unmodded so I’m curious

Good question! I definitely have answered this before, but that was so many years ago. It's only now that I've taken the opportunity to overhaul and modernize my own mod set-up that I've been figuring out the answer to this question myself. But I can definitely talk you through the most important parts of my new load order.

First, however, every single person modding this game in this day and age absolutely needs to start with the Viva New Vegas modding guide, and follow every step to the letter. The recommendations are air-tight and the instructions are written and presented as if you, the reader, have never even seen so much as a computer before. It's amazing. The "Base" of VNV contains nothing but bugfixes, lightweight unofficial patches, performance optimizations, and other under-the-hood stuff designed to remedy FNV's infamous stability issues while maintaining a completely "vanilla" feel. This makes it absolutely necessary, in my opinion, even for people who don't actually want to play with any (other) mods. Especially crucial to this guide is its mandate to use Mod Organizer 2; if you're using Nexus Mod Manager, Vortex, or Fallout Mod Manager any time since Biden got elected, you are shooting yourself in the foot plain and simple. The best endorsement that I can give of Mod Organizer 2 is that it mods you game completely virtually, meaning that if you fuck your mods up beyond repair, you can just go to your actual FNV launcher in your root folder and boot up the vanilla game like nothing ever happened.

And the "Extended" section of Viva New Vegas consists of more modding tools, quality of life tweaks, content restorations, and a curated list of strongly recommended gameplay modifications that nevertheless all come down to your personal preference (though deviating from their provided list may make you use your brain a little bit when choosing the right compatibility patches, and so on).

This isn't going to cover every single thing that I play with, but here's everything that I would think to suggest to anybody who asked. With that said, here's Fallout "Lou" Begas's Mod Recommendations, 2024 Edition:

Viva New Vegas Extended: Lou's Preferences

VNV Extended recommends several gameplay modifications that come down to personal preference. I installed just about all of them, with a few exceptions (I don't care at all for B42 Optics, for example). Here's some specific details:

Just Assorted Mods has a hell of a lot of features but I actually enable are breath-holding, the vanilla sprint, and the loot menu (though I flip-flop often on using JAM's Bullet Time in place of V.A.T.S.). If you install VNV and boot up the game and wonder "what is all this fucking shit on my HUD," it's probably some of Just Assorted Mods's components. Just disable the ones you don't want in the in-game Mod Configuration Menu, which you will also have available if you followed the instructions for VNV Base.

Vigor is a modernized fork of JSawyer, the mod that was originally created by FNV's own director after the game's release that tweaked a lot of under-the-hood game settings and statistical balance to his personal preferences. JSawyer Ultimate Edition a more faithful modernization of the original JSawyer whereas Vigor is "a more lightweight alternative" that dials back some of the more drastic features of JSUE. Your choice of these, or none of them, is purely personal preference, and my preference is for Vigor. Any form of JSawyer is strongly recommended if you play in Hardcore Mode.

Simple Vigor Config is used in conjuncton with Vigor and is an intuitive and easy way to overwrite Vigor's gamesetting changes with your own preference. I use the config to adjust carry weight to a much more punishing (25 + 5*STR) formula that incentivizes the use of backpacks, mindful inventory management, and companion inventory space; and to increase the starvation, thirst, and sleep Hardcore Mode rates to 10, 5, and 14 respectively.

Desert Natural Weathers is the weather mod to end all weather mods, in my view, and it includes configuration for customizing the darkness and visibility of nighttime. This effectively obsoletes former dinosaurs like Darker Nights Ultimate Edition. Refer to the post that I made on DNUE's Nexus page here for a copy of my settings to darken those dang nights with DNW.

In AIStewie's Tweaks's nvse_stewie_tweaks.ini file, I set bCustomSpecialPoints = 1 and iNumPointsToAllocate = 35. This slightly reduced starting stat spread forces you to make tradeoffs in your character creation, because it starts with a perfect middle 5 in every stat. Every addition above average will require a subtraction below average. The "Essentials" INI included with VNV Base is all that most players will ever need, so this is my one specific personal tweak that'll keep you from scrolling through every single option in the whole damn thing (though I also recommend enabling the tweaks that hide all of your skill check tags in dialogue for more immersive and less gamified roleplaying in conversation: set bNoSkillTags, bRemoveFailedSuccessText, bRemoveRedOutline, and iRemoveTags to all = 1. )

Lou's Personally Valuable or Sentimental Tweaks and Fixes

Better Pause Menu Screen (Simple Blur). I play with an ultrawide resolution and the vanilla pause menu filter doesn't actually extend past 1920x1080. So this is really vital, lol.

Vanilla Animations Weapon Scale Fix. This mod will fix a common issue with custom weapons and animation mods where your weapon will become invisible because its scale has gotten stuck at 0.

Companion Carry Weight Fix. All companions in the game have an invisible attribute called "companion suite" that, among other things, halves their carrying capacity based on their actual stats. If you play with a super low carry weight formula like I do, you can see how this is a problem. Here's the solution.

Miscellaneous Tweaks Collection includes a few files that I get great use out of: No DLC Recipes Early (great unless you integrate DLC crafting ingredients into your base game somehow) and Vendors Have Throwables (why the fuck are throwing weapons so hard to find in vanilla!). There are others that I use as well but I recommend these two the most generally.

Lucky 38 Suite Upgrade Terminal Tweak is a very cute little mod that removes the ugly wall-mounted terminal and makes you purchase your suite upgrades from the actual computer on the desk in the master bedroom instead.

I Fought the Law - Simple NCR Start finally gives you a good reason to check out NCRCF if you're not siding with the Powder Gangers.

Hire Cass Early was my "dream mod" for the longest time, and thanks to some help, it's finally a reality. Simply pick up the letter that this mod adds to the Mojave Express office in Primm and you can recruit Cass right away (through the usual persuasive requirements) without ever stepping off the road from Goodsprings to the Mojave Outpost. Part of my ongoing "make @ikroah real" project.

Harder Strip Access. Getting into Vegas to finally confront Benny should feel like a tremendous accomplishment. This mod makes it so. Better pony up the caps or call in one hell of a favor, kid! With any kind of tougher economy mods, especially, this mod makes it wonderfully Herculean to just buy your way onto the Strip.

Balance Tweaks

Pseudo-Realistic Carry Weight - No Weightless Item Overhaul and Realistic Bottle Cap Weight. The former is actually an optional file; the main file just implements the the carry weight formula that I was coincidentally already using. The latter just forces you to think strategically about how much money you're walking around with. Can you tell that I love inventory management? Note that if you give bottlecaps weight, you should definitely let yourself drop them when necessary by editing Stewie's Tweaks (bShowCurrencyInContainers = 1).

Carry Weight Affects Speed, Med-Tek Trauma Kit (Lou's Version), and More Conditions to Fast Travel. The first appearance of my own mods on this list! These three mods in conjunction tie your encumbrance and your overall health to your mobility far more strictly. I love the balancing act of packing enough supplies for an excursion while leaving enough room for loot that I can still fast travel with, and the choice to get greedy with more loot than I can comfortably carry and just hope to not run into danger on my slow walk back toward a merchant. My tweaks to the classic Med-Tek Trauma Kit mod apply this level of emergent gameplay and resource management to your limb health, though it makes the game much more difficult unless your character specializes in Medicine. I haven't tried it myself, but Simple Healing System is fully configurable, modern mod that I've had my eyes on and that might be better for most general playstyles, and it might even be compatible in conjunction with my Med-Tek mod for extra intensity!

Better Charisma (Charisma Affects Dialogue Skill Checks) and/or Charisma Affects Reputation. I've always been very frustrated with how much of a meaningless dump stat Charisma is, and the phenomenon of the 1 CHA 100 Speech player character in general. These two mods, which you can use just one of or both together, give Charisma much more meaningful and palpable functionality.

Terrifying Presence (Lou's Version), speaking of Charisma, changes the requirement for this perk from Level 6 and 70 Speech to Level 2 and 6 CHA, making it much more accessible to more types of intimidating characters. This same mod includes alternate options to take it as a trait instead, with the drawback(s) of either tanking your Speech and Barter and/or increasing your addiction chance. See also: Less Snarky Terrifying Presence.

New Vegas Karma Rebalance is a great under-the-hood mod that makes FNV's nearly vestigial karma system less nonsensical without removing it or its effects on the player entirely. Thanks to this and Mass Ownership Tweaks, which is already included in VNV Extended's recommendation of Essential Vanilla Enhancements Merged, Cass won't hate your guts just for stealing a few things from Caesar's Legion at Cottonwood Cove, especially not after you've already killed them all.

Damage Multiplier solves the sluggish damage sponge problem that plagues Bethesda engine combat by simply multiplying all damage dealt globally, both by and to the player, by a factor of your choosing. I use 2.5x, which is usually enough to kill any level-appropriate human being with a single shot to the head. 2x should be the minimum. Combine with Combat Enhancer NVSE and NPCs Use Ammo for overall faster but much more ferocious and intense combat engagements.

Visuals and Animations

Third Person Camera Overhaul. Though I'm still getting used to its extremely specific configuration settings, this is vital for a third-person enjoyer like myself. It obsoletes any and all "dynamic camera" or "shoulder swap" mods of the past. Once you figure out how it works and what you like, you're set for life.

Realistic Movement and Dramatic Inertia. Although a little goofy, it has never felt better for me to physically move around in the game than it has before. I like the weight and get-up-and-go that this mod has for me as a player, but it's especially significant in firefights and other combat situations where, now, your targets can't dodge bullets by shifting direction instantly or stopping and turning on perfect dimes. For a single, less heavyweight alternative, try 360 Movement and Diagonal Movement together instead. Each pair of these mods is incompatible with the other pair, however.

B42 Loot, B42 Interact, and B42 Inject. I recommend a lot of the B42 family of animation overhauls in general (except B42 Optics, lol) because I just love seeing my character actually do the things they're doing. For B42 Loot, I use the included config file to disable the "force pull" effect, and for B42 Interact, there exists compatibility patches between it and its more third-person oriented counterpart Animated Ingestibles, but I'd only look into that if you know what you're doing (though, I do).

Character Kit Remake is a mod that I was turned onto recently. For a long time I have scoffed at character appearance overhauls out of nostalgia for those classic gamebryo engine potato-faces and what I thought was, to be blunt, the tasteless ineptitude of the actual overhauling. But I do really like this one, even if the showcase of screenshots do a really bad job of selling it. It looks a lot better in motion and in game, I promise. i think that these people are just not good digital photographers.

Height Randomizer. It's funny how much you can get attached to a minor character when they are, for whatever reason, especially tall or short. This lightweight mod just adds some height variance to all NPCs in the game that don't already have a non-normal 1.00 height setting in vanilla.

The Strip Groove. Dance on command. Endorsed.

Items, Economy, Crafting, Survival, Repair, Etc.

Gloves Galore (Lou's Version), Power Armor Gloves, Combat Armor Gloves, and White Glove Society Wear Gloves. Anyone who has followed me long enough on here should know that I have strong, totally normal feelings about gloves.

Armed to the Teeth Redux and literally any backpack mod. I've used this duffel bag forever, for example. I love these ones because I personally love when you can physically, literally see the things that a character is supposed to be carrying.

Flashlight NVSE. Another piece of Agnes Sands's arsenal, this is the one "old" mod that I can't quit. Even if it is a little janky, I've yet to find a better directional flashlight mod. Only install this is you think you can handle wrestling with it a little, and make sure your "Exterior" flashlight settings are all on the lowest quality regardless of computer specs (or else it causes flickering). It's a must-have for darker nights, too.

Famine is the last "loot scarcity" mod you'll ever need. Combine it with Harder, Barter, Faster, Stronger from the VNV Extended recommendations list for a really tough time affording even basic necessities without tailoring your build for mercantile success... which is just how I like it.

Cheaper Repair Costs. The vanilla formula for determining the cost of weapon and armor repairs at merchants is, in a word, fucked, where it literally costs twice the weapon's base value to repair it from broken. This mod lets you adjust that proportion so that you won't be better off literally selling and buying another gun in every single case. I play with a rate of 67% (which means that paying a merchant to repair a completely broken weapon from 0% health to 100% health will cost 67% of the weapon's base value).

Alternative Repairing does too much cool, practical shit to the base repairing system to even get into here. To keep it short, it intuitively incentivizes actually scrounging for all kinds of formerly useless junk that you can now scrap for spare parts. Check it out.

Water Overhaul. Ever play with a Universal Water Bottling mod and find things suddenly far too easy? Water Overhaul combines all the convenience and sense-making of bottling water anywhere with the much-needed tradeoff of truly purified water being much rarer. All that convenient H2O is now just radioactive enough to keep Goodsprings Source from singlehandedly breaking the survival economy of the game (not to mention the literal economy).

Cowboy Coffee and Coffee Grounds, my own mod that adds brewable coffee to the wasteland. While mostly just created because it's cute, it's really nice to have a reliable and palpable source of sleep deprivation relief when playing in Hardcore Mode.

Gun Oil From Animal Fat, another mod of mine that provides a cheaper, craftable, and less demanding but less effective repair option to complement Weapon Repair Kits. I patched this one recently to fix some old issues, and it's great for incentivizing emergent gameplay (since you need to hunt for meat, and cook the meat for fat, and combine the fat with loot to make the gun oil).

Sound

Less Constant Music and Passive Combat Music Tweaked do exactly what they say on the tin and are perfect for people who like to get immersed in the natural sound of their environment, especially if you're a chronically stealthy player like me and you've trained yourself to constantly listen for enemy footsteps. I do recommend keeping Less Constant Music disabled when you first start a game, though, because until I can figure out how to add an exception to it myself, it will remove the background music from character creation at Doc Mitchell's house more often than not, and I really like that music.

SPEAKING of Doc Mitchell's music, Try Not To Get Killed Anymore is one of the first mods I ever made and it has never left my load order. It simply replaces the musical sting that plays when you die with an emphatic, tolling bell and the refrain from Doc Mitchell's theme, plus an optional version that includes his ghostly voice telling you to try not to get killed anymore. Two of my other personal sound replacers are the Mysterious Stranger Level-up Theme, Simple Snap Sound Effects for Quest Updates, and Mechanical Camera VATS.

#fallout

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#fallout

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im noticing that for a lot of americans “free palestine” has been an ideological motto and symbol rather than them actually believing in their heart that freedom is attainable and necessary

#palestine

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platforming palestinian joy is just as important as sharing the suffering they're enduring during this genocide. despite continued displacement and bombardment, you cannot steal their joy and spirit. happy birthday to this sweet baby 🖤🇵🇸 may they grow up to see a free palestine

#palestine

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Please Help Evacuate me & my husband's Family from Gaza

🔴🚨🔴 THIS IS URGENT🔴🚨🔴

Help me evacuate the Gaza war with my family

Just share and donate if you can.

#palestine

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I saw your post about the leopards eating faces and democrats and if you think the us is bad under biden have a good look through project 2025 and please fucking realize that queer people, those that can get pregnant, and people of color are going to be absolutely fucked if trump wins in November.

Sigh

If you ACTUALLY read it then you'd know Biden is ALREADY carrying out the goals outlined in project2025. You'd also know that his administration is even using the SAME exact language that's found in the Mandate for Leadership. Such as "protecting the freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal"

I literally have a post floating around somewhere where I said he was gonna escalate the genocide and smoke out all the rebel groups because guess what? Project2025 outlined that too. Literally listed them as targets that the administration should focus on.

Another part of it says they should continue to protect and support Israel's "right to defend itself" at any cost.

So yeah that thing you're afraid of? It's here. And it's here because you thought the fascist with a blue tie was less scary than a fascist than a red tie so you stopped paying attention when Blue Tie Man was around. And that blue Fascism that's allowing book bans and abortion bans and making trans people illegal is going to stay here and grow because you don't fucking care to address it unless the tie is red.

Maybe fucking read the thing you're trying to fearmonger me about because I guarantee I've read more of it than you.

And it's not that I find the realities in it less scary, it's that I'm not such a privileged shithead that I would prioritize my own comfort over lives being lost in a literal fucking genocide.

Yeah shit sucks for queer people and trans people and trust me, I know that, but we aren't being killed in broad fucking daylight and having people go into denial about it so maybe instead of barking up MY blog about how fucked up everything is you go and send the DNC and your representatives some emails and tell them to give Democrats a candidate that doesnt commit genocide?

How about instead of yelling at me to lower my standards cuz things MIGHT get scarier for you if Blue Tie Man doesn't beat trump (and he won't) you ACCEPT that reality and DO SOMETHING USEFUL about it. How about you and your party just BE BETTER????

There's seven months before the elections and Biden is tanking every poll and Democrats are voting uncommited in swing states and what's Biden doing? Doubling down on every single policy that he's losing voters over (like supporting Israel). If he loses that's not my fault or anyone else's.

Maybe stop asking people to vote for a warmongering white supremacist.

"think of the queers and pregnant people and PoC"

I Am.

They live in Palestine and Sudan and the DRC.

Or did you mean I should prioritize different queers and pregnant people and PoC?

Don't be shy. Did you mean I should prioritize you?

Cuz yeah. Fuck that.

(white) USamerican citizens prioritizing ourselves over everyone else is exactly how the world got so fucked up.

I'm NOT voting for Biden under any fucking circumstances, don't waste my time with another bullshit uninformed scare mongering ask like this again just cuz YOU lack the solidarity to care about any community but your own.

The fuck?

Do you think the queer community only counts Americans? What an ignorant thing to say. "Think of minority communites but only from this specific part of the world"

You wouldn't know community if it hit you in the fucking face.

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My friend Mona has asked me to share her story with you all.

Here's the link to the evacuation gofundme. They're very close to their goal. They legitimately only have less than 10k USD left to go before all 9 of them can evacuate.

#palestine