June 12, 2016. Putting a date on this for when it gets reblogged months from now by people who think the post is about something from 30, 40 years ago.
I am a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting, having grown up in Orlando and just turned 20 a month prior. If you didn’t know, there were several families who refused to claim the bodies of their relatives due to their sexuality. One family even had their relative’s name removed from the memorial. Murdered by the same hate with which their families reject them in both life and death.
Many, many people celebrated Pulse. We were told we deserved it. That it was God’s punishment for our sin of loving the same sex. We are sent messages like these I received in 2018:
We in the community often call the victim count 49+ to include the survivors who couldn’t live with the pain.
The event was never officially declared a hate crime or targeted homophobic attack and is rarely listed as one in databases.
At our vigils for those slaughtered, Extremist Christian groups showed up to protest, holding signs like this:
ID: Me kissing a woman I was casually seeing in front of an angry looking man with a “Sodomy is Sin” sign.
Please understand how much more than just a mass shooting this was. We are still to this day harassed and told we deserved it by some.
This year was the sixth anniversary. The first couple years I received dozens of messages checking in on me on 6/12. Year 5 got enough news coverage for people to think to reach out to me. This year it was my therapist, the woman I kissed in that photo, and a couple of other gun violence survivor friends. People are forgetting already.
[looking at people younger than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at people older than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at myself] its over
fucked that you can’t fix other people especially when you really care about them. Oh so im just supposed to be there for you while you suffer. like a useless cunt gargoyle
Words are no longer enough to capture the tragedy my family and I endure.
My name is Wedad Shadi, I am 15 years old, and I live in Gaza, Palestine.🇵🇸
Our home was completely destroyed, and now we live in a torn, fragile tent. We are a family of 7, and my mother, father, and my little sister Mira were injured when our house was bombed.
My mother and Mira are in urgent need of medical treatment, but we have nothing to pay for their care, not even food to survive.
My mother and my sister were injured during the war. I am terrified of losing them… please, don’t leave me without my mother and sister. They need urgent help to survive.
They desperately need medicine and medical treatment, as shown in the videos. Every moment without help is a struggle for their lives.
Please, I beg you… save them, help us, and give them a chance to live. 🙏💔
I have started school, but I could not register because I cannot afford the fees.
Please, I beg you to help us. Donate to save my mother and my innocent little sister before it’s too late. Every contribution can save a life and bring hope to a family in desperate need.
Every day we wake up to the same reality: destroyed homes, no safety, no stability, and needs that keep growing.
People think the pain paused… but for us, it never did.
Even with a so-called “ceasefire,” nothing has really stopped.
The explosions, the drones, the fear — the violations never ended.
And our suffering definitely didn’t.
Your support is the only reason many of us manage to keep going.
Your donation 🙏🙏 — no matter how small — can mean medicine, food, warmth, and a little bit of dignity in a life that’s been stripped of everything.
Please, stand with us. Don’t let this struggle fade from the world’s attention.
We still desperately need you to get back on our feet.
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Donation link
Hello, my name is Mickey from Michigan USA and I am raising funds for Wedad… Mickey Dee needs your support for Support Wedad's Journey to Sa
ETA: @queen-calanthe has written this into a real fic: The Suit In One-Four-One-Zero
One day post TLG, Harris has the Cens doing a video for social media, it’s a competition for who can keep a straight face while the others try to make them break with a smile or a laugh.
Towards the end, only Ilya remains. No one can break him, so they go get Shane. He’s got a little smile while they explain and he starts thinking of what to say. Of what he can say for a video going on the internet.
He hesitates, because he knows what he wants to tell Ilya, but keep it their secret. No one else needs to know what this was about, but he’s saved this tidbit, waiting to play it at the right time. Ilya’s steeling himself. He loves Shane and usually would smile with him just in the room, trying do be earnest about anything, but he won’t let his husband break him for this. Finally Shane makes direct eye contact with Ilya -
‘The first time, after the commercial,’
Ilya tenses, eyes light up but he’s keeping his face neutral. He isn’t sure what he thought Shane would say but it wasn’t this.
reblogging this to add that I often think about the old man yaoi mangaka on bluesky who said "the phrase that finally convinced me that the English language is truly beautiful was 'this shit is so ass'"
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
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