once-i-was-hopeful

[once-i-was-hopeful]

passover as the emperor's new groove memes, made by yours truly

[once-i-was-hopeful]

Tairn is just spending this entire book trying not to be insulted.

#iron flame #fourth wing #rebecca yarros #tairneanach #tairn #empyrean

[once-i-was-hopeful]

oh so when Lucie Herondale, a 16 year old shadowhunter with unusual powers, raises her boyfriend from the dead it has no major consequences and when she goes to Edom with her bestie and future parabatai the worst thing that happens is that they have to share a secret but when I, Clary Fairchild-

[once-i-was-hopeful]

Violet letting go of Xaden's hand in front of the council and Xaden just letting out a big sigh and grabbing it back. Perfection.

#fourth wing #iron flame #rebecca yarros #empyrean #xaden riorson #violet sorrengail #violet and xaden #xadenviolet #the big sigh like she's his biggest problem #i love it so much

[once-i-was-hopeful]

I'm in the middle of Vampire Academy book 6 now and I just finished Iron Flame and I'M UPSET

The way Rebecca Yarros is pulling a Richelle Mead on Xaden and no one will talk about it because they refuse to read the books because the movie and show were shit... I'VE BEEN SAYING ALL THIS TIME THAT NO XADEN IS NOT SAM CORTLAND OR TAMLIN. HE IS FUCKING DIMITRI BELIKOV and if you don't know what that means, go read Vampire Academy books 1-6 especially books 3-5 because this is exactly were Xaden is going.

[once-i-was-hopeful]

That's why it drives me crazy every time we hear about how much Kit looks like Jace.

thinking about how Jace is Cordelia's descendant always throws my head into a loop like. what do you mean he's related to Mina through both Tessa and Jem 😭 his great great great grandma and first cousin four times removed married each other and had a kid and also adopted his 7th cousin...

#genetics don't care about your last name

[once-i-was-hopeful]

It's been 94 days

Agam Berger (19)

Liri Elbag (18)

Daniela Gilboa (19)

Karina Ariev (19)

These girls are held captive for 3 months by the monsters of Hamas.  Look at them.

[once-i-was-hopeful]

New Rule: From the River to the Sea | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

[once-i-was-hopeful]

If you don't visit @stateofisrael you will never truly see its beauty --also how much do i love @blackandjewishunity 🥹🇮🇱

melissaschapman

[once-i-was-hopeful]

[once-i-was-hopeful]

America stands with Israel.

[once-i-was-hopeful]

It's grossly disingenuous to claim "no cease-fire" is a call to genocide, while Hamas still holds hostages and has promised endless massacres until either they or Israel are eradicated, and at the same time that "from the river to the sea" isn't, when the expulsion of Jews ("go back to Poland") is an explicit demand of so many who employ that phrase.

While on the subject of genocide: several thousand total deaths, military and civilian (Hamas does not distinguish and its numbers are not credible), over the course of a month-long campaign of urban warfare, does not constitute genocide. Genocide is the systematic attempt to exterminate an entire people, not the casualties to be expected in a war Hamas started. By conflating war with genocide, misuse of the word "genocide" only serves to minimize the genocides and ethnic cleansings suffered by Jewish communities around the world from the Holocaust through to the present day (see also: Yemen and Tunisia). Unless that is your goal, do not cheapen that word.

War is horrific. War is hell, as famously said by one of America's foremost practitioners of the art. War is a tragedy. We should all strive to avoid it. But this one is unavoidable and necessary. If you want to do good, contribute to reconstruction after Hamas is gone. But for God's sake, stop misusing "genocide".

[once-i-was-hopeful]

This was a reply to someone else, but I'm making this its own post because so many people are being so evil right now re: Noah Schnapp.

You can find other, longer explanations with history and all, but all the places I've seen more or less agree with this:

So you're all calling people to cancel Noah because he's in favor of a Jewish nation in what is today Israel. Which is a perfectly reasonable, decent and educated opinion to have, especially when you, to use a trendy term, "educate yourself" and find out why the state of Israel was created.

11000 dead Palestinians, half of them children

According to Hamas. Don't forget that, ever. They're the current, official government of Gaza, thus they're the ones who give numbers. This means that the real number could be 10, 1 million, anything in between. What I've read is that they probably give more of less accurate total numbers. What they fail to do, however, is distinguish between Hamas militants and civilians, and beteween civilians killed by IDF strikes, civilians killed by failed Hamas or Palestininan Islamic Jihad's rockets (which happens a lot), and Palestinians murdered by Hamas/PIJ (which also happens, a whole damn lot). They also don't specify how many civilians they have prevented or tried to prevent from evacuating or receiving aid.

11k dead people is a horrible number. Even 1 dead person is a horrible number. However, urban warfare in such a densely populated area is its own kind of hell, especially when the other side is fond of using civilians as human shields in every way possible. The fact that the number is 11k and not 50k, 100k, and so on, indicates that the IDF have indeed done a lot to minimize deaths. You don't genocide people by doing roof knocks, opening evacuation lines, dropping guided bombs, putting up an Iron Dome to deal with rockets while avoiding escalation, etc. simply because actual genocide, while a lot worse, is also cheaper, easier and faster than what they're doing. This is important because caling every act of war genocide dilutes the word, and there are actual genocides happening around the world. Also, there is a difference between striking military targets and causing civilian deaths as a side effect (what the IDF is doing) and planning and carrying out a massacre deliberately targeting civilians and inflicting as much pain and humilliation as possible on them. And there is a difference between doing so by breaking a ceasefire (which is what Hamas did), and defending your country because if you don't do that a terrorist group will anhilate you (which is what the IDF is doing).

Back to Noah. So far, these are the things that people have tried to cancel him for:

Traveling to Israel (a completely normal thing)

Having Israeli friends (another completely normal thing)

Condemning Hamas' horrible attack on October 7th (the decent thing to do)

Posting a statement saying he feels unsafe as a Jewish person in the US (which, given the rise of antisemitic acts in the world, including the US, including where he lives and where he studies, is a valid feeling to have)

Signing a letter, along with Shawn Levy, Brett Gelman, Ross Duffer and I think Cara Buono, asking Biden to press for the liberation of every hostage by Hamas. This especially shows the utter ignorance of the cancellers because, as it turns out, caring about every hostage implies a slowdown of IDF's actions (and, at the time, a delay of a ground invasion).

Supporting the existence and preservation of the state of Israel (once again, a completely normal thing). The fact that people are turning against him for these things says to me that the real reason you are all hating Noah is beacuse:

He's Jewish. Like, really really Jewish.

And the fact that this all comes from a place of antisemitism isn't hidden at all: I've seen y'all on here, on Twitter, Reddit, every other social media calling him slurs (such as "cunt"), censoring his name, pretending he's not part of the cast, asking the Duffers/Netflix to fire him, wishing him failure, doxxing him, calling on his classmates to physically assault him, etc. He doesn't need to educate himself: you guys are already teaching him a great lesson on why a Jewish state is necessary. If that's the treament he gets from his own "fans", what can he expect from the world at large?

[once-i-was-hopeful]

this is just your daily reminder that if what you THINK you're saying is "i want a ceasefire in gaza," what you're ACTUALLY saying is "I don't think the over 240 civilian hostages who were violently abducted from their homes in Israel over a month ago, including at least 32 children, deserve to be safe or have their human rights respected, and also I think Israel should stop defending its civilians so that Hamas can complete the genocide they set out to commit on October 7."

[once-i-was-hopeful]

An interesting difference between the pro-Hamas vs pro-Israel movements is how people treat and discuss civilians on the other side.

I have been repeatedly told that, because I want Israel to keep existing and for Hamas (a genocidal terrorist organization) to not win, I must hate Gazan civilians.

In reality, I believe that any innocent civilian blood spilled is tragic. I do not argue that it is good that Gazan civilians are dying, only that the blood is on the hands of Hamas, who used them as human shields. That is why I want Hamas dismantled: they do not just pose a threat to Israel, but to their own civilians too. Additionally, other than a few very fringe groups and individuals, this has been a shared sentiment throughout most of the pro-Israel movement.

So many of the pro-Israel activists I follow publicly condemned the tragic murder of the Palestinian boy in the US. We do not want hate. We do not want death. We simply recognize that peace and Hamas are incompatible.

Meanwhile, people who oppose Israel and support Hamas have repeatedly celebrated Israeli civilian deaths. I've seen people saying that they hoped Hamas would hit more Israeli residential buildings. They tear down posters of the hostages, including posters of Kfir, a baby who isn't even a year old. Regularly, I've seen violence incited at their rallies (by them) against us. I've seen it on my own campus, I've seen it on the news. An elderly Jewish man was killed at one of their rallies, and I have yet to see them say anything to condemn it.

None of them have condemned the broken windows and stolen books at a kosher restaurant. None of them have condemned the stabbing of a Jewish woman and a swastika being drawn on her door. None of them have condemned the Molotov cocktails being thrown at synagogues.

In regards to the actual war, all of them were so frantic to accuse Israel of the hospital hit (which was then proven to be a misfire) but said nothing when, earlier, Hamas had hit an Israeli hospital.

One side, the pro-Israel side, values life on both sides. We don't want civilian deaths. We only want the organization actively seeking our deaths to be dissolved.

The other side, however, makes no such distinction. To them, all Israeli and Jewish blood spilled is the same. To them, it is all cheap.

And I just think that's noteworthy and interesting.

(I recognize that some people are not like this, I am simply writing my observations about the majority of what I have witnessed.)

[once-i-was-hopeful]

For the sweet summer children of the world:

1) Israel isn't committing genocide. You know how I know that? Because the west bank and all neighboring countries with palestinian populations aren't getting carpet bombed. The only place getting bombed is the place with an active terrorist organization

2) "From the River to the Sea" actually IS a call to genocide and/or mass deportation of Jews and Arabs living in Israel

3) Israel isn't a colonial state. Stop projecting your guilt over your colonial history onto Israelis. Thank you.

4) Gaza shares a border with Israel and Egypt. Seems to me that if you're blockaded by not one but both of your neighbors, that means that you're the bad neighbor

5) Speaking of neighbors, if you really want to help the civilians trapped in Gaza - it would be more prudent to put pressure on Egypt to finally open the border and evacuate all civilians from an active war zone. Make Egypt actually help instead of sending tanks to the border to shoot refugees trying to escape and saying that they would rather have Gaza razed to the ground rather than accept fleeing innocents.

6) Actually, put pressure on the entire Arab world to accept refugees, Turkey included. When Ukrainians needed help, Europe opened its doors no problem, so why are the civilians in Gaza still packed like sardines in a tiny strip of land where any bomb is bound to have casualties. Evacuate them so IDF can do its job unhampered

Yes. (Dude, you're right, idk what to add.)

[once-i-was-hopeful]

Free free Palestine? Free free Palestine?

Listen to what she has to say!