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this is the vibe

I’m a queer Palestinian. Stop using my identity as cover for the destruction of Gaza | Jad Salfiti Rightwingers in Israel and the US claim they are defending LGBTQ+ rights while Gaza’s people are killed. Don’t dare do this in our name, says British-Palestinian video producer and journalist Jad Salfiti

I’m a queer Palestinian. Stop using my identity as cover for the destruction of Gaza | Jad Salfiti

I'm sorry THREE? That's the universe kicking you while you are down frankly good lord

@clairewillett honestly the best marketing scheme in history is men successfully getting away with calling women the "more emotional" gender for like, EONS, because they've successfully rebranded anger as Not An Emotion 6:00 PM • Aug 12, 2020

once again I must tap my own sign

"The horror genre has come to feel oversaturated with message films: artistically rendered stories that use scares less to frighten and more to manifest psychological or philosophical themes."

Excuse me while I go scream forever

if you're still offline, stay offline

this rules

"I am old, and I am a legend, and fuck you all I'm going to use my platform to support trans people"

good for him

Locus Mag: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror 2025 Celebrating and uplifting authors, artists, and story -- the guide to the world's imagination | Check out 'Locus Mag: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror 2025' on Indiegogo.

There's 1 day left in the @locusmag.bsky.social funding drive, & if you're able to kick any support their way I'd love if you did; there's really nothing else like Locus out there, I've been a subscriber for years, & their reviews & reporting & interviews are a superb treasure trove of good works.

A friend of mine alerted me to some fun fandom discourse (about a property she pays attention to; I'm not familiar with it.)

Basically, there was a bit of a furor over an anonymous opinion stating, "<Artist> draws <butch4butch couple> well, but it's not REALLY butch4butch representation."

Ah yes, as guaranteed in the First Amendment, Americans may enjoy free speech as long as it’s in sync with what the administration is trying to accomplish

So basically BlueSky is treating "being Palestinian" as a violation of their terms and conditions 😒

Delete a letter, ruin a movie:

The Neverending Tory

The X-Card was created because Dave didn’t like the vibe James Mendez Hodes was there when the deep magic was written.

Most of us who play TTRPGs know what an X-Card is--a safety tool for content moderation in game--but do you know how it all started? Turns out, it was because a guy named Dave didn't like the vibe.

As always, if you want to make one donation that helps multiple people on the ground in Gaza, I recommend the Sameer Project, a mutual aid groups that's doing incredible work despite the horrific conditions:

linktr.ee/thesameerpro...

the deportations are not final. the regime and security forces fuck up constantly. escape and survival are not just possible but probable. this nightmare engine can be fought and is being fought.

don't forget.

Help me save my family and escape from Gaza to Eygpt My name is Alaa, and I am a mother of three precious children: Musa, who is 12 years old, and my twin daughters, Ella and Ellen, who are 8 years old. Before October 7th, our lives were filled with hop...

Special thanks to everyone who reviewed, revised, shared and signed on early to this letter but huge thanks to Alaa Salim who from Gaza reviewed and then translated it into Arabic so that it could be shared among our Palestinian friends. You can help Alaa here: chuffed.org/project/1252...

[CLICK here if you would like your name added to this letter] النسخة العربية من هذه الرسالة متاحة أدناه. Open Letter to the Bluesky Team About Their Treatment of Palestinians in Gaza The signatories of this letter are all members of the Bluesky community, many of us have actively participated on the platform since its inception. We came to Bluesky because it was a breath of fresh air, a place that felt different from many of the other social media platforms. The lack of a central algorithm, the ability to build and use custom feeds, and the lack of penalty for link promotion contributed to an environment that allowed diverse and interesting voices to find their footing and community on Bluesky. While some of the signatories of this letter have had no issues with speaking their mind publicly on Bluesky, unfortunately that is not true for all the signatories because many are Palestinians currently living in Gaza. These Palestinians are journalists, artists, engineers, teachers, grandmas, entrepreneurs, a man who owned an ice cream shop, a pediatrician who has been featured on CBS Morning News, aid workers, architects, waiters, pharmacists, students–and perhaps most essential to the backbone of Bluesky, posters. All of these people provide unique and interesting voices to the Bluesky community. However, unlike the other signatories of this letter, these Bluesky community members have struggled to keep their accounts on the platform. Most of them have lost multiple accounts and/or have had their accounts labeled as spam. Some cannot even make an account without it immediately being removed from the platform. Gazans undertake immense efforts to simply be on Bluesky. Sometimes, they walk for miles just to have access to the internet. They scale rooftops where they are exposed to potential military attacks just for the opportunity to get better cell signals–one signatory of this letter tragically lost her brother this way. They use what little money they have to pay …

Gazans have also been aggressively targeted and unfairly reported by bad actors. Many accounts openly encourage the reporting and targeting of any Palestinian. Several groups exist for the express purpose of looking for Palestinian accounts to report. We believe Bluesky owes Gazans, and the entire community who benefits from their voices, a greater duty of care especially in the context of the horrors they are enduring. We ask Bluesky to implement the following changes: Provide information on all Bluesky-affiliated websites in Arabic that explains the rules and expectations of the site in clear language. Investigate the accounts that are mass-reporting Palestinians on Bluesky. The mass reporting of Palestinians on Bluesky is a group effort to render the platform a hostile place for a community based on their ethnicity. As such, it is racism, and should be understood as such. Reports against Palestinians who have broken no community guidelines must be understood as racism, and the accounts that submit those reports should be disregarded in the future. Many Bluesky users encourage Gazans to tag or reply to them, and this is not always understood as unwelcome behavior. If an account is reported as Spam for tagging or replying to others, treat only reports from the tagged/mentioned account as legitimate, seeing as they were the only ones who received a notification. Send emails regarding disciplinary action every time it is taken. Gazans do not always get an email explaining what they did wrong, and those that do are required to parse a language they do not speak in order to understand their violation. Have these emails contain an easily visible link to information about their violations in Arabic. Respond to appeals in a timely fashion, many Gazans simply never hear back from Bluesky after they appeal a decision. In addition to removing Gazans for alleged spam behavior, Bluesky has also sometimes indicated that they are deleting an account for being a scam or …

End IP bans on any account from Gaza and allow them to make new accounts where they can comply with Bluesky rules and continue to be valued members of the community. We understand that even if all these changes are made, many Gazans may still violate Bluesky rules in the future, but we hope that Bluesky will abandon their punitive approach to these violations and instead embrace an attitude of education, cooperation and community care– one that works to ensure people in Gaza can participate in a way that keeps their voices heard. We also call on the Bluesky community to help and support these accounts however they can. We want to continue to build a healthy community with better community members and this cannot be done if Gazans continue to be shunned. We can use this as an opportunity to show how to protect all vulnerable groups in the future. We hope that Bluesky does not follow the path of other social media platforms and instead forges ahead with a different philosophy. After all, that is the reason so many of its users are there. Bluesky's ethos of "No Caesars” should apply to all members of its community. [To add your name to the list of signatories, click here.]

We were hoping that this letter to @bsky.app could first be shared by a Gazan, but we were too worried that doing so would get their account deleted so we are sharing first.

You can sign on to the letter about the unfair treatment of Gazans on Bluesky here:

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

i asked my lawyer (who has defended legions of extremely radical people) their thoughts on this moment and how people are responding to it:

“i think everyone needs to shut the fuck up for like, one minute.”

I’ve heard of people having morning routines where they don’t look at their phones right away, so they don’t start the day in a negative mood. I’m trying a new morning routine where I bury my phone in the yard and never touch it again.

This is exactly what I mean when I say that it is impossible to reduce friction, only to move it around.

The text-making-up machine dropped the friction of "research" to zero, but every single person downstream of that "research" who has to act upon it now shoulders a double workload.

2)THIS MAN HAD ACCESS TO FREE BOOKS BEFORE THEY CAME OUT, AND NOT ONLY DID HE NOT READ THEM, HE COULDN'T EVEN BE FUCKING BOTHERED TO COPY-PASTE THE FUCKING TITLES! COMEMIERDA!!

Play, Politics, and Protest in Argentina's Tabletop Industry How Bueno's Aires' actual play scene is organizing against an authoritarian regime.

Contributor @federicomuller.role.ar went on the ground in Buenos Aires to report on how the Argentinian actual play scene is organizing against Milei's far-right, anti-queer regime.

"What does a queer tabletop group have to do with Milei and his politics? Everything."

So yeah, if you're one of those "sitting quietly on the side", go fucking support some people that are taking the hit on this on your behalf. Buy their game, their book, fund their crowdfunding campaigns when they get fired - if you're going to shut up at least fund resistance.

We live in a time of resistance. You don't have to pick all fights, nobody can, but for the love of all that can still be saved, pick a fight. Make the effort to be informed. Make the effort to make a stand. If our window of resistance slips by, it'll be behind us for years and years.

Donate to SAID ISMAIL Help support SAID ISMAIL by donating or sharing with your friends.

Saeed is friends with @sakheringaza.bsky.social and spoke with @ahmedhijazi.bsky.social who verified his and his family’s stories.

Saeed is raising only on PayPal, but he has been verified by two Gazans I trust. This is the easiest way for him to get help and means you can donate under $5 too ❤️

I get when visibel white folks message me to apologize for not speaking up about the genocide in Palestine earlier/at all, but that still leaves a reality in which brown folks and minorities took all the flak for years of doing the right thing. Late is better than never, but there's more you can do.

Ahhh congrats!