Gentle notice that “highbrow” and “lowbrow” are eugenics/race science terms and it may be better to just quietly retire them in casual discussions of art
the way some people talk about jews makes it sound like they just discovered the concept of human culture. “they have a word for outsiders 😡” yes most people do
I know this is a long shot but I'm trying my luck: around ten years ago, I read these two fanfictions, and I am looking for them.
They are both Rumbelle focused. In one, Belle has not been locked up for the duration of the curse, but has been doing sex work. I think this was pre-season two, because I remember her name being Rosie. When Emma comes to town, and Gold remembers, he finds her and brings her to keep house for him. She had a baby named Jenny.
In the second, Belle has amnesia and no one gives her magical memories back so she has to make up an identity for herself. She chooses the name Jane, after reading Jane Eyre.
They could’ve chosen not to massacre the Jews of Hebron in 1929.
They could’ve stayed in Jordan and Egypt instead of migrating to the Land of Israel in the 1920s in search of work.
They could’ve accepted the Peel Commission recommendations in 1936.
They could’ve accepted the UN Partition Plan in 1947.
They could’ve chosen not to launch a war in 1948.
They could’ve demanded “liberation” from Jordan and Egypt, who ruled over them until 1967.
They could’ve followed through on the Oslo Accords.
They could’ve made peace at Camp David.
They could’ve accepted Olmert’s offer.
They could’ve built up Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal in 2005.
They could’ve chosen not to fire tens of thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians.
They could’ve chosen not to carry out October 7th.
But they didn’t.
Every single time, they chose war.
Choices come with a price.
It is all on them.
"The Holocaust's non-white victims" you mean like the Jews? The Jews who were, quite infamously, considered by the Nazis to not he white? So infamously in fact that the push to racialize Jews in the US as "white" instead of "Hebrew" was in direct response to the Holocaust. The Jews who were considered to be on the absolute bottom of the racial hierarchy in Nazi ideology along with Romani, Sinti, and Sub-Saharan Africans? Jews who were considered so non-white that Germans who had sex with them were arrested for the crime of "Race Shame"? Those Jews? Am I actually more knowledgeable about the leadup to the Shoah than Judeobolshev1k is?
has anybody else gotten these weird cold-call messages on ff.net asking if you want to pay for someone to make art of your fics? i've gotten a dozen or so in the past two months.
i can't be the only one who's just straight-up ... bored with women hating themselves. my mom keeps lamenting to me how upset she is about her gray hair. my friend stares at her laugh lines every day in agony. my sister loses sleep over the horrible unbearable thought of looking fat. and every time these women i love open up to me, i can't help but think ... then stop staring at yourself? stop drowning yourself, narcissus, and just fucking live your life instead of sitting in front of a mirror obeying cosmetic corporations' lies. just stop it. this is getting ridiculous. you're too smart to be falling for this bullshit. "oh no but these men who hate women told me that if i'm ugly i'm worthless!" girl if you actually believe that then good luck. but i am getting worse at being supportive of people whose nonsense worldviews keep them trapped in pain. stop looking at yourself start fucking living i am pleading you deserve to be happy and it is stupid that you disagree
Someone in the comments said "you really said just stop being insecure" and yes :) make an effort to stop spiralling about your looks, challenge insecure thoughts and stop doing things that lead to you feeling insecure.
I have gripes with booktok for publishing industry reasons but I could give a shit what women are cranking it to. I've seen what dudes jerk off to. May a thousand flowers goon, as far as I'm concerned.
Jewish indigeneity to the Levant is like. The one fact on Earth that is universally supported by all relevant scientific and religious evidence. It’s proven by historical records and archaeology and genetic studies, and it’s detailed in the Torah, the Christian Bible and the Quran.
I tend to agree with people who believe scientific evidence over religious texts, and I can understand why some people agree with religious texts over scientific evidence. But if you outright dismiss both in favor of propaganda you found online then I really don’t know how you help you
Other reasons people will try to dispute Jewish indigeneity in the Levant, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary:
Khazar theory (thoroughly debunked by all serious scholars but persists amongst conspiracists)
Length of time in the diaspora is too long (paired with a refusal to engage with how this logic is colonizer logic)
Replacement supercessionism (i.e., "[X Group] are the REAL Jews")
Straight up religious supercessionism
Pseudo-intellectual arguments that effectively boil down to supercessionism when looked at in daylight
Anti-theist style arguments that reject the Bible so hard that they assume literally the whole thing is untrue, whether that makes any sense or not
A woefully poor understanding of Jewish history, that — if they even considered it at all to begin with — fails to connect Ye Olde Israelites of Yore from the Bible stories they grew up hearing in church with the Jewish people after 30 C.E. (no, they don't know what happened in 70 C.E. and no, they don't care. They don't care about anything that happened to Jews between 70 C.E. and maybe the 1800s, but lbr probably 1937)
A woefully poor understanding of Jewish identity and how it is an ethnoreligious group rather than a universalizing religion that attempts to divorce itself enough from "culture" that it can colonize other cultures
A woefully poor understanding of ethnicity and a deep misunderstanding of how conversion to Judaism works (+ a chauvenistic attitude about who gets to be the real authority on the ever fraught "Who is a Jew?" question)
Trolling, because they know it's infuriating and they are antisemites who actively want to hurt Jews
IDK man — given that we have people who are Flat Earthers, climate change deniers, anti-vaccine truthers, anti-abortion weirdos who think you can reimplant an ectopic fertilized egg in the uterus, Covid deniers, people who have made astrology their whole personality and think it actually reveals anything true and serious, QAnoners, Stalinists, Holocaust deniers, people who deadass think Jews are lizard people (and not in a metaphorical way), and more - oh so much more - I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that actually critical thinking, information processing, and valuing an understanding of reality that seeks the truth and is based in verifiable facts is at an all-time low. Of course there are people who deny Jewish indegeneity; why wouldn't there be?
People like to feel important and be right, and far too many people are willing to cling to proven falsehoods that fit their vibe and make them feel good rather than try to understand reality.
There's gotta be a name for this already, but a good principle to keep in mind is something akin to Rule 34(b), namely: If a widely-proven fact exists, there will always be at least one idiot somewhere convinced that it's fake and trying to convince other people that it's fake.
Opinion | As a former hostage, now I know the hatred driving Hamas an…
Agam Goldstein-Almog lives in Shefayim, Israel.
Growing up in Kibbutz Kfar Aza next to Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip meant a childhood that could be interrupted at any moment by sirens warning of a Hamas rocket attack. Sibling fights or quiet nights were instantly turned into a scramble for the nearest safe room. Hamas took control of Gaza a few months before I was born in 2007, so living in its shadow is all I have ever known.
Having 15 seconds to run to safety might not be a common theme in childhood nostalgia, but I convinced myself that it had made me stronger than kids from the comfortable Tel Aviv bubble.
Then came Oct. 7. Hamas terrorists charged into our home, shooting my father, Nadav, and sister, Yam, in a furious ecstasy of hate. I was dragged out of the house together with my mother and two younger brothers and forced into a car to Gaza. I see my father’s fading eyes when I close mine at night.
Arriving in Gaza, the car was surrounded by a mob, mostly people who appeared to be about my own age, 17, or younger. They smiled and laughed as I wept.
In Judaism, there is a tradition that baseless hatred — hatred divorced from all reason — is what led to the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70. I now know what it means to be hated baselessly — for all that I am and all I am not.
My Hamas guards hated me for being Jewish, so I was coerced into reciting Islamic prayers and made to wear a hijab. I was forbidden from mourning my father and sister, and often ordered to look down at the ground. Six female hostages I met in a tunnel told me about men with guns who came into their shower rooms and touched their bodies.
Hearing about these young women’s fear of sexual abuse was agonizing. When one of my guards told me that he would find me a “husband” in Gaza, and that I would live the rest of my life as a chained slave-wife, my mother interrupted, deflecting his advances. I was fortunate to be released, along with my family members, in a prisoner exchange after 51 days. But those six young women are still in captivity, held for more than 300 days, without their mothers. They all should have come home a long time ago.
Baseless hatred can lead a person to awful places, but when that hatred is shared by a group, it is terrifying to witness. One morning, my family was moved from our safe house to a school hall, filled largely with Gazan women and children. Strangers asked if I wanted anything to sit on, or if I was thirsty — a rare moment of human connection.
But then, in an instant, the low buzz of conversation was drowned out by Hamas launching rockets, just meters away from us, from inside the school compound. The hall erupted in joy, and as the Gazans celebrated, I realized that Hamas had moved us there to serve as human shields.
Shortly before my family and I were released at the end of November, a guard made a point of telling us that, in the next war, Hamas would return to kill us. There would be no hostage-taking, no more dealmaking.
When we were transferred to a Red Cross vehicle for our ride out of Gaza, a mob formed, just as when we arrived. But weeks of Israel’s intense bombing had changed the mood. Instead of laughing and taking photos, the Gazans banged on the windows and screamed at us: Die, die, die. The word is almost the same in Arabic as in Hebrew — but, then again, hatred sounds the same in every language.
In captivity, I had often filled the long, silent hours by fantasizing, trying to keep the dread and terrible memories at bay. One of my fantasies was that we would be freed and the world would embrace us.
But the world I came back to was deeply divided and seething with anger. The hatred that I thought I had left behind in Gaza was waiting for me online.
My social media feeds were flooded with trolls, falsehoods and conspiracy theories, all with seemingly one objective: driving hate. The comment sections of news articles mentioning my name were battlefields, as hatred from one side was met with hatred from the other.
I have watched as the movement in the West for a Gaza cease-fire sometimes devolves into full-throated support for Hamas and the hounding of Jews in public spaces. I’m sure my kidnappers still hate me, but when American students call for “intifada” or chant in praise of Hamas terrorists “Al-Qassam, you make us proud,” I’m reminded that many other people do, too.
Now a dangerous escalation in the war that began on Oct. 7 may loom, involving an Iranian regime that has long promised to wipe Israel off the map. Theirs is the same hatred that killed my father and sister. The same hatred that poisons too many campuses and too much of social media.
On Tuesday, news arrived that Israeli forces in Gaza had recovered the bodies of six hostages. It is unclear how many of the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas remain alive. Negotiations for their release continue. I pray for their freedom, but I have no illusions about the world to which they’ll return.
This was written by Eric Hoffer in 1968. Amazing how some things never change.
"The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese-and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.
Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.
No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break of diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us."
Not only is it well documented that pirating contributes to publishers not buying more manuscripts from an author (Maggie Stiefvater's experiment being the most famous), now we have evidence that Amazon's Kindle Unlimited algorithm is registering pirated copies of books online as the book being "offered" somewhere else, and punishing the authors for it.
And I don't know how much you know about Kindle Unlimited, but the thing is, if your book is in KU, you have to check a little box that says you're not offering the book anywhere else for sale. At all. So when the algorithm is finding the pirated copies, it's pinging it as, Oh! The author lied! The author misrepresented their sales strategy! ACCOUNT DELETION FOR AUTHOR. NO ROYALTIES FOR ONE THOUSAND YEARS.
Miette jokes aside, that's actually what's happening to very popular self-pub authors. Ruby Dixon just had her account deleted, her 15+ volume popular KU series taken down, and Amazon fighting her over the KU Pages royalties she'd already earned on those books. Now, Ruby's got her account back because she's popular enough that people shouted at Kindle executives very, very loudly, but what about other authors? This could ruin someone's career.
Well, why not publish wide, I hear you saying. Why stick to Kindle Unlimited? After all, Amazon sucks.
Here's the thing. Whether we like it or not, Amazon has a massive corner market on books, and for authors who are self-publishing, it is by far the most accessible and cost-effective method, PLUS, it's a great way to be discovered by new readers.
Because readers don't have to pay for individual titles under KU (they pay for a subscription, and then Amazon pays out authors based on how many pages of the book someone read), they can give new authors a try. They can take a chance on a book they're not sure they'll like. And Amazon tends to promote KU titles more aggressively because it's good for their business.
My little $0.99 short story, Swelter, is on Kindle Unlimited, and I can tell you that a good 85% of my royalties from it come from KU pages, not from people buying it. And that's for a story that costs less than a dollar and is not a big investment and has pretty good word-of-mouth in the f/f reading community.
Self-publishing is expensive, and time consuming. I'm getting away with it pretty cheaply right now because I am also a professional editor, and I have friends in the business who are willing to trade in kind rather than be paid. I have a really wonderful friend who is doing my ebook formatting for free because I beta read and do proofing for her. But if I were paying for all the services that I'm trading for, as most authors have to do? I'd be well over $1500 sunk into this little ebook coming out in a week that is going to cost $3.99 and be free to read on Kindle Unlimited. And that's not counting marketing. Because yeah, you have to pay for marketing. Hell, I had to pay $35 upfront to a popular site to be considered for their marketing campaign, and would've paid another $65 if they'd accepted me. (They did not, so I'm out that $35 without even a marketing campaign to show for it.)
And the thing is, I'm currently gainfully employed. I'm salaried. My spouse is also salaried, so I have enough disposable income to spend what I've spent on this ebook (which is still about $600, even with all the things I'm trading for). Most authors? Especially most self-publishing authors? Don't have that.
So Kindle Unlimited, for all its flaws, is a way to get more diverse voices in the business because you don't even have to buy an ISBN. Amazon assigns you an Amazon Sales Index Number (ASIN) and you're good to go, as long as you're not listing it on any other sites. Hell, they even have tools for you to make your own cover art if you don't want to pay someone to make it for you. They do a lot of their own internal promotion on Kindle. Readers can try you out for little-to-no personal investment on their part and maybe discover that they love your writing, and you've gained a whole audience. It's a great return-on-investment for self-published authors.
So that's why a lot of self-pub authors choose Kindle Unlimited. And a lot of authors will do a limited run on KU in order to get some early word-of-mouth and discovery readers, and then publish wide later. (That's my current strategy with Welcome to the Show, if it does well. If it's not doing well, I probably won't sink the money and time into expanding its availability.) But if this happens, if Amazon shuts down their account over "KU membership misrepresentation," then even if the book has been published wide and is available on other platforms by then, Amazon is going to dispute their KU Pages royalties and try to take them back.
So by pirating books, not only are authors losing "potential" sales (I know, there's a whole argument there), they could be losing real, actual sales that they've already sold.
In conclusion:
1. Don't pirate books.
2. If you see someone requesting where they can read a book "for free", speak up.
3. If you see someone providing links where people can read a book "for free" (if it is not provided by the author for free), speak up.
If the massive corporation took the hit, that would be one thing. But unfortunately the massive corporation has ways of making sure that the only hit is taken by small businesses and individuals.
they need to invent a food that i do not have to do any work to prepare and also is cheap and also is nutritious and also tastes good and also that doesn’t hurt my tummy
At least one of the people who raised me is Jewish but I'm not
close family/family friends were/are Jewish
I'm married/long term dating a Jew
close friend(s) are Jewish
a co-worker/friend of friend/neighbor person in my life is Jewish
a close on-line friend I talk to regularly is Jewish
I've at least met a Jewish person
As far as I know I've never met a Jewish person in my life.
Voting ended onFeb 17, 2023
I hope people reblog to give us a wide sample size, also I hope people put in the tags explaining in greater detail, or mention any category I might not have thought of
jacobvanloon
dededos
dailybridgerton
baratheonpilled
