The damn flies, on the arms and trigger finger, buzzing on top of the buzzing. The spider crawling up my arm and the calm breath as I track the drone above. There is no disturbing the flies or the spider until after I may not need to fire. These moments, the ones when the sky rips open with sound and battles unfold high above me. .50 cals ring out. I joke that we now owe them 2 bottles of vodka. “3,” my commander jokes, and we all agree. Shit is screwed when the driver grabs a shotgun, squats, and starts smoking. One minute we were just all sitting, listening to the radio, bitching at the mechanic who fucked up our drone. The next we all grabbed guns, ran to positions, and waited... Then waited. The drone war has changed once again. Waiting is the hardest part. If they don't get close enough we can't shoot it, if we don't track it and they drop a bomb we can't shoot it. So at the end of the day, it is listening, watching, and waiting. Sounds of explosions erupt as support takes out the incoming, but we know they have to get close enough. .50 cal has its limits. So does my patience as I bat away the spider and a fly goes up my nose. “How rude,” the voice of childhood Stephanie comes over my internal intercom, and I smirk. Shaking my head and resummoning a patience I was not born with. Silence falls for a minute, we pack, then it erupts again. Shaheds. Mavericks, I joke. They aren't after us, they are after the .50 cals that keep taking them out. Doesn't change the aim, the patience, the adrenals required to not scream as the spider climbs. It won't kill me, but the drones above might. As it breaks and the sky quiets, the smoke starts and we all look around. We are becoming too used to this routine, too used to almost dying. More explosions rip across the fields. It's always quiet after, while we wait for the next one. Quiet and patient as the “all clear” is craved and not given. More explosions, this time closer, the thunder rips across the blue sky. It's nice to not be alone, I joke, and we all agree. As the drones raced towards us my shotgun was by my gear, so I grabbed the CZ and waited. I didn't hand it over. I looked to the conscript and was not gonna give him the weapon till I had my own. We waited, then I handed it back as the silence came. He showed me it had 5 bullets. I would have thrown it, I told him, making a motion, and he laughed as the thunder rolled over the golden field underneath the blue sky. The flies buzz, the spiders crawl, the trees wait, and we hold. Hold our breath, our prayers, our fear. We hold with all that we can manage as we wait. We wait for it to end, for the all clear, to run.

I clearly stated if he was "misrepresented" then he should correct that. If you want to go off on me and pretend I didn't say that, or make that caveat to the article, it's fine however now I'm going to block you because you're crazy making. Clearly nothing I say is going to be something that you agree with.

RT @isabellsswan: Enfim: Cleveland! Que bom que o amor de verdade cura e resgata tudo de bom que há pra se viver. Que bom que há vida, feli…

You mean like our pay???

EXCUSE ME!!!! WTF It's not an irrational fear... People like to throw the word phobia around but honestly it's a clinical term and should not be misused so pop culture. What it means is: an intense, irrational, and excessive fear of a specific object, animal, activity, or situation that poses little to no actual danger. So this entire thing gas lights the fuck out of people who actually serve in combat roles, and have these situations daily, people who are in real danger. It's not made up, I am hunted on the front line by drones. I am hunted in the city I'm deployed in by drones, drones are constantly hunting. That's not an irrational made up phobia, those are safety precautions I have to take wherever I'm at because people are genuinely trying to kill us. I would say, as someone who's been a mental health professional and has degrees in this: that being constantly hunted puts stress and trauma on any nervous system. That can cause forms of trauma to develop with various symptoms we have not seen before. To combat this stress ... But no they use phobia as though we are all just crazy making people who aren't hunted on the daily and rather just make this shit up. If that person really was a professional they would have never once chosen that word, I say this as somebody who's been a mental health professional, and as somebody who's currently serving on the front lines in Ukraine.

Well lets not make it a pay gap 😕

They could be protesting Defenders being given better gear, enough pay and equipment to do their job and not need fundraisers for basic military supplies. No instead they protest trees. Shows me they don't care about the lives on the Frontline as long as it not their lives out there. Thus is some of my peoples 🫂 choices. I pray they focus on mental health efforts for those on and off the line not being Christian based, as everyone I know here is Viking so christ doesn't help. Real trauma experts and real help would be awesome and worth protesting. Also shame to all the people at this protest that required the police be called because they wouldn't stop harassing the neighborhood where my godson lives.

Friends, as promised, I’m sharing the report on the latest fundraiser. Every one of you should be confident that the money you donated was used exactly as intended. Thank you to everyone who took part in this fundraiser and supported us.

Real peace is found in the block.

Nope But he was the pin stopping the grenade from exploding

Fuck yea! I think I'm rescinding my apology. You cunts can either motherfucking like me or goddamn hate me, I am what I am and the rusnya scum fucks will get all the fowl language I can conjure up.

Ah The Swifts won 😍😘

I saw it on Insta and 😍

You’re right, and the test is simple: reverse the sexes and see if the laugh survives. If a man filmed himself taping a woman’s mouth because she was talking, most people would call it contempt, not comedy. The act doesn’t become harmless because the person holding the tape is a woman. Humor that only works in one direction isn’t humor. It’s a permission structure. What we laugh at is not a side hobby. It is a confession. Laughter is the moment the will drops its manners. Kant’s point about treating persons as ends, not means, applies here: you don’t get to use someone as a prop for a joke and then call it “just content.” Aristotle was blunter. Character is formed by repeated pleasures. If humiliation is what delights you, that is the shape your soul is taking, whether you post a manifesto about equality or not. The discomfort you described is the useful part. People don’t hate the standard. They hate the inventory. Once you admit the joke would be ugly the other way, you have to admit you enjoyed something ugly this way. That is not “losing a sense of humor.” That is noticing that a sense of humor can rot. Equality that only protects the in-group is just a girl club version of the same old license. Morality that evaporates for a punchline was never morality. Change what you find funny, or stop pretending the person doing the laughing is better than the joke. With that being said I have a dark sense of humor so I better work on some of it myself.