They/them | 22 | Free Palestine
82 posts
My-wildflowergirl - Ghost - Tumblr Blog
God, Butch lesbians are so attractive like fuck how can one being be so attractive.
Getting into a Master's program which has strict work requirements just shoots you out of every joy the last part of college can give you.
Since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza in October, Israeli soldiers have been posting what can only be described as snuff videos on social media platforms. In the videos, soldiers can be seen – often gleefully – committing war crimes against Palestinians. In one video, an Israeli soldier dressed in a dinosaur costume loads artillery shells into a tank and dances as the shells are fired in the direction of Gaza. In another video, a soldier is filmed dedicating an explosion to his two-year-old daughter for her birthday. Seconds later, a Palestinian residential building behind him is blown up. Other videos show Israeli soldiers setting alight Palestinian food supplies during a starvation campaign and mocking stripped, rounded-up and blindfolded Palestinian civilians. [...] And there is another aspect of Israeli impunity that is often overlooked: Israeli soldiers routinely admit to horrific crimes they commit against the Palestinians to clear their conscience and absolve themselves of personal responsibility but never face any accountability. Israelis themselves describe the practice as “yorim ve bochim”, which translates from Hebrew as “shooting and crying”. A favourite pastime of the Zionist left, it takes centre stage in dozens of Israeli films and documentaries. Take the widely celebrated film Tantura, named after a Palestinian fishing village that was subjected to a massacre in 1948. In this film, several Israeli veterans talk with ease about the fact that they killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Others openly admit to participating in ethnic cleansing, yet all are portrayed as complicated individuals who are traumatised by the trauma they inflicted on Palestinians. “Yorim ve bochim” is also epitomised in the work of the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence. A darling of the liberal West, the organisation of Israeli army veterans tries to expose the reality of the “Occupied Territories” by providing a space to Israeli soldiers to confidentially recount their experiences in the Israeli army and at times admit to taking part in systematic abuse and destruction. The testimonies on its website make for incredibly difficult reading, particularly in this moment when we are seeing what is happening in Gaza. And yet nowhere does this organisation call for accountability or address what justice might look like for the Palestinians whom the soldiers they work with have systematically abused over decades. The reality is that over the last seven and a half decades, there has been complete impunity for brutalising and slaughtering Palestinians. The ongoing genocide in Gaza and the way in which it is being so brazenly shared on social media by the perpetrators is a manifestation of that impunity. The only way to make sure that it stops and never happens again is to hold not only those who have taken part in the genocide accountable but also those who are complicit.
. . . continues on al jazeera (24 Jan, 2024)
zionists hold so much disdain for black people they think we’re so fucking stupid
many people have said it but bears repeating again:
Palestinian liberation calls for a 1 state solution under which all people are equal under both under the law and in practice.
In order to have peace the genocide, apartheid, and occupation must end. Settler colonialism must end. Second class citizenry must end. All Palestinians imprisoned must be released. Reparations must be made to Palestinians who have been affected by both current events and historical, from the Nakba in 1948 to today. Everyone who participated in the facilitation of the apartheid and the violence of the apartheid and occupation required to maintain the oppressive regime must be held accountable. Palestinians must be granted the right to return to their homes.
The idea that Palestinian liberation = carrying out a genocide on Israelis is nothing more than baseless, racist, orientalist fearmongering (and, to an extent, pure projection) that serves to justify the current genocidal regime and the apartheid having been maintained for decades. One people's freedom does not threaten another people. People are fearmongering over a hypothetical scenario (the same fearmongering used in South Africa; both during the reconstruction era following the abolition of slavery & also against abolitionists while slavery was still legal in the United States; in regards to the North American indigenous population; and so on) while an actual genocide is going on.
the only way to real actual peace, safety, and security is through the complete liberation of the Palestinian people, not the continued maintenance of the current regime or the apartheid that led to this current moment in time. apartheid is inherently violent; oppression is inherently violent. colonialism is inherently violent. if YOUR 'safety' is dependent on the oppression, displacement, and murder of OTHER PEOPLE then your conditions are not and will never be safe.
GRAAHHHH PUT FAT PEOPLE IN YOUR FUCKING VIDEO GAMES GODDAMNING !!!!!!
I don't know about anyone else, but I am kinda pissed that Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't allow Tav to be fat.
Why in one of the best games of the year, do we still not have character creation that allows fat bodies to exist, in a fantasy game of all things? Are fat people not supposed to exist in a fantasy world?
Or do people deem fatness so negatively that when given an escape from reality, they couldn't understand why someone would want to be fat there too?
Everytime I see news about Eurovision my eye twitches because every year Palestinians said stop watching this and the response was “how dare you take away my emotional support pinkwashing show”
i do not pity israel. never have, and never will.
each night that gaza experiences is deadlier than the last, as idf soldiers record propaganda tiktoks, make rave parties and grwms and fit checks, gloat over having food and water, and film themselves deriving sadistic pleasure from torturing their hostages and victims and desecrating the dead.
Palestinians have to display their martyred before the camera for you to believe the atrocities that the zionist entity has subjected them to. they cannot even mourn in private. the apartheid entity murders them in cold blood, and you deliver the killing blow by doubting them.
babies whose families have been killed will never get to know their own name.
i can't reshare a tenth of the videos and photos that cross my timeline. i have seen more dead children in the past month than i have known death my entire life.
israeli settlers burn olive trees, bomb bakeries and fishing boats, shower white phosphorus and earthquake bombs on the captive civilians of gaza. you already know about the disastrous effects of white phosphorus, but earthquake bombs were last used during ww2 to wipe out entire cities.
how holy is the land that seeks to be built over the mass graves of thousands of children? is it holier than the miracle of a child being born in this hypocritical world?
all 11 universities in gaza have been bombed. academics should be agitating right now, especially those who call themselves "decolonial thinkers." destruction of universities is a sinisterly deliberate act to sabotage the Palestinians who will survive this great catastrophe.
the act of cleansing your hands before prayer is extremely important to muslims. no part of us can remotely comprehend the grief of the mother who refused to wash her hands from the blood of her children after losing them in a zionist airstrike over gaza. "I swear I won't wash them, I won't wash my hands, how else am I supposed to sleep near my kids."
it is only both moral and right when one side defends itself. the other side are the price of war, no better than insects and cattle and sheep left to die within the four walls of the slaughterhouse.
this situation should not be up for debate, but let me finish with one final thing : do your research about Palestine. HOWEVER. you do not need a degree in middle east studies to object to an ongoing genocide. if someone outwits you in a debate about historical details and every nuance of a subject, you were and will remain entirely correct in objecting to a genocide.
may those martyred rest in peace and be reunited again with their loved ones in heaven's eternal vastness.
DO NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT PALESTINE.
glory to Palestinian resistance. from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
There are two wolves in me. One wants to use the Cannibal as my OC's dragon in my story as a reference for how all consuming my character's anger is in both herself and her family relationships and as an illusion towards her internal views of kinslaying and feelings towards her extended family.
The other wolf is afraid it would be cringe.
Do people not know how to use the Dead Dove tag anymore? Like you can't just plaster Dead Dove on the top of a fic and then not add a single keep reading button on it. Its a little hard to avoid it properly and scroll away when your ten page long fic is blocking the entire tag.
Something I honestly hate is when I am looking for books with a plus-size main character, and when I finally find a story that looks like it works, all the art for the "plus size" character is just a skinny woman. Like come fucking on, now.
It is finally time boys. The Stranger Things fanfic planning has begun.
I am so normal about this fic I promise.
Ch. 11 opening teaser-
"You reckon this is what it's like on Dragonstone?"
Aemond shrugged, his eyes transfixed on the sky. He and Rhae stood at the edge of the deck, listening to the dockhands clamor to prepare a ramp for the ship's passengers to exit on. Waiting for them below was Aegon and Helaena, their hair whipped and wild from their flight.
Driftmark's harbor was at the base of the island, the castle looming large on the rocky hills above. Sunfyre and Dreamfyre were roosting about halfway up, their long scaly necks pointed upwards, watching wearily as more dragons circled overhead.
Rhae recognized the sleek yellow frame of Syrax, soaring lazily amongst the clouds, as she was prone to. She kept a lofty distance, her cries faint and sorrowful, almost lost to the winds. Nearby was Seasmoke, sinking lower and lower towards the ocean in a spiraling silent stupor. They seemed to keep their distance from the sky's only other inhabitant—a crimson beast that streaked the ether in agitated fury.
"Meleys," Aemond whispered.
The Dragonkeepers had told Rhae once that the bond between riders and their mounts was unbreakable, so much so that they could feel each other's emotions. She hadn't believed them then, but now...
The Red Queen roared, her call a bitter agony.
Rhae thought of Ser Harwin, and of Laena Velaryon, and wondered whether the dragons were mourning too.
"I don't see Caraxes," she shivered, watching the clouds, fearfully wondering when he might slither into view. Viserys had once told her how Daemon's dragon came to be known as the Blood Wyrm, for his scarlet scales and deformities.
"More of a winged viper than a dragon," The King had chuckled. "Though, pray, don't tell Daemon I've said so, tis' his pride and joy, Caraxes..."
"No Vhagar either," Aemond grumbled—the boy also seemed to scan the horizon in anticipation. "You don't think they've left her in Essos, do you?"
"I doubt any could coax the Queen of All Dragons overseas if she did not wish it," Rhae reasoned. Aemond's brow furrowed, but before they could discuss any further, Ser Criston's voice cut through the commotion.
"Rhae! Aemond!"
The ramp secured, the passengers filed down to the dock. The King went first, aided by his attendants so that he would not topple into the sea.
"See him to his quarters," the Queen called after them. "His Grace should rest before the funeral."
Okay so first off, I agree with this for the most part. I, however, cannot just agree with something and remain quiet, so I have explained how exactly this connects with my idea of Aemond
When looking at Older! Aemond and how he has grown in response to his trauma from Driftmark (I assume OP is talking about Older Aemond), I heavily agree with the idea that he no longer has a desire to be held or comforted for what happened. All he has is rage because not only was his justice stolen from him but his victimhood as well.
The night when he should have be allowed to be the victim, he and his defender were ostracized by those around them, shoved to the side by his father without so much as an admittance of wrong doing from the other party. Aemond has to abandon his victimhood to protect his mother from his own father, and after that night, he knows he can never allow himself to be vulnerable again.
After having to protect himself and then his mother, Aemond likely learned to avoid vulnerability and anything close to it. The vulnerable can not protect themselves or those they care for. It’s not that he hates being the victim; its that being the victim even in his most traumatic moment nearly cost him everything, and he can’t risk that again.
If this was younger Aemond both pre-Driftmark and a little bit after the incident, I believe he would still desire that vulnerability and validation since he is a ~10 year old who has just been through something terrible. He would accept and likely desire someone to look at him and validate how bad it was and how he didn’t deserve it (something his father would never admit).
The only time I could see Older Aemond being more open/okay with vulnerability is if his partner or friend knew him prior to the loss of his eye. I am not saying this added bonding would make him ready and willing to talk about his emotions, but I think it would result in Aemond being more willing to accept compassion from his partner/friend because he would not need to explain himself or what happened. They know, and he doesn’t need to experience that new level of vulnerability that comes with remembering and recalling a traumatic event to someone who doesn’t know it.
He would still be rage-filled and a bit prickly about being put in vulnerable situations, but he wouldn’t be as likely to lash out or pull away from his partner as he would one that did not witness/did not really know about the incident.
Just need to put this somewhere to not forget but i think aemond would be opposed to the idea of someone protecting him and for two reasons:
1. He knows he can ultimately count on himself and his skills only because even when someone is genuinely willing to protect him, they can’t (in his experience).
2. I think that would be a blow to his self-esteem. To be seen as someone who needs protection.
It would need to be approached from a place of equality for him to accept it. Like i imagine criston cole protected him: v indirectly and in a way that emphasised aemond’s own strengths or was mutual: you protect me, i protect you.
I think all of us would love to crawl into the show to yell at viserys and tell him what a horrible father he is. Maybe make a scene.
Aemond would hate the fuck out of it. He would be triggered and furious and would lash out so badly, trying to gain back control and power —maybe trying to make his partner see him as someone intimidating, not someone in need of protection, i.e. weak. And powerless.
Also.
I think he would find it very uncomfortable and angering to be validated and told how horribly he was treated in a compassionate, normal manner. That would put him in the role of a victim.
“They deserve to be tortured and murdered” is what i think he would want to hear. Rage. Not compassion.
Not
“Oh, Aemond, it is so cruel what happened to you,” she wept. “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand that you suffered so much!”
Vulnerability is a no no forbidden 🚫
Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy
Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.
The Diagnosis
In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.
Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content.
To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.
Our Guiding Principles
To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.
Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.
Provide high-quality content with every app launch.
Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.
Retain and grow our creator base.
Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.
Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.
Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.
Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.
Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up.
We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.
Actions & Next Steps
Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.
Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.
Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.
We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.
The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.
Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant.
Actions & Next Steps
Deliver great content each time the app is opened.
Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are.
Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds.
Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.
Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.
Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.
Actions & Next Steps
Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.
Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs.
Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.
Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread.
Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads.
Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed.
Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.
Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.
Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.
The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.
It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.
Actions & Next Steps
Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it.
Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.
Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.
Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.
Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.
Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.
Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.
Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.
Actions & Next Steps
Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.
Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.
Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages.
Test what the right daily push notification limit is.
Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.
Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.
The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.
Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.
Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users.
Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.
Conclusion
Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.
in light of the exposed emails about the media obsession with transphobia being a manufactured moral panic to increase conservative votes id like to remind you that we've been saying for years that the right will try to divide and conquer the queer community. and you are a traitor if you are a cis LGB person who let the right sucker you into transphobia and voting for politicians who will put laws in against us. they will come for you next.
so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god
even more than ever, i'm endorsing that every person who is still an active harry potter fan and is reading the books, watching the movies, playing the games, and/or buying the merch is a monster who will ultimately be condemned by history. i hope you carry a deep personal shame with you until you grow the fuck up and stop supporting media made by the most prominent figure in a global hate movement.
stop putting your comfort and desire to consume above the safety and well-being of trans people, jewish people, and people of color.
i grew up with this series. it's meant a lot to me over my life. my dad used to read the books to me and my sister as kids, and we continued that tradition until the last book. we went and saw the movies together as a family. we went to a book release party dressed as characters from the books. even after i came out as trans, i had a hard time letting go. i kept harry potter merchandise around with me and had a little hufflepuff keychain. but i gave that up almost a decade ago because of the harm it started to cause to me and my community. i can't engage in these stories anymore; they make me feel sick. and the realization that antisemitism, racism, misogyny, and transphobia have been a part of these stories since the beginning means that it would be wrong to try and engage with them even without financial support and even under death of the author.
harry potter is, at this point, a symbol of hate. one that makes me feel unsafe. i don't care if you, yourself, are a member of the communities affected by jkr's hate or the hate expressed in the series. you should know better if anything.
fuck you. you can't do the bare fucking minimum to support us, jewish people, or people of color and that's sad. i legitimately hope you die so that there will be one less person in the world giving support or indifference to fascists. the world would be better without you in it, as long as you refuse to let go of a series of antisemitic, racist books written by one of the most prominent and active transphobes alive today.
sincerely,
a trans woman that you are statistically likely to ignore or harass
hey 🐌🦪
tumblr app updated today and replaced the account tab at the bottom right of the screen with the merch store
account is now only accessible on the dashboard tab and u cannot save your place scrolling on your own blog while scrolling the dashboard, a change that has made this app nigh unusable for me. i’m posting here because this blog has thousands of followers, please –get publicly furious about this! send emails complaining to staff! write bad app store reviews! this change is literally so evil and signals worse things to come, i really cherish the space and community this site provides and i’d hate to see it become half buggy and unnavigable tiktok/instagram knockoff #52 and half ugly merch store. thank u for reading.
this is the meanest thing i’ve ever said but i legitimately do not care if harry potter was your childhood. that’s no excuse to play this game. all i hear when you say that is “i care more about nostalgia than i do about the lives of my trans and jewish friends”