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#I WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO HAVE COMPASSION
teachaos · 3 months
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I've just blocked so many people who seem so allergic to the concept of evil that they would doom any chance we have of getting a better world because they won't even consider supporting the lesser evil
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subconsciousmysteries · 6 months
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no words can describe how sick 3s make me
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ghostlyferrettarot · 2 months
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🖤✨️Venus in the houses✨️🖤
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❗️All the observations in this post are based on personal experience and research, it's completely fine if it doesn't resonate with everyone❗️
✨️Paid Services ✨️ (Natal charts and tarot readings)Open.
🖤🖤If you like my work you can support me through Ko-fi. Thank you!🖤🖤
🖤Masterlist🖤
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♥︎Venus 1st house: charming people with a flirtatious aura. They know how to get people attached to them ; love to compliment others but expect double the praise in return, they know they are a catch. This individuals are usually the life of the party, the one who unites the relationship/friendship group.
♥︎Venus 2nd house: This is the house of finances, so these people prefer to be pampered by their loved one. People with strong values and respect, they expect the same from their partners. They don't play, they want stability and seriousness in a relationship; most loyal and supporting persons ever.
♥︎Venus 3rd house: really flirtatious and persuasive. They value new experiences, they are attracted to other's personality and interests. You have to keep them entertained, they have an adventurous nature and can get bored easily when it comes to a routine.
♥︎Venus 4th house: These individuals have a really harmonious and protective nature, a fairy-like aura to them. They value comfort and openness in a relationship, they want to feel the love of their partners and create a special bond with them. These people tend to attract people with mommy and daddy issues, with an "I can fix them" vibe.
♥︎Venus 5th House: These are my luxurious people, they have high standards and don't care what anyone has to say about it. They are in love with love, their cheerful nature attracts them towards creative people and people who are in a position of fame or success. They are the muses of artists.
♥︎Venus 6th house: These individuals tend to manage many things at once, they thrive on self-improvement. Their love language tends to be acts of service, they are also attracted to truly selfless people. They can spot a lie from miles away, value trust, and expect the same from their romantic partners. They forgive but they never forget.
♥︎Venus 7th house: They have an attractive and persuasive personality, they are tolerant and charismatic. The 7th house is the house of agreement and partnership, so your luck will probably change after your marriage, your significant other may play an important role in your life. These people crave love and genuine connections.
♥︎Venus 8th house: They are very sensual and intimidating; tend to have stalkers and admirers. They value deep connections, people who truly understand and accept them. People with some type of trauma are attracted to them. You may be interested in occult sciences and have healing powers.
♥︎Venus 9th house: They have a happy aura and an adventurous character. These individuals are attracted to optimistic and adventurous people, those who value their beliefs and want to take risks with them. Venus in the 9th house attracts many foreigners as it may indicate a lot of travelling, you significant other may be from another country.
♥︎Venus 10th House: The 10th House governs public image, career aspirations, and career achievements which makes these individuals attracted to status. They are goal-oriented, always looking to improve, and expect the same from their partners. You will want to live a high-profile life and connect with influential people.
♥︎Venus 11th house: They have a calming and jovial personality. Easily attract many friends who would want to work and connect with you to grow your business. These are my "friends to lovers" trope, they value friendship over romance, which attracts them to those closer to them.
♥︎Venus 12th house: These are my artistic people, they have a lot of passion and compassion. They tend to be attracted to spiritual or helpful people. They value connections and are naturally drawn to others; They find much comfort in helping those around them. They are looking for a partner with good character and empathy.
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soarrenbluejay · 1 month
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Supervillains for a community. (Well, except those jerks over in Gotham, insular lot, but they’re they’re one problem) Of course they do- supervillains are a group defined by strong opinions and a willingness to see them through, often with a healthy dash of societal failures and trauma as a catalyst.
The fentons, while not active even on the online message boards, are well known and explosive when they do show up, full of fascinating insights and hours long rants on mad science on hair pin turns courtesy of that ADHD attention span. Bit of the cryptids you feel honored to bump into kind of deal. Besides, like a good quarter of the community as it aged, they’d settled down and had kids (not necessarily in that order) and taken it very seriously! Out in the middle of nowhere, where even the most fearsome government outpost members, the local branch of the IRS, quake before them in fear. Out of the way.
Reveal gone okay-ish, Danny moves to Gotham still to get some air bc now things are Akward and he landed that engineering scholarship which is loads better than any other college would give him with his track record. So- the mysterious Fenton children are finally crawling out of hiding! Everyone is psyched! And roll in to Gotham en masse to witness the fireworks!
Except Danny is Determined To Be Normal. He’s had enough of the throwing himself into harms way shit for a lifetime- he wants to be free to peacefully built Rube Goldberg machines and unintentional increasingly complex bombs to his hearts content. JAZZ, on the other hand- the coveted token Normal One, has finally snapped! She’s watched her baby brother she practically raised throw himself into danger over and over and could do nothing, and now that she’s exposed to this whole network of superheroes outside of small town Amnity, some of those uglier emotions are coming out. And boy is she pissed! And can’t afford to show it much while filing the paperwork to have Arkham legally razed to the ground!
See I love this idea of like, niches in superhero society. A villain the heroes know they can plop their kiddo down with for an exciting afternoon brawl while they take care of a particularly grisly case and come back to a few hours later ranting about some new life lesson and a new move they really want to try. A villain who has a functioning moral compass despite their somewhat batshit long term goal and you can contact to fuck with another villains’s plan so they can laugh at them and you can have an easy afternoon. One who pries up hostile architecture and fills in pot holes, idk man. Get creative here, there’s such potential!
So Jazz becomes a Training villain- someone the heroes know their sidekicks will walk away from in a fight 100% of the time, usually with some new lesson to ponder and only a couple of bruises. Sometimes even snacks!
She also absolutely ambushes mentors to check that they’re worth the kiddo, which they appreciate once they get over being jumped in a dark alley by a 7 foot Amazon trained force of nature. They are not used to being on that side of the jumping, it’s a little unnerving.
(Yes, she low key adopts Shazam upon checking in with him on cursory ‘is the main hero of this city and asshole’ checkin. Yes, the super clones get yoinked out from under Superman’s negligent thumb to go have a blast with Ellie. What about it?)
This however only encourages more assorted weirdos to crawl out of the woodwork. It’s not often one of their own forfeits their potential spot for the running of the coveted Most Normal I Swear prize, but when they do it’s bound to be good! But jazz is off hounding various heroes and punching the faces in of pedophiles and shit whenever there’s no cape within easy reach, and so is a mite bit harder to contact than Danny, who has innocently gotten an apprenticeship under a clockworker for access to their workshop and is gleefully going about doing nerdy shit with great abandon.
Plus this is Gotham. No one gives a shit if someone in the Mad Alchemist uniform and still smoking from their latest experiment pokes their head in a window to bother the local shrimp teen- none of the usual social rules apply, everyone’s crazy here! So everyone drops any and all attempts at masking and just acts their genuine unhinged selves, much to the alarm of the Bats and frustration of Danny.
Bc he cannot get these mfers to go. Away. Even liberal use of the creep stick has little effect when the interloper is calibrated for an opponent with super speed or laser vision or whatever, and he’s trying to maintain his guise as a Normal College Student Do No Investigate.
So he calls in the big guns. He’s not super active in the supervillain kids group chat ever since things in amnity calmed the fuck down post becoming King and then immediately using a loophole that says he will not take the throne until he is grown, as defined by finishing learning his trade a la the medieval standards Pariah set up. So he can just take his sweet ass time with his graduate degree and out of inter dimensional bull shit that much longer! Point is, he hasn’t taken the chance to rant over there in a while, so his Crazy friends are getting a lil worried.
The change to come over and shout at their batshit crazy but (mostly) well meaning parent AND see Danny? Score!
The bats, however, are getting awfully suspicious about this one kid that villains from all over the country are flocking to, especially young and upcoming ones as of recently! And he’s acting his engineering course- all the worst rogues are known to have flown through their PhD studies prior to Cracking. They seem to have a real problem on their hands with this Fenton guy.
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tbposting · 7 months
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I've started One Piece but frankly am very cautious with actually continuing and investing a lot of time and energy into the work because I'm aware of the transphobia and the general... everything surrounding characters like Brook. I haven't chosen to invest in a long running Shonen since about 15 years ago, before coming to terms with my sexuality, and I fear that a lot of stuff I'll find to be inexcusable. Are the allegations blown out of proportions, or should I be worried?
Well, I don't think I can help you on what you'll find inexcusable or excusable, that's a very personal line that everyone draws for themselves, ultimately. I love One Piece deeply, but I refuse to make excuses for its shortcomings. Like all great works of art, it is flawed.
For something like twenty years, One Piece's primary depiction of visible queerness and transfemininity were the Newkama.
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Which... fucking sucks, frankly. Visually, these are designs based 100% on "ha ha ha ugly men in dresses who think they're feminine, ha ha ha" as a joke. They are ridiculous caricatures, and you are meant to find them funny and laugh at their delusions of femininity.
It's a depiction that derives from extant stereotypes of transfemininity and homosexuality in Japanese culture, which... aren't really my place to speak authoritatively on. I know that there are some complexities re: drag culture, reclamation and performance culture, and Japanese queer and trans people have a diversity of thoughts and opinions on both One Piece and the "okama" stereotype more broadly. I can't speak to any of that, that's not really my lane, so I'll just say that from MY perspective, the depiction of the Newkama as visual designs comes across as a dismissive, mean-spirited and frankly cruel depiction of transfemininity.
In addition to that, it should also be said that the Kamabakka are unequivocally heroic and explicitly depicted as correct and morally right in their identities and culture.
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This is Bon Clay and Ivankov, two major okama characters in One Piece. If Ivankov looks familiar that's because he's based on Dr. Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ivankov is a major heroic ally of the Straw Hats, and Bon Clay is commonly considered one of THE most beloved and heroic supporting characters in the entire story. One Piece fans will DIE for Bon Clay, you can find tiktoks of people openly weeping with love for this man. If I ever appeared on camera, I would be one of them.
Setting aside their presentation as designs, One Piece goes out of its way to show these characters fighting, sacrificing and standing up for their friends and their communities. It goes out of its way to present their humanity, their compassion and their kindness, and to humanize them to the audience.
The ultimate villains of One Piece are the World Government, a hyper-authoritarian militaristic feudal government with a policy of absolute conformity to authority, and the Newkama and their queerness are explicitly framed as standing in opposition to that evil, and as representatives and avatars of freedom.
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Freedom is one of One Piece's central themes, and it very explicitly includes freedom from gender roles and gender norms in that idea. The Newkama, among other things, also stand for freedom of presentation, freedom of gender, and freedom of self-determination. Whatever gender you want, whatever you want to wear, who and whatever you want to be, the Newkama say you can and should be those things, and damn what anyone else thinks.
Newkama Land where these story scenes take place are literally a haven of freedom carved out by queer people inside the walls of a deep-ocean prison that the World Government tried to throw them into to torture and destroy them, which is, objectively speaking, metal as fuck.
I think these story ideas are extremely queer-positive and trans-inclusive, and I think it reads like the work of someone who has queer people's backs and wants them to be part of the worlds that he makes.
...
Which makes it all the more frustrating that the Newkama are the only explicit depictions of transness and queerness in One Piece for literal decades. On the one hand, the story is vocally accepting and inclusive, on the other hand, everyone everywhere is presented as cis and straight with vanishingly few exceptions. Queer people exist in One Piece, but only really in the designated Queer Person Faction, rather than as an endemic presence in the world. It's very Planet of Hats in that way.
(inb4 yes I know Luffy is shown essentially as aro-ace, yes I also agree that Nami definitely has a thing going on with Vivi and projects hella lesbian energy. Yes you can absolutely do a queer reading of the story and its characters, and I do that and I love to do that, but there's a difference between something being open to queer interpretation and a story actually telling explicitly queer stories)
It's not until we reach the Wano arc, one of the most recent story arcs, that Oda really gets around to depicting forms of gender non-conformity and transness outside of the boundaries of the Newkama and the "okama" visual stereotype. He's been rightly praised for making those new creative choices (and Yamato is MY BOY I fucking love him), but it still took a quarter of a century for One Piece to even HAVE a transmasc character.
On the one hand its explicit text is quite radically inclusive, the themes and what the story SAYS presents queerness and queer people as good things that make the world a better, richer and freer place. People who try to eradicate or oppress queerness are, without exception, the enemy.
On the other hand, it just hasn't been very good at actually depicting queerness, except as cartoonish stereotypes and very, very occasional exceptions to the cishet status quo.
The portrayal of the Newkama, visually, arrive from a tradition of transphobic, homophobic stereotypes, and I don't blame anyone from being alienated by that. Placing them on the side of the good guys doesn't cancel out the problematic aspect of using those kinds of depictions in the first place, and I am not interested in making excuses for it.
I love One Piece, deeply, I think it is a wonderful story, and I find it very affirming of queerness as a mode of being. But I'm not going to argue with anyone who feels differently.
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discourseposter · 5 months
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I love when united starters are like "making fun of the united states for it's education and health system is so fucked up 😭😭 have you no compassion 🤨" bitch you joke about third world countries all the time and like ur government is spending all the money they could spend on education and healthcare in OPPRESSING THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES AND MAKING WAR AND SHIT NOBODY ELSE WANTS THIS.
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depths-of-escapism · 2 years
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Hey uh, I tend to keep politics away from my art as that's not really the purpose of this blog or any of my other blogs.
But with current events going on i think I should give a reminder that if your a American republican this blog & my other blogs are not for you.
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wtftarot · 14 days
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How can you navigate your life from here on?
Thank you, @lifeofaie for suggesting this reading, I really loved the idea.
Listen, I fuckin love a good road trip, ok? And navigating on a road trip ain't that different from navigating your life. Great music and shitty snacks. Wrong turns and detours that end up being half the fun and the whole story later. Arriving later than you planned or having plans changed entirely. How it always seems like the more you try to plan and control things the more they go off the rails. What do you need to keep in mind on this road trip called life? (yes I know how dorky that was, nope I don't care, yes all of these are gonna be heavy on road trip metaphors) Consider this reading, stopping and asking a local for directions and I promise not to lead you to the den of a serial killer. What is your inner compass saying? Is it time to make a rest stop? Let's fuck around and find out.
as always this reading is for entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice in any capacity. Remember, use common sense, and don't be a dumbass.
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Pick either the Road Stretching On, The Road to Anywhere and Nowhere, or the Road to Ol' Kentucky and head on to your reading
The Road That Stretches On
The Tower, Seven/ Swords Rx and the Magician on the bottom of the deck.
This reading is HEAVY. Some of y'all who came to this reading are dealing with some heavy mental shit. I am not a mental health professional, please seek one out. Tarot is awesome and helpful but it is not therapy.
Take a breath. I'm so fuckin serious right now. You need to breathe and clear your mind even for a second. Don't ya just love how many people come to readings and then ignore the simplest advice given? To just take a breath? ( I love y'all, but some of y'all need a lil call out every now and then) The reason why I'm pushing y'all to stop and breathe is cause y'all's mind never. fuckin. stops. does it? Never. I had to restart this reading three times, cause I just kept getting wrapped up in y'all's anxiety spiral. And, I know it's hard but if you never make a conscious decision to try and slow down and give yourself a second, it's not gonna happen. Human brains are mostly auto-pilot and if you don't try and take the reins every once in a while it'll just keep doing what it's doing. Y'all are incredibly overwhelmed by making decisions for your future. It's like you see your future like the picture you chose, a road stretching on forever that can lead to anywhere depending on the turns you make but for you there's something that could be lurking in each turn. Something you're not seeing and that is terrifying to you. Now the main contender here looks to be anxiety about the state of the world, climate change, wars, pollution, famine, natural disasters, and on and on. Like y'all seem to be thinking what's the point, everything's going to shit. Listen, I'm gonna try to be gentle but when I tell y'all I'm very passionate about this, I am downplaying so fuckin hard. A lot of people fall into this overwhelm, it's not your fault. Governments and corporations put a shit ton of effort into keeping us feeling overwhelmed, cause overwhelmed people are too drained to put up a real fight. The point of trying is you being happy. That is worth it. The point is you can spread that joy. The point is to make a difference while you can. The point is that yeah, the world may be going to hell in a handbasket and you're just one person but you are a whole ass person. Who doesn't have to take this shit lying down. You want to live your life but are terrified of what might happen if you do. You feel like the world is a scary place and it can be sometimes, but you're so scared of truly stepping into the world, you never let yourself be or do much. It's like y'all are super fuckin excited for the road trip but are so scared of what may be around any turn, you just keep going on the same road letting it take you wherever it does. To get anywhere you want to go you have to make some choices. Yea, they may not always turn out how you planned but here's the thing: You will be okay. What you need to do to navigate your life? I'm sorry, y'all are gonna hate this advice but trust yourself. Sweetie, you are so much more capable than you give yourself credit for, hell you may not have any knowledge of your full capabilities cause you've never let yourself reach them. Tarot readings can help you navigate, but all the readings in the world won't help you get anywhere if you never put your foot on the gas.
random ass vibes: I dunno if y'all forgot to eat but like I've been ravenous this whole reading, The cartoon Roadrunner, venus, tea, sunburn, flowers, 666
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The Road to Anywhere and Nowhere
The Star, the Five/Pentacles Rx and the High Priestess on the bottom of the deck.
Listen, honey. You can handle this. And you know you can. You're listening to your intuition, learning to trust yourself if you don't already. Y'all are navigating your life, you may have rough moments as we all do but y'all are learning to handle those moments with grace. I'm not gonna lie, it took me a minute to figure out why y'all are even at this reading, seems like the topic of this reading ain't something y'all need help with. And it ain't, y'all are killing it in this area. The reason y'all are here? Y'all need some encouragement. Maybe need is the wrong word, cause y'all are doing fuckin awesome either way. Deserve. That's the word. Y'all deserve some encouragement. The road you're on may be unconventional or the people around you very strongly disagree with. Or maybe they just strongly disagree with you, your identity as a person. (I dunno where "strongly disagree" is coming from but it keeps popping up in my head?) I feel like y'all have actively had people put you down and were able to power through and encourage yourselves, so you may not need others to encourage you. BUT we all deserve to be encouraged, just cause you can power through without supportive voices doesn't mean that you should have to. SO GET READY FOR SOME CHANNELED ENCOURAGEMENT MOTHERFUCKER! Y'all have been doing a fuckin amazing job moving away from shitty past situations and are not fucking giving yourselves enough credit. Yes, even if it was "just" some mental blocks. Oh, "just" a mental block are you kidding me? Do you know how hard getting over your own mental bullshit is?? Y'all are over here, learning to parkour over your mental bullshit like a goddamn ninja, acting like it's no big deal. Sweetie, that's huge, you do realize that? To be honest with yourself, call yourself on your bullshit and then do something about it? Step fuckin one of that is daunting. And I'm hearing that y'all were able to get through faster than even your guides were expecting. Honey, how powerful are you? Not only that, but y'all are learning to argue with your self-deprecating thoughts. Asking them, who gives a shit what they have to say? And taking all the energy you used to put into pushing yourself down and using it to build yourself up. That's SO fuckin badass, y'all! Talk about fuckin alchemizing shit. Y'all saw how much time and energy it was taking to keep yourself small and hurt, thought: Wonder what would happen if I used that to build myself up instead? And then you went and did it and ITS FUCKIN GORGIOUS. The blessings are gonna start rolling in with this new energy, but you already knew that. Cause motherfucker YOU are the blessing! Y'all are really embodying your own power and strength and are KICKING ASS. The last message is to let yourself rest, y'all are doing a lot. So give yourself a break, let yourself sleep in a bit later. Set aside time to just chill, you won't lose your progress while you sleep.
random ass vibes: receiving roses, worms, gardening, astronomy designs on clothes, 18, hide and seek
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The Road to Ol' Kentucky
Shout out to all my fellow Kentuckians! How y'all doing?
The Moon Rx, The Queen/Wands, the Page/Cups Rx and the Five/Wands Rx on the back of the deck
Y'all are being called to really embody yourself and your power moving forward. It seems like y'all not only have it in your head that you're a Page when you're a Queen (queen energy, not gender). You're wrong about the whole damn suit. Others may have convinced you you're being sensitive when they're being an asshole and you're pissed about it. (As if letting people talk shit about you is "weak" right?) Y'all think you're the negative aspects of the Cups: Overly emotional, flakey, manipulative, disorganized, and self-centered. When the truth is you're the positive aspects of the Wands: Passionate, creative, driven, confident, and strong-willed. Y'all are really fuckin hard on yourselves, okay? Others may have been intimidated by your strengths and convinced you they were your weaknesses. If y'all have been feeling stuck, this is why, alright? You are stuck cause you've been told that the way to get unstuck IS the reason you're stuck. Think of it like this, y'all are an airplane, convinced by cars that flying is your biggest weakness, trying to figure out why you never seem to get anywhere. Airplanes can roll around, sure but they're MADE to fly. It's time to do some hard thinking, probably back to when you were a kid. What were the things you loved and pursued, how did you pursue them and what bullshit did others say about it? Like, did you get super focused on an activity you were doing, forget about choirs or some shit, and then be called irresponsible and lazy? When you wanted something, were you the type to push and work towards it, then be called stubborn or relentless or annoying when others decided they wanted you to do something else? Because there are some good qualities y'all have that are how you're supposed to show up in the world that you're not letting yourself embody. To be clear, I'm not talking about being told you're acting like an asshole when you were, in fact acting like an asshole. I'm talking about strengths you had that were demonized to you and in an effort to be a better person you stopped using. Now they've atrophied and you've gotta work them out to get them back. Cause, listen the typical way of navigation ain't gonna work for you. Y'all can continue to roll around and try to get where you wanna go, but it's gonna be slow and a billion times harder. You ever seen an airplane trying to go down a road through town? Think a sec on on how hard that would be. Cause that's you, right now. There are no road maps for the sky, ya know? Y'all are charting your own path. You need to stop trying to make yourself follow the road map for life that others are using. It's not gonna work for you, cause it was never meant to. Y'all are on an unconventional path, the only way forward is to embrace it.
random ass vibes: Back To The Future, coffee, night owl, finding your people, reds oranges and yellows, clouds, libra, cats. Thelma and Louise
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spacelazarwolf · 6 months
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anyway reminder to non palestinian goyim, especially in the west, that your opinions and feelings do not fucking matter right now. i don’t care if you don’t have the “capacity” to care about multiple groups of people simultaneously. i don’t care if you have compassion fatigue. i don’t care if you’re overwhelmed. if you’re not living under israeli occupation, being bombed out of your home, experiencing terror attacks, mourning your dead relatives and friends, or terrified to leave your house for fear someone will take your life as payment for a government you have no control over, i do not care. if you have not had to explain to a child why people around them are dying and/or want them dead, i do not want to FUCKING HEAR IT!! I AM DONE!!
#ip
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female-malice · 1 year
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Are you a woman who spends 4+ hours a week of your own free time reading and writing about society? If you are, that means you're supposed to be a leader. Do you see all those men taking up leadership positions? Most of them are not supposed to be in those positions. But you are.
If you're a woman who has a mind that always wanders towards thinking about dynamic systems, you're supposed to lead.
"But I'm depressed."
That's because you're supposed to have power that you don't have right now.
"But I don't want to lead."
The best leaders usually don't want to do it.
"I don't know how to lead."
There's a long history of female leadership in sports, science, aviation, art, and revolution. But I find that leadership examples in team sports are easy to follow and apply. I like to compile quotes from female point guards because that just works for me. Find leaders that inspire you and they will teach you to lead.
"That's nice but I'm doing this other thing with my life."
Great leaders have a wide variety of skills and interests.
"I am NOT a people person."
It's a stereotype that women can only lead effectively through compassion and sensitivity. Female leaders can also be effective through blunt, harsh, and unyielding communication. You don't need to be a people person to lead.
We don't need women leading male governments. We need women building new systems and new governments. We need women leading with new ideas now more than ever. And if you're one of those systems thinkers, keep in mind that you have a responsibility to lead. You don't need to push yourself or move mountains or achieve the impossible. Just keep an eye out for opportunities to build new systems.
#cc
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genderkoolaid · 4 months
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with the whole “kill your abuser” thing….
there’s a distinction to be made between “i was actively defending myself and they died” and “i killed them even when i didnt need to”. there’s also revenge fantasies as thoughts, which are fine, and then there’s an ideological framework that says killing your abuser is always ok.
i really gotta recomend oliSUNvia’s video on feminism and the prison system because… she addresses it much better than i can, but often we want punishment as immediate relief rather than making large systematic changes to support survivors. i think we can recognizing that wanting you abuser dead or killing in active self defense is something that’s ok, but an existing government should not encourage murder outside of those circumstances nor should it control who lives and who dies.
the thing is my stance of compassion towards abusers as people who do not deserve to be murdered also goes towards people who murder abusers. like even in cases where what counts as "self-defense" is blurry, my stance is "its a tragedy that they were forced to kill or at least felt like they had no choice, and that tragedy is at the hands of both society and the abuser themself." yet i still think that murder is Not Good and that leftists have a very real problem with glamorizing punitive justice as long as its spun in a certain way. like i cannot emphasize this enough my point is not that people who kill their abusers are x y or z, my point is that murder is not a desirable way of handling abuse and its important to call out that line of thinking wherever it arises!!!!! please everyone stop holding me responsible for your attachment to murder fantasies
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tuulikki · 5 months
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I really appreciate that in your response to the Spotify wrapped post, you didn’t just put, “you are not immune to propaganda”, but actually followed that up with thought-provoking questions that help clarify what that propaganda can look like. That’s really helpful and considerate and I really appreciate how kind and thoughtful your response was. It really helped me recontextualize my experience of and reaction to the misinformation post when it went around. Thank you so much
You're so, so welcome. I'm really glad it helped. If you ever have any follow-up questions or just wanna chat, hit me up
I've fallen for misinformation, propaganda, and conspiratorial thinking in my life. Probably everyone has, to some degree. But I've also been kinda obsessed with the study and analysis of it ever since, so I feel like I'm obligated to try to help people to the degree I can.
I will say, it also "helps" that I have the privilege of not being in anyone's crosshairs and not having a personal connection to the issues, other than the basic moral concerns any decent human being would have. A lot of people don't have that luxury. When people are scared and hurting, it's inhuman to demand that they overcome that and put more energy into fact-checking than do those of us with less pain.
So I guess I'll try to condense some key ideas:
Reblogging ("keep talking about this!") is harmful if it isn't accurate. Inaccuracy contributes to the fog of war, causes agony to people directly involved (they see you on social media: the internet is global!), and discredits the legitimacy of a movement.
Misinformation/disinformation blends truth with lies. Seeing one thing you know to be true next to an unverified statement will make you trust that statement.
Crises make us feel helpless and small. But it is privileging your discomfort over the pain of victims if you shy away from tackling complexity.
Sometimes it feels like a betrayal to reserve a space in yourself for doubt. But disinformation trivializes important issues. If something really matters to you, then you will want it to be accurate.
People will make good-faith inaccuracies. I will. You will. Governments/organizations will. People on the ground will. No one is omniscient. Don't double-down in support of the mistake and don't let one mistake discredit a good source.
People in pain will be duped, lie, or exaggerate. Many are seeking meaning with a greater need than you are. You must find compassion for them.
Our best instincts (justice) and worst instincts (self-righteousness) will be manipulated.
Responsibility for fact-checking falls on those of us whose distress is moral, rather than personal.
Everyone is biased. Humans always care for some people more than others. Find two opposing sources and read both: you'll find the truth somewhere between them.
Truth is a hill worth dying on.
Sorry this is a long post and maybe it's useless but I thought it was important to try
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mariacallous · 5 months
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(JTA) — Vivian Silver, a Canadian-Israeli peace activist who had been presumed kidnapped by Hamas, was declared dead after her remains were found at her home.
Her death was confirmed to JTA by multiple activists who said they were in touch with Silver’s family. Shifra Bronznick, a prominent Jewish social justice activist and lifelong friend of Silver’s, learned from Silver’s son that her remains were identified via her DNA. 
“Vivian was always persistent in the pursuit of peace and justice,” Bronznick told JTA on Monday evening. “She was a lifelong feminist, a committed activist, a fearless leader, an exceptional friend and a loving mother, wife and grandmother.”
Until Monday, Silver, 74, was assumed to be among the more than 200 people held captive by Hamas. She is now among the approximately 1,200 people murdered by the terror group in its Oct. 7 attack. Hamas terrorists killed more than 100 people at Silver’s home community, Kibbutz Be’eri, in one of the day’s worst massacres. 
She is one of several peace activists to have been killed or captured by Hamas on Oct. 7. Hayim Katsman, 32, who worked with Palestinians in the southern West Bank, was killed in his home in another community on the Gaza border. Yocheved Lifschitz, who helped ferry Palestinians from Gaza to medical care in Israel, was taken captive by Hamas and released in late October; her husband Oded, also involved in peace work, remains missing.
“A woman of infinite, deep, ongoing compassion, humanity and dedication to Arab-Jewish partnership and peace. Yes. Peace,” Anat Saragusti, an Israeli writer and feminist activist, wrote on social media in a post announcing Silver’s death. John Lyndon, the executive director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace, wrote that “she wanted to be free & at peace. Rest in power, Vivian.”
Silver’s sons, like the family members of many of those presumed hostage, lobbied extensively for her release, traveling the country and speaking to journalists around the world to call attention to her story. One son, Yonatan Zeigen, stood out for his calls for a ceasefire, an unusual position in Israel. He said he had learned from his mother to seek peace above all else.
“I would tell her, ‘Israel is dead. It’s hopeless,’ and she would say, ‘Peace could come tomorrow,’” Yonatan, a social worker in Tel Aviv told the Washington Post in a story published last week.
Chen Zeigen, her other son, is a doctoral student in archaeology at the University of Connecticut. She is also survived by four grandchildren.
On the day of the massacre, according to the Washington Post story, Silver took a call with a radio station where she pushed back against the idea that the Palestinians were “insane.” In messages with Yonatan, she expressed fear, frustration and love. “I’m with you,” he wrote to her. Her last message back to him was, “I feel you.”
Born in Winnipeg, Canada, she was the longtime director of  the Arab Jewish Center For Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation, which organized projects joining communities in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In 2014, after the last major war between Israel and Hamas, she helped found Women Wage Peace, which promotes peace-building actions among women from all communities and across the political spectrum.
Speaking to Forbes in 2021 for a series on women who assist the vulnerable, Silver said she remembered feeling relief after the government built bomb shelters in Kibbutz Be’eri, which had been subject to rocket fire from Gaza for more than a decade.
“In 2009, the [Israeli] government only built shelters for communities that were four kilometers from the border. The community I live in is four and a half kilometers from the border, so we didn’t have shelters then,” Silver told Forbes. “Now we do, so psychologically we feel better, and we feel safer, and in fact, we are safer, we’re a lot safer than the people in Gaza.”
At a 2018 Women Wage Peace event on the Gaza border in 2018, she said that the Israeli government needed to change its approach in order to bring peace to the area. “Show the required courage that will bring changes of policy that will bring us quiet and security,” she said then, addressing the government. “Returning to the routine is not an option.”
Appealing to women across the border, she said, “Terror does not make anything better for anyone, you too deserve quiet and peace.”
Bronznick first met Silver in the early 1970s when both were involved in organizing a national conference of Jewish women. They remained friends and, for a period of six years, took an annual trip together — the last one was to Santa Fe, New Mexico. When Silver would stay at Bronznick’s home, she would prepare an Israeli breakfast, Bronznick recalled. 
“She would be passionately advocating for peace right now,” Bronznick said, referring to Israel’s war against Hamas, launched following the Oct. 7 attack. “She never gave up on bridge-building. She never gave up on making change. She never gave up on people… She always focused on people, children, what motivated them, what meant something to them.”
Before Oct. 7, Silver was due for another stay at Bronznick’s home in New York City in early December. On top of each of the days in Bronznick’s calendar, she had written “Viv.”
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thevirgincherry · 3 months
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BELL JARS AND BUTTERFLIES !
ft. infinite darkness!leon s. kennedy x fem!reader
tags. emotional abuse, mom-son incest, power dynamics, sub leon, some references to past physical abuse not explicit tho, few drug references, p in v
note. hai :3 put id leon cuz that’s who i saw but!!! u can think ab whoever u want :3 thank u to @devilmayfuck for proofreading oh my gosh :3 still ignore mistakes bc I tend to make em while formatting! feedback n rbs so appreciated <3
tumblr removes fics that, for example, use tw non-con and any nsfw tags in general from the tags. for this reason, as i’d like my fic to appear in the tags, please understand that this fic contains dark content under the cut. reading this comes at your own risk.
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It’s no surprise that Leon breached contract and put his dick in his shrink. He tends to do these things around women that sound like school teachers. To be fair, the contract wasn’t his to breach, she’s totally taking advantage of his vulnerability or whatever.
“You still live with your mother, Leon?” It’s a statement, not a judgement, he takes offence either way.
“She’s sick,” Leon says, and it’s a bold-faced lie, they both know that she, his shrink, has his file. That you’re well and alive. He doesn’t like to talk about you to her. Mainly because what you have done to him is private, no one else needs to know, it’s the only thing no one knows about him— The only thing that’s not written across his dossier in bright red is that he and mommy have a less than sound relationship. It’s the only thing that is his.
“Sick?” She’s not much older than you, and she’s not as beautiful as you.
“Sick,” He confirms, and it’s not far from the truth. Physically sick, nah, but Mommy might be, she certainly is, the biggest narcissist Leon has encountered in all twenty-eight years of his shitty life, and that says something. ‘Cause Leon works with the US government. He’s owned by them, actually, to say he’s working would be a lie— He’s been owned all his life, first by mommy, then by work, and Leon has started to think it’s always going to be this way. That it’s okay because he doesn’t have to dissect, ache and hurt like he does when he’s thinking.
When she tries to probe further, as it is her job, her duty, in the same way it is Leon’s duty to save the world on any old Monday, he leaves. The apartment is his by lease, but Leon has never stayed long enough to call it a home, he’s never considered it anything more than where you are.
His fist knocks against the lacquered wood, and you answer a minute or so later. It doesn’t suit you. Trying to fit in with all the D.C career women, prim and polished and intelligent, that’s just not you. At your core, mommy is trailer trash through and through. Your smile is artificial, and your nightgown is too, it’s ill-fitting, the only thing you’ve worn well is his father’s anger. Leon thinks that if he wasn’t so full of the milk of compassion, whatever it is Lady Macbeth said, he would help you out. Show you what you’re truly worth. Unfortunately, all Leon would like, all he has ever wanted, is his mommy.
“Leon,” Your concern comes sparingly, so he takes what he can, head dropping to your shoulder. He melts. You’re about as friendly as a loaded gun, but Leon’s got suicidal tendencies and all that jazz. “Baby, what happened? You look so thin, my goodness, you must weigh less than me.” It’s true, looks like he weighs seventy pounds soaking wet. Skin stretched thin over his bones. Teetering from left to right on ankles so thin they’re ready to snap. “What’s this? Looks expensive.” Your eyes sparkle as you take in his appearance, tracing the fabric of his Armani tie with tenderness you have never given to him.
“Ma,” Leon mumbles into your neck, he stumbles past the threshold and the door clicks shut behind him. All he wants is a kiss or two.
“Leon,” You say his name the way you did before, “That’s not my name, darling, you used to be such a good boy.”
“Mommy,” He corrects himself, it’s always been mommy and no one else, “I’m sorry for— I’m sorry for leaving.”
“It’s not your fault, baby,” Whether he comes or goes, you don’t care, your flippant nature drives him insane. “You’re too much like your father.”
He is not. If Leon was anything like that man, more scum than blood and flesh and bones, your face would be in the concrete. But Leon is your son, and he is who you’ve made him to be. Cowardly. “I’m sorry,” The words dry up in his mouth when your nails rake down his clothed chest, a soft whine slips from the base of his throat, like he’s a dog. Then you scratch behind his ear, and he really is a dog, tail between his legs and everything.
“Oh, my poor baby,” Mommy says, and you pout at him— Did you get your lips done? The money wired over to your account is for necessities. He’s a civil servant, there's nothing classy about that. You piss him off. You do. But you’re his mommy, and he loves you.
The bed smells like you, it was his once, but you take over every aspect of his life. Eat away at any part of him that isn’t appropriate by your terms, a vetting process harsher than the DSO’s. Now Leon’s here, faced with the same hole he crawled out of. The same hole he wishes to crawl back inside. It was safe in there. Warm and quiet. Darkness cradling him like you never have. The one place in which he cannot move, speak or be. The closet he can get to that is stuffing his dick inside.
“Outside clothes on my bed,” You tut, lifting back the covers so you can undress him, “What’s this?” In your hand is an orange tube that you’ve swiped from his back pocket. Leon blinks as you squint at the label. “Oh, darling, you don’t need these, let mommy keep them safe, alright?” Leon nods. That was a new prescription, paroextine, fluoxetine made him a smidge less suicidal, meaning instead of wanting to drive his car off the side of a bridge anytime he got in, he simply drove without a seatbelt in hopes of being crushed to death by a thirty-two tonne truck. Natural selection or whatever. Side effects were shakes, to the point where Sherry was worried he went and got himself put down in the Guinness World Records Book as the youngest recorded case of Parkinson’s disease.
“I need those, ma,” His voice breaks when you tuck them into your bedside cabinet, facing him with your beautiful, cruel smile.
“You don’t need them, Leon,” You gesture for him to come closer, he does, presses his face into your tits, and lets you tell him what’s right and wrong. When it’s coming from you it will always be wrong, but he’ll listen anyway. “It’s not real, baby, you know that, don’t you? I thought you were smarter than this— Shouldn’t be wasting all your money on therapy of all things, I mean, you go to talk for an hour and that supposedly makes everything better?”
“Mm,” Leon makes a noise that is both a grunt and a hum. Please, for the love of god, shut up and get him off— Do something. Hold him. Comfort him. You’re his mother.
“Then they want you to take all these pills-“
“They’re meds, ma,” He corrects for the sake of his— Well, for the sake of nothing at all. Not his ego, not his dignity, they have been depleted completely.
“Meds, huh? You can get addicted fast, and then next minute you know, darling, you won’t be able to function without them- You’ll be like a zombie.” You kiss the top of his head, cooing softly when he raises his head to look up at you like the sad, wet dog he is.
“It’s not crack, ma.”
I know you wish it was.
For an indolent lady who spent half her time doped up on what could only be described as sludge, putting morphine in his milk bottle, you do talk a lot of shit.
“Hah,” Your face changes, you laugh anyway, “You’re so funny, Leon.” You tell him, and he thinks, obsessively, that he would do anything to hear that laugh again.
“Thanks, ma,” Leon’s unrest is mollified by the featherlight touch of your hand on his bare chest, your nail drags down his sternum, as if you’re splitting him in half. It digs into the toughness of his abdomen, he squirms, “That feels weird,” He mumbles, unable to voice out his dislike properly.
“Leon,” You sigh heavily, heavier than his cock in his briefs, “You don’t feel anything, my sweet thing, you’re all empty inside.” He’s a bell jar waiting for its butterfly.
“My poor baby, look at you, can’t do anything without mommy.” Without mommy Leon doesn’t know how to be a real person.
“Can’t eat,” You trace his ribs, sticking out in odd angles through a yellowed layer of skin, “Can’t sleep,” The hollows of his face, his sunken eyes, they tell you everything, “Can’t even breathe without me, can you Leon?” Without mommy he has to be kicked in the gut so his lungs remember what it’s like to breathe. He has to constantly be on the verge of death to know what it’s like to live. “It’s so tiring, darling, I’m too old to be taking care of you.”
“Mommy,” Leon pleads, helplessly, the only manner in which he can behave is helpless.
“Baby,” You toy with his waistband, “You need mommy to help you feel, don’t you?” Feeling should be innate to a human being, shouldn’t it? “Even when you were a baby, Leon, you only cried when mommy did, I used to think it was sweet, but now, darling, it’s gotten a little old.”
Leon whines softly, animal-like, caught by the ankle like a hunted stag, “I’m sorry, mommy— I can’t help it.”
“Oh, it can’t be helped, Leon,” Mommy says impassively, because it is such a chore to jerk off your mentally stunted almost thirty-year-old son. It’s not his fault. He didn’t choose to be this sex-mongering freak that needs to be punished to get off, to not feel ill— To be alive. You started it, and Leon’s sure you’ll end it. Brought him into this world, and you’ll take him right back out of it. At the drop of a hat too.
Your nail, red and glossy and a tad too sharp, presses into his leaking slit. One hand curled around his jaw, the other down his pants. You fish his cock from his boxers, “Mommy was waiting for you,” That makes his chest ache, knowing that he had crossed your mind even once for just a split second, god, he could die a happy man, “Every time you leave I get so worried, I start thinking, well, gosh, how is my Leon doing without his mommy?”
Bad. He does bad in general. Around you it’s bad. He is entirely bad at all times, at every minute, every passing second. With you it’s less bad.
“I just miss you,” Leon says, helplessly beyond help.
“All the time?”
“All the time,” He agrees.
“Oh, baby,” You coo.
“Do you… Did you miss me?” He asks, breathless, twisting in your grip like he’s fitting. Your touch is a million pinpricks on exposed nerves. There's no answer, you just stroke his dick instead, and his moan shatters like an ice fractal. Leon wants to ask and beg and demand— He turns stupid too quick when you cup his balls, squeeze ‘em hard.
“So noisy,” Mommy spits on her palm, real classy, a bit of your whore heritage comes out— See that, it’s a real Kennedy move, dad would be proud. Then you get his cock nice and wet, pumping his shaft as he leaks through the gaps in your fingers. “My sweet boy, you used to be so cute. I miss when you were blonde— It happened to your dad too, it’s a shame.”
“Sorry,” Leon says as if it is his fault natural progression took place, his hips bucking upwards into your fist, schlick, schlick, schlick.
“Well, there’s no need to be sorry about it, you can’t do anything about it, Leon,” Well, at least you’re sane enough to know that, “You know what you can do, darling?”
He shakes his head, abs contracting, balls tightening, ready to blow—
“Clean up before you come to see me,” Your hand is gone, his dick twitches like there’s a parasite inside of it waiting to burst out, “I’m not stupid, Leon,” Your palm sits on his cheek, looking at his stubble with distaste, “And you should shave, look too much like your dad otherwise.”
The scruff is purely out of neglect for his appearance. Leon has never put much thought into it, no one’s ever complained, he’s fuckable. Very fuckable. So fuckable— It’s just you. Mommy says and Leon scrambles to do.
“Off you go then,” You shoo him away, force him to pick his discarded clothes off the floor, he tosses them in the laundry basket. His shrink left the print of her brown foundation on his collar— That’s what you meant by clean up.
In the bathroom cabinet he finds a packaged razor covered in a film of dust. His hand is shaking, nicks his chin once, the sting is not half as bad as your touch. When Leon returns, the nightgown is off, folded neatly on the side, he almost trips over getting to you.
“Mommy,” Leon mumbles around a mouthful of tit, like a proper stupid baby, dumbed-down to fit mommy’s taste.
“I know, baby,” You kiss the crown of his head, stroking over until your fingers toy with the hair at the nape of his neck, “Oh, there is just nothing inside of you but that big ol’ heart, huh?” It’s true. He’s empty but his heart. A heart that turns on its hind legs, rolling over onto its back for mommy and mommy only.
Leon hums, suckling on your nipple like he’s going to get milk out of it. “Can I—“ Leon lifts his head, ducks back down to avoid your scathing gaze.
“Can you what, baby?” You thumb his bottom lip, nail grazing his teeth.
“I want to fuck you,” He says, because he would like to fuck you.
“That’s not how you talk to mommy,” You go to push him off, but Leon shakes his head, and he is stronger— He is, he pins you down, presses his face into your neck. An apology that you accept.
“I’m sorry, mommy,” He’s trembling, “I’m sorry… I’m sorry, didn’t mean to talk like that— I’m sorry, please, can we-“
“Fine,” You cut in, and he knows that mommy is a slut. More so than him. That you want it just as bad, you just like playing games.
Leon’s lips part when the tip of his fat cock sinks into your heat. He wishes that your hole would gape like the maw of a beast and swallow him up David Cronenberg style. Wouldn’t that be so fun?
There’s a falter in your breath when he bottoms out with a squelch. You try to be this way, so unaffected, but Leon knows that you’re a glutton for cock. Not his alone, which crushes him, any old dick would do for his mom. It’s how she got by way back when.
“I love you,” Leon moans into your mouth when let him kiss you for the first time tonight, he savours it, lets the taste linger, “I love you, mommy.”
You loop your arms around his neck, pull him closer so his cock is deeper, hitting your cervix with the fat head. The most he can do in your grip is move his hips back and forth shallowly, never allowing more than an inch out of your sweet cunt. It’s suffocating and yet he loves it. Your love is a cage. Contains him. Leon licks the droplet of salty sweat that trickles down between your tits, he spurs his hips forward, fucks you with all that he’s got— This is all he’s good for, just good to give you your fill of dick. That’s why you had a son.
“You can do it better than that, Leon,” You’re panting, eyes glassy as you smile your gorgeous smile at him, “I know you can.”
With a grunt, he fucks you with fervour, balls slapping against your ass, all the nasty shit you love. His dick jumps inside of you, and you gasp, biting down on your tongue as he slams into you once, twice, thrice— Oh, it's so over. Leon can’t help it. Mommy’s pussy is so warm, so hot and wet and tight. Your disappointment is tangible. No need to hide it.
We can work on that, his shrink usually says to mask her annoyance at his premature ejaculation.
Mommy just shakes her head while frowning.
“I’m sorry, mommy,” Leon’s body jolts, hips still moving despite the oversensitivity, his cum makes your cunt sloppier. He fucks it back into you like the filthy boy— man he is, so set on making you come undone that it comes across as a little freakish. Like he’s in a trance or some shit. “I’m so- I’m so sorry, mommy— Didn’t mean to— Fuck, I’m sorry, sorry—“
“Leon, stop that,” You place a hand on his chest. He stops. Leon is good at that. Taking instruction no matter how life-threatening, no matter how embarrassing, he’ll do it to be worth something.
“I’m so sorry,” He croaks, truly humiliated by his dick’s lack of selflessness. Shit just cums without Leon telling it to do so.
Mommy pats his head, “It’s okay, baby, you’re only a stupid little boy, aren’t you?”
Leon nods. Mhm. Mhm. Yup. Yup. That he is. Mommy’s stupidly depraved little boy. Just makes sense.
God, yes. “Yes, mommy,” Leon finds himself face to face with your cunt. One that popped him out. A well-beaten yet pretty pussy, because all of you, to Leon, is beautiful no matter how worn out. He parts your cushioned lips, teeth tugging at your labia as he dribbles his spit over your fat pussy. His cum sticks to your inner-thighs, a shiny trail that dries up before he can lick it up and spit it back onto your puffy cunt.
Your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling at his hair till he’s sure the roots have weakened and now he’s even more prone to male pattern baldness than he was before. Leon focuses his attention on your clit, it’s small and fleshy on the tip of his tongue, the more he sucks the more you drip drop and fill his mouth with your slick. Crazy that is. The clit. It’s just a gift that keeps on giving. And it's good both ways. Leon gets to quell that urge, the sucking on a tit urge, and mommy cums so hard her thighs snaps shut around his head. Your back bows off the bed, and god dammit is he proud.
With the lower half of his face covered in your wetness, Leon re-emerges to kiss you. “That’s enough, darling,” You tell him after the fifth and final kiss. He holds onto it. He just wants you, his mommy. Is it so bad to want?
“I love you, mommy,” Leon says for what might be the third or hundredth time of the night.
“I know, darling,” Your nose bumps his, “I did miss you, Leon, if I’m being honest.”
“Really, mommy?” His heart skips a beat or two. God, it might’ve fucking stopped. Then he’d just be a doll of some sort. The rarest collectors doll that mommy could put in a glass case and show off and dust off— Well, to think she’d care enough to dust him off, Leon has a bit of an overactive imagination.
“Really, darling.” Mommy nods, and he’ll take it. He’ll take it and treasure it.
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roamwithahungryheart · 6 months
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I've sat on this for a little while, but I'm just going to say it.
If you've decided not to post about the conflict until now because you wanted to 'wait for clear information' to give a 'measured response', but neglected to mention the deaths of 1400 Jewish people at the hands of a terrorist organization whose sole purpose is to eradicate all Jews, that's not a measured response. To only say retrospectively that you have sympathy for the community flies in the faces of your Jewish friends who are suffering.
What happened on October 7th has had a ripple effect across the entire Jewish community. Incidences of antisemitic hate crime have risen by 1000%. Read that again. One thousand fucking percent. To see those we view as friends be silent is deeply hurtful.
Many of us - myself included - are afraid to leave our homes. Afraid for our families in the supposed safety of suburbia. It isn't hard to reach out. To send a text or a message online. It isn't hard to forget a friend when they're in pain. At least, it shouldn't be if you're a true and decent friend.
I'm going to get a little personal. Last year I experienced a prolonged campaign of antisemitic and ableist hate crime. Friends stood by me and showed support. Where are they now?
Ask yourselves, why are you silent? What are you so afraid of?
Standing in support of your Jewish friends does not negate your support for those suffering in the atrocities occurring in Palestine. It doesn't make you a zionist. It doesn't mean you condone the actions of the Israeli government. It's simply an act of basic human decency.
Silence from the people we care about makes us question if they really care about us in return.
This is not a case of 'choosing sides' in the conflict or showing allegiance to one cause over another. A 'balanced view' means showing compassion for all.
Refusing to do this reinforces the very thing David Baddiel talked about in his most recent book - Jews don't count.
Make us count.
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unbidden-yidden · 5 months
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[**Note: this post is directed at other Jews and I am not willing to discuss it with goyim who in all likelihood have no idea about the context or even the literal text of these prayers. If you aren't Jewish, don't add on and don't reblog unless you're willing to also come collect your followers if they add nasty comments.]
Many of our shuls and communities have taken up adding special prayers in our services for the safe return of the captives, for peace, for our (American) government, for the state of Israel, and/or for the IDF, and I want to talk a little bit about that.
While the first two are likely not offending anyone, I know that a lot of folks might not be comfortable with the latter ones. I would like to share my kavana for how I can say all of them with my whole chest.
First, it helps if you know actual human people who are part of these institutions. If you know Israelis, it is much easier to pray for their safety in their country, even if you can't stand their government. And getting to know some of the young people who are in their mandatory term of service certainly changed how I felt about the prayer for the IDF, because I can't hear it without thinking of them. Human connection always changes the balance, and remembering that most of them aren't at the levers of control does too.
However, I actually routinely pray for people who are in positions of power, especially those who are using that power to cause great harm and suffering. I do this because there is no one on this earth who needs to hear the voice of Hashem and learn to lead from rootedness in Torah more than those in power who are using it badly. I pray every day that the small bit of power I wield, I use wisely and ethically, and that I am sensitive to hearing hakol mi-shemayim in my actions. That I will turn again and again to Hashem for guidance when I need help understanding the right path. All the more so do people with actual real power in the world need to open their hearts to what is ethical and right. Some do; many, as evidenced by their decisions, don't.
And so when my community reads these prayers, I imagine the good people I know and care about, and I also imagine the powerful people who need their hearts cracked open to the right path and compassion for all.
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