"there are many jews involved in the columbia encampment, and there was even a kabbalat shabbat service and a seder" and "antisemitic things have been chanted at the columbia protests and there's a serious unaddressed (and dismissed) antisemitism problem in the movement" can both be true

like. portraying this as "a group of people who hate jews and want to intimidate and block them" isn't correct, but neither is "it's all a smear and nothing we've ever said or done could ever be antisemitic."

ugh. i just. its so frustrating bc on the one hand you've got people lobbing around the word antisemitism like a club to be used on political opponents, and on the other hand you have people who respond to that be closing their ears to any and every attempt to be called in for antisemitism. and then you get labeled a zionist and not-worth-listening-to for attempting that call-in, so the people who are trying to address it get pushed out

and the jews who remain often feel that as allies it's their duty to squash any internal sense that someone in the movement is antisemitic, believing that it's really their white/jewish fragility or their zionist brainwashing coming up.

the upshot of which is that the antisemitism problem doesn't get resolved when oh my god, it would be so easy. just listen to folks calling you in and learn about antisemitism and how it functions just like allies do for any oppression. empower jews in your space to speak up, with love and firmness. stop assuming every call-in is a threat by bad actors.

like there really are ways to move forward. why can't we take them?

I've been rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender because why not and I'm losing my mind at Zuko's proper introduction. I don't know if it's hindsight, shifting characterizations, or just me not watching this in a long time, but this was amazing.

We start off showing he's an impatient and very angry kid. Reasonable, and the sort of flaw we might expect to see in a villain. Kinda funny that he expects to go up against an adult and fully 4-Element realized Avatar, but the kid is desperate and Iroh clearly expects his nephew to get the banishment-denial kicked out of him.

What's important here, though, is Zuko's introduction to the Southern Water Tribe.

Here, we have a very intimidating entrance where his entire ship just sails through the ice right up to the village's front door. It's quite ominous and this is our first proper introduction to how the Fire Nation interacts with a foreign people.

Sokka charges, I'm assuming fully prepared to die, and Zuko casually knocks him out of the way. Okay, so clearly the Water Tribe are entirely outgunned.

He asks "Where are you hiding him?" and the people of the Water Tribe go silent. I assume they're either just too scared to talk or actually protecting Aang.

Whatever the case, it's important to note that the Southern Water Tribe know the terror the Fire Nation can inflict. We have a whole episode dedicated to tracking down a division of raiders. Sokka was able to not only identify the ash-mixed snow as signs of an incoming attack, but estimate how many ships the amount of ash measures to. These are a people who have experience being terrorized and are probably expecting something terrible to happen.

And then, after they don't answer, Zuko grabs Gran-Gran. There was a horror sting to it, and everything the tribe knows about the Fire Nation suggests that Zuko is about to threaten or straight up hurt her to get answers. Classic "terrorize the elderly" bad guy stuff.

And then...

He goes "He's (the Avatar) be about this age and is a master of all four elements!?" and lets her go.

And all of a sudden, the tension that was built up is shattered as Zuko went "I know, I'll give them a reference for the person I'm looking for because clearly they're confused and I wasn't specific enough."

This went from a show of villainy to a show of Zuko being totally socially awkward and misreading the situation entirely. Not helping is that when he does try to menace them a moment later, his fire is slow and angled quite safely.

It still worked on the Water Tribe because they're understandably scared, but all I could think of is that this was the equivalent of a playground bully trying to make someone flinch with that fake-out lunge thing.

Because the fact-and something we'll come to learn-is that Zuko is TERRIBLE at being a Fire Nation oppressor. He's capable of doing morally dubious things and is a competent fighter. But he's lousy at terrorizing people and cruelty-that's kind of the point of his banishment.

And while we can see the story paint this picture of Zuko's true character as the story goes on with hints of good and conflicting loyalties, here we get to see just how bad he is at being "the bad guys".

Being a young adult is so strange. You enter a coffee shop. The 20 year old girl waiting behind you cried all night because she just came to a new city for university and she feels so alone. That 27 year old guy over there works a job he is overqualified for, he lives with his parents and wants to move out but doesn't know what to do about it. That one 24 year old dude already has a car, a house, and a job waiting for him once he graduates thanks to his dad's connections. The 26 year old barista couldn't complete his higher education because he has to work and take care of his family. The 28 year old girl sitting next to you has no friends to go out with so she is texting her mother. That couple (both 25 years old) are married and the girl is pregnant. The 29 year old writing something on her laptop has realized that she chose the wrong major so she is trying to start all over. We are not alone in this, but we are actually so alone. Do you feel me

can we just have, like, any feminist movement whatsoever. did everyone just stop caring?

moon snail 🌕

me every day without fail: I'll do [chore] when I get home

me when I get home:

idgaf if bethesda ever tells us concretely which country launched the first nuke, the only answer i will accept is the original one, the one that said "we wont tell you, because it doesnt matter. there is no moral highground in the story of the great war, and the end result for those alive today is all the same either way. those most responsible faced the fewest consequences, and no justice was served. there is no justifiable way to nuke anyone, no matter who struck first. everyone lost and thats the very nature of war and always has been. war is evil, and in that way, war never changes"

not broadcasting who was "really to blame" is purposeful, and any other answer would undercut fallout's core identity to me

copper my beloved

One of my friends thought there might be a correlation here, so let's find out...

No see results, you must decide. Add nuance in tags/replies if you wish.

reblogging for larger sample size appreciated

you can submit polls to this blog via asks and submissions

Also on topic of Consent: whenever somebody says "Kids should have bodily autonomy!" some guy always is like "You are too unrealistic. What will you do when a kid is seeing the doctor and doesn't want to get a shot? Would you just let them refuse the shot?"

Yeah I probably would. You're straight up asking the wrong person if you want the nice normal answer here. Doctors and nurses forcibly doing (relatively routine) things to my body against my protests when I was a small kid fucked me up so bad that as an adult anything medical related is a huge trigger for me, I've had persistent intrusive thoughts and recurring nightmares about medical procedures, and I can't have even the most basic tests and health checks done on top of it.

I hate talking about it because I can't get comfortable calling it "trauma" and I don't have any other words that are useful, but it's made my life so much harder and really scary since if I start having a weird symptom, there's nothing I can move myself to do about it.

I figured out a loophole where going to a pharmacy instead of a doctor's office for vaccines reduces some of the stress, but I was still in stress and misery for days before I went to get my tetanus shot. The repulsion is so intense it feels like I literally don't have control over myself, it feels like I can't make appointments or plans about such things out of my own free will, and so every year I have guilt guilt guilt guilt guilt about how I should get the flu shot, and it does nothing but ineffectually hurt me.

Vaccines save lives and all that, but when it comes right down to it, I don't think it's actually a net benefit to public health to give any percentage of kids lifelong psychological scars so deep and painful they're almost completely barred from accessing health care as adults.

I know I'm not the only one, far from it.

I can't watch more of my trans siblings die. please. you have to live. you fucking have to. don't let them win.

whats "Furfur" short for

He just didn't grow as tall as the other demons.