Oh Boy

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I am Tareq, the eldest son in my family, writing to you today from Deir al-Balah, South Gaza. We are currently living in a shelter provided by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), but the conditions here are extremely difficult. Our lives are constantly at risk, with the threat of airstrikes and destruction surrounding us at all times.

This shelter is no longer enough to ensure our safety. We urgently need to leave Gaza for a safe place, away from the constant threat of bombings and destruction. This is our goal right now—escaping these dire circumstances and finding a place that offers us hope for a new life.

Why do we need your help?

I, Tareq, am responsible for my family in these difficult times, and my brother Mohammed is helping me communicate with you all through social media to share our struggle. We need to raise funds to help us leave Gaza and move to a safe place where we can live without the constant fear of violence and destruction.

Every interaction with this campaign makes a significant difference. Whether by donating or sharing the message, your support is essential in helping us secure this safe escape.

📌 Raising My Fundraiser

We need to raise funds to cover the costs of leaving Gaza and finding safety elsewhere. The money we raise will help secure shelter, food, and medical care in a place that will provide us with the security we desperately need.

What can you do?

Share this post – Help us reach as many people as possible.

Comment – Every word of encouragement means so much to us.

Like – Show your support by liking the post.

Quote or Boost – Share this campaign with your followers to expand the reach.

If you're able to donate, it will have a huge impact on helping us escape the ongoing danger. Even if you can't contribute financially, sharing the link could make the difference between life and death.

Fundraiser Link:

gofund.me/e5e74b84 🍉🕊️

paypal.com/GoFundTareqAyyad

cash.app/$gofundtareqayyad

‼️ My brother's blog @mohammadayyad1

We urgently need your support to help us escape this heartbreaking situation. The life we are living now is filled with fear and destruction, and every step you take toward supporting us gives us a chance for a peaceful, safe life. Don’t just scroll—act now and help us escape this harsh reality.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support and assistance during this difficult time.

Verified https://linktr.ee/savetareq

RAREQ AYYAD

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As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

Leave a “Amuse Me” in my ask, and I will write a funny drabble about one character trying to cheer another up.

Leave a “Break Me” in my ask, and I will write an angsty drabble.

Leave a “Call Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about one character asking for another [be it at the brink of death/in a battlefield/knocking on the front door wounded, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Drink Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about characters drinking, alone or with each other.

Leave a “Enamor Me” in my ask, and I will write a fluffy drabble characters trying to woo one another [be it out of the blue/Valentines Day, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Fight Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble out one character fighting with/or against another.

Leave a “Get Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about one character saving another.

Leave a “Haunt Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character watching over another [as a ghost, watching from a distance, or otherwise, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Invite Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character asking another character to join them.

Leave a “Join Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character giving another character an offer [be it a proposal for an alliance, asking them to join them in an activity (you can get dirty if you want), feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Kill Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character killing another.

Leave a “Love Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a fluffy drabble about two (or more) characters.

Leave a “Mourn Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character mourning another character’s death.

Leave a “Nurse Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character healing another.

Leave a “Offer Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character giving another a gift.

Leave a “Paint Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character drawing a picture of another [like one of your french girls~ be it painting them or drawing them, maybe offering a picture of them as a gift, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Quiet Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character trying to calm another down [be it from crying, from lashing out, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Remember Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character trying to get another to remember them [be it from an accident, meeting them after years apart, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Shag Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a dirty drabble about the specified characters.

Leave a “Tell Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character confessing something to another [be it a love confession, a secret, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Unbind Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character freeing another, or the other way around, or something among the lines [be it freeing them from jail, from handcuffs, from a trap, from a curse, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “Value Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character telling another how they feel about them.

Leave a “Wed Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about a character under the subject of wedlock [be it characters proposing to or marrying another, feel free to specify.]

Leave a “X Me” in my ask, and I will write whatever it is that you wish, [specify.]

Leave an “Yahoo Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about the specified characters celebrating something [feel free to specify.]

So my last post on this blog was 4/29/2020, it's been over a year since I vanished and a lot has changed. I just wanted to pop on and see who's still here and how things have been going while I've been gone.

voicemails from a dying star | ari b. 

[transcript below the cut]

Looks like this essay was needed, so I went ahead and did it. Not sure I said everything I wanted to say, but I tried.

So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly.  They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.

 God, what a Mary Sue.

I just described Batman.

  Wish fulfillment characters have been around since the beginning of time. The good guys tend to win, get the girl and have everything fall into place for them. It’s only when women started doing it that it became a problem.

TV Tropes on the origin of Mary Sue:

The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment.

Notice the strange emphasis on female here. TV Tropes goes on to say that is took a long time for the male counterpart “Marty Stu” to be used. “Most fanfic writers are girls” is given as the reason. So when women dominate a genre, that means people are on close watch, ready to scorn any wish fulfillment they may engage in. This term could only originate if the default was female.

 In fact, one of the CONTROVERSIES listed on the TV Tropes page is if a male sue is even possible. That’s right, it’s impossible to have an idealized male character. Men are already the ideal.

 In our culture, male tends to be the default. Women take on the distaff parts. “Him” and “mankind” are what humanity are, “her” and “womankind” are secondary. Yet this isn’t true for Mary Sue as a term. That name was created first. It was a Star Trek fic that coined it and the female designation was likely a big reason it caught on. Thus, a female name is the default to use when describing idealized characters. Marty Stu and Gary Stu are only to be used if you’re discussing men specifically.  Heck, there isn’t even an agreed upon term for them. So the only time female can be default is when discussing a badly written character, someone who is more powerful or important or liked than they should be allowed to be, someone the plot focuses on more than you would like, someone you don’t want to read about. Hmmm.

 What’s really wrong with a thirteen year old girl having a power fantasy, even if it’s badly written?  Who is it hurting? Men have baldly admitted to writing power fantasies and self inserts since the beginning of time. How many nerdy, schlubby guys suddenly become badasses and have hot girls chasing after them in fiction? See: Spiderman- blatant everyman who happens to  stumble across amazing powers and catch the eye of a supermodel.  Mary Sue is considered the worst insult to throw at a character as it renders them worthless. But since when are idealized characters automatically worthless? Aren’t all heroes idealized in some way? Don’t all heroes represent the author in some way? Aren’t these characters supposed to be people we look up to, people who represent human potential, the goodness that we strive for? Fantasy by nature is idealized, even the tragic ones.

 If you look at the TV Tropes page for Mary Sue, it’s ridiculous. You can be a sue for having too many flaws, or not enough, for fixing things or messing things up, for being a hero or a villain. And of course, this is specifically pointed out as a trope related to the Princess and Magical Girl genres- genres aimed towards women are naturally full of Mary Sues.  Magical girls are powerful and heroic and actually flaunt femininity as a good thing. They are a power fantasy designed for girls. So of course, a girl using traditionally feminine traits to dominate and triumph means she’s a sickeningly pure Mary Sue who makes everything go their way. Feminine traits are disdained and look down on, so when the positive feminine traits are prominent, the reader has an aversive reaction. How can a character be so feminine and triumph? She must be unrealistic, she must be badly written, because everyone knows it is impossible to be feminine and powerful.

 Let’s look at what kinds of Mary Sues people will point to. People will claim a female character is a Mary Sue if she is a love interest. Put a female character within a foot of a male character, and people will scream “Mary Sue!” Why does someone falling in love with her make her a Mary Sue? Well, she hasn’t “earned” this awesome dude character’s love. What has she done to show she’s worthy of him? Fans miss the irony that this line of logic makes the male character seem more like the Sue in Question, as he’s apparently so perfect one has work for his coveted love and praise.

  The idea that woman has to “earn” any power, praise, love, or plot prominence is central to Mary Sue.  Men do not have to do this, they are naturally assumed to be powerful, central and loveable. That’s why it’s the first thing thrown at a female character- what has she done to be given the same consideration as a male character? Why is she suddenly usurping a male role? “Mary Sue” is the easiest way to dismiss a character. It sounds bad to say “I don’t like this female character. I don’t like that this woman is powerful. I don’t like it when the plot focuses on her. I don’t like that a character I like has affections for her.”  But “Mary Sue” is a way to say these things without really saying them. It gives you legitimacy.

 If a character is badly written, there’s generally something much more problematic than idealization going on. The plot will be dull and the character will perpetuate harmful stereotypes while other characters act oddly.  For instance, Bella Swan is one of the only characters I’d even begin to classify as a Mary Sue, yet it’s not really her supposed Mary Sue traits that bother me. I don’t mind that she gets what she wants and everyone loves her, that she’s Meyer’s power fantasy. What I actually mind is that Stephenie Meyer has her perpetuate harmful anti-woman stereotypes- women need to be protected, women are shallow, women’s worth rests in desirability. That’s what’s actually harmful about her and worth discussing. I would criticize that rather than even get to the fact Bella got to be “too perfect and powerful”- that’s just a tiny, insignificant thing not worth mentioning in a huge pile of problems.