#antis are overwhelmingly teenagers

[rederiswrites]

My Pennsic camp has one athletic person, which the rest of us regard with a sort of baffled awe. We have one active, serious heavy fighter, whom we listen to with the amusement of a person who does care about that subject, but like, way way less. We have one person who likes football, and he is well aware that that's embarrassing in this social circle and tries not to bring up the sportsball. We have two people who care about the SCA social hierarchy, and we regard this with a sort of ironic bemusement and treat them with no additional respect whatsoever.

"Seems like a huge pain in the ass tbh" we say, and they agree. Being the titular leaders of the entire SCA barony encompassing Boston and its suburbs is fucking WORK, and expensive at that. Fuck it, we say, and they almost agree.

Overwhelmingly, we're anarchic, anti-authoritarian craft nerds. As I explained to new camp members this year, we're Fraggles--"We each lead ourselves, and we all lead each other". We're nearly half teenagers and children, and they also are feral creatures, raised to think for themselves. "What should I do if I'm out and I see someone with a fancy crown?" asks one of my wards, new to the event. I begin to explain that, at least at Pennsic, you can just step aside with a slight bow and keep moving, when the mom next to me just says, "Avoid them." "Or that," I say. "That works 99% of the time."

What we care about is Doing. Making. Cooking in the fire. Pottery. Learning how to work heavy bronze wire. Casting pewter in the fire pit. Midnight sweet potatoes in the coals. Shibori dyeing with an indigo dye bath, fascinated by the slight rotting-plant odor. Brewing and distilling. Firing stained glass at midnight in the middle of camp. In our camp, you earn respect because of what you've done. The only authority we care about comes from expertise, from actions. Assumed authority, official authority, pretensions of greatness, have historically pulled some truly remarkable acts of creative spite out of our members.

In my shop, I serve knights and duchesses. I do not use titles to any of them. Someone drops a hint: "I mean, if you'd like I'd take you as apprentice, too." Apprenticing to a Laurel is a good way to climb the ranks towards Laurel yourself. But I know I'm better than her already, and don't need the cookie. "I don't think I'm apprentice material," I laugh. She doesn't bring it up again.

In other words, these are my people. Creative rebels.

#SCA #Pennsic #this is ridiculous

[dowagersqueen]

Watching all the pro vs anti viserys stuff i think people are mistaking viserys not being an overtly disgusting father to rhaenyra that he could be (he gives her way more freedom that any other highborn would give their daughter, he doesn’t “ground” her or punish her for any wrongs, even completely ignores the fact that [he thinks at least] that rhaenyra is ruined by daemon and any other lord would have sold her off to the first bid or disinherit her like he said, he even arranged a tour so she could pick her own husband and had little to say when she ended the tour early) but that doesn’t make him a good father just not a horrible one.

but that’s only to rhaenyra.

to the greens….oof.

Complete disregard for his maimed son—not alicent’s—his. he can’t even pretend to show concern for his own child that has lost an eye. I know Luke is a Prince but surely there is some what to punish him—confine him to his quarters, hell, even withhold dragon riding, something. but he did nothing. oh, wait, he did interrogate a child that was just attacked, maimed, and hadn’t even washed the blood from his face yet over childish insults that he is absolutely aware are truths.

he’s pretty much a corpse by then (and the show character development for aegon sucks) but viserys could have done something about aegon’s abuse to the service girls. like a good dad, a good king—but no, that’s too much work for his not-rhaenyra-kids.

then there’s zero interactions with heleana.

viserys isn’t an overwhelmingly, cartoon-villainish father.

but he’s definitely not a good father, either.

agreed!!

some notes:

in the book there’s a line where he calls aegon “alicent’s son” and while that doesn’t happen in the show, it’s obvious that’s how he feels about him past the age of 2. it’s instead rhaenyra’s line before anything even happens,. she doesn’t say my brother or half brother she says “alicent hightower’s son”

viserys doesn’t even say ONE word to luke or jace. one. he doesn’t just wave the whole punishment thing, he can’t even bring himself to say one word to the boys for what they do to aemond. idk about anyone else, but that can’t be a good or fai way of handling things. a child lost an eye and not just that, the injury was bad enough to put their life in jeopardy something that show canon seems not to address 

alicent always gets the entirety of the blame for whatever bad deed her kids too. she’s the one who has to bear the preganncy, to care for them, to educate them, to do everything. all of the blame is laid at her feet when she was a teenage mom w loads of trauma that viserys picked himself. like i have never seen someone talk about aegon’s behaviour in terms of what viserys did or didn’t.

#asks #anti viserys i targaryen

[ghostfoolish]

I have more respect for proshippers who recognize that proshipping is a hobby then the ones who say that being a proshipper is fundamental to being an activist and say that you can’t separate queer history from proshipping. To me those people are just too lost on the fucking sauce and don’t see how stupid and dangerous it is to say that. Whether they want to admit it or not, the proshipping community is overwhelmingly, nauseatingly white and it is mostly made up of white people and it caters to white people. It has always been a place where white feelings come before everything else and where discussions of racism go to die because the only type of “activism” that they know is defending dark fic from angry teenagers.

For them to say that someone like me HAS to endure being in a space full of grown ass white people who do nothing but discourse about fanfiction all day or else I’m just a fascist anti denying my own people’s history is insulting.

#and yea I’m putting this in the main proship tags cause I’m sick of this #proship #proshipping

[osmanthusoolong]

I’m not linking directly to the article about how “Puritanism took over online fandom — and then came for the rest of the internet”, because it’s very very stupid, though it’s easy to find, but my goodness, does it repeatedly touch on some genuine problems while getting the causes absolutely backassward and not realizing that the world in fact exists outside of fandom.

“Though this may sound like a niche fandom issue, this modern puritanism has spread far into the wider culture, intersecting with both a broader media illiteracy and a moral panic that crosses the political spectrum.”

Yeah, it’s almost like we’re living in a period of fascist backlash that’s been building for decades and is more or less mainstream in the overwhelmingly US-dominated spaces being discussed. Glad you noticed once it soaked into the Voltron shipping world.

“The Tumblr culture of the early 2010s rapidly shifted an entire generation of social media users toward the left. That shift started not on Tumblr, but on LiveJournal, thanks to a widespread, year-long conversation about racism in geek culture in 2009 that became known as RaceFail.”

Huh, yeah, I’m sure these cultural shifts came entirely from LJ and early tumblr, I really remember that well. I think there might have been some other stuff with like the stock market around then, maybe a couple of people got really mad about an election, something about wars and some financial street being occupied, but really, that was all LJ.

There’s an absolutely constant incredulity at the idea of fandom ship wars being a thing that people get worked up about, which like. That phenomenon is old enough to have grandkids, Lmao. (I am not a fandom person, but I am a person with a long interest in fandom and culture.) There’s a constant claim that people using leftist language as a means of attacking, bad-jacketing and kicking others out for personal reasons is a zoomer invention, which at least proves that the author hasn’t much knowledge of leftist history.

“It’s not a coincidence that anti-fandom discourse, which has single-handedly reframed decades of sex positivity in fandom, has also coincided with a broader crackdown on sex positivity across the internet.”

I don’t know how to tell you that fandom is actually not that important, and horrid infighting on a dying social media site that has never been profitable, is not actually shaping the world’s sexual politics. It is influenced by them. It’s not “coinciding”, it’s a “direct result of”.

“FOSTA seems to have weakened the natural resistance of fandom and internet culture at large to the US’s broader puritanical, anti-sex culture. The purity movement formally began in the ’90s within evangelical culture as a way of normalizing an abstinence-only approach to sex, especially among teens. In the modern era, the language of this movement has converged with that of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who enact a regressive approach to sex and gender expression.”

You are literally acknowledging that this is a larger cultural thing and not a group of socially reactionary teenagers on tumblr dot com. There is also something about the use of a term referring to religious abuse that starts in early childhood being applied to even very terrible fandom politics? And yes, the terves have been the architects of the sex-negative movement since the 80s, of course their fingerprints are all over it, especially since they’ve been working openly with the Christian Right.

“One positive development is that Tumblr recently brought back, in a limited capacity, the ability to create NSFW content on the site. While this won’t restore the zany porn-for-all days of yesteryear, it might encourage the return of sex-positive communities to drown out the noisy, harassing fringe of haters.”

Yeah, that’s very optimistic of you.

“Then again, if anyone can creatively respond to a culture of increasingly absurd attacks on ingenuity and imagination, it’s an army of passionate deviants who’ve historically been vanguards of the weird, the queer, and the subversive. They’re sexual rebels and literary freedom fighters”

I thought they were silenced by accusations of Homestuck fandom, or have become sinister zoomers single-handedly shaping the culture war for the right?

There’s some good observations about the panopticon of social media, and ways that deeply unserious people weaponize political aesthetics, but it’s absolutely reversing cause and symptoms. Fandom is getting reactionary because everywhere is, if you think fandom is the source of all culture, grass-touching should be considered.

#long post #I have a migraine and am feeling uncharitable #but come on now

[becausegoodbye]

Love this piece dearly. I remember being 17 and staying up until 3 am on school nights reading PDFs of old lesbian journals, following the Sex Wars and activist arguments and Michigan Womyn's Music Festival controversies as they played out across all these different publications. (Incredibly cishet behaviour from that supposed teenage boy, I know!) I found so much richness and generosity and insight in those documents – along with plenty of bigotry and close-mindededness and misplaced energy, too, but that stuff was rarely left unchallenged, and it always felt clear where the animating spirit of the community was.

To love women, including those who 'had to take an unconventional path to womanhood' (to quote some wry language that I remember very fondly) was a principle that most lesbians 40 years ago considered obvious. The TERFs were a loud and unpleasant minority, same as now. Some trans people today can seem a bit scared to delve into older lesbian history and discourses, worried it'll be overwhelmingly transphobic and alienating, but – once you account for the inevitable differences in language and concepts – so much of it truly wasn't at all.

Lesbian history is so much messier and more colourful and more interesting than the fake simplified version that transphobes assume must be true, and they don't get to pretend that it's on their side. 💜🧡

#lesbian history #liz crash

[mycomori]

the anti zionism = anti semitism laws just passed by the us house of reps is fuckin terrifying and i hate it so much and the worst part it is, aside from palestinian americans, if will overwhelmingly effect american jews protesting the use and equation of their religion to the war crimes of the zionist regime of israel. this law will put palestian americans and their allies protesting the genocide of their people at risk just as equally as the jews around the world protesting the zionist state of israel and their utter disgrace to the jewish faith. zionism is a disgrace; an utter spit in the face of the jewish faith, and yet they have the audacity to cry anti semitism when someone criticizes their over a half century of war crimes. when jewish people around the world from leaders to casual observers agree this is a fucking disgrace and it’s disgusting and anti semetic to equate the zionist state of israel w the jewish faith. that’s the kinda shit neo nazis want. they want to paint the jewish people as nothing it war criminals and use israel as a so called example. when really all israel is yet another demonstration of the united states control in other countries and purposefully keeping them unstable through consistent colonial expansion and us backed support of these so called governments. they’re scared of the internet, just like they’ve always been scared of knowledge. because knowledge is power and they rely on ignorance and desperation and keeping people in such poverty they don’t have the energy to focus on anything else. we’ve proven we can make a difference. that’s what scared so many people in the filling class about the pandemic. everyone was out of work so they actually had time to think as process and feel and act on their beliefs. it’s what they hate it’s what they do their god damn best to surprise and guess what thinking it at all is an affront to them. fuck them. i grew up in the catholic church. i know better than anyone how deeply the depravity runs. our country is brain washed so deeply we can’t even recognize it cause it’s been goin on for so many years. the world hates and laughs at us for fully understandable reason. we hate and laugh along too. except we’re stuck here. cause our parents or grandparents though the us was a place to prosper. a place they could escape their decades of poverty. but it didn’t turn out dod it? if i was my nonni id be a pissed ass ghost. all that work to give your kids a better life and it’s just more bullshit and suffering. fuck it am i right? if i could talk to nonno and nonni as teenagers now i would be lost forever speaking a them. i never even met nonno armando. but i wish i could. i’ve always wished i could. if i click ahve super power it would be to speak with the dead. nothing much else just sit down and converse w them and pass along messages between them and the living. i would hope someone would do that for me once im dead too. but its sad innit. we’re a sad sad sad family. we all suffered and continue to suffer so much. but the living of us push forward despite it all. hit it sucks. it fucking sucks. to mourn both the dead and the living. to mourn at all. it breaks my mind.

[theculturedmarxist]

White nationalist groups like the Patriot Front and far-right groups like the Proud Boys are on the rise and represent the greatest threat to our country’s security, according to President Joe Biden, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Last August, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that investigations into domestic terrorism have “more than doubled” and that the threat comes from “those who advocate for the superiority of the white race” as well as “Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists.” In February, the ADL reported that white supremacist ideology catalyzed 80% of extremism-related homicides in 2022. And in May, Biden called white supremacy “the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland.”

But there’s no good evidence that domestic terrorism is increasing. Neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security have submitted “comprehensive data to Congress in required reports” regarding violent extremism, found the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Last year there were only 21 homicides linked to white supremacists in the entire country. By comparison, Chicago alone saw an average of 58 homicides every month. From 2013 to 2021, the FBI’s domestic terrorism-related investigations increased by 357 percent, but there was no similar increase in terrorist attacks during that period.

Terrorism and racism are declining virtually everywhere, including in the U.S. The Global Terrorism Index reported that in 2022, deaths from terrorism fell by 9%, which is 38% lower than its peak in 2015. The number of terror attacks also decreased by 28% from 2021 to 2022. And a 2019 study found that in the United States, conscious and unconscious prejudice for “sexuality, race, and skin-tone attitudes” have decreased over the last decade.

If the number of open FBI cases reflected the actual level of extremist violence, there would be a domestic terrorist attack every day.

And now, a new investigation by Public finds that the FBI is not only exaggerating the threat of white supremacy, but is also embedding confidential human sources within white nationalist groups and encouraging members of these groups to engage in illegal activity.

Earlier this year, a white nationalist organization called Patriot Front held demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas, sparking rumors online that the FBI was involved. In June, more rumors swirled when a fight broke out between American-flag-toting Proud Boys and a group of masked Rose City Nationalists at an Oregon City Pride Night Festival.

In an email to Public, FBI spokeswoman Joy Jiras denied any FBI involvement in the Oregon City rally but defended using undercover informants. “Federal courts and juries have overwhelmingly upheld the use of undercover operations in terrorism cases,” she said, “and their use has produced a lengthy public record of guilty pleas and convictions.”

But a source in a position to know has confirmed to Public that the FBI has pushed confidential informants to buy weapons so that agents can expand the scope and scale of domestic violent extremism investigations. The patterns in most FBI entrapment cases are eerily similar. The FBI pays an informant to lure people into planning and almost carrying out terrorist attacks using weapons, money, and other materials usually provided by the FBI before arresting them at the last minute.

This practice isn’t new. In the past, the FBI has entrapped Muslims and mentally impaired teenagers in terrorism plots. Previously, Public reported that the FBI was deliberately padding its Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE) numbers by incentivizing field offices to inflate statistics and pursue investigations without sufficient proof.

And now, new evidence suggests that the agency is going even further and using entrapment tactics. Lucas Gage, a retired Marine veteran previously involved with a far-right white nationalist group, recently posted a video on Twitter describing how the FBI’s Domestic Terror Unit tried to recruit him to embed into extremist groups like Atomwaffen. He described his recruitment process in an email to Public. “CIs [confidential informants] are paid in cash,” Gage explained. “There is no trace of them working with the FBI.”

Added Gage, “under no circumstances could a CI expose they work for the FBI, otherwise the deal would be off.” An FBI agent who approached Gage about becoming an informant asked if he “would be comfortable buying weapons and drugs when undercover.” A former FBI source corroborated that the FBI uses the tactics Gage described. This source explained that prompting informants to buy drugs and weapons is a prevalent strategy. For instance, as Lee Fang reported for The Intercept, in 2020, the FBI asked an Iowa truck driver who had collaborated with an animal rights group if he’d be willing to buy and sell drugs as an informant for the FBI.

FBI whistleblower Garret O’Boyle said it’s typical for confidential informants to deny involvement with the FBI and that they are required to do so. “Admonishments are given numerous times per year to every single [confidential human source] the FBI runs,” O’Boyle said, “including an admonishment that specifically and deliberately states that the [source] does not work for the FBI or the U.S. government and that they cannot claim they do.”  

These “admonishments” are verbal statements read to informants to ensure they understand they are not federal government employees. Creating this distinction allows the FBI to use informants without being held accountable for their actions.

Rather than dealing with credible problems and dangers like child exploitation, mission creep has turned the FBI into a domestic spying agency. In May, FBI whistleblower Stephen Friend testified before the House Judiciary Committee, stating that he was removed from child exploitation cases and was assigned to investigate domestic extremism. His testimony suggests the FBI diverts valuable resources in order to pursue a political agenda.

Entrapping suspects by encouraging them to plan and commit crimes could potentially escalate the threats that the FBI is supposed to combat. Instead of protecting the public from violence, the FBI appears to be stoking domestic extremism in ways that violate civil liberties and jeopardize safety. Why is that?

#fbi #domestic terrorism #patriot front #terrorism #biden

[snoopyisbisexual]

TL;DR: Am I paranoid for being skeptical about adult pro-shipper's well-beings and the fact that they seem to want to engage minors in that discourse frequently? Or is that kinda weird?

sometimes I'll fall prey to both sides stuff in shipcourse bc I never participated in any meaningful way bc I thought I was too good for it, + I'll be like oh yeah teenagers yelling on the internet about shipping is kinda dumb haha and then I'll come across a proshipper completely organically uncritically saying the creepiest, weirdest stuff and it's just like Jesus Christ, some of you need a mandatory prescription for logging off because it seems very difficult for a 20+ year old to make long, ranting posts about how "problematic ships" are fine and you're silenced by Big Anti for that opinion and to also have a normal + healthy life. I have personally never seen a self-identified "anti" over the age of like 16 or so, but proshippers seem to be overwhelmingly adults which is alarming to me especially considering I've seen quite a few of them trying to involve slightly-too-indoors teenagers. Generally speaking, groups of people obsessed with freedom who believe age is just a number who also try to convince teens of their beliefs system are not the most safe to be around for said teens. As a survivor + formerly too-indoors teenager, this feels really off to me but I can't tell if that's just me and my shit or if my instincts are in the right direction. While I totally support adults who have "juvenile" interests + I'm all for intergenerational friendships, I also think maybe shipping kids from the Owl House should have an age limit + maybe talking about those ships with ppl the same age as the characters isn't the same as a healthy intergenerational friendship.

I know I'm engaging in the weirdness and the discourse as I'm typing this but I need to know if I'm completely out of my pocket for this or it is actually like. As creepy as it feels to me.

#making this unrebloggable bc i am afraid lol

[rotationalsymmetry]

I’m going to try again (cw general discussion of rape, murder, anti black violence.)

Being against rape and being against prisons are not in any sense in opposition to each other. Both are based on valuing bodily autonomy and being opposed to suffering and in favor of people generally being safe and happy.

It’s important to realize that the vast majority of rape isn’t the sort of thing the criminal justice system is particularly helpful about. A lot of rape cannot possibly be proven not to be consensual sex in court. And a lot of rape is committed by people who have dramatically more power against people with dramatically less power, sometimes by eg police officers or prison guards or soldiers in a country they’re invading, and sometimes against undocumented immigrants and sex workers and disabled people who require high levels of care and other people who really cannot go to the police and expect that to not make things worse for them.

It is also important to realize that there is very much a history of specifically the fear of black men raping white women being used to drive anti-black racism, from lynchings to mass incarceration and cops killing black people. While this is a thing that can happen and it is bad, it is not what the vast majority of rapes look like and it’s not a proportionate response. Rape is bad. But it’s not so overwhelmingly or uniquely bad that it makes killing people somehow not bad, or incarcerating people (which is itself a wrong that is capable of messing up people’s lives on the same order as rape even when it doesn’t include sexual violence itself, which it often does) or creating a culture where young black men grow up consistently seeing people like themselves be portrayed as thugs, as criminals, as predators, as sub-human.

I believe people are people. I believe black lives do in fact matter and need to be valued as much as white lives and are not currently valued as much as white lives. I believe in bodily autonomy and in personal freedom. I believe in prison abolition.

I was raised by liberals and I feel like I should make a plea for moderation here, that anyone reading this who isn’t against letting out murderers should still be with me on letting out people who have done non-violent drug crimes for instance. But…idk, do any of the liberals really want anyone in prison for non-violent drug crimes? And yet that’s what we keep getting. (In the same way that “but teenagers shouldn’t have access to irreversible surgery” gets somehow used to keep them off puberty blockers and 20 year olds off of HRT. And that 20 years ago people who thought that “there should be something for gay couples, just call it civil unions or something, not marriage” kept voting for ballot measures that did in fact also forbid civil unions.) I’m not sure half assed allies are allies at all. I’m not sure we can get any degree of giving cops less money or letting a few more people out of prison unless we face head on this fear of murderers and rapists (for certain definitions of murder and rape) and see the harm that fear does and throw it out entirely and realize that if George Zimmerman and the various cops who have killed black people can walk free, people who have killed people in a way that legally counted as “murder” can be allowed to walk free too without the fucking world ending. If the white guy who raped me can walk free without the world ending, so can rapists who did something legally recognizable as rape. And you know what? I can be generous. All the cops and prison guards and politicians who voted for mass incarceration and all the people who have done horrifying things in the military and the people who run the companies that make drones and chemical weapons, those can all walk free too. Because depriving people of their liberty is itself violence.

Prison. Abolition. Now.

[coochiequeens]

On Broadcast long list of TV Moments of the Year awards                                                a Sky News reporter being shot at while doing frontline reporting in Ukraine,       and BBC‘s Huw Edwards announcing the death of Queen Elizabeth II,                      and a dude who claims to be a woman exposing his penis.

A transgender “comedian” has reportedly been shortlisted for a television award after stripping naked on live television and playing the piano with his penis.

On October 21, trans-identified male comedian Jordan Gray was featured on the Friday Night Live revival event marking Channel 4’s 40th anniversary. During the performance, Gray ripped off his clothing to expose his entire naked body, and attempted to play his keyboard with his penis. This was during Gray’s rendition of his song “Better Than You,” which featured lyrics intended to mock females.

“I’m a perfect woman, my tits will never shrink. I’m guaranteed to squirt, and I do anal by default … I am the lizard king, and I can do anything that any other woman can’t … I used to be a man, now I’m better than you,” Gray sang to an audience of delighted onlookers who cheered as he then tore off his clothes and exposed his naked body.

Mainstream media coverage of Gray’s performance has been overwhelmingly positive. PinkNews, a UK-based outlet, referred to Gray’s song as “rousing” and called the performance “iconic,” and characterized any opposition to the performer’s exposure of his genitals on television as “anti-trans.” The sentiment was shared by some LGBT activists on Twitter. The Daily Mail referred to Gray’s penis using feminine pronouns, sparking widespread mockery of the outlet.

On December 8, Broadcast published a longlist for the TV Moment of the Year awards, inviting members of the public to vote on their top three favorite moments to make it to the shortlist. 

While the vote still appears to be active and Broadcasthas stated that nominations will not be publicly displayed until the new year, Gray announced on his Twitter that he had already been “shortlisted” for the award. It is unclear whether this is a confusion on Gray’s part or he was informed in advance.

Other moments nominated alongside Gray’s on the longlist included a Sky News reporter being shot at while doing frontline reporting in Ukraine, and BBC‘s Huw Edwards announcing the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Following his nudist performance on Channel 4, Gray was removed from a children’s charity where he had been a patron.

On October 26, just days after his appearance, Educate & Celebrate issued a statement announcing Gray’s removal from his role, but claimed that Gray had “never gone into schools” and had limited interaction with children throughout his tenure. That was quickly discovered to be misleading, with internet sleuths unearthing a 2016 interview with Gray for GuysLikeU in which he directly claimed to do just that. 

“Young minds are very accepting,” Gray said to GuysLikeU. “It’s teenagers who are harder to get through to. It’s good to educate these kids when they are young.”

In addition to the interview, a video from two years ago of Gray speaking at Passmores Academy in Essex County, England began to circulate on social media. The discoveries raised questions about Educate & Celebrate’s credibility, as their statement appeared to directly contradict fact.

On Twitter, some users expressed upset at Gray’s announcement, noting that he his performance had been greatly offensive to women.

“Why? Lots of men hate women, have a small willie and know how to take their clothes off,” user Marilyn Irishtweeted in response to Gray’s announcement. 

“Peaking Moment of the Year. People who saw this could see the woman-hating misogyny if they hadn’t before,” Louise Ashworth added.

Many women pointed out that even aside from Gray’s public nudity, the lyrics to the song he sang at Channel 4‘s event had deeply offensive lyrics in which Gray painted himself as “better” than women due to certain aspects of his sexual reciprocity. 

“So it’s ok for the TV moment of the year to be the most sexist and hold a load of complaints too? Most sexist TV moment of the year,” user Raging Suffragette wrote.

Following Gray’s Friday Night Live performance, over 1,600 people submitted complaints to the independent regulation body responsible for broadcasting in the United Kingdom, with many expressing concern over being unwittingly subjected to nudity without warning. 

A further 172 complaints were made regarding Gray’s performance one week after the episode aired.

By Jennifer Seiland Jennifer is a founding member of the Reduxx team, writing with a focus on crimes against women and sex-based rights advocacy. She is located in the American south where she is a passionate animal welfare advocate and avid coffee drinker.

#Friday Night Live #Jordan Gray #penises aren’t feminine #Broadcast #TV Moment of the Year awards #Educate & Celebrate #Peaking Moment of the Year

[idkimnotreal]

he probably was really pro-bolsonaro, but he’s just too smart and sensible to let it ruin his reputation.

he made some discreet pro-bolsonaro posts on election day, then he said, after lula won, that he “expected his government to surprise positively”. i heard my cousin who voted for bolsonaro say the same thing just this week. she’s not upset that lula won, just disappointed, but she hopes for the best (probably because we’re all brazilians in the end). so i’m almost sure that’s also his case.

he didn’t post any of the tacky “mourning for brazil” stuff when lula won, so props for him already. then he tweeted like “really tough that we had to choose between a genocidal murderer and a former felon”. that refers to what people hate the most about both candidates: that bolsonaro butchered brazil’s covid policy (and was responsible for most of our 700k deaths, most of which being poor and people of colour, hence genocide), and that lula allegedly is the most corrupt figure in brazilian history.

but he probably only did that to appease his anti-bolsonaro audience, which is probably most of them, seen as 90% of his following is either straight women (mostly anti-bolsonaro) and gay men (overwhelmingly anti-bolsonaro). BUT he did only tweet that instead of posting it to his stories, where he only said he hoped for the best (slightly pro-bolsonaro tone) anyway, so maybe on twitter he says what he really thinks? (due to smaller audience)

not long ago he used to be fully anti-bolsonaro - he has a picture of him giving the middle finger to an outdoor ad picture of bolsonaro in his town, and it’s from 2021. but i guess as he gets older and matures that teenage innocence starts to leave him and he becomes more like the man he is, a straight man. he’s surrounded by people who support bolsonaro; not only because his town voted 65% in favour of bolsonaro, but also because most of his friends are straight and male, or straight women, and his family is also probably fully pro-bolsonaro, and so is his special interest - football - heavily invested in politics, and supportive of bolsonaro. neymar HIMSELF declared he’d vote for bolsonaro. 

imagine being a young man who loves football more than everything in life and admires neymar more than most people, and to hear that, and see a bunch of people attack his idol for no reason. of course he’ll only swing to the right like that. and it doesn’t help that neymar’s ex is pro-lula but cringy as fuck about it (and implying she’s better than neymar) and it makes us look bad.

i mean, he just can’t escape it. i’m not mad at him or upset because he voiced some support for bolsonaro, and it wasn’t much. and he accepted lula’s victory peacefully and in good mood, as he should. i am disappointed that he supported bolsonaro, not gonna lie, but i don’t blame him or take it personally. same for my dad or my uncle, who voted for bolsonaro. i still love them. and i know they didn’t do it to personally affect me as a queer person or anything. it’s just not in their minds, and it’s fine, because people make up reasons and mental defences to cling onto their beliefs, and i know in their hearts they don’t believe they are hurting me. and i take intent very, very seriously.

and i know he doesn’t intend to hurt people like me. which is what matters, and all that matters. bolsonaro couldn’t do anything in his 4 years term to curb lgbtq rights (in fact, we earned more rights from the supreme court during his govt), so i value intent more than actions for as long as that holds true. i don’t have a reason to be hurt, because i haven’t been hurt.

(i even jested with him; i replied to one his stories on election day like “supporting ciro (another candidate) for the 1st round because of his proposals but then bolsonaro now is a contradiction”, and on the next day he posted another story joking that he was sad because he “asked the smartest lula supporter what were lula’s plans for his government and they couldn’t answer” and i replied again with “true dat (you just invalidated my point)”. i like to think he read both of those, but that was during my fake profile phase)

[pashterlengkap]

Trans folks will someday be revered as the visionaries they are. Until then, the violence must end.

The Human Rights Campaign has reported that at least 30 trans and gender non-conforming people were killed in the United States in 2023. 87% were people of color, with 50% being Black trans women. 77% were murdered with a firearm, and 50% were misgendered or deadnamed by authorities or the press. First, let’s say their names: Savannah Ryan Williams Jean Butchart Kejuan Richardson Amiri Reid LaKendra Andrews London Price Lisa Love Dominic Dupree a.k.a. Dominic Palace A’nee Johnson Sherlyn Marjorie Chyna Long Luis Ángel Díaz Castro YOKO Thomas ‘Tom-Tom’ Robertson DéVonnie J’Rae Johnson Camdyn Rider Jacob Williamson Chanell Perez Ortiz Ashia Davis  Banko Brown Koko Da Doll Ashley Burton  Ta’Siyah Woodland Tortuguita Chashay Ashanti Henderson Maria Jose Rivera Rivera Zachee Imanitwitaho’ Unique Banks KC Johnson Jasmine “Star” Mack History is replete with groups and individuals facing colossal odds for simply expressing their truth, and for that, members of those groups were often forced to pay the ultimate price. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our daily newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Promotions (occasional) * Week in Good News (one on the Weekend) * Week in Review (one on the Weekend) * Daily Brief (one each weekday) * Sign Up Related: Americans once overwhelmingly supported trans rights. Anti-trans lawmakers have changed that. The political divide is creating “two Americas” for LGBTQ+ people. Abolitionists joined together to work for the immediate end to the institution of slavery and the cessation of racial discrimination and segregation. They faced steep opposition from many quarters, including a number of Christian denominations who asserted that sacred scripture not only condoned but mandated the practice of slavery.  Young people conducted a number of sit-in demonstrations at Southern lunch counters to end Jim Crow laws of segregated public facilities, all while enduring the abusive taunts of onlookers and the crashing batons of local police. Demonstrators faced imprisonment and the imposition of permanent criminal records. Feminists formed a new wave in the fight for women’s suffrage against a high tide of obstructionism within a patriarchal system of male domination and misogyny, and an attitude that the enfranchisement of women would destroy Christianity and civilization itself. The Church convicted physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei on the charge of heresy by insisting that the Earth revolves around the Sun, rather than, as per Church teaching, that the Earth was the immovable center of the universe with the Sun revolving around the Earth. Galileo spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. Joan of Arc, the teenager who helped defeat the English in her native France, became one of the greatest war heroes in French history. In spite of this, she was tried by the Catholic Church on the charge of heresy in rejecting Church authority in preference for direct inspiration from God, and most importantly, by donning men’s clothing. Joan died by burning at the stake. Alan Turing, mathematician, logician, philosopher, cryptanalyst, and one of the original creators of the computer was largely responsible for cracking Nazi coded messages, which many believe shortened the war by two to four years. Many also say he saved Great Britain. However, the British government chose to convict Turing on the charge of being homosexual and ordered him to undergo “chemical castration” by taking estrogen injections as an alternative to spending two years in prison. Turing took his life a few weeks before his 42nd birthday. Governments and powerful individuals have long devised ways of silencing opposition for the purpose of maintaining and extending their control and domination. They commit genocide upon the true human liberators, the profits, the visionaries who advocate for a just and free world. These… http://dlvr.it/T0Yg34

[bibliobile]

Hairstyles of The Damned by Joe Meno

Meno, Joe. Hairstyles of the Damned. Punk Planet Books, 2004.

Summary-

Hairstyles of The Damned is a gruesomely honest coming of age story written by Joe Meno. The story follows Brian Oswald, an average white teenage boy living in the South Side of Chicago, as he goes through his Junior and Senior year of high school. Brian truly tells all as he admits to the crush he has on his best friend Gretchen, the boners he gets practically every time he encounters a woman, and probably even more embarrassingly so his desire to fit in and be liked over everything else. Brian’s perspective and experiences are overwhelmingly shaped by the world around him which he describes in detail as he accounts the police brutality and racism that runs rampant in his community, the cultural impact of attending a catholic school, joining the punk scene, having parents who are getting a divorce, and the mess all these things create when combined. Brian’s one saving grace is his introspective nature that takes in and dissects everything and everyone in his environment including himself. This introspection only grows as he begins to mature and acquire more life experiences such as being cheated on, rejection, losing friends, and even his parents divorcing. The same boy who used to go along and parrot whatever rhetoric his ‘friends’ would say, began to develop his own moral compass and speak out for what he thought was right, even if it almost gets him jumped or abandoned by his ‘friends’. Brian’s character development can be summed up with one monologue from the end of the book as Brian goes off on his friend and crush Gretchen. “Just because you have blue hair and fucked-up clothes doesn’t mean you’re better than everyone else. Because you know what? You’re just conforming to someone else’s code. Even though you don’t wear khakis or sweaters or whatever, but to me all you guys look the same. You think you’re so individualistic, but you’re not. You guys—you and Kim and all the rest—you’re like anti-snob snobs. But you’re just as mean as the preppy kids. You’re all just as fucking lame” (259).

Personal Response-

Hairstyles of The Damned has by no means been life-changing or hugely impactful for me, but I do not think that is what the writer was going for. Instead, this book felt like a companion or a friend, someone shouting into the void that these experiences, no matter how embarrassing or isolating, are not happening to you alone. This book’s message was one focused on transparency and recording the human experience. Which I appreciated immensely, even if I did not always enjoy what was being shown to me as a reader. This book realistically highlights some of the most common and gut-wrenching feelings and experiences in adolescence. The realistic portrayal however, is also what I believe holds this book back as well. The content is NSFW more times than not with budding sexuality being at the forefront of most of our Narrators thoughts. This book’s language usage also utilizes curse words more than any other book I have read before. Both of these factors may negatively impact this book’s performance and popularity amongst educators and parents, but they also would have motivated me to read the books even more if I were to have come across it as a highschooler or middle schooler. The content would be considered inappropriate for the YA age range by most adults, but the content is also a reality for many young adults in their everyday lives regardless.

Connections-

Adolescence is uncomfortable and awkward, not only in a physical sense as young adults grow and go through puberty but also in a mental sense as they begin to mature and become more self-aware. This awkward and uncomfortable transition from childhood to adulthood is highlighted within Hairstyles of The Damned in numerous ways as we watch our narrator Brian depict tales of budding sexuality, new emotions, raging hormones, adult expectations, and new relationships. All these topics are discussed in a way you would only get from your closest friends and even then, most likely not without peer pressuring them into telling you (which is also a huge component of the story as well). These depictions are full of Graphic details, embarrassing thoughts, and curse words in practically every sentence. These things may deem the book ‘inappropriate’ by most standards, but in my opinion, it is the most accurate representation of the inside of a young adult’s mind that I have ever found in a YA novel. It does not fit the common YA tropes of forbidden love or good vs evil that are being pushed to readers in mass by publishers. In fact, this story had difficulty being published due to its controversial content, which forced the author Joe Meno to go with a smaller publisher at first despite his previous success with bigger publishing companies regarding his other books. Instead of pandering to publishers and popular opinions of what a YA book should be, Hairstyles of The Damned forces its readers to look at the human experience of ‘coming of age’ in the eye no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

#literature #book review #book blog #book recommendations #books and reading #currently reading

[chaoticrebels]

Name: Brian Aiden Kinney

Nickname: Bri

Birthday: May 21

Age: 20 - 35+

Sexuality: Gay

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Species: Human

Powers: None

Occupation: Chief Executive Officer(Kinnetik), Nightclub Owner(Babylon)

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 174 lbs

Eye Color: Hazel

Hair color: Brunette

Piercings: None

Tattoos: He has the word resist tattooed on his middle finger

Scars: None

Faceclaim: Gale Harold

Biography

Brian Kinney was born to Jack and Joan Kinney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His family was Irish-Catholic, with his mother in particular being extremely devout and homophobic. Brian had an unstable childhood due to his father being an abusive alcoholic. Brian was physically abused by his father throughout his childhood and teenage years; it is unclear whether Jack was also abusive to Brian's older sister, Claire. During his high school years, Brian would escape the abuse in his home by staying with his best friend, Michael Novotny, whose mother, Debbie Novotny, ultimately began treating Brian like another son. After high school, Brian received a full scholarship to Carnegie Mellon, where he studied advertising. It is there that he meets another close friend, Lindsay Peterson, who shares an art history class with him.

Though Brian is open about his sexuality to Michael and Debbie and is highly sexually active during his teenage years, Brian only comes out to his parents when he is well into adulthood. Brian feels he does not owe anything to his parents and chose not to disclose his sexuality to them for so long because he has little to no relationship with them. However, he ultimately tells his father on his deathbed, and his mother accidentally finds out after seeing Justin Taylor in Brian's bedroom during a visit to his loft. Both parents' responses are overwhelmingly negative.

Brian's biggest fear is to lose his youth and beauty. His best friend, Michael, often reassures him that he will "always be young, and always be beautiful." Lindsay, a sister-like figure to Brian, sometimes fondly calls him 'Peter', in reference to Peter Pan, the boy who never grows old; he calls her 'Wendy' in return. Emmett Honeycutt's elderly boyfriend George Shickle before he dies describes Brian as "the love child of James Dean and Ayn Rand."

Despite Brian's seemingly uncaring and amoral nature, he is shown as loving his friends and will often make great sacrifices for them, even though he won't admit it. He plans a wedding for Lindsay and Melanie after theirs falls apart, and gives up his parental rights to his young son Gus, so that Melanie and Lindsay will reunite in the first season. He pushes Michael away, so that he will go back to his boyfriend. He helps his young lover Justin recover after a bashing at his senior prom, which Brian attended to please Justin. He gives up his job and money to beat the anti-gay candidate for mayor, Jim Stockwell, and is willing to give up his loft and nightclub to be with Justin.

#☯ 。゜ ⠀ ☆ ⠀ 。゜ ⠀ ★ 𝙁𝙄𝙇𝙀𝘿 𝙐𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍 ﹕Brian

[twistedstxrs]

Name: Brian Aiden Kinney

Nickname: Bri

Alias: Kinney

Birthday: May 21

Age: 20 - 35+

Sexuality: Gay

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Species: Human

Powers: None

Occupation: Chief Executive Officer(Kinnetik), Nightclub Owner(Babylon)

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 174 lbs

Eye Color: Hazel

Hair color: Brunette

Piercings: None

Tattoos: He has the word resist tattooed on his middle finger

Scars: None

Faceclaim: Gale Harold

Biography

Brian Kinney was born to Jack and Joan Kinney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His family was Irish-Catholic, with his mother in particular being extremely devout and homophobic. Brian had an unstable childhood due to his father being an abusive alcoholic. Brian was physically abused by his father throughout his childhood and teenage years; it is unclear whether Jack was also abusive to Brian's older sister, Claire. During his high school years, Brian would escape the abuse in his home by staying with his best friend, Michael Novotny, whose mother, Debbie Novotny, ultimately began treating Brian like another son. After high school, Brian received a full scholarship to Carnegie Mellon, where he studied advertising. It is there that he meets another close friend, Lindsay Peterson, who shares an art history class with him.

Though Brian is open about his sexuality to Michael and Debbie and is highly sexually active during his teenage years, Brian only comes out to his parents when he is well into adulthood. Brian feels he does not owe anything to his parents and chose not to disclose his sexuality to them for so long because he has little to no relationship with them. However, he ultimately tells his father on his deathbed, and his mother accidentally finds out after seeing Justin Taylor in Brian's bedroom during a visit to his loft. Both parents' responses are overwhelmingly negative.

Brian's biggest fear is to lose his youth and beauty. His best friend, Michael, often reassures him that he will "always be young, and always be beautiful." Lindsay, a sister-like figure to Brian, sometimes fondly calls him 'Peter', in reference to Peter Pan, the boy who never grows old; he calls her 'Wendy' in return. Emmett Honeycutt's elderly boyfriend George Shickle before he dies describes Brian as "the love child of James Dean and Ayn Rand."

Despite Brian's seemingly uncaring and amoral nature, he is shown as loving his friends and will often make great sacrifices for them, even though he won't admit it. He plans a wedding for Lindsay and Melanie after theirs falls apart, and gives up his parental rights to his young son Gus, so that Melanie and Lindsay will reunite in the first season. He pushes Michael away, so that he will go back to his boyfriend. He helps his young lover Justin recover after a bashing at his senior prom, which Brian attended to please Justin. He gives up his job and money to beat the anti-gay candidate for mayor, Jim Stockwell, and is willing to give up his loft and nightclub to be with Justin.

#♚↬Brian↫♚

[iamanartichoke]

I'm not a Thor/Loki shipper. I prefer their relationship as siblings & not romantic. That said, I've read some Thorki fics/seen some Thorki art that I *really* enjoy. I see no shame/disgust in enjoying their dynamic. If people don't like it, why do they feel the need to bother a shipper/writer/artist by telling them that they don't like it? It's so juvenile. Like "Hey, I don't like this so quit creating it." No, fuck you very much. Shoo now. Norns. You keep doing you, Artichoke.

Thank you, friend! That’s definitely where I’m coming from. Nobody is obligated to enjoy a ship that isn’t their cup of tea, but to demand that other people stop creating fiction/art/whatever for that ship? Nope. You don’t get to do that, so take your anti, probably teenage self elsewhere, bye. 

#asks #charlotte replies #thorki #antis are overwhelmingly teenagers #so i tend to assume they haven't developed critical thinking skills yet #which is fine but #keep it to yourself #but that's just like my opinion man #teadrinkingwolfgirl