Usually when I say "breathtaking" I mean it figuratively but I think I didn't breathe for four full minutes there. Wow.

Ecco sandals are my weird over-arched feet's best friends but now I wear sandals in the dead of winter like a weirdo because no other shoes compare

The degree to which supposed progressives keep pitching fits that amount to "you personally are responsible for every systemic problem with society if you Feel a Wrong Feeling" is really remarkable

How does it feel to be an Iranian right now? 🧵

Pain. God, the pain. Schools obliterated, hospitals obliterated. Protestors shot. Mosques, ancient and sacred, bombed. The air poisoned, the streets streaming with blood and oil. It could end and we would still be dying, decades from now, lungs crushed by the oil your leaders love more than life.

Pain, too, for those who are not "mine." Migrant workers buried beneath Iranian missiles. The devastation of Palestine and Lebanon, which they began long ago but which gleefully accelerated as the world watches us. Cuba starved, stripped of power. The planet and her people screaming, and for what?

Anger. At the violence, of course, but also the callousness. Those who say "we stand with Iran" but mean "bomb them." Those who sing to Lego AI videos but never ask why there's money for missiles but never bomb shelters. I have to find out whether my family will be annihilated from fucking Twitter.

Fear. All of us have watched the genocide in Gaza, the decades of abuse and suffocation leading to it. All of us have have seen the mushroom clouds rise over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All of us have seen Libya reduced to the world's greatest slave market, Afghanistan and Iraq gutted and left bleeding.

And while you may only see the "after," may have accepted the spoon-fed narrative that devastation are natural to "The Middle East," we know the "before." We know how quickly glittering, joyful nations are reduced to rubble when the West sets their greedy sights on them.

Pride. Iran has lasted 5000 years. Can you imagine the weight of that, if your empire has not yet lasted 300? I despise the Islamic Regime. But after a lifetime of watching world's greatest bullies stomp the world beneath their steel-toed boots, there is breathless wonder in watching them lose.

Love. I watch my people, so starved by US sanctions that some sell our own organs to survive, open their shops and offer free food. I watch young men gather on bridges, hand in hand. I watch a people who love life, who love land, who love liberty.

I have never felt so grateful to be Iranian.

Hello I loved this anthology so much and I require more, please give this money or at least it boost it please for me.

it makes it hard to have nuanced conversations because the second you step outside of the basics there's so much risk of being misread. It's a shame, because I also remember a time when social media made me think about things in new ways. (Ironically I still find some of this on Facebook.)

Dunk culture + the anger and despair of the current moment feel like the biggest factors on my end (the fraying communities being somewhat less relevant to me because my community largely wound up on Bluesky.)

I feel like there's such a shortage of basic good will in how posts are interpreted, and

e-reader showing uncorrected proof of SUBLIMATION by Isabel J Kim

I am 7% of the way into this book and I am dying already if you never hear from me again plz direct your blame (or gratitude depending how much I annoy you) to @isabel.kim

Thank you for explaining my logic about why Israel wants to jump ship, weird that you opened with “that’s absurd” but you do you 🤷🏽‍♀️

I keep being so confused when people call it a cliffhanger I’m just like no!! It totally works as an ending!! The only cliffhanger is when [spoiler and spoiler] will kiss!

(Don’t get me wrong I cannae wait for book 2)

Israel twice in a row ramping up bombing on Lebanon immediately after a ceasefire announced is obviously evil and infuriating and horrible, but it's also strategically *fascinating* because it's such a loud declaration that they are actively sabotaging any American attempt to deescalate with Iran.

Historically when there has been a ceasefire Israel has slowed down the mass murder just enough that the eyes of the world largely shift elsewhere, and this time they're making a show of it.

People keep going lol clearly they have dirt on Trump, but the US government has already released horrific details about his sexual abuse of enslaved children, he's openly committed countless crimes and screwed over multiple allies, I have a hard time imagining what blackmail he'd even care about.

The most persuasive theory I've heard thus far is that Israel is sick of the US, possibly even actively trying to screw over/bankrupt the US, and hoping to latch onto India next. What's not clear to me is why Trump, who up until now has been EXTREMELY ego-driven, is letting them make a fool of him.

This is all really valuable (and terrible) information, thank you for explaining!

Thank you for the humility to acknowledge that; my mentions are crawling with white folk trying to demonstrate expertise they clearly don't have and you're the first to admit shallow knowledge.

And if you continue, then yeah, people are gonna patronize you -- because you patronized them first 🤷🏽‍♀️ I assume it wasn't intentional. But now you know! Best of luck. :)

But I'm serious: it's great that you're learning, it really is. Your heart is in the right place. And it's not your fault you were socialized to run around offering unsolicited information on topics you're clearly still learning the basics about. AND it's your responsibility to notice the behavior.

Next time I'll just share this: bsky.app/profile/swin...

Haha yeah I'm quickly losing patience with white folk jumping onto my threads trying to explain 101 on topics I'm an expert in. If only they had a term for that, oh wait...

Also recall that Russia and the US are both superpowers in their own right, who are not officially allied though yeah clearly there's a deal there. Israel is a US vassal state whose military budget and international protection comes almost entirely from the US, and their allegiance is real official.

Yeah, that's the same thing the US has done with Israel for decades. But platitudes like "Israel wants peace" is very different from a direct declaration of a ceasefire. As I already said, until now, when Trump has announced Israel's agreement to a ceasefire, Israel has slowed down.

If you glance at my posts you'll immediately see I don't assume anything the US government says is truthful, and I also don't assume we know what the truth is. But it's a major divergence from past behavior and that's noteworthy.