verified ways to send aid to gaza directly
Help a Palestinian family directly:
gazafunds.com - Donate directly to a Palestinian family in urgent need of evacuation, medical attention, food, rebuilding homes/businesses etc. (Spotlights 1 verified gfm at a time so if you don't know who/where to donate to just go here and donate to the one they show you!)
Help provide tents (urgent):
The Sameer Project: Currently providing tents for displaced families in Gaza (emergency bc tents in Rafah are being burned as we speak) (paypal) (gfm)
Food, cash & essentials:
Care for Gaza: Working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash, medicine & other essentials to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)
Direct Aid for Gaza: also working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash & other daily essential suppliess to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)
Water:
Gaza Municipality's water project: The official Municipality of Gaza needs help rebuilding the water infrastructure in Gaza City to restore access to clean water and waste management services for the people of Gaza. (This campaign only has a couple of weeks left but it's still only at 15%!)
eSIMs (urgent):
guide to buy & send esims for gaza
crips for esims for gaza: If you don't know how to buy esims or don't have the capacity to manage them (e.g. topping up regularly), this team of volunteers are collecting funds to buy & manage gaza esims regularly
Medical Aid
Palestine Red Crescent Society: Provides emergency medical and ambulance services and humanitarian relief on the ground in Gaza e.g. rescuing and treating the wounded.
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verified ways to send aid to gaza directly
Help a Palestinian family directly:
gazafunds.com - Donate directly to a Palestinian family in urgent need of evacuation, medical attention, food, rebuilding homes/businesses etc. (Spotlights 1 verified gfm at a time so if you don't know who/where to donate to just go here and donate to the one they show you!)
Help provide tents (urgent):
The Sameer Project: Currently providing tents for displaced families in Gaza (emergency bc tents in Rafah are being burned as we speak) (paypal) (gfm)
Food, cash & essentials:
Care for Gaza: Working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash, medicine & other essentials to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)
Direct Aid for Gaza: also working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash & other daily essential suppliess to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)
Water:
Gaza Municipality's water project: The official Municipality of Gaza needs help rebuilding the water infrastructure in Gaza City to restore access to clean water and waste management services for the people of Gaza. (This campaign only has a couple of weeks left but it's still only at 15%!)
eSIMs (urgent):
guide to buy & send esims for gaza
crips for esims for gaza: If you don't know how to buy esims or don't have the capacity to manage them (e.g. topping up regularly), this team of volunteers are collecting funds to buy & manage gaza esims regularly
Medical Aid
Palestine Red Crescent Society: Provides emergency medical and ambulance services and humanitarian relief on the ground in Gaza e.g. rescuing and treating the wounded.
46K notes
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@mandlien: Op where is the essay 👀
@latitudeoctopus: An essay I would like to see 🙏
Glad u asked! <-guy who was totally angling for someone to ask
OG post this continues from, for those just tuning in now:
actually SQQ's first encounter with LQG perfectly illustrates which of SY's idiosyncrasies perfectly converged to make him absolutely obsessed with Binghe, in this essay i will
So, to start with, the explanation for why I think this scene in particular is more illuminating than all of SQQ's interactions with actual LBH.
That's because there's not a single scene in the novel where his interactions with LBH-the-person are not colored by pre-existing bias of already being obsessed with LBH-the-character. Like, consider the scene where he appraises Shen Qingqiu's looks, and finishes it off with:
He still couldn’t compare to Luo Binghe.
(vol.1, ch.1)
despite not having seen Luo Binghe in person yet. But no, he's already convinced his beloved blorbo is of course The Handsomest Ever!
Simply speaking, we never encounter Shen Yuan pre-Binghe Syndrome (when instead of brain there's binghe). So it's difficult to tell whether any particular way he thinks or feels in Binghe’s presence is the standard for him, or owed to the fact that he already likes Binghe in at least one way.
But the same can not be said of Liu Qingge: while SY did have some interest in his character, he didn’t really think of him before encountering him in Lingxi Caves. Plus, unlike Binghe who seems to have fully aligned with SQQ’s expectations of him, LQG had given him a little shock — which prompted some re-evaluation of his prev thoughts on SQQ's part.
(cont. under cut)
Now is a good time to mention that I arrived at thinking about this scene while considering Shen Yuan's relationship with toxic masculinity — and remembering I jotted down 'Shen Yuan's fascination with masculinity' in my reread notes for this scene.
[Bai Zhan Peak] was the most warlike of Cang Qiong Mountain's branches, as well as the branch with the greatest martial ability. Every single generation's Bai Zhan Peak Lord was a world-class swordmaster, a victor of countless battles, an undefeated legend. How hot-blooded—how dashing!
Male readers always fervently admired strong characters. Even though Liu Qingge never officially debuted on page, he hadn't lacked for fans, and Shen Yuan had been especially fascinated with him. In his headcanon, Liu Qingge had been a sharp and manly man, powerful and magnificent. A war god, right?!
(vol.1, ch.2)
So, Shen Yuan’s fascination with Liu Qingge’s character — or rather his headcanon version of it — is about Liu Qingge being someone who (in SY’s mind) embodies masculine qualities. And what qualities are those? From this section, being “strong” (has to be physically powerful) and “undefeated” (can’t be a loser) — yeah, pretty standard toxic masc starting kit.
And something of interest here: though SQQ describes it mostly as his own feelings, even in this excerpt, he slips in a “male readers always [...] admired” — which, when considering everything else we know about his relationship to masculinity, kind of gives off an insecurity vibe. He seems to be either trying to justify his own feelings (i.e., ‘other men feel the same way, i’m in-group not out-group, i’m not failing at being a man by feeling this way [admiring another man]’), or else emulating other male fans and trying to convince himself he relates to the story the same way they do (i.e., ‘male readers admire strong characters and im a man therefore i definitely also admire the same things’).
Speaking of emulating other male fans, there’s another quality that SY seems to associate with masculinity, this one not very related to Liu Qingge — though SQQ does make a mental detour into it in the same scene, when talking about other Peaks.
Yeah, when he mentions Xian Shu, and the fact that the popularity of self-insert erotic/lewd fics about Xian Shu "compared to that of the original work” in PIDW fandom, or possibly even in general on ‘Zhongdian’ (since afaik you can publish fanfiction on Chinese webnovel sites alongside original works, you just have to tag it as such). In other words, among male fans.
But we know SY doesn’t like sex scenes, right? Hell, his favorite wife is Liu Mingyan at least in part because she doesn’t have sex scenes:
There was one more appeal factor. Liu Mingyan was the only female character for whom Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky didn't write detailed sex scenes.
(vol.1, ch.2)
Of course… that’s what SQQ says in his head where nobody can hear him. We actually have evidence of him singing a different tune when among other fans:
Most of the female protagonists are stupid sexy lamps, and the male lead doesn't even bed Liu Mingyan, the only breath of fresh air? He doesn't bed the rightful empress? Are you fucking kidding me?
(vol.4, ch.26, part 1)
(speaking of, this is why ‘peerless cucumber is SY’s true self’ takes baffle me. his toxicmascsona is his true self, really?)
So SY has another qualifier for ‘manly man’ in his head: being sexual (of course, in a straight way). Which is not something that comes naturally to him, as evidenced by him cringing away from any actual action even when he tries to emulate the thought pattern, e.g.:
Qi Qingqi? She was indeed slightly junior to him, and their first meeting...he'd long forgotten how it went. "Often together" wasn't quite right, though. Perhaps he at times dared to think about going to Xian Shu Peak so they could be "often together," but while he had the wicked intentions, he lacked the courage required to follow through—and he could never commit an act as depraved as stalking.
(vol.4, ch.23)
Riiiight, SQQ, you totally have those 'wicked intentions' that you merely can't follow through on because you just invented reasons not to.
But that does give us an image of SY’s ideal of masculinity. Extremely powerful, undefeatable, and hypersexual… yeah no points for guessing who. I’m pretty sure SQQ even directly equates Bing-ge with masculinity somewhere, I just can’t remember the exact spot. And he also believes that any man should definitely want to be in Bing-ge’s place, like for example here:
Every man dreamed of being caught between an angel and a devil. To watch them jealously vie with each other over him one moment, then risk life and limb for his sake in the next—that was the highest, most sacred, perverted fantasy of every male organism.
(vol.1, ch.2)
…though I must note, once again, “every man”, “every male organism” — but does SQQ actually feel the same way? I think that the answer is he thinks that he should, and is trying to convince himself that he does.
Which must be difficult considering he finds men more attractive than women, returning back to that scene with Liu Qingge.
In any other state, Shen Qingqiu might have declared, "What a beautiful man!"
(vol.1, ch.2)
Really bestie? You would've declared it? Because I don't see you show the same enthusiasm about women. In fact, you usually jump right into how they were described in the novel, as if you don't have your own opinion.
Now, I must note that I personally don’t think finding someone attractive equals actually being attracted to them. But this does imply which way SQQ's tastes veer. In fact, we can even see that he has a type. First, he describes LQG's face as "as beautiful as a fine woman's"; then adds:
This was clearly the face of a charming young master who arranged flowers and plucked farewell willow branches!
(vol.1, ch.2)
Of course, if we are talking about charming young masters with feminine looks, their bearing that of a classic Chinese gentleman (warrior-scholar ideal who’d ‘pluck farewell willow branches’)...
That firm yet humble countenance, demonstrating his noble and unyielding spirit. That pencil-straight back and stance, evincing a proud core that would rather break than bend!
(vol.1, ch.1)
[SQQ] saw a glimpse of the future Luo Binghe's unique grace, that of "eyes like cold stars, a soft and radiant smile, with muted words and quiet laughter."
(vol.1, ch.1)
In truth, deep down, Bing-ge's fair and clean pretty-boy type didn't really suit the tastes of "Great Master" Airplane Flying Towards the Sky. He had only assigned this sort of configuration to the protagonist to meet his stallion hardware specifications. The art of growing stallions was grounded in science, and the research was clear: women preferred men who looked cultured, pretty, and even a bit soft and feminine.
(vol.4, ch.26, part 2)
…there’s no question who is superlative in SQQ’s heart. To boot, he doesn’t even realize that he’s biased about LBH’s attractiveness, as we can see from Airplane-bro’s musings above. So that’s Cucumber-bro’s type: cultured, pretty, a bit feminine.
See, a fun little discrepancy here: what SQQ sees as a masculine ideal and therefore can admire plainly — again, powerful, undefeatable, and hypersexual, — and what he finds attractive in a man, under all those layers of denial, are two pretty different things.
Liu Qingge, despite his appearance unveiling a side of both to us, doesn’t actually fully embody either type: on the masculinity side, he is missing the hypersexuality, on the attractiveness side, his looks fit but his bearing doesn’t match.
But you know who hits all of SY’s qualifications on both counts?.. yeah, once again no points for guessing, it stars with "Bing" and ends with "ge".
So: the source of Shen Yuan’s obsession with LBH-the-character is the intersection of those two factors. Like you know that old wlw joke “I can’t tell if I wanna be her or date her”? Thats Shen Yuan with Luo Binghe, but, yknow, unconsciously. He admires LBH as an epitome of masculinity, an image of a Perfect Male to strive for; he also very much finds him attractive in a gay way.
In fact, I would even say that an important component of Binghe brainrot is that he is an acceptable target for admiration. How can SY be accused of being gay over liking a horny stallion novel? So it’s totally normal that he thinks of Binghe a lot, obviously that’s just because he looks up to him! Because Binghe is such a perfect iteration of a male stallion protagonist! Who wouldn’t want to be in his place, thinks Shen Yuan, never ever having imagined being in Binghe’s place even once. Ofc that’s only because Binghe got insane game though! Shen Yuan couldn’t hope to compare. LBH is just so admirable and sexy,, for the wives of course, the wives find him sexy, not Shen Yuan, Shen Yuan is just stating facts— etcetcetc.
Point is, LBH is a man that Shen Yuan can like without shame, because he has a whole bag of above-the-board reasons to prove that he's not liking him the wrong way. A perfect target of convergence for Shen Yuan’s conscious and unconscious thoughts (and desires).
And this is how SY ended up with the years-long hyperfix we see in the beginning of the novel.
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