the men and boys are innocent too.

we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.

I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.

I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.

I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.

I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.

the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.

heads up: this games charity bundle was finally approved on itch.io! it opens this friday, april 12th, and will run for a week. all proceeds will go to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund.

you can check out the bundle on itch.io and follow @vgforpalestine on twitter for more updates!

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EDIT: as of april 20th, 2024 this bundle is now live!!

I feel like modern au zuko can drive, is very good at it, has his license, and will get you where you need to go but like. with very dangerous efficiency. he drives like Evel Knievel. he drives like a bat out of hell. he whips the wheel hard as fuck and you will see Jesus even if the drive is from your house to the corner store. his car is used and like 10 years old but she is strong and loyal just like her master and wont break down for anything. she'll tear over anything in her path. zuko has given iroh so many mini heart attacks while driving him around (<- because iroh does NOT have his license). worst of all is that zuko does NOT talk or road rage ever when he drives he's DEAD SILENT and simply blasts the radio. and its always either terrifying Chinese opera or crazy shit like Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

the genocide is fucking crazy bc at the end of the day it's so extremely xenophobic. like it is genuinely unthinkable for this to happen to a western or white-passing country. it would be shut down so quick

Lineart by @ovytia-art which was such a blast to color - I love the entire vibe of all of them hanging out together so much @green-with-envy-phandom-event

Even CNN is reporting the truth more now. But if you are held without being charged, you aren’t a prisoner, you’ve been kidnapped and are a HOSTAGE. And human rights organizations have said that the other 50%, who were charged, were mainly charged with throwing rocks, and that even most of that was made up.

For all the pro israel who came to my posts of Palestinian children celebrating their freedom, calling them terrorists and criminals. Israel is an occupation state, they don't need a reason to arrest you as long as you're Palestinian.

My take on a Sonadow fankid! She actually existed for a while now, but the trend gave me motivation to finally draw her!

Most sonadow fankids are purplish and tube-grown, so I decided to make her neither!

Background for the story under cut, in case it gets long!

So in this AU, stories from the more recent games happen when Sonic and Shadow are at most around 20 years old. Back then Sonic was rambunctious and reckless as we know him to be, and Shadow was a depressed, traumatized emo kid. While at first they were rivals as depicted in the games.

Over the years tho, just like their friends, the two matured. They started getting along a lot more, and became official friends, which eventually lead to dating. They both were afraid of getting serious though, so they took things slow and casual. Due to some of their unresolved issues, they couldn't get any closer. But not for much longer.

Some of it has been brought on by a Particular Event, and some of it due to restructuring how they go about saving the world, but things changed. As Forces has shown, putting so much responsibility on One Guy isn't wise. Sonic felt so quilty for failing, but it never should've been his job alone, so they created an organization, to share the load more evenly!

The org became global, with local groups of heroes being recruited all around, meaning that now the characters we know and love now had more time to take care of their personal lives.

While for some the change hasn't been much, Sonic, and to a lesser extent, Shadow, struggled quite a lot. Many of things happened in between, but eventually both of them grew to quite enjoy the domestic life.

They moved in together, and started taking things to the next level, now that both have done some healing and therapy. They found that they get along quite great. After a bit longer, they decided to start a family :)

Shadow came up with the name. He wanted to honor his sister's memory, but Mar-Mar was also a symbol of all his progress. He did go to therapy to make sure that he can handle them sharing a name, to see if it's a good idea, and well, it was!

She's now 4 and very loved, and her dads love each other very much as well. For a certain Sonic though, things won't go so great.

my piece for @thecodywanzine! thanks to the mods who let me go completely ham and cheese on this bad boy. this one's about living longer than you ever expected and not knowing what to do with it

I usually struggle a lot to draw dogs, but this was so funny!

.

I just found out that Israel has killed more of their own hostages than they have members of Hamas God help me I am going fucking insane

Zionists want you to conflate Judaism and Zionism. Zionists want you to believe that Judaism cannot exist without Zionism and that all Jews are Zionists. Zionism would have Jews believe that a Jewish state is the only way that they can be safe from antisemitism and will point to any instance of antisemitism as proof that Zionism is the solution- so Zionism wants gentiles to be antisemitic in their support of Palestine. They want you to conflate all Jews with Zionism and the state of Israel, and they want you to treat all Jews regardless of political affiliation as the face of Israel. Antizionist Jews exist, and incidences of antisemitism ostensibly acting against Zionism will not help dismantle the forces propping Zionism up.

Don't do their work for them.

The snail in my ear whispered something to me and I listened

Just started watching fma:b and I'm having the best and worst time simultaneously

does anyone else think about Spike and Giles looking at each other and seeing a personification of the most despised and vulnerable aspects of their own past or is it just me