doomsdaywriter

[doomsdaywriter]

I Used to Call Them "Men's Romance"

Because frankly, that’s absolutely what they were. (Yes, even the ones that didn’t reference sex or have relationships in them. Romance novels, every one.) I am of course referring to “adventure novels” which were also sometimes listed as “men’s adventure novels.” I am talking about series like Deathlands (various writers writing under the name James Axler), and titles like The Destroyer…

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[doomsdaywriter]

Fanfolks today need to remember how important The Premise was.

Y'all have heard of The Premise, right?

See, historically there have always been people who saw an extra layer of gayness on certain pairs of fictional people (you just thought of several), and people Back Then even wrote their own fanfic (or as they were called at the time, "pastiches"), but the first widespread queer fanwork to really define the fanfiction genre was KIRK AND SPOCK. Kirk/Spock. K/S. The very first slashfics.

Why this work was vastly, overwhelmingly written by straight women is a discussion for another time, but it was, so that's the main perspective I'm gonna consider here.

How do you - a statistically middle-class, 30+, stay-at-home wife and mother - how do you write slashfic ao3-style in the 1960's before the internet?

Carefully.

Through letters with friends, phone calls, pen pals, and sometimes - sometimes - clandestine meetings of small groups. Whole novels were written communally, round-robin style, by sending typed or handwritten additions chapter by chapter to each other. These were all underground, some deep underground; even the early Trekkie fanzines of the time wouldn't touch them.

And keep in mind, few of these stories were explicitly even sexual! But they were all about a very, very close relationship between two men. In the 1960's.

Guess how cool everyone else was about this.

Actually, for their part, Gene Rodenberry and the other writers were fine with it, saying that they had deliberately written the characters to be two halves of a whole, and if you wanna read it that way, yeah sure, go right ahead. Shatner and Nimoy took it all in good humor, and seemingly still do, each guy basically gesturing to the other and chuckling "I mean, who wouldn't?"

But elsewhere there was vicious backlash against The Premise, and not just within the fandom. This was still at a time in the US and UK when various "sodomy" and "decency" laws made no distinction between homosexual sex acts and just, like, directly lighting another man's cigarette with your cigarette in public. (That, sadly, is not a fucking joke.)

It was probably the closest some suburban cishet women came to understanding the pain of being in the closet. They had to protect this secret from their friends and family at all cost. There were cases of divorces where women lost custody of their children because their writing had come to light.

Can you imagine having such a burning desire to write for your OTP that you were willing to lose everything over it? Even if you were never caught, you still had to be willing to wait weeks, months, to receive a letter in the mail that you had to carefully intercept, read in secret, and then add your own chapter t, also in secret, and then send off, perhaps never to be seen again.

These people were goddamn heroes, and they laid the foundation for the world we live in today. A world where we can read, write, comment on, or share - in a matter of seconds! - literature about two background characters from two different franchises enjoying a really specific kink involving vacuums or something. And that's objectively amazing.

Raise a toast to our fanfiction elders, who simped in the darkness so we could simp in the light of day.

[doomsdaywriter]

how you can help palestine

Donations

palestine children's relief fund

palestine red crescent society

help bring down israel's weapon trade - palaction

save palestine - islamic relief canada

click to donate - arab.org

send medical supplies to gaza - palestinian american medical association

Petitions

petition to investigate war crimes committed by israeli military

demand ceasefire - amnesty.org

open call for immediate ceasefire

american government call for immediate ceasefire

american government to stop funding israeli military

ceasefire and increase humanitarian assistance - oxfam au

location specific petitions

gaza call for ceasefire - oxfam (UK)

end israeli occupation - parliament uk (UK)

email your MP - medical aid for palestine (UK)

stop fuelling genocide - action network (USA)

call congress and demand a ceasefire - uscpr (USA - they provide a script of what you should say, so don't worry about it)

note: you can call everyday. they tally the number of calls per issue. so more calls = higher chance for them to take action. p.s. you mainly go to voicemail so don’t worry about phone call anxiety. fight through it just this once please.

australia call on israel to stop attacking palestinians - apan (AUS)

sign to send letter to MP for ceasefire - nccm (CANADA)

ceasefire now! - ijv (CANADA)

cessez-le-feu et un couloir humanitaire - le mouvement (FRANCE)

write to your député - assemblée nationale (FRANCE)

skydda civilbefolkningen i gaza! - mittskifte (SWEDEN)

singaporeans call for immediate ceasefire (SIN)

contact your elected reps and demand a ceasefire (GERMANY)

write to the EU demanding a ceasefire (EUROPE)

template of letters you can send (EU)

Campaigns

friends of al-aqsa

❥ UK-specific

urge your MP to speak up for palestine

hands off al-aqsa

stop administrative detention

petition for UK to stop arming israel

❥ International

boycott puma — email them to end their partnership with israel

boycott coca-cola

palestine action

join the resistance

islamic relief canada

urge your MP to rally for ceasefire

text campaign for people living in USA

text CEASEFIRE @ 51905 to call for a ceasefire

please let me know if you have any more links. i will add them to a follow up post.

UPCOMING PROTESTS

[doomsdaywriter]

Link

[doomsdaywriter]

tbh shoutout to the over 40s on tumblr, sorry the internet acts like yall belong in the retirement home when ur literally just regular adults with hobbies

[doomsdaywriter]

I think more creators should openly tell their fans to fuck off and stop being weird

[doomsdaywriter]

There is functionally no difference between doing something nice because you actually care and doing something nice because it makes you feel good or because you think you're obligated to.

A charity does not care if you're only donating because your religion says you should; either way, your money is still going to help people. That little old lady next door does not care if you only help her with gardening because being thanked makes you feel good, it's just nice to have some extra hands.

"Fake it til you make it," is a phrase for a reason but it's also okay if you NEVER make it, if you never feel the "correct" emotions behind your actions. Your thoughts and feelings matter considerably less than the impact your actions have on other people.

[doomsdaywriter]

[doomsdaywriter]

this is such incredible advice for creating any kind of art i have to put it over here to remind myself

[doomsdaywriter]

On this day, 14 October 1977, anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant was “pied” in the face by Thom Higgins, a gay rights activist. Bryant, who was already well-known as a singer, led Save Our Children, a homophobic campaigning group which successfully overturned legal protections for LGBT+ people in Dade County, Florida. Bryant had declared about homosexuality: “I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before.” After being pied, Bryant burst into tears and began praying. Bryant was also brand ambassador for Florida orange juice, which then became subjected to a mass boycott campaign. Gay bars replaced screwdrivers (vodka and orange juice cocktails) with “Anita Bryants” – made with vodka and apple juice, with the profits donated to the campaign. Bryant’s lucrative orange contract subsequently lapsed and her marriage failed, which caused her to be ostracised by some Christian fundamentalists who did not approve of her divorce. Later in life, Bryant’s homophobic views softened, and she stated she was “more inclined to say live and let live”. In 1998, Dade County reintroduced legal protections for LGBT+ people, and efforts by Christian groups to overturn them failed. We’ve produced a number of podcasts about LGBT+ history, you can check them out here: https://workingclasshistory.com/tag/lgbtq/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2109212745930531/?type=3

[doomsdaywriter]

[doomsdaywriter]

A 4th century CE statue of Aphroditos. Her cock wards off evil spirits. Reblog to rid your blog of evil spirits.

[doomsdaywriter]

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[doomsdaywriter]

An incomplete list of things that employers commonly threaten that are 100% illegal in the United States

"We'll fire you if you tell others how much you're making" The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 specifically protects employees who discuss their own wages with each other (you can't reveal someone else's wages if you were given that information in the course of work, but you can always discuss your own or any that were revealed to you outside of work duties)

"If we can't fire you for [discussing wages/seeking reasonable accommodation/filing a discrimination complaint/etc], we'll just fire you for something else the next day." This is called pretextual termination, and it offers your employer almost no protection; if you are terminated shortly after taking a protected action such as wage discussion, complaints to regulatory agencies, or seeking a reasonable accommodation, you can force the burden onto your employer to prove that the termination wasn't retaliatory.

"Disparaging the company on social media is grounds for termination" Your right to discuss workplace conditions, compensation, and collective action carries over to online spaces, even public ones. If your employer says you aren't allowed to disparage the company online or discuss it at all, their social media policy is illegal. However, they can forbid releasing information that they're obligated to keep confidential such as personnel records, business plans, and customer information, so exercise care.

"If you unionize, we'll just shut this branch down and lay everyone off" Threatening to take action against a group that unionizes is illegal, full stop. If a company were to actually shut down a branch for unionizing, they would be fined very heavily by the NLRB and be opening themselves up to a class-action lawsuit by the former employees.

"We can have any rule we want, it's only illegal if we actually enforce it" Any workplace policy or rule that has a "chilling effect" on employees' willingness to exercise their rights is illegal, even if the employer never follows through on any of their threats.

"If you [protected action], we'll make sure you never work in this industry/city/etc again." Blacklisting of any kind is illegal in half the states in the US, and deliberately sabotaging someone's job search in retaliation for a protected action is illegal everywhere in the US.

"Step out of line and you can kiss your retirement fund/last paycheck goodbye." Your employer can never refuse to give you your paycheck, even if you've been fired. Nor can they keep money that you invested in a retirement savings account, and they can only claw back the money they invested in the retirement account under very specific circumstances.

"We'll deny that you ever worked here" not actually possible unless they haven't been paying their share of employment taxes or forwarding your withheld tax to the government (in which case they're guilty of far more serious crimes, and you might stand to gain something by turning them in to the IRS.) The records of your employment exist in state and federal tax data, and short of a heist that would put Oceans 11 to shame, there's nothing they can do about that.

[doomsdaywriter]

This is not like a fully completed thought but yk

So I've done my first aid + CPR a few times. And every single time I try and bring up scenarios for fat folks

Specifically like 'what if someone is too large for me to wrap my arms around then to do the heimleich'

And its incredibly rare I get a decent answer.

How absolutely insane is it that me, as a fat person, is asking how to have MY life saved or to save ANOTHER life, is an impossible feat if someone is fat.

Most of the time they tell me to 'just try anyways uwu'

There has got to be a better option.

[doomsdaywriter]

If you ever think history impressive or grand, here’s a story for you:

Right after ww2, Jews were freed, but basically had no citizenship to speak of, and the allied forces weren’t that!helpful. So a group called the TTG was formed to help emigrate (read: smuggle) Jews from Central Europe, to Mediterranean ports, where they would take boats to Israel.

The TTG did this by piling the Jewish refugees into trucks bearing British insignia, their operatives dressing up as British soldiers, and just openly driving to port cities.

If they were ever stopped by actual military forces, they would say they were a part of a covert supply missing, under special orders from Major Tuches. They would stress that the contents of the trucks was super secret and to not be disturbed under any circumstances. They saved over 300,000 Jews like this.

If that sounds reasonable to you, here’s the thing: TTG stands for Tilhas Teezee Gesheften, and the operatives named one Major Tuches as their commanding officer whenever they needed to.

Or, to translate that into English, the event that saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees was called Operation Kiss My Ass led by Major Asshole.

[doomsdaywriter]

list of things abled people think are so funny or creepy that it's societally normalized to either make fun of people with them, or to be disgusted by people with them, to the point that if you bring it up people will roll their eyes and tell you you're nitpicking

- strabismus (eyes are not in alignment. you call this cross eyed)

- lazy eye (one eyelid is heavier/weaker. you call strabismus lazy eye but it's not. a lot of people with lazy eye also have strabismus however, and a lot of people with strabismus have lazy eye, as both conditions can lead to each other. regardless, lazy eye is lazy eye and strabismus is strabismus. the medical term for lazy eye is amblyopia)

- facial paralysis (lopsidedness and inability or difficulty making facial expressions) and weakness (i have fucking concerned, morose bloodhound face and talk out of the corner of my mouth, does that explain it)

- twitching and jerking

- twisting movements of the body- especially when it's the head and neck are the ones i see ableism about the most

- stroke symptoms, particularly the speech issues but also everything else, like the teetering to one side/lack of balance/walking like you're drunk. and the weak face, different gait, and wrist drop.

- different ways of walking but the ones i see made fun of the most are waddling, teetering, and shuffling. the way zombies and monsters move is also relevant here.

- scoliosis (spine curves either in an s or a c), kyphosis (the term you might recognize is hunchback), and lordosis (back dips). bonus for getting made fun of AND for being in a multitude of horror movie monsters, villains, and monster designs

- intellectual disability, developmental disabilities, and brain damage in general

- drooling.

- going to go ahead and throw in incontinence here

- wrist drop when you can't call it elegant because it's being held to a chest, knocking against the thigh or knee, or can't be moved out of position

- hands clenched or held in strange positions (mine always does the fucking rock on gesture????)

- claw hand, most commonly seen in horror and villains. (this term refers to a hand that makes a claw shape. the fingers bend up. it hurts, so fucking badly, in case you were wondering)

- jittery, robotic incremental pauses in between movements. there is a medical term for this but i can't read right now. you see this in monsters a lot.

- wheezing, strangled laughter, as of someone who has problems fucking breathing.

- hypotonia (low muscle tone leading to squishiness and floppy legs- you make fun of people who stand with their legs twisted or bent at angles) and hypertonia (high muscle tone, which leads to rigidity and tension- you make fun of people who twist and drag their feet and clench their hands). these things are also commonly seen in zombies

hm

all of these are neurological (brain, spine, nerves, muscles) symptoms.

and i'm probably missing some, even.

be thankful your muscles fucking work.