Superpowers

The Electronic Intifada

There is no such thing as childhood in Gaza

Israeli attacks expose Palestinian children to daily horrors.

Children in Gaza can tell an F-16 from an F-35 from a drone. They know a whole litany of things that are beyond their years. Things that they shouldn’t have to know. Over 10,000 children have been killed in Gaza. The children who have survived have seen their families, friends and neighbors killed by the Israeli army. They have seen near-death by starvation and death by suffocation, under the rubble and by explosion. Children in Gaza do not have the luxury of death being a mystery. It is a daily presence. If a child in Gaza is hungry, they know not to throw a tantrum. They have become used to feeling hunger. The same is true of the cold. Every child in Gaza now knows what it is to be unhoused, to sleep in a tent or on the streets in winter.

I Love This Fucking Ambulance So Much I’m Gonna Die: a photoset

Do people forget what TERF stands for?  Do people forget what the R and F mean?

You don’t need to say “Radfems and terfs’.  That’s like saying "I hate flowers and roses”

I often think about how John Walker, still trapped in that dark abyss of emotional despair and pain and loss, still dissociating, with no one who can understand how he feels willing to actually help him process those emotions, with no way to access medical help and therapy, and left adrift to drown on his own with all the cards stacked against him, STILL managed to pull himself out of the darkness and do the right thing because he genuinely wanted to do good things all along

He could have kept falling deeper into the darkness. He could have let that anger and desire for revenge consume him. It would have been all too easy. The whole world was against him and he could have said fuck them all. But he didn’t. Because for all the “bad” the serum may have amplified in him, it also amplified everything about him that was good too. It amplified the man who wanted to do the right things and help save lives. Because that’s why he became Captain America in the first place. His genuine good intentions was never an act. It wasn’t for the cameras or fame or attention or to trick Sam and Bucky. He wanted to help. He always did, even when no one believed in him or wanted to give him a fair chance.

There are a lot of little lines in TFA that sort of tip you off that something isnt quite right with the "heroic autobots" and it just gets more pronounced once you've noticed it. Like everything about Optimus's speech in the first episode. "We're all cogs in the great big autobot machine." Emphasizing the needs of the collective over everything else (and notice that this is apparently something he says a lot. Something he's internalized). "Don't try to be a hero, it's not in your programming." Idk bro sounds like functionism to me. But probably the most unsettling line is Ratchet's implication that they can just.. delete emotions. Just run a program and bam! That feeling of dissatisfaction with your lot in life? Gone. Thats a big old red flag if Ive ever seen one.

I was just reminded of the fact the writers actually made Bucky and Sam BREAK John Walker´s arm over that stupid shield (Stupid as in the comical importance it is given in the show when it could have simply belonged to Sam from the beginning without the bullshit drama, there, I said it) minutes after Lemar died and John is clearly in a vulnerable state of mind. 

Ehem… wtf? I love Sam and Bucky but I hate this moment so much I am just going to imagine it is as canon as Steve going back in time and abandoning his friends and Sharon to be with a married woman (Meaning, I am in denial, these are not my Sam and Bucky).

Of course most fans don´t care (More like, they actively celebrate it) because John just killed a man (Which doesn´t stop those same fans from feeling bad about characters with as much blood on their hands, but that is another issue), but these are supposed to be the heroes of the story, the moral compasses to contrast John´s impulsiveness, which I admit is a huge character flaw, to show how much “better” they are than him. And yet they can´t even wait until John is in a more balanced mental state to go for the shield?

Don´t kid yourselves, this may be a cool “yaasss finally!” moment for most of the biased audience, but in my eyes, it just portrays Sam and Bucky as not caring about either Lemar nor the flag smasher that was just killed in place of Karli. They just jumped at the first opportinity they had to grab the shield when it was probably going to be taken from John later by the government anyway, as if it was all they cared about. 

They acted like petty schoolchildren fighting over a toy and were willing to physically harm someone who had fought with them and even saved their asses one time when it was not their friend who had just died in front of their eyes. They showed no compassion whatsoever, and I hated that decision from the writers on Sam and Bucky´s behalf.

You want to talk about how John didn´t deserve the shield? You want to talk about how Steve decided not to kill Tony in the end of Civil War? Fine, John is too impulsive and emotional for the shield, and I agree that flag smasher should have been arrested, but how about the fact in this scene neither Sam nor Bucky acted as compassionately as Steve did when Wanda blew up a building accidentally, for example? Different circumstances and levels of culpability, I agree (Like, it is hard to find a 100% similar scenareo, Wanda´s situation was a complete accident, but one she caused and killed lots of innocents), but Steve did what was best for both the victims by calling for emergency services, and for the person responsible. He continued caring for Wanda and worrying for her.

And no, it wasn´t done for “safety” reasons, what use could it have been to take the shield away from Walker when he had already taken the serum and was a “weapon” himself? (As far as I can remember, he had already taken it, correct me if I am wrong, but if I am wrong then this is much worse for the writers, as it would then make no sense that it took so much effort for Bucky and Sam to break his arm) It is clear the anger was directed at the flagsmashers, not random civilians, and the fight had already finished, there were no flag smashers around. 

Sam and Bucky broke John walker´s arm to get the shield because they wanted it, as simple as that, they cared more about an inanimate object (As much symbolism as it has, that is all it is) than any of what had just happened,  more than the deaths, more than John having just done something  terrible, more than his pain over losing his friend that very same hour, more than anything else. Of course I blame the writers and am outraged on Bucky but especially Sam´s behalf (Didn´t he counsil traumatized soldiers, what gives?), but following my own logic, in universe, that is what happened, and I just can´t see how is is that they are much more worthy of the shield than John himself.

We mourn. We remember.  We stand with the LGBTQ community against hate and violence.

Megatron: He may have been your father, but he’s not your daddy.

Will bumblebee or hot rod see there parents on the decepticons side 🤔 🙃

Highly unlikely as none of them were remotely interested in the Decepticon agenda!

Bee’s father, egregiously, is something of a Functionist, so if it’s one thing Bee and Megs can agree on, it’s punting him into a flaming dumpster.

Peter Capaldi as the TWELFTH DOCTOR

DOCTOR WHO — The Witch’s Familiar