M0th-b0nes - Hi :)

Mel Medarda was NOT the User in their Relationship. Jayce Was [CC]

still not over how much I love this

I want to see characters being taken care of in an explicit and worshipful way. Home-cooked meals. Hair brushed and braided by gentle hands. Little gifts just because.

I want to read about characters who are not used to kindness being bombarded by acts of service. This trope works romantically and platonically. Give me found family and acts of service - all the ways a character is wrapped up in wordless, explicit care after years of cruelty and having no idea how to handle. I need it.

Be my valentine?

“Scientists know that rats like to have their bellies tickled, so they used that as basis for testing happiness in rats. They found out that the ears of rats undergoing tickling became droopier and pinker - subtle signs of being relaxed and happy“

(via)

So this happened in the latest episode of the Daily Wire's "Mr. Birchum"...

Credit to VelvetWonder on Twitter.

🤍 Subtle Signs of a Caretaking Dynamic 🤍

Caretaker stepping in front of whumpee instinctively when there's gunfire/a loud noise/etc.

Whumpee looking towards Caretaker instinctively when faced with danger or a difficult question.

Caretaker carrying whumpee's belongings for them or opening doors for them. Generally making tasks easier for whumpee.

Caretaker knows things about whumpee's recovery or medical situation off the top of their head, without even having to think about it.

Or Caretaker gets defensive when asked about whumpee. "Why do you want to know? What do you want with them?"

Whumpee leaning against Caretaker's shoulder when they're next to each other.

Caretaker lightly brushing a hand against whumpee's hand in a gesture of comfort. Or whumpee initiates that, and Caretaker picks up on a hint and holds their hand.

If the relationship is fated or somehow bound, there may be markers of a unique bond, such as tattoos, bite marks, etc.

Their tone of voice changing completely as soon as they start talking to each other. Maybe they're shy with everyone else but joke with each other. Or maybe they act cheerful with everyone else, but turn serious as soon as they can talk to the one other person who knows what's really going on.

Nonverbally checking if whumpee is okay with meaningful glances across a room or "thumbs-up versus thumbs-down" gestures.

Caretaker immediately noticing when something is wrong for whumpee and getting visibly stressed.

Alright let's imagine a scene that is all too normal in palestine. A palestinian business owner finds his building covered in graffiti stars of Davids and Hebrew that says "gas the arabs" and "death to arabs"

Now imagine there's a reporter there and asks the palestinian business owner what happens and they say "the jews attacked my business"

Pause. Now your response might be "uncle no. Say israelis not jews" and then this is when he would look at you like youre stupid because the israelis doing this are jewish. They are not the Christians or the druze or the palestinian ones with Israeli citizenship. They are Jewish israelis who believe in their religious supremacy. When you graffiti stars of david all over a palestinian business, car, or the street you seek that conflation. it sends a message, this is jewish land and you're next.

The problem is that these videos circulate in zionist circles. "Watch this video of children in gaza calling for the death of jews" "watch how they say they want to fight and kill jews" those children are referring to Israeli soldiers that come in night and do their raids with the star of David attached to their uniform or the ones that bomb them. It's easy to watch those videos and assume that palestinians are indoctrinating their children on anti semitism or you can realize that those children's only interaction with jewish ppl is through violence and parents cannot protect their children from this. Doesn't matter context is lost

Abby Martin went to Jerusalem and interviewed israelis for 2 hours and she says every israeli was extremely confident to say that this land is for them and that they should push the Arabs out and when she interviewed palestinians they spoke of freedom from occupation and their dreams. That's reality. Not the soundbites.

And yet we have invasive youtubers and interviewers constantly in the street of ramallah or wherever in palestine asking palestinians "do you hate jews?" And in those videos you hear those palestinians say "no we have no problem with jews we have a problem with occupation and we have a problem with zionism." Bc this is how we are trained to respond to this trope. Palestinians are very aware what the world thinks of us and the reality is that many palestinians have internalized it and we grow up reading books on the Holocaust and train ourselves to recognize anti semitic dog whistles so zionists don't get the soundbites they want.

So we say "anti zionism is not anti semitism" and we say "israeli zionists" and we do not say "jewish supremacy" even thought it exists in palestine but "zionist supremacy" and in these carefully worded speech we water down what is happening to us in an effort to not deter people away from solidarity. But it means nothing. The world categorically blames palestinians for rising anti semitism they blame us for jewish insecurity globally.

Ghost edit because I said so 🥴 btw this was literally me while I was making this edit!