#i might be a little bit of a tory anti

[robbyswayzekeenes]

unpopular opinion but it was not amanda larusso's fault that tory lost her job. was she a little out of line showing up at her place of work? sure, but she had no other way to contact her, and she really didn't cause a scene. tory was fired because she lost her cool at someone that wasn't even mrs larusso and had a continuously bad attitude, as her manager stated. and robby was so real for calling out what tory was even trying to achieve for breaking into the larusso's house

#leo's cobra kai brainrot #cobra kai #cobra kai season four #amanda larusso #tory nichols #i might be a little bit of a tory anti #only pre s5 tho

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

I want to write a little bit about structural racism in the UK against Travellers, and the Labour Party's complicity with this because I think it might help explain why that letter from Diane Abbott disturbed me so much.

Romani and Irish Travellers in the UK experience discrimination all the time. They'll be barred from shops and pubs, they experience discrimination from the police, they experience racial abuse. If they are living a nomadic lifestyle, they struggle to access schools and hospitals. Educational outcomes for Romani students are the worst in England by a large margin, followed by Irish Travellers. They're also over represented in the prison population compared to the proportion of the general population they make up.

Irish Travellers are generally "white/white passing" although they are a distinct ethnic group from the settled Irish. However, not all Romani people are "white passing" and some see themselves as PoC. Both groups have fought for a long time to be recognised officially as ethnic minorities and to gain legal protections.

In 2022, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts act was passed. This is the "bill" that was the focus of the "kill the bill" protests, and lots was written about the restrictions it placed on protestors. However, part 4 of the bill related to unauthorised encampments. Although the law does not specifically name any ethnic groups, it effectively criminalises the traditional nomadic traveller lifestyle.

It creates an offence of residing in a vehicle (this would include a caravan) on land without permission. It allows the police to seize the vehicle, even prior to the offence being committed. It allows the police to impose fines and prison sentences.

Although the bill itself does not name any particular ethnic group, much of the advice and communication around the bill does. This is because it's clearly designed to target certain groups who live a traditional nomadic lifestyle. It's designed to make them homeless, and force them into housing- essentially forced assimilation. The British have been trying to do this to Romani and Irish Travellers for centuries.

This law was passed by the Tories, but one thing people don't know is that Starmer whipped the Labour party against most sections of the bill. He allowed a free vote on Section 4- the section that specifically related to "unauthorised encampments".

Around the same time, in 2021, his party produced local election leaflets which mentioned "traveller incursions"- eventually they admitted the leaflets were racist and destroyed them. It's not the first time, and won't be the last, that Labour use racism against these groups to win points with the electorate.

In this context, Abbott is part of a system which is systematically discriminating against Romani and Irish Travellers- yes, Labour aren't the party in power, but they are a part of the system enabling this to happen.

So, I read her letter in that context. I read her minimisation of the struggles of the most marginalised ethnic groups in our society in that context (I don't want to make this "who has things worst" but it's nonetheless true). At best, she's throwing them under the bus to make a point she thinks will be popular with her supporters. At worst, she's actively affirming her own party's racist policies.

"It doesn't matter if we criminalise their way of life, because it's not "real" racism".

She is someone seen to be on the left, seen to be anti-racist, and she's effectively saying this prejudice is acceptable.

#uk politics #diane abbott #labour #racism #GRT #is the backlash more severe because she's black and a woman and on the left #well maybe #But there's also an awful lot of gaslighting going on towards Romani Irish Travellers and Jewish people on twitter #who don't have her institutional power #a timely reminder #politicians are not your friends

[ayeforscotland]

Could you please do a quick sum-up of what's going on with Sturgeon stepping down and where the party and Scotland are/might be heading? I avoid news outlets for the sake of my mental health, but now I'm wondering how worried I need to be given that the woman I've seen being discussed seems very right-wing. Do you think we'll end up with a Tory in yellow? I'm really frightened of that/the way the world in general is going, so a rational answer from yourself would be grand.

Sure - so after 8 years of governance, Nicola Sturgeon has resigned as First Minister. I’m not going to speculate too much on the reason because it’s not super clear.

Now, personally, I think Nicola Sturgeon has messed up a bit here, as it looks like there was little no proper planning for a successor. Nobody has really been groomed for a leadership role.

So there was a lot of hesitancy from SNP MSPs to put their names forward. We’ve ended up with Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes, and Ash Regan.

This is where the SNP went wrong in my mind, there’s lots of good talent on the progressive side but instead of putting themselves forward, they rallied around Humza. This isn’t because I think Humza is particularly bad, but having more progressives would have helped dilute the voices of the other two.

Kate Forbes is appealing more broadly to the right of the party. Typical lines like ‘being a safe pair of hands’ with finances - the issue is that it lends itself to a lot of Tory ‘we must tighten the belt’ type policies.

She’s also anti-LGBT, anti-abortion and, baffling in 2023, anti-sex before marriage. I believe over half of Scottish kids are born out of wedlock so I don’t quite know who she’s appealing to. That being said she’s won over the ‘She just speaks her mind’ crowd which has been a right-wing excuse for decades if not centuries.

Ash Regan looks to be appealing to the hardcore independence above all gang - she knew she wouldn’t get that much support from the party so immediately extended a hand to Alba & fringe pro-independence groups. Really trying to play into being a ‘unity for independence’ candidate. I don’t think she’ll have too much support from within the party, and she’s using this platform to boost her own reputation.

Humza Yousaf is being portrayed by the Forbes and Regan as the ‘continuity candidate’ as if winning every election in the past 8 years has been a bad thing. He’s pro-equality, unequivocal in his support for the recently passed GRA reform, and plans to continue the roll out of progressive policies we’ve become quite used to. He wants to extend child care etc.

The vast majority of SNP members I know are voting for Humza, there’s a few I know who are going Forbes. I’ve not yet met anyone who’s voting for Regan.

The vote is a transferable one, so SNP members will rank candidates in order of preference. I’ve seen a lot of Humza supporters just outright not transferring their vote - this is why the other two candidates are bending over backwards to discredit the leadership election. They’re already complaining about ‘voter regret’ etc.

Either way, the SNP could split after this - if Humza wins, Forbes has absolutely nuked her career and won’t be offered a cabinet position. Regan might spit the dummy and join Alba, becoming Alex Salmond’s successor.

[windypuddle]

Ensemble Stars!! > Bungou Stray Dogs, Part 4

This one’s unfortunately also a bit of a doozy to explain, even though it’s smaller. beware of lore.

(A continuation of my Enstars as BSD AU, see other parts below) 

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 5]

once again... so sorry about the formatting. this was going to be very different, as you might guess from the arrangement of character roles. i ended up not having enough characters that fit (and then realized i had extra characters in the agency and guild, but oh well)

look i don’t even want to deal with bram and all that nonsense. with regards to AUs, i usually give up around the current arc. this has to do with how i remake the narrative slightly based on the new characters and dynamics, and i can’t do that if i dont know where the actual canon narrative is going. that being said, the decay of angels are involved in a few arcs that have already wrapped up, so thats all good and fine and workable.

Eichi is an idealist. we all know this from enstars canon. everyone knows this. its the whole reason there’s a plot. it’s just that here he takes the idealism to the level of terrorism. he seeks the book out of a desire for equality, or at least that’s what he tells everyone; in fact it is a desperate and selfish quest to cheat death by rewriting his own fate. he hates his own ability and he hates this cruel world and he hates his illness and this is his way of fixing all of the above.

bonus: he has proper cello posture (i’ve seen some of y’all complain about fyodor)

Wataru is so important too. listen to me. listen closely. this whole au started because i was reading the tempest night story and could not stop making connections between wataei and fyolai. so there you have it. that’s why this AU exists. gay people. Wataru is extremely dedicated to both Eichi and his own constant performance. it is a cage of his own making.

the eccentrics had kind of an informal alliance, about 10 years before canon (to clarify: we’re going with closer to bsd ages ranges here, which means Wataru Shu and Kanata are all around 26 at the time of the main events) but what with the war, they drifted apart. the others view Wataru joining Eichi’s cause as a little bit of a betrayal.

Yuzuru... yeah he’s kind of just there. the decay of angels (a) plays up the angel motif already associated with fine and (b) is generally looking to rearrange the current social structure. Yuzuru is hoping this goal will Fix Everything and get Tori to leave the mafia. (tori is having fun lol)

Tatsumi, as a good Christian boy, is easily radicalized. He spread (admittedly hypocritical) anti-Ability teachings in Europe for a period of time, citing the war as evidence that Abilities cause ruin. He collected a decent following, who mobilized, cultlike, to go after Ability users. they captured Kaname at a certain point in time, and the mafia rescued him, which got him involved and indebted to the mafia. to try and repay this, Kaname went after the cult himself, and was killed. this made Tatsumi reevaluate his goals and join the guild. After his colleagues in the Guild were injured in the conflict, Eichi recruited him for the Decay of Angels with the promise of being rid of all his past crimes and helping

Tsumugi is the one who enables this, as his ability is the Perfect Crime: the one that erases all evidence. goddammit Eichi stop collecting people who are unhealthily devoted to you. eventual redemption arc with the mystery trio but its switch.

#puddles enstars > bsd au #puddle talks #decay of angels #rats in the house of the dead #eichi tenshouin #wataru hibiki #yuzuru fushimi #tatsumi kazehaya #kaname tojou #tsumugi aoba #enstars #ensemble stars #bungou stray dogs

[matzen74matzen]

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[jfbuckley]

This indicates precisely why the Tories are up sh*t creek without a paddle and will get wiped out in the election. I am firmly of the opinion that they will get fewer than 90 seats.

I don’t like Sadiq Khan, but I very much doubt that he is controlled by Islamists, no matter how much he might favour them. I also think that Lee Ander-son-son-son’s remarks are more than a little intemperate and ill advised.

However. Get this. Anderson made a remark which is purely rhetorical. No one - probably even him - believes it. It is said for effect. It gets people thinking. On the other hand, earlier in the week we had the speaker of the House of Commons cravenly surrendering to threats from Islamist extremists. We had anti-semitic and genocidal messages being beamed onto Big Ben, for all the world to see - the police did not do a thing about it, and I have not seen a single MP raising a complaint about it. No doubt they’re all terrified.

Yes, Anderson could have been a bit more temperate - but it does make you wonder. The last few months have shown that rampant double standards are in place in this country. Calls for genocide, threats of physical violence against MPs and changing the rules of parliament to suit cowards are all very well - but say one word on the other side of the debate and you will be shut down at the speed of light.

[jk-scrolling]

Is This the Weirdest Transphobic Lie Ever? viewer transcript

This one was already essentially done. What I did was attributions and coloring. Also some description of tones and actions, adjusted some wording I heard differently. Hope it adds instead of detracts.

Original video: https://youtu.be/EfzUtEcGluA (Thought Slime)

Sophie from Mars: https://www.youtube.com/@SophiefromMars

Abigail Thorn/Philosophy Tube: https://www.youtube.com/@PhilosophyTube

Sophie: Mildred.

Mildred: Sophie.

Sophie: Abby.

Abby: Sophie.

(Mildred cutting in)

Mildred: Future editing Mildred here, Abby’s video quality is going to be, let's say, subpar because the internet at her CIA safe house was spotty. Also, the lip synching…You know what? It's not going to be ideal all of the time. We can't always get what we want in this world.

Mildred: Hey, while I got you here, now might be a good time to mention: Content warning for some very pretty severe transmisogyny in this one. (note: the title card reads "Trans mascs gonna catch some strays too.") It’s some of the worst that I think there's been in a Cringe Corner thus far, and if you've been watching this series, you know that is no small bar to clear. Enjoy!

(Back to the show)

Sophie: Have you heard of The Daily Mail?

Abby: No. Never.

Sophie: No, never. Okay. Well, the Daily Mail is-

Mildred: Hold on! As the only person here who is not disgustingly English, my understanding is that it's a very bad right wing newspaper. Is this correct?

Sophie: Yeah. You're pretty much getting it. Would you be surprised to learn that people sometimes go in the Daily Mail and tell lies?

Mildred: No.

Abby: No!

Sophie: Would you be surprised-disappointed to learn that people go in the Daily Mail and tell lies about transgender people?

Abby: The British press telling lies about trans people? Surely not.

Mildred: Doesn't sound right. I'll take your word for it.

Sophie: Titles in the Daily Mail are never just like, really short and snappy. I think the only short and snappy title they’ve ever given was when they were just like “Hitler's Great!”

(note: Yep.

)

Abby: Well, Mr. Beast has really changed the title game when it comes to Daily Mail articles, like it's all about narrative in title now.

Sophie: They should have-they should have added "at 3 a.m." "Challenge." "Surprise."

Mildred: "Gone wrong."

Sophie: "Gone wrong, gone sexual."

Abby: "Uber driver sucked me off." Yeah.

Sophie: (reading Mail headline) “'I was frozen to the spot in shock. It was said to intimidate.' How a friendly chat in the ladies of a London pub turned menacing and plunged a Tory councillor, 22, into the clash between trans rights and women's safety.”

Mildred: Hold up, hold up. There's just so much information that I just got blasted with.

Sophie: I know, the titles are awful.

Mildred: Firstly, what do they mean? What is…22 surely does not refer to age.

Sophie: Oh yes. This is a entirely normal brained 22 year old Tory councillor.

Mildred: Okay, so maybe the Tories across the pond are a little bit different than the ones we have here in Canada. They're all like old white guys here. Why would a 22 year old be a Tory? Doesn't make any sense. Is her name Tory? Is that it?

Sophie: You know how in Game of Thrones where, like, the White Walkers get the baby, and then they like they touch its heart, and its heart turns to ice, and then it turns all pale and white? That's why people are Tories here. At a very young age, they were taken to a Tory headquarters and they were just turned into an anti-person.

Abby: I mean, I guess like the real answer is that some people do just grow up like very, very privileged, and like a lot of people have like wrong political opinions when they're younger-

Mildred: Abby, you're new here, but we don't like to approach these things with that level of good faith.

Abby: Sorry, that's kind of my thing.

(Sophie busting up laughing in the background)

Abby: Yeah, it's like trying to see both sides, like trying to be compassionate, trying to be fair.

Mildred: No, around here we point and laugh, and go hee hee ha ha.

Abby: Should there be an apostrophe there? Should there be an apostrophe? “Ladies.” Doesn't this imply that the conversation was happening inside the ladies themselves?

Mildred: It's a conversation between two wolves inside a lady.

Sophie: So this is Ruby Samson, who has written the article about her experience in the ladies' of a London pub.

Abby: Oh, it's autobiographical?

Sophie: Yes, She wrote it herself. “These days, I don't feel safe going to the ladies' loo alone-…” Oh, well she got the apostrophe there.

Abby: Ladies' there has an apostrophe!

Sophie: Yeah. Yeah. You know what? It's just sloppy, actually. "That's a statement I never thought I'd make. It sounds crazy, doesn't it?”

Mildred: Yeah. Yeah.

Sophie: “I’m neither shy nor fearful, but after my experience at a Westminster pub earlier this month, that's how I feel. Frequented predominantly by civil servants, The Marquis of Granby is near where I work, but it could have just as easily been any pub in the country.”

Mildred: She's making it sound like a Dracula attacked! I'm going to make an assumption here, on context clues, that why she is scared is because she saw a trans woman - who may or may not be you.

Sophie: Well let’s get there!

Abby: You've got a choice of two, Mildred. Common narrative structure suggests it's one of us.

Sophie: Chekhov's [bleeped].

Abby: (snapping fingers) If you put a queen on the shelf, she must go off!

Sophie: “It was a Wednesday night, and I was attending an event upstairs before heading home after a pleasant evening. I went to the ladies' loo, which has two cubicles. I emerged from mine at the same time as the woman next door who, at about six feet tall, towered over me. She wore a skimpy top, which made her shoulders seem bigger, and she spoke with a strikingly deep voice…a trans woman!”

Abby: As if we're supposed to go dun, dun, dun!

Sophie: “The lavatory was cramped and I had to stand directly behind her while waiting to use the wash basin.” Which, you know, that doesn't happen when real women are in the in the bathroom with you. You never have to to wait to use the only sink there.

Mildred: Cis women don't wash their hands, is the thing. It's a male affectation.

Abby: Nor are they ever six feet tall. Nor do they ever have deep voices. No.

Sophie: Then they just included a full-full body length picture of Ruby for some reason.

Abby: Sick coat though, to be fair. It's a nice coat.

Sophie: Yeah. “I can't deny I was a bit shocked, yet there was a sense of novelty.” So yes, you’ve never met a trans woman before.

Abby: Ewww…That's such a…like, a “perhaps this person will amuse me whilst I'm taking a piss." Like ewww.

Sophie: Oh, a minority in the bathroom. How novel. Ooh! “I thought 'this is going well. I am handling the situation fine.'”

Mildred: (overlapping) Very normal-

Abby: (overlapping) What situation?!

Sophie: “It was as she moved towards the door to leave that it happened. I remarked that we had no choice but to awkwardly shake our hands dry, and she turned to me and replied, ‘I'm going to wipe my hands on my penis.’ With that, she disappeared.”

Mildred: (hand acting) In a puff of smoke.

(All laughing)

Abby: As though she was never there at all! Purely a figment of my imagination!

Mildred: With that, she absconded with all of my jewels.

Abby: It would have been extremely funny had the trans woman in question actually said this. It would have been very funny and, like, a very funny trans joke. And also I can imagine that being said as a way of, like, trying to put a cis person who's obviously, like, nervous about being around a trans person - becausethey’retransphobic - at ease.

Abby: Like, that's quite a funny icebreaker, actually!

Sophie: “Until this, our conversation had been quite positive and pleasant. Now I was frozen to the spot in shock. There's no doubt in my mind this was a threat of sorts. Why would you assert that you had a penis in a female single sex space? I felt like I'd been flashed as the penis image was put in my mind by her announcement. It was said to intimidate.”

Abby: Haven’t you done that to the reader, then?

Sophie: The penis image is in my mind now. Thanks Ruby, for flashing us all with this! “The close proximity made it much scarier still. What if she turned violent?”

Abby: What if she had a gun? Well, she didn't, I hasten to add. But what if she did?

Sophie: What if she read me a mean tweet? “It would be 10 minutes before my friends realized I was missing.” I don't know if that's meant to mean that she did actually stay in the bathroom for ten more minutes in shock…

Mildred: It sounds like she's saying, “what if I was assaulted or killed? No one would come looking for me!” I imagine this trans woman coming out of the ladies' loo with her hands covered in blood and then wiping the blood on her penis.

Sophie: “This brief but deeply troubling episode played on my mind for the rest of the week, and I found myself examining all sides of the debate over whether men who self-identify as women - ” Wow. Where did that mask go? Ruby, I liked your mask so much.

Abby: Yeah, see, now we fucking…We've done a fucking bit of…. Little bit of a switcheroo here to make a magic switcheroo, because instead of going from a trans woman, you go on to “it's a man who's pretending."

Sophie: “Who, I reflected, would want to hear about this and who would care?”

Abby: End the article there. End it right right there. Right after that sentence.

Sophie: “Cabinet Minister Kemi Badenoch -” If people are unfamiliar, probably the highest ranking government TERF we have right now, “ - has been vocal on this issue, and I wrote to her about what happened. Doing so made me feel a bit better. I also wrote to the pub.”

Abby: (laughing, aghast) You wrote to the pub?!

Sophie: “One thing I didn't do, however, was tell the police. I didn't want to be accused of transphobia for saying this person was in the wrong bathroom.”

Abby: Well, wha-why would you have to?! What crime has been committed here?

Mildred: She was made to think of a penis. That's essentially like being flashed.

Abby: Even if this had taken place, it's not a crime!

Mildred: How can anyone have this few problems?

(Sophie laughing wildly)

Abby: I mean…she is a Tory councillor.

Mildred: Touché, touché.

Sophie: “I feel it important to state that I support trans people's right to live an authentic lifestyle, and agree that people with gender dysphoria should be able to change their gender after 18.”

Abby: So much to fucking unpack here. First of all, she says she "feels it's important to say that I support trans people's rights to live an authentic lifestyle." As we will see, that does not include accessing the correct spaces, so immediately, like, wrong, and I haven't even finished the sentence. Change gender after 18. This is a fucking big bugbear of mine. And like, I have absolutely zero fucking tolerance for this kind of fucking bullshit, right? Because it's everywhere in the US and I'm fucking going off.

[Flashback clip to earlier in convo] Abby: If you put a queen on the shelf, she must go off.

Abby: It's everywhere in the US and the UK! People are like “Oh, children shouldn't be able to change gender until 18.” In the UK, children are allowed to get abortions without the parents' consent. The reason for that is the law acknowledges the sad possibility that sometimes some parents don't love their children. I mean, if a kid under the age of 18, goes into a doctor's office and says "I need an abortion because my daddy made me pregnant," and the doctor says "I have to tell your daddy about this," there's a non-zero chance that child ends up dead.

Abby: The same is also true with blood transfusions. If a child wants a blood transfusion to survive and the parents have a religious objection, the child has a right to consent to that medical procedure without the parents say so because the law respects children's right to decide what happens to their own bodies in a medical setting.

Abby: And if you agree that children who are cis should be allowed to consent to abortions and blood transfusions without the need for parental approval, and under the age of 18, and you don't think that the trans children should be allowed to do the same thing with regards to medical transition? Then you are fucking definitionally transphobic. Fffuck you!

Mildred: That is a great example of the type of thing that is a real problem. And hearing those things contrasted with what this woman is complaining about (Sophie laughing) is just -

Abby: True.

Mildred: - the full gamut of the human experience right there.

Sophie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we've - we've whiplashed from like very, very, very fake problems, in that it didn't happen, wouldn't be a problem if it did, and was entirely constructed to like…right.

Sophie: “But single sex spaces are paramount to women's safety, sex and gender are different -”

Abby: Ok, I’m fucking stopping again, right?! Again. I'm fucking furious that we've given them any fucking ground on this issue, right? Trans people - not all of us, some trans people - I would include myself in this and Sophie, I think you do, too - some of us do, in fact, change sex, right? Clue is in the fucking word, okay? I am, in fact, female. I had to go through a lot of fucking bullshit to get here. I wasn't always, I'll grant you that! I wasn't born that way. But I am, in fact, female now. Believe me, motherfuckers.

Sophie: Cis women self-identify to go to the women's bathroom. No one checks their fucking [bleeped] license at the door. Like it's not a thing. No one checks any paperwork. It's all self-identification.

Abby: If there is a magic fucking door frame that only allows people of the female sex through, I'm fucking walking straight through that motherfucker. I'm walking straight through it. It's not going to ding because I am, in fact, of the female sex. Get over it.

Sophie: “If someone wants to use a different set of pronouns, I'm completely accepting of that and always try to accommodate them.”

Mildred: No, you're not. (silly) No you isn’t.

Sophie: We’ll check in on that one in a second. Because in this article - in this article - the anonymous transgender is “she” and is “her”, etc…but we will get to a second document in a minute.

Mildred: I just find it very difficult to believe that someone would respect a trans person's pronouns if you also refer to a trans woman as “a man who identifies as a woman.”

Sophie: Mmmhmm. Yep. Yep.

Mildred: I just don't believe that.

Abby: A lot of people think that our problems begin and end with people using the correct language. And I think that belies cis people's fear of saying the wrong thing. And it's like, to be perfectly honest, I don't care if I leave my doctor's office and he says to the nurse “that bloke is off his fucking rocker, right?” I care that he gives me my goddamn medicine. I care about like actual shit. Like, yes, somebody misgenders me and uses the wrong pronouns, and it's going to upset me mildly. Probably, I'm just going to be like, "You're an idiot." Like, look at me. But like (completely fed up noise)

Sophie: When I was in Armenia to get FFS (note: facial feminization surgery) - because the NHS doesn't offer FFS, right - so already I'm halfway around the world to get a surgery I need - I had serious trouble, like, getting around town in Yerevan because so many taxi drivers, they wouldn't even bother. They would go like “Eh” and like, pull away. Just like, drive away immediately. This is the shit that I care about. The shit that actually like impacts my life. I couldn't get around town a lot of the time. I had to do so a lot slower because it involves, like, waiting for the sixth taxi to pull up, and a guy who's like more desperate for a small fee than he was transphobic would accept my- accept my fare.

Mildred: Well, I think rhetorically, the reason that they focus so much on language instead of shit like that is: Number one, they don't want their audience to know that trans people are experiencing those kinds of problems, because it's inherently sympathetic. And number two, like, having to use language to treat a person with respect is literally the only way that it could possibly affect them.

Sophie: It's George Orwin, it's 1967, it's Animal Crossing, iPhone, vuvuzela, etc.

Sophie: “Women are in danger -”

Abby: Yes we are.

Sophie: Yes, of hearing it said “I will wipe my hands on my penis” in the bathroom. “- because there isn't an open dialog about the erosion of women's spaces. People are too afraid to speak out for fear of being CANCELED.”

Abby: There is a dialog, but the dialog is just cis people lying to each other. It's like, totally fucking disconnected from reality. It's like so much of what is called the "trans debate" is just cis people holding a torch under their chin and going OooOOOooooh.

Mildred: But it's also like…you're having- you're doing it right now. You're…you're quite literally talking about it right now, Ruby. What do you mean no one's having the dialog?

Sophie: “People are too afraid to speak out for fear of being canceled. Men’s spaces remain single sex while the alternative is mixed gender.”

Mildred: What?

Sophie: What are you talking about? (laughing)

Abby: You, yourself - hang on a minute - you yourself said two paragraphs ago that sex and gender are different. So not to be like a by-your-own-logic bitch, but…by her own logic. Fucking proofread your article!

Sophie: I guess she just believes that like…like fucking jacked trans dudes with beards are like are all using the women's bathrooms.

Mildred: How would you know? If they're indeed single sex spaces, that would preclude Ruby from going into one.

Sophie: We're just gonna have to wait for like, Ron Sampson to write an article in the Telegraph about how some terrifying man told him “I'll…I'll queef my hands dry.”

(Laughter)

Abby: (daintily) Gross.

Sophie: (laughs) Anyway, "politicians need to note the multitude of examples such as mine and much worse, and take action. That's the thing about my experience. It could easily become the norm. An everyday occurrence.” (dissolves into laughter again

Mildred: What could?

Abby: Your experience of…of…of…of what?!

Sophie: It could easily become the norm! That trans women are going into all the women's bathrooms and saying, “I'll wipe my hands on my penis!"

Abby: I mean, it will NOW.

Sophie: Now maybe this is for emphasis, but I don't know why "are” is in caps here. Anyway, “ARE we to live in fear with-live with the fear that every time we use a public toilet we might encounter a threatening trans woman with a penis?”

Abby: Am I - am I to live with the fear that every time I use a public toilet I might encounter a threatening cis woman with a Daily Mail article?

Mildred: Well actually, yes, that's a reasonable concern, I think, at this point.

Sophie: Yep. Yep.

Abby: Or indeed, if this woman gets her way, am I to live with the fear that every time I use a public toilet I might encounter a threatening man?

Sophie: She has a couple of other examples that are fantastic. So, “In Primark recently, I had my first experience using gender neutral changing rooms. They have a little curtain, but no locking door. I was trying on [pause, slight reverb, inset for future significance] JEANS and felt quite vulnerable and at risk. This blurring of the sexes is now everywhere. I went to Boots Opticians and by accident-”

Abby: Wait. Hang on a minute, hang on a minute, hang on a minute. In Primark, did anything happen?

Sophie: No, she just felt (shrugs) felt like it might.

Mildred: Sorry, I spaced out for a second. Why is she trying on penises at Primark?

(laughter)

Sophie: No, she was trying on jeans! I tried to enunciate very clearly.

Mildred: Jeans, oh. The way that you said that was…I don't know, it sounded like penis to me, but okay.

Sophie: Maybe it was my internet connection, I dunno.

Mildred: Maybe.

Sophie: “I mean, this blurring of the sexes is now everywhere. I went to Boots Opticians and by accident tried on a pair of men's glasses that were too big for my face because men have…”

Sophie: (voice rises like two octaves trying to suppress laughter) “BIOLOGICALLY BIGGER FACES.”

Abby: (squeaky) wHat the fUck?!!

Sophie: As we all know, men contain the Roberts Z’dar gene that makes your face ten miles wide.

Abby: She does wear glasses…Interesting. Scroll up. I remember them. I mean, yeah, that's pretty…I mean, they're pretty big.

Mildred: Men's glasses would just be out to here on her, I guess.

Abby: Big comedy novelty glasses, like with the shape of the new year written in them.

Sophie: I accidentally tried on a pair of glasses that didn't have any lenses and they were just slits.

Mildred: And the eyes were on springs that fell forward. (wobbling motion)

Sophie: I accidentally tried on some glasses that had one blue lens and one red lens.

Abby: How can you type the phrase “biologically bigger faces” and still take yourself seriously? Like, what?

Sophie: “I detailed my experience on Twitter. I was amazed at the responses from women sharing stories about changing rooms and toilets. Of course, the person who intimidated me was not representative of the trans community.” No, she doesn't speak for the trans community. She is-she is no kind of figurehead. We all denounce her.

Sophie: “But my experience highlights the high risk of self ID to women's safety. There needs to be greater protection of women's spaces. Ideally, there should be men's spaces, women's spaces and a gender neutral space.” I guess just one?

Abby: Separate but equal, if you will.

Sophie: Just one gender neutral space is all she wants.

Mildred: For all the gender neutrals out there.

Abby: If you did that, if you actually managed to construct them across the nation in every place where there are toilets, if you built a third one, I would still use the ladies. Because I am, in fact, a woman. So get rekt.

Sophie: “If not, then what happened to me -” which is nothing “- and worse -” anything times zero is zero “- will happen to others. I want everyone to have equal rights, but I'm worried how a few people will ruin those…”

Abby: But! "I want everyone to have equal rights…BUT!"

Sophie: “But as for the Marquis of Granby, I would find it very hard to go back there and use the toilets unless I was with a friend.” Good, Ruby. Fuck off. Don't go there again. “I would be anxious about it. And that's really rather tragic.”

Mildred: My heart breaks.

Abby: It is tragic, Ruby. It's completely tragic.

Sophie: So Ruby didn't actually only write this Daily Mail article. Before she wrote the Daily Mail article, she also wrote a letter to Kemi Badenoch. Kemi Badenoch is the highest ranking government TERF. She's the Minister for Women and Equalities I think?

Abby: Just as important context, I think it was a few months ago, Kemi Badenoch was caught - this is facts, this is factual - Kemi Badenoch was caught writing a secret letter to the Financial Conduct Authority, who was supposed to be independent from the government, encouraging them not to adopt new trans friendly workplace guidelines, so…

Sophie: Extremely cool.

Sophie: This letter, which is, I mean, it's not like it's on official letterhead or whatever, but it is in her role as Tory councillor writing to a government minister.

Abby: Sorry, to be fair, it does actually say in the first sentence she's writing it in a personal capacity, being fair and balanced.

Mildred: And also to be fair and balanced, it does look like she typed it up on her computer, printed it off, and then took a picture of it, so…

Sophie: “Dear Ms. Badenoch” Or Miss Badenoch, I don’t know. I don't know what fancy titles these people are expecting to identify with. “I'm writing this letter in a personal capacity. I'm writing to you in your capacity as Minister for Women and Equalities. I want to tell you about an incident that happened to me on Wednesday, 15th of February at the Marquis of Granby Pub at 41 Ramsay Street, London. I used the upstairs ladies toilet, which has two cubicles.”

Mildred: Why does she keep specifying the amount of cubicles? This is not necessary information.

Sophie: “I came out of a cubicle at the same time as someone else. I waited while (heavy emphasis) they used the basin and they started to make small talk with me about the hand drying not working. I noticed that their voice was very deep and they had a much bigger physique. I mentioned we'd awkwardly have to shake our hands dry, and then they turned to me as they were about to leave and said, ‘I'm going to wipe my hands on my penis.’ I was completely shocked at this comment."

Sophie: "I was aware that this person was a trans woman -” Sorry, I'm very sorry. I'm very, very sorry. She was actually aware that this person was a trans women. "- who wouldn't have female anatomy.”

Abby: Yes she would.

Sophie: She would. Yes, but yes. Yes, we do actually. Get rekt.

Sophie: “But prior to the statement, we were making pleasant small talk. There was no need for the statement. It was said as a threat, and to assert the fact that they had a penis but were in a single sex - a female single sex space. I left the incident knowing that I couldn't report the problem without being accused of transphobia for saying someone was in the wrong bathroom.” It's really interesting how she couldn't report it, but she could write it in the national press and write a letter to Kemi Badenoch about it.

Abby: In fairness, she has reported it and she has been accused of transphobia.

Sophie: "In some ways I was lucky. They made this intimidating comment and then left."

Mildred: (overlapping) "I barely survived!"

Sophie: "If this had gotten physically violent, it could have been at least twenty minutes before someone realized I was off missing.”

Mildred: It was ten in the article! Why is it twenty now?!

Sophie: “Without any chance of anyone hearing me call for help!”

Mildred: HWHAAAT?

Sophie: “How society is progressing I don't feel safe going to a female bathroom alone.”

Abby: Neither do I.

Sophie: Yeah. Yeah, right? “I fear that these incidents will become more and more frequent with no way of having any consequences for the improper use of single sex spaces. With ongoing debates around self ID, I feel many feel they cannot say that someone is in the wrong bathroom even if they're displaying threatening and predatory behavior. I felt like I had been flashed as the image of that penis was put in my mind by its announcement.”

Abby: You felt like you had been, but crucially, you had not. Crucially, it did not actually happen.

Sophie: “I hope you're going to show me about what is being done to ensure single sex spaces do not continue to be eroded as the effect is already being felt by young women. Yours sincerely, Councillor Ruby Samson.” So that's all a really terrifying experience we've heard about.

Abby: Now's a good time to talk about “them/them” and trans women because a lot of cis people, I think, don't quite get this. Some people think, and I think that they mean well, that if you just use they/them to refer to every trans person, that is "not as bad as misgendering" or that's, like, neutral. And I hope if any of those people are watching, that this letter shows you why that is not always the case. I admit that it can be difficult, especially if you don't know somebody's pronouns. I myself will sometimes use "The Coward's They." I'll be like "I don't know this person's pronouns, so I'm going to go for they/them and I'm happy to be corrected." Right? And I will also admit that it can be confusing because some trans women, who call themselves trans women, do also use she/they.

Abby: However, I hope you can see from this particular letter that sometimes, especially in Britain, "they" is the fucking silencer on the gun that is actually he/him, okay? What this person wants to say is quite clearly “he,” because she's arguing that this mystery trans person - who we still don't know the identity of - should not, in fact, be allowed to use women's spaces, but should be sent off to be with men, right?

Abby: So I hope you can recognize now why when you call me "they" on Twitter, I block you.

Sophie: It's uh…it is, uh…a harrowing incident, what's happened to Ruby, here. But many people have been calling it into question.

Mildred: I mean, come on! If she's lying, it would be a pretty embarrassing lie, wouldn’t it?

Sophie: She locked the replies after some people started immediately saying "No, that didn't happen." Here's Katy Montgomerie saying “You unambiguously made up that story wholesale. It's not even slightly believable.” And I replied to this when I first saw the story doing the rounds, and I said, “I don't know what kind of gigachad this hypothetical trans girl is, but I keep trying to imagine a penis that would be in any way appropriate to try to dry your hands on, and I have to conclude it's just massive…"

Sophie: Funny! So funny story. On the 15th of February, there was a vigil for murdered child Brianna Ghey, who was trans, who was quite severely bullied for being trans, and then was found dead in Culcheth having been stabbed. And I, and a lot of other people in the trans London community, attended the vigil. And then, fearing the possibility that we could get, you know, attacked by Far-Right bigots in the area - it has happened to people I know - we decided to hang out at the pub as a group to just like let things cool off before we headed home.

Mildred: This is this is an odd digression. I don't know where you're going with this, but I'll allow it.

Sophie: I just think this is a story you'll find amusing, that's all. So I didn't really take note of what the pub was, but it later turned out…that it was the Marquis of Granby. (music sting: dun dun DUN!) At the time, it was just a weird pub in the Westminster area, that, being in the Westminster area, was obviously full of weird Tories.

Sophie: And yeah, I went to the bathroom, and when I'd done my business and came out of the cubicle, there was a cis woman there. So obviously I was thinking, "How can I handle this situation well? I don't want to treat this person any differently."

(Others laugh)

Sophie: We made some very brief small talk because the bathroom was utter dog shit, and there'd been no toilet roll in my cubicle. So, like, I brought that up. Tried to use the hand dryer, it was terrible, it wasn't doing anything. She said, “We'll have to shake,” and it crossed my mind like, did she mean we were going to shake hands? Obviously that's a ridiculous thing to say, it just crossed my mind. I took a second, and then I thought, "Oh, right. Like shake her hands dry." And then I said, “No, it's cool. I'll just wipe my hands on my jeans.” And then I left.

Sophie: Um. Yeah. So Ruby has not posted anything on Twitter in a little while. She has-she has kept noticeably silent. She's liked a few things.

Mildred: Well, you know, it's not safe these days to be on Twitter.

Sophie: It's not safe, is it? Yeah. She could be called a transphobe.

Mildred: Until they have a single sex social media platform, it's not safe to post.

Sophie: But I did post about it, explaining what I've just explained to you now, and someone who calls himself Ruby's friend - I don't know if she considers him a friend, I can't comment on that - quoted it and said, “I don't believe my friend Ruby Samson is a liar. Regardless, the read out from the situation is cis Tory equals liar and trans anti-Tory equals truth teller. No engagement on the substantive issue of a perceived conflict between trans rights and women's rights. The state of things -”

Mildred: But…you are you! You're not making the assumption that she's lying because she’s cis. You're making that assumption because you witnessed it!

Sophie: It's not cis Tory versus trans anti-Tory. It's “I'll wipe my hands on my jeans,” a normal phrase that is said by, at a guess, millions of people a day, I don't know, versus “I'll wipe my hands on my penis,” a fucking sentence that I had never conceived of before last week. And unfortunately now, I've heard it so many times.

Abby: I guess it is possible she could have misheard you. I mean, like, I can't believe I'm trying to…trying to be compassionate to this woman who has literally written to a government minister calling for me to be excluded from public facilities. Why, oh why, Abby, are you so persistently compassionate?

Sophie: The benefit of the doubt here is, in some ways, weirder than the calculated lie, because the benefit of the doubt version is that she saw a trans woman, and then through the whole interaction - which kind of aligns with what she wrote anyway - she was just thinking “penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis." (Clip of Penis Pervert from Mission Hill saying "penis penis penis penis.”) And then when I said “I'll wipe my hands on my jeans,” she, like, had this Freudian mishearing, you know?

Abby: And I guess also, like, even if she did genuinely, sincerely mishear you, to react to that by A) writing notes to the Daily Mail and B) again, let's not forget, writing to a member of government to call for you and everyone like you to be excluded from public life, is not a reasonable way to respond to that sentence, even if it had been said.

Mildred: I agree that it is possible that she thought she heard that. What I don't think is feasible is that, like, anywhere after ten seconds after that, she didn't stop and go "Wait a minute, that sentence makes no sense. She probably said something else." If I'm imitating Ruby, "They probably said something else."

Abby: None of her friends suggested to her, nobody was like “ You sure she said that?”

Sophie: "I'm another one of your Tory entourage, so I obviously believe that trans women will do anything to try to spread their sick, fetishistic, evil agenda onto everyone…But did that really happen?"

Mildred: In her mind, what are you getting out of this? Right? You're walking in, and like, just as you're about to leave the room, just for a sick thrill, you turn around and be like, “I've got a penis, blehhh!!”

Sophie: I find her silence on on the issue kind of interesting, because if it were…if it was simply not me, there are lots of pictures of me online, and she could have very quickly gone "I've looked at pictures of you and you're not the trans woman I was talking about. A different trans woman said to me, 'I'll wipe my hands on my penis.'" Now that would still be a weird situation for her, because I was there that night with my friends. We were the only trans women there. I can verify that. And so, it would have to be one of my friends instead. In that group of friends, I'm the one who's six foot tall and wearing a skimpy top, so.

Mildred: But boy, what a court case that would be though.

Abby: Classic case of she said, they said.

Sophie: Two lawyers constructing absolutely, like, esoteric arguments, trying to argue is it more plausible that someone said, “I'll wipe my hands on my jeans” or “I'll wipe my hands on my penis?” And then ultimately the trans woman goes to jail at the end of the court case, anyway.

Abby: I want to see - well, I don't want to see, but I do want to see - the Crimewatch recreation shot.

Sophie: So she also liked this person, who was arguing about the situation, saying, “No, you've taken the side of this individual who has not confirmed that they are the person because it fits with your comfortable worldview. I trust Ruby. And anyway, someone with a penis should not be using the women's toilets. Case closed.”

Abby: Let's explain exactly why trans women with penises are allowed to use female spaces.

Mildred: 'Cause-'cause they're women.

Abby: Yes. Because we’re women, yes. But also, the government should not have the right to compel citizens to undergo a medical procedure. Vaginoplasties are, first of all, expensive. And secondly, generally pretty safe, but they do carry an element of medical risk, and it is not in line with citizens' human rights for the government to compel people to undergo a surgical procedure before we access a certain public facility. This person, I suspect, without really particularly thinking about it, is implying that the government should have the right to force people to undergo a medical procedure, and that is just fucking barmy!

Sophie: If the law did say in whatever terms "you have to have a pussy to go in the women's loos," you would have to be checking.

Mildred: You are both being too generous with your benefit of the doubt in assuming that if a trans woman had a vaginoplasty, she would be okay with them using the women's room.

Sophie: This was just saying “someone with XY chromosomes should not be using the women's toilets.”

Abby: Yeah, yeah. I realize I'm trying to play chess against a pigeon here. Also I realize that it's the prerogative of the bigot to not use language seriously. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Mildred: You know, as the only person here that uses the men's room, I don't want a bunch of fucking women showing up, and like, seeing what I do in there.

(Sophie cracks up)

Abby: (suspicious) Why? What are you doing?

Mildred: I don’t want you to know! I don't want to tell you!

Sophie: It’s the only single sex space where Mildred can safely indulge in her Magic the Gathering hobby.

Mildred: Nonononononononononono. I'm merely saying that I'm disgusting.

Abby: Yeah, It's very noticeable that at no point during this entire-entire thing has anyone gone, “By the way, here are the stats for, like, this many countries have allowed trans women to use like women's spaces for this amount of time. These are the actual stats for things like assault if that's what you're worried about.” Like, at no point is there serious engagement with this issue provided. You can't debate somebody whose entire position is the denial of facts.

Abby: Like, like people accuse US of denying, like, the facts of biology - which is just like a fucking IMAX level of projection, right? - and I think about this in terms of, like, there's recently been a change in British law such that any trans woman who has, quote, “male genitalia” will now be sent to a men's prison. And it's like, okay, even putting aside the danger of doing that, and like the death sentence, that that might be. LITERALLY.

Abby: Here's a question: What is the legal definition of male genitalia? Like, do you mean…does a trans woman who's had like three months of HRT count? Which, like, massively changes genitalia? Six months? Nine months? Twelve months? Three years of HRT? If you’re like, post orchiectomy? I mean, even if you're only talking about vaginoplasty, what kind of vaginoplasty? There's like three different kinds. What if you get the futa surgery where you've got penis preserving vaginoplasty? What fuckin’ prison do you go to? Are you just constantly being moved around?!

Sophie: If you have the futa surgery where you have a wee wee and a hoo ha, you have to go to the Magneto prison. They actually put you just, like, isolated entirely in plastic, like a huge pit. You're like brought your, like chess set and your meal, like, once a day by a guard.

Mildred: I thought we were going to go more of like an Ashley Judd/Double Jeopardy type situation, where it turns out that if you have both, you cannot be arrested for a crime.

Abby: Lethal Weapon 4.

Sophie; Would we be up for looking at some posts on Mumsnet?

Mildred: It's the purview of this program to find things to cringe at, so…

Sophie: A really interesting thing that I saw, and will not show, is that 4chan? Not on Ruby's side, here. They’re still very much being 4chan, so that's why I'm not showing it, but-

Abby: Chaotic evil.

Sophie: -they do not find “I'll wipe my hands on my penis” to be a believable thing a human being would say. And so none of them are on her side. 4Chan are saying Ruby is a [bleeped], attacking her for being Jewish, saying a lot of other-

Abby: Whoa! The most chaotic possible answers! Damn, that's some good shit. (double thumbs up) I'm making a note to log on to 4chan dot com. Great website.

Mildred: It gets the official Philosophy Tube endorsement.

Sophie: So here's a thread called “Tory Councillor has trans women on the brain” and the original post is describing it pretty much as-as it is, right? Being like “Hey, this is ridiculous. What if she was talking about this? Like, saying all this stuff about a black woman or a gay woman? Would we not get what was going on here?” And then naturally enough, there are the replies.

Abby: And this is an interesting distinction between like American discourse, and British discourse. So, listeners, you will observe that in ShelefttheWeb's comment, you will observe the use of the compound noun “transwomen” without a space. Okay? And I've talked to American trans people about this: In Britain that is a transphobic dog whistle. In America, apparently they wouldn't think twice about doing that. But in Britain, if you exclude the space, it is a transphobic dog whistle, specifically for this reason: Because you will notice ShelefttheWeb writes “black” and “gay” space “women.” So “gay” space “women” are a kind of woman. Whereas the idea behind using the compound noun “transwomen” without a space is to say that this is a new thing. It is not a subcategory of women.

Mildred: Also not how words work. Fool's gold is not gold, and there's still a space there.

Abby: Yeah, true true.

Sophie: Two little pieces of bigot history here. This is yet another repeated earlier move that they've made. They keep on just recycling the same old shit. They used to take one of the 's's out of transsexual, because they were trying to imply that to be transsexual (note: tran + sexual) was a sexuality and inherently had to do with, like, fetish and sex.

Mildred: (heavy scorn) GOT ‘EM!!

Sophie: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. This person, CryptoFascistMadamCholet - cool.

Mildred: (silly) Well, let's hear 'em out!

Abby: “Penis does not sound like pants, penis sounds like penis.”

Sophie: There's actually a tweet somewhere, where Ruby replied to someone saying, “Maybe she said pants?”, and she says, “Oh, does penis sound like pants? NO!” And then there are like a hundred replies to her, all saying “Jeans, on the other hand…”

Sophie: So this one I found quite interesting for a couple of reasons. The first one is that they've-they've taken my recent new profile picture on Twitter, and they've highlighted the fact I have a chain in my hand. Now, this chain - they have, there's a reply later on where someone insists that it must be (giggles) for street brawling, because I'm such an obvious East London Street brawler. And that's why they've highlighted it in the picture. This chain, it's a necklace. (note: it's the same necklace she's wearing in the video) And you see, what happened here is I was putting on this little neckerchief situation to take this picture. And so I took off this, and I was holding it in the picture.

Sophie: I just find that male fist with a chain as sign of power stock image (note: referring to image posted in Mumsnet thread) …like, is there actually a stock image that's titled ‘Male Fist?’ Because what about this fist is male, but also like as a sign of power? Or did they get the stock image and then edit the title to be like "it's a male fist?" Yeah. They've posted some sets of nudes that I put on Twitter a while ago onto this thread, and I find this amusing. Obviously, this is a massively disgusting thing that they've done. But it should be noted that the people who go to this forum repeatedly and, you know, people who come into this thread, they kind of live to attack trans women's appearances. They kind of live for making fun of how trans women look. And after this post, no one commented on the nudes. And I just find that very funny.

Abby: I've seen this sort of thing before, when transphobic forums post images of trans women and then talk about, in particular, the ways in which trans women don't, in their eyes, pass in the comments. It's often a way of like, as I said, denying reality. Like, trying to find some way to, like, expose the trick, right? Oh, it's the forehead or it's the eyebrows, or whatever it is. Whereas in reality, those are features that you would find on many cis women as well.

Sophie: It's just like they've come here to attack someone else's appearance to make themselves feel better. And then they posted some pictures of me and had nothing to say.

Sophie: “As an American, I say pants, but my UK friends say trousers. Also, as an American, penis does not sound like pants to my ear. How many of you Brits actually say pants to mean trousers?”

Abby: It's worth flagging up here that there's some, like, obviously quite explicit transphobia going on in here. There're people referring to trans women as men. So it's, I'm afraid, quite obvious that Mumsnet is allowing this kind of explicit transphobia. I don't want just let that slide.

Sophie: No, I mean it's kind of, it's become so notorious that many people regard it to be their kind of raison d’être at this point, as a transphobe organizing site.

Abby: (overlapping) I know that the people who run Mumsnet have said that they kind of encourage debate and they don't allow hate. While here is explicit transphobia

Sophie: There it is.

Abby: Just on display.

Mildred: Yeah, I guess I didn't even really think of that, because to me, I was honestly surprised at how tame it was…And like, keep in mind we're looking at a thread where they literally posted my friend's nudes to make fun of her, and I'm like, “I thought this would be worse.”

Sophie: Again, that speaks to just how unbelievable the “I’ll wipe my hands on my penis” thing is. They can't even really muster the support to, like…they just can't get the energy to defend this as a position. “Wiping one's hands on one's pants would also be unacceptable in a British ladies' lavatory.” What are you talking about?

Mildred: Well, then what do you do?

Sophie: Do you just leave with wet hands?

Abby: You simply wait.

Sophie: You just air dry them.

(Mildred blows on her hands)

Abby: You shake, I guess.

Sophie: You walk around the pub going, “Hey, does anyone have a penis? Help!” Anyway, I think that's the most of-that's the most of it really. There's been a lot of memes of, you know, the butterfly meme. "Is this a penis?" and a pair of jeans flapping by. Yeah.

Sophie: Thank you for joining me for this-this cringe exploration.

Abby: I mean, I do want to say, like, sincerely, Sophie, I'm really sorry this happened to you.

Sophie: It was funny for a couple of days, and then it kind of hit me that I had been sexually harassed in the national press. And it has made me feel a bit less safe about going to the public bathrooms, because what if there is a Tory in there who will write in the Daily Mail?

Abby: Which, of course, is the point.

Sophie: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Abby: What are you doing after this by the way? Do you want to go to the pub? There’s a great one near me. I was there the other night. There was this weird incident where this cis woman, as I came out of bathroom, she was like, “we have to shake our hands dry.” And I just turned and said “balls!”

(Laughter)

Mildred: Well! Thank you so much for joining us on this Cringe Corner, Abby. Where can our audiences find you?

Abby: You can find me all over the place at the moment. You can find me on SkyTV in a series called Django, which has just come out. It's a Western period drama that I'm in. You can find me online on Philosophy Tube on YouTube, which is my show. You can find me on Kill James Bond, which is a podcast about films that I run with two other trans people. And you can find me wherever good content is made. You can also find me on Nebula, where my play "The Prince" is up at the moment, if you are theatrically inclined.

Sophie: It's a good play.

Abby: Thank you very much. And in future you'll be able to find me in other things that I cannot currently talk about. Keep your eyes out

Sophie: Yeah.

Abby: You can also find me in the toilets of the Marquis of Granby pub. You can also find me and Sophie in the nightmares of British Tories everywhere.

Sophie: That's true. Like Freddy Krueger, but trans.

Mildred: (Freddy Krueger voice) Gonna wipe my hands on my penis, bitch!

Abby: How does Freddy Krueger wash his hands? Answers on a postcard, please.

Mildred: I don’t think he does. He's not a very hygienic man. Sophie, in turn, where can our audiences find you? In what bathrooms?

Sophie: Generally the women's bathroom. Unless there's only a gender neutral one, which is obviously terrifying to me. But you can find me at SophiefromMars on most platforms. Sometimes it's SophiefromMars, all one word, and sometimes it's Sophie_from_Mars.

Abby: You gotta put the space in, otherwise it's transphobic.

Sophie: That's true. If you use a space, it is a hate crime. If you want to support my work, you can go to Patreon.com/SophiefromMars, and I'm currently working on a few different things that…some of them might intersect with future episodes of Cringe Corner. If you are a fan of this show, and want more straight faced takes about the things that we talk about sometimes. Not this thing. There's no-there's no essay to write about this one. No.

Abby: Straight faced and biologically bigger faced.

Mildred: Sorry, you said that URL was patreon.com/PenisVagina?

Sophie: Yes. Yeah. Go to the patreon page Penis Jeans Queen. That's me.

#transcript #transphobia #Thought Slime #SophiefromMars #Philosophy Tube #Daily Mail #single sex spaces #bad journalism #incest mention #medical neglect mention #transmisogyny #mumsnet

[goffsteen8]

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[itsdespicablebre]

I think Jack has said he likes black girls in the past. Ebro (radio dj) had asked him about the first black girl he has a crush on and he tell the story. He was also asked in his ten questions and he said yes.

That being said, I am always a bit hesitant when non-black people profess their love for black women. I worry it’s used for clout since we are a large spending group and are a generally loyal customer base. I’m not saying that’s the case with Jack, since I don’t know him. But it is always in the back of my mind.

To answer your question, I still think he’s cute and I like his music, but I’m not going to like dedicate my life to him or anything 😂 Also, I kinda skimmed the Rolling Stone article, what about it made you think about this?

Honestly the Rolling Stone article didn’t make me think about this it’s just been on mind lol But he does make a comment about the Tory Lanez and Megan Thee Stallion situation and honestly the article was a whole mess tbh. If you really wanna know you gotta read it cuz I’d be here for awhile. And ehhh I gotta be honest I’ve watched several of Ebros interviews and he is just…something smh. And I know which one you talking about and that did nothing for me only cuz Jack didn’t start that convo Ebro did and it was all cuz Jack had a black-ish (emphasis on ish) woman’s legs on the cover of TWTAS. Plus his little story about of the black girl in middle school that tore up his paper that said he liked her sounded fake lol or worse his own personal anti-black girl story. Lol All in all he might like our attention and respect us but I don’t think or I’m not sure if he likes us.

#jack harlow #jack harlow gifs

[clove-pinks]

🔪: for the “worst of” / worst moments for Marryat! 🙂

Ohhhhh man, I chuckled a little bit ruefully at this (as much as I walked right into it). I genuinely like Marryat and feel sympathy for him: but there is a lot of material here. Particularly since our modern mores are pretty hard on warmongering imperialist colonialist guys, and that's like the fabric of Marryat's entire world.

Every so often I think about Marryat at his fashionable peak, living in London in a house full of animal pelts and exotic curios like some cartoonish Imperialist overlord. As his daughter Florence described it, literally using a synonym for 'looted':

There was scarcely a room in Wimbledon House that was not decorated with some of the spoils which Captain Marryat had collected in his travels round the world. A Burmese shrine with silver idols, rifled from a pagoda; the carved tusks of a sacred elephant; opossum skins from Canada, embroidered with porcupine quills and coloured beads; toys in tortoiseshell and ivory, with precious stones and curious shells, were scattered everywhere, recalling memories of the Rangoon war, America, India, and the Celestial Empire.

— Florence Marryat, The Life and Letters of Captain Frederick Marryat

(See also: how DID Captain Marryat get all those wonderful objects to donate to museums?) It's apparent that Marryat's culture allowed for raiding the corpses of fallen enemies—he cut precious stones from dead Burmese warriors, and described picking over the dead bodies of the French for valuables in Frank Mildmay.

If you ask Marryat's biographers, they probably concur that one of his lowest points had to be that time he got into a brawl in Trafalgar Square, on Guy Fawkes day in 1834. It “illustrates a disagreeable side to Marryat’s character,” wrote Oliver Warner, and Tom Pocock lamented that it “should have been a trivial and easily resolved misunderstanding.”

A nobody civilian named Johnson Neale, who was a fan of Marryat’s works, tried his hand at writing nautical novels. But Marryat was offended by a fictional character based on Admiral Troubridge, and despite Marryat writing many hostile caricatures of real people in his own novels, he began attacking Neale in his Metropolitan Magazine. Neal challenged Marryat to a duel, Marryat declined the duel on the grounds that Neal was not his social equal and heaped on some more insults, and eventually the two men ran into each other in a public place:

‘Keep your distance,’ replied Mr. Neale, extending a walking-stick, ‘You are a liar, and a scoundrel, and only want the courage to be an assassin.’ To this charge Captain Marryat did not answer, but began to untie his cloak, which Mr. Neale gave him full time to do, and, stepping into the road, placed himself in a position for the attack, which he evidently meditated.

Having allowed Captain Marryat to divest himself of his cloak, and hang it on the palings of the National Gallery, Mr. Neale no sooner observed him in a fair state to defend himself, than he struck at the Captain with his stick. Several blows now quickly passed between the combatants; Mr. Neale being a man of half the calibre of the Captain took the advantage of his activity, and, as fast as he struck Captain Marryat, he retreated a step beyond his grasp. In doing this, however, he backed against a heap of Macadamized stones, and immediately fell backwards.

Captain Marryat then flung himself upon his assailant, and planted his knee upon his chest, and placing one hand upon his throat, with the other he gave him several blows on the head with a stick [...] Mr. Neale at the same time made a violent effort, and Captain Marryat rolled over in the mud. Mr. Neale now sprang to his feet, as did also the gallant Captain, who was again advancing to the attack of his unarmed foe, who, having lost his stick, caught up some of the rubbish, on which he had fallen, and directed it at the Captain’s face.

— Oliver Warner, Captain Marryat: A Rediscovery

The bitchfight continued, cops were called, and both Marryat and Neale appeared at Bow Street, charged with causing an affray. Marryat refused several attempts to defuse the situation and apologise. It doesn’t reflect well on him, but at the same time, you can make some excuses for his volatile temperament.

It’s less easy to excuse some of Marryat’s truly awful takes on social issues. He did eventually move to a position of strongly condemning slavery, but not before some really yikes maybe-slavery-isn’t-so-bad moments in Frank Mildmay and Newton Forster in particular, which is dismaying, but probably not too shocking for the son of a career anti-abolitionist. (One time, when I was trying to look up Marryat’s older brother, also named Joseph, I found father and son in the Legacies of British Slavery database. It definitely answered some questions about the family’s privilege and wealth, not in a good way).

As soon as I started reading Marryat, it struck me that his moral compass was slightly askew. Which might be true enough, although that’s a very harsh judgement to pass on someone. (And I would hate to smugly think that of course I’m so much less racist and bigoted than Marryat, when who knows what unquestioned prejudices and bad attitudes are in my heart, and how much progress I still have to make to become a better person than the world that created me.)

I am currently reading Olla Podrida, as Marryat called his assorted magazine essays that he collected together in a book, and my God does he sound like a stupid obstinate Tory bastard sometimes. He has some empathy for poor and marginalised people, but then he snarks any attempt to create a social safety net and sneers that, thanks to the new Poor Law Bill, “the poor man walks into the vestry with an insolent demeanour, and claims relief, not as a favour, but as a right.” (And??? You really wrote all that and think you sound like the good guy here, Fred??) I haven’t wanted to throttle the Captain recently, but it’s never too late for a revival of that sentiment.

#frederick marryat #captain marryat #biography #asks #ask #historical figure emoji meme #long post #you want the dirt on marryat i can arrange that #i love him and would fight him #british empire #i need to square up with the fact that so many of my interests revolve around Empire #which explains why so many of my fave historical figures are kind of bastards #or accessories to it #1830s

[unpopularfanopinion]

I apparently struck a nerve with someone and they blocked me. Just a tip dude, if you don’t like people arguing with you maybe you shouldn’t post on social media designed for reblogging, responses and rebuttles. You can still find websites that offer blogs with no comments.

But as I typed this all up i felt it worth sharing.

Pointing out similarities in ideas and actions between two group doesn’t mean I think one is equivalent to another. It means in some ways they are coming from the same place(doesn’t mean they’re going to end up in the same place) But I see you’re very good at putting words in other people’s mouths.

However you may think there’s a difference between a religious group attempting to ban a book over religious ideals, and people trying to force Ao3 to moderate to their standards, but I am going to ask what the difference is?

Also who is going to get to decide what counts as harmful/racist? I mean I get the feeling you’re something of a new-comer to this whole anti-shipping trend and aren’t aware of some of the context in history behind it.

Like the insanity of the Sherlock fandom where a contingent of people who really really preferred John topping Sherlock in their porn decided to accuse anyone writing Sherlock topping John as being pedophiles. (Surely you can understand the insanity behind that. porn written of two middle age men being pedophilia because the wrong man tops) To the point of accusing a surivor of being an abuser, as well as filming her having a breakdown(that they caused) and posting it online. https://fanlore.org/wiki/221B_Con (the 2015 con)

https://thegreenirene.tumblr.com/post/116696525144/what-happened-at-221b-con-2015-the-gender

There’s also the story that went around of a real life highschooler that was convince he had to break up with his significant other of several years because he had turned 18, but his partner hadn’t yet because him simply dating(not necessarily having sex with them) someone under 18 was pedophilia. (okay yikes)

And what about when you have people who claim that individual ships are inherently racist if you prefer them over a different ship. One example is from the Star Wars sequel trilogy where people tried to claim the Finnrose ship was inherently anti-black and racist and so people should ship Finnrey.

https://my-reylo.home.blog/tag/anti-finnrose-bs/ (rundown, with links and receipts although sadly some of the links no longer work)

So again who will get to decide? And before you say, the minors, survivors, and minorities who don’t feel safe you should try to understand that’s not a winning trump card. Because there are ALSO minors, minorities, and survivors(like me) who keep saying that they don’t feel safe in places where censorship takes place. That they find exploring the exact same topics that antis decry as harmful, helpful and therapeutic. That they don’t feel safe in places where they risk harassment, doxing, suicide baiting simply because of the fiction they like, or create.

I mean there’s an disabled artist who lost her job because of anti harassment.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XdfUJyVYhmaahTfbxLNU0W0yVz80hmptNrCQv7KSL6o/mobilebasic

An individual is not harmed merely by some piece of fiction existing out in the void. If they stumble on it without warning it can be upsetting, trigger pain, but that means them stumbling on it. Ao3′s tagging system does an excellent job at allowing people to not see what they don’t want to. There are a few tweaks and adjustment I wouldn’t mind seeing like a permanent exclude tags so I don’t have to constantly filter out specific tags.

I doubt that there is anything you can find on Ao3 that you would not also find examples of in any large public library

Take a brief look at New York’s Public Library eroticia for example

https://nypl.overdrive.com/search?subject=21

In the comics and graphic books section i found Sadistic Boy by tori maia, which contains examples of underage sex, adult/minor sex, rape, and incest(uncle/nephew iirc). As well as Bad teacher’s Equation which features a romantic relationship between a 16 year old highschool student and a 26 year old nurse who works at the school. Again this is the New York Public library, and I haven’t started looking at more of the books(although without Ao3′s tagging system it’s a bit harder to guess the contents with just the cover)

Is there any real reason you can think of why Ao3 should be held to higher content standards than the New York Public Library? I mean they’re both based in New York State, and go by New York State’s obscenities laws.

And I’m sorry for not including sources in my earlier posts, but I was on mobile and didn’t have all of my links.

But here’s a study discussing the sex on TV doesn’t influence teens as much as people previously thought

https://theconversation.com/sex-on-tv-less-impact-on-teens-than-you-might-think-61957

Also the relationship between fiction and reality, and the ability of various media to change and shape social norms is incredibly complex. Research attempts to discover how media can influence change, but that there’s both individual effects, social effects, and the effect can be different depending on if a person knows other people in their community have seen/heard the piece of media or not.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-science-research-and-methods/article/how-does-media-influence-social-norms-experimental-evidence-on-the-role-of-common-knowledge/23D65E06CAB2876B08F12E23CD5C0539

So keeping that in mind that fanfiction is still very much a niche hobby/activity and you’re unlikely going to find an entire community(of people who happen to be living in the same area definition) reading the same fic, Fanfiction’s ability to impact reality is pretty much non-existent compared to the latest offering from Disney, Warner Brother’s or Netflix.

I can have empathy for people who are uncomfortable or feel they are hurt when they see certain topics in fiction. However I wish they would try to have a little empathy for the people who find comfort and healing within that same topic. The solution is not censorship or people stop creating taboo fiction. The solution is right there in Ao3′s tagging, people who don’t want to see certain content can avoid it, people who do want to see certain content can find it. I’m sorry but I cam going to have a hard time finding sympathy for people who demand that everyone else cater to them and their feelings without a thought for anyone else's.

#Ao3 discourse

[drtanner]

So hey, while I'm having me a little sit down off the back of walking the dog, I thought it might be good if I wrote a little bit to explain why the lockdown was (and is!) necessary, even though I agree that it absolutely categorically sucks and has obviously had an impact on the economy. This is all going to be extremely basic, entry-level stuff for the folks who follow me, but remember that this is an explanation for people who don't already know it!

This post is mostly happening because a transphobe reblogged my post about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and then, as if by some weird magic, it started getting notes from rightwing anti-lockdown conspiracy theorists for some reason. I can't imagine why that could be (spoilers: I can), and as much as I doubt that anyone who leans that way would ever a) find and read this post or b) be swayed by it at all, I like to believe that most people are basically kind and good and don't fall into nasty, dangerous rhetoric like that just because they're stupid, self-interested bastards. If I can help even one or two people understand why this is happening and relieve some of the fear they're undoubtedly feeling, it will have been worth it to me and I'll be glad I spent the time.

This is going to be a long post! So most of it will be going under a cut for convenience's sake, but to summarise briefly and give you a taste of what this is going to be broadly about, I'll explain a little first before I slap down that Read More.

Ultimately, to understand why the UK's lockdowns are still happening and why other countries, like Australia and New Zealand, are pretty much back to normal while we're still having problems, you also need to understand some basic things about the way our society and our economy operate, which is to say, that you need to understand some things about capitalism.

First, you need to understand that our economy, and capitalism in general, are not invisible forces of nature, as unchanging, ineffable and unyielding as physics, as some would have you believe. They are, rather, purely artificial constructs that are the way they are because they were made that way by mortal, human people, and only relatively recently. Capitalism has only been the economic model du jour for a few hundred years at most, and it was explicitly a creation of the wealthy, intended to entrap and exploit the poor.

(You can read about enclosure to learn more about how capitalism first began and why it happened. You'll be fucking livid.)

All of this is to say that capitalism is not mandatory, nor is it utterly impossible to change or adjust. It didn't have to be this way! Other Economic Models Are Available!™

However, lockdown being as terrible and wretched as it has been is very much happening because it is this way currently.

To make a very long story quite short, the UK has been in a near-continuous state of lockdown because unlike in those other countries I mentioned earlier, our government valued the short-term gain of our economy over the long-term necessity of the health of its citizens, and now we're all suffering for it because the virus is well and truly out of control. Australia and New Zealand locked down fast and hard, and they stayed that way until the problem was properly solved. Our lockdown came too slowly and was lifted far too early (who remembers Eat Out To Help Out?), and this is ultimately because if people aren't going to work, wealth isn't flowing upwards into the pockets of the wealthy, and the Tories are the party of the rich. They're always going to act in favour of the wealthy.

BoJo's initial strategy, you will remember, was for Britain to "take it on the chin" and let the virus "run through the population". Better for people to just get sick and for the rest to keep the economy running, right? It'll only be poor people who live and work in crowded places who'll really get hit, and they don't matter all that much, do they?

Well, it didn't really work out like that. COVID turned out to be a lot more serious than our government believed, and if we hadn't locked down, people would have died in their droves and that, too, would have been quite bad for the economy. That's because poor people are the ones who actually do the jobs that make the economy work! If too many of them die, the ones who are left will have considerable bargaining power when they come to sell their labour afterwards, as was the case after the Black Death, because when there's literally no one else left to do the work, you can demand almost whatever you want of your would-be employer. The balance is tipped in your favour.

Currently, however, the balance is tipped very much in the favour of employers and the very wealthy, which is to say, it is tipped in the favour of capital, which is to say, capitalists. Capitalists are people who own private property, which is property that they use exclusively to make money, e.g., someone who owns a factory, or someone who owns a supermarket chain. You, dear reader, are almost certainly not a capitalist yourself, even if you are a person who supports capitalism! You may own personal property, which is your toothbrush and the shirt on your back and maybe, if you're very lucky, your car and your home, but you almost certainly do not own any private property, and that's the difference between you and the capitalist.

The difference between you and the capitalist, the same difference between those wealthy landowners at the inception of enclosure and the farmers they acted to exploit, is that the only thing you have to sell, the only thing you have to make money from, is your labour. You have literally nothing else. The only way you are allowed to exist in this economy is by selling your labour, which is your time, your energy, your body. You sell this to the capitalist in exchange for the money you need to live.

(Incidentally, if you're wondering why we keep getting driven into a recession every decade or so, it's because it also benefits capital to have people queueing up in their thousands to apply for any shitty job they offer. They've got you over a barrel, and that's how they'd like it to remain in perpetuity. The rich love a good recession.)

It is very much in the interests of the wealthy for it to stay this way, because capitalism was, and still is, set up to benefit them. Under capitalism, profit is king, and the best way to make a profit is by cutting costs wherever you can to minimise the amount you have to spend to keep your business running (and thereby maximise the amount that you get to stuff into your already-overflowing pockets at the end of the month). This is why some of the most "successful" (read: profitable) businesses in the world pay their workers poverty wages; one need look no further than the likes of Amazon and Walmart to get the measure of this. Despite the fact that those workers are the only reason the business runs at all, given that they do all of the work that generates the profit, they are paid as little as is legally possible because profit is the goal of the business, over literally everything else.

Businesses are not set up to provide jobs. They're not even set up to provide services. They're there to generate a profit for the people at the top, and that's the way that capitalism works. It's the root cause of a hell of a lot of problems, like the aforementioned poverty wages, as well as the rise of "news" outlets that favour stoking culture wars and starting scandals that generate sales and clicks over actual journalism. They're all chasing profit, at the expense of everything else.

And that brings us back to the problem we currently have, which is our shitty lockdown, because our government, which is run from top to bottom by wealthy capitalists, is also chasing profit at the expense of everything else. Our lockdowns are weak and ineffective because our government is desperate to get people back to work and turning a profit for other wealthy capitalists, and so they keep locking us down as briefly and as lightly as possible and then trying to get people back to work far, far too early. As a result, we never manage to get rid of the virus completely, only to clear out the weakest and least infectious strains and leave the strongest ones. It's exactly the same as the way we wound up with MRSA, for folks who are old enough to remember how that happened, and when that new strain starts spreading when the lockdown ends, we get another spike, more deaths, and eventually, another lockdown.

Repeated lockdowns have seen businesses put forward the cost of reopening only to be told to close again before they're able to make any money. In the case of small businesses, this means that many of them have been forced to close permanently; pubs have been especially hard hit by this, from what I understand. Eat Out To Help Out, an initiative that once again valued short-term profits over long-term health and safety, exacerbated the problem. As long as our government continues to chase profits like this, we're going to be in and out of lockdown like, god, I don't know. There's a dirty joke in there somewhere. I'm tired, you figure it out. It's going to be a lot, is what I'm saying. You should expect more of it if we don't demand systemic change, and it's going to be necessary because a whole lot more people would die otherwise.

Like, I get it. The lockdowns suck and they don't seem to work and you've lost your job and you want to see your dad, I get it. But the lockdowns, unfortunately, are still necessary. The answer is not to stop having lockdowns. The answer is to do lockdown properly, which the government will probably not do while it's still chasing profit like a horrible, frothy terrier chasing after a toddler's meaty little blood-filled ankles. We need to change the way lockdowns are handled and the way our society operates while they're happening. Maybe even after they're over, too. That'd be nice.

As I said at the start of this post, it didn't have to be this way, and it doesn't have to be this way.

Imagine, for a minute, that the billions and billions of dollars that those minimum wage workers at Amazon and Walmart were generating were not, for once, flowing directly into the pockets of CEOs and shareholders. That the billions and billions of pounds that the minimum wage workers at our Amazon warehouses and our Walmart-owned supermarkets and our god-awful newspaper empires generate weren't vanishing into the bottomless, never-full abyss of some already sickeningly wealthy old white man's coffers, never to be seen again because it's literally more money than anyone can ever spend in a fucking lifetime.

Imagine, if you will, that that money went instead into social security measures that would, for example, give people what they needed to live through a proper, effective lockdown, so they wouldn't have to put themselves at risk by continuing to go to work, or watch their independent business die because they couldn't afford to put it on hold for six months. Literally just fucking forget about turning a profit for a while, and focus on doing a proper, effective lockdown that stays in place for long enough to do the fucking job. Forget about trying to open shit up again to "keep the economy afloat" and focus on keeping people, the actual human people who make the economy work by being alive and selling their labour, safe and healthy. One good, effective lockdown is shorter and better than the bullshit that our government keeps trying to do at present. It is not lockdown itself that's ineffective and damaging, but our government's failure to implement lockdown properly because it cares too much for profit.

If your job is on the line because of this lockdown, ask yourself why your livelihood is on the chopping block before your company's CEO will think about paying himself a little less. If furlough pay doesn't cover your expenses and you know you'll struggle to make it through another lockdown, as yourself why the businesses you're forced to buy from are still chasing profit during a fucking global emergency and aren't selling closer to cost to help you and others like you. If you miss your dad because it's been a year since you were last able to see him, ask yourself why our Tory government cared so much more about preserving the income of the wealthy over preserving the safety of its people that it wasn't willing to lock us down quickly enough or for long enough for that first lockdown to be as effective as the lockdowns in Australia and New Zealand.

This economy is man-made. It isn't immune to change, and it didn't have to be like this. You don't have a problem with lockdown. You have a problem with capitalism and a government that chases money at the expense of the people it was put in place to serve.

If you're angry, join a union, write to your MP. Demand that our government starts putting people before profit. And if you're genuinely convinced that the virus is a hoax and that the purpose of lockdown is to strip you of your rights and silence you, consider that your 40+ hour work week is a lot more effective at stripping you of your ability to take action against a corrupt and unfit government than a pandemic ever could be.

#Tanner talks #UK politics #long post

[breckstonevailskier]

I posted 1,308 times in 2021

14 posts created (1%)

1294 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 92.4 posts.

I added 453 tags in 2021

#wanda maximoff - 114 posts

#wandavision - 66 posts

#elizabeth olsen - 49 posts

#cobra kai - 40 posts

#scarlet witch - 38 posts

#samantha larusso - 33 posts

#avengers: age of ultron - 31 posts

#miguel diaz - 29 posts

#vision - 27 posts

#anti tony stark - 26 posts

Longest Tag: 51 characters

#wanda is owed at least a nine figure sum in damages

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Cobra Kai season 4 should change up the rivalries amongst the teens

(crossposting from Reddit)

Within the love dodecahedron of Sam, Miguel, Robby, and Tory, the rivalries so far have been split by gender: Sam vs. Tory, Robby vs. Miguel.

For the fourth season, it would probably be in the show's best interest to change up some of the rivalries for the sake of variety. Sam vs. Tory especially, since a lot of it has to do with their affections for Miguel, and those have been resolved. For season 4, it would be ideal to change the girls' rivals to guys from the other's dojo.

Tory: I would say that Tory's main rivals should be Miguel and Hawk. Hawk because he chose to change sides at a critical moment in a fight that Tory led, causing her Cobras to lose badly. And the way she took it when Miguel suggested she get help in season 3 says that Sam's not the only person for whom perceived slights can set Tory off.

Sam: For Sam, her rivals should be Robby and Kyler. Robby's obvious since he sees her rekindling her flame with Miguel as a betrayal, and that's a more interesting rivalry since he was trained alongside Sam in the ways of Miyagi-Do. And it's more interesting to see former friends fighting than anything else. As for Kyler, well, remember that Kyler formed a relationship with Sam with the intention of getting into her pants. He tried to date rape her, then slutshamed her to the school. Even though a year's passed, there's no way Sam hasn't been fantasizing about exacting a little payback against Kyler (especially when Miguel took away that chance for her to wipe the floor with Kyler and his crew in the cafeteria).

Miguel: Robby's still going to be Miguel's main rival because there's still a lot he despises Miguel over. Miguel has the girl Robby likes, Johnny's parental love, and the approval of the LaRussos, and the fact that Johnny's now dating Miguel's mom is something Robby can see as his dad creating a replacement family with the Diazes. And I do think, even if Miguel isn't willing to admit it out loud, there's part of him that wants to exact payback on Robby for crippling him in the school brawl. Tory can also be a rival for him for reasons I've listed above. And Kyler can also again be a rival for Miguel because there's no way Kyler's going to take losing to a not-100%-strength Miguel lying down.

Robby: I think that Hawk could also be a rival for Robby, in addition to the stuff I've listed above, since Hawk hasn't had a chance to settle any scores with Robby over what happened to Miguel. But I think Sam and Miguel will be Robby's main rivals for season 4, and the final round of the tournament will be likely Sam or Miguel fighting Robby (hopefully Sam, as that's got bigger emotional stakes).

The only caveat might be that mixed-gender rivalries have one small issue, as pointed out by one of the commenters in the original Reddit thread: which is that the writers would get criticized if the girls win fights with important male characters (Miguel, Robby, Hawk, and Demetri), but the image of guys beating up girls would also be a very touchy area.

32 notes • Posted 2021-05-12 19:50:40 GMT

#4

Rewriting Cobra Kai Season 2 to eliminate the love triangles

There's a lot to love about Cobra Kai. But I have to admit season 2 is a bit of a weak season. And one of the areas that I view as a weak point is with the teen romance and love triangles.

Love triangles are one of the cheapest sources of conflict, given that you're either pitting two girls against each other in a competition for a guy's love, or two guys against each other for a girl's love. We see both of those in season 2 with Robby/Sam/Miguel and Sam/Miguel/Tory.

Obviously, the pairings for the season of Sam/Robby and Miguel/Tory were rebounds because it's typical in a show like this to break up an endgame couple early, then have them get back together later. Thing is, the rivalries of Sam and Tory, and Miguel and Robby, already have a lot of meat for them that doesn't hinge on the relationships.

With Sam and Tory, it's kinda ridiculous that the whole rivalry is basically over Miguel's heart when it could've been about so much more. It could've been built more upon the wrong perceptions that they had of each other from their first encounter at the beach club in 2x04: Sam viewing Tory as a thief, and Tory viewing Sam as a privileged rival who's never had to deal with hardship.

With Robby and Miguel, the show focuses a lot on how Miguel views Robby as a rival in their affections for Sam, but not really about another source to their rivalry: Johnny. It would've been interesting if the rivalry was built around Robby's resentment towards Miguel for getting Johnny's attention and affection, and in turn for Miguel to feel conflicted about his anger towards Robby because he's aware about Robby being Johnny's son.

There's also the fact that I don't think Sam/Robby and Miguel/Tory really have chemistry compared to Sam/Miguel and Robby/Tory. Sam and Robby have more sibling vibes than romantic ones. In the case of Miguel and Tory, Tory pursued Miguel and he went along with it because she was offering herself as a rebound girl, and the whole thing felt like a temporary relationship to tide him over before he got back together with Sam (and he was a pretty bad boyfriend to her in turn).

So my solution to the mess is to, well...to fix the problem, you have to go back into season 1 and not have Sam break up with Miguel at the tournament. Keep Sam and Miguel in a relationship for the duration of season 2, while having Tory get together with Robby in season 2. Here's how that would go.

SEASON 1

Episode 9:

In this episode, Sam returned home, planning to come clean to her dad about Miguel (and prepared to take the risk of him not approving of the relationship because Miguel is in Cobra Kai), only for her mom to confront her about the hit and run and ground her. Because her phone was confiscated, she can't reach out to Miguel, who is becoming paranoid in light of Johnny's biased stories to him about Daniel and seeing Sam being friendly with Robby. He gets drunk, and tries to take a swing at Robby when he brings Sam over so she can explain the situation, accidentally hitting Sam. Subsequently, they break up after he refuses to apologize for resorting to violence on Robby, and she leaves the tournament early, unable to bear what Miguel's turned into under the Cobra Kai teachings, while Miguel fights dirty against Robby in the finals and wins.

The change:

Sam returns home, planning to come clean to her dad about Miguel. Her mom confronts her about the hit-and-run...but she isn't quick to ground Sam. First, Amanda asks Sam for her side of the story about the hit-and-run. This, I think, is a very necessary change because, in the canon episode, Amanda's a bit of a hypocrite here. She's rushing to judgment based solely on Johnny's word without hearing Sam's side of the events or considering the possibility that Johnny's being biased, something that she had chided Daniel for doing earlier (regarding Johnny bringing to his attention what Kyler and his gang had been doing to Miguel).

So Sam explains what happened: Yasmine was texting while driving and they collided with a car that was parked illegally in the street outside the All-Valley Sports Arena. They were prepared to get out and leave contact information when a drunk Johnny began banging on the backseat window, making them drive off out of fear for their safety.

While Sam has told her side of things, she's still grounded for not coming clean sooner. But before Amanda can confiscate Sam's phone, Sam brings up that she has plans to see Miguel that night and he'll be worried sick if he can't contact her. She comes clean to her mom about how, "You know about that viral video of the kid who beat up Kyler and his crew in the cafeteria a few months back? Well, I've been dating that kid for the last few months." And she explains everything: his name is Miguel Diaz, and he's a student at Cobra Kai, and she was planning on telling Daniel about all this.

Of course, Amanda is aware Daniel will probably not take the news that their daughter is dating a Cobra Kai well, given Daniel's personal beef with Cobra Kai (what with getting Armand Zakarian to jack up the rent on the strip mall, and Louie hiring his biker buddies to destroy Johnny's car as retaliation for the billboard penis), and how he's not above intruding on his daughter's social life (given what happened with Kyler). But Sam insists Miguel's a good person, and that if Amanda gets to know Miguel through and through, then she can help Sam stand up to Daniel when Daniel inevitably blows up. More importantly, her best friend Aisha's in Cobra Kai, and can also vouch for Miguel's character. Amanda agrees to Sam's idea, and lets her call Miguel to invite him over.

So Miguel abandons the Cobra Kais' party and comes over to the LaRussos' house. He's already feeling jealous and insecure, because he knows Sam is hiding their relationship from Daniel, and the previous day, he went to her house uninvited and saw her laughing and talking to Robby. This was right after he'd heard Johnny's biased story about Daniel "stealing" Ali from him. So when Amanda lets Miguel in, he's a bit on edge, but Amanda mistakes it as him just being nervous at him coming over to his girlfriend's fancy house. Nonetheless, she's quickly won over by Miguel's personality, and when she asks him about "Why did you take up karate?" determines that he's the real deal, especially when he mentions how he took up karate to defend himself from bullies (much like Daniel did).

But things change when Robby arrives at the house for a training session with Daniel. Robby and Miguel recognize each other, and immediately Miguel's insecurities come to his head. He tries to attack Robby, but Sam steps between them, calms Miguel down, and explains that whatever Miguel saw, it's not what it looks like. Robby's just a friend and a teen working for the LaRussos' dealership who is also being trained by Daniel in the art of Miyagi-Do. Miguel listens to her, accepts what she's saying, and relaxes, no longer seeing Robby as a threat to his affections for Sam. However, Sam also notices the disdainful look Robby showed the moment he saw Miguel, but can't figure out why as she nor her parents are aware that Robby is Johnny's son.

When Johnny and Daniel return home from their day out, they agree to a "Rocky III-style" match in Daniel's dojo, but find Robby there waiting, and also find Sam with Miguel and Amanda. Things get heated, the altercation where Daniel's trophy gets broken happens, and ultimately everyone blows up at each other:

Daniel is mad over the fact that his daughter is dating a Cobra Kai boy and about the whole fact that Robby is Johnny's son.

Johnny's mad at Daniel because Daniel is training his son. He is also offended by the fact that Daniel is mad about Miguel being in Cobra Kai, causing him to get defensive of Miguel.

In Johnny's rush to defend Miguel, he only succeeds in angering Robby, who's now mad at him for showing his favoritism for Miguel. Robby is also mad at Miguel for the fact that Sam is already taken.

Miguel is mad at Daniel for not approving of him, and mad at Johnny for escalating the situation.

Sam is mad at her dad for not reacting well to Miguel, and mad at Miguel and Robby for letting there be bad blood between them.

Amanda is mad at Johnny for terrorizing Sam, and also mad at Daniel for flipping out at Miguel.

So the whole thing ends with Johnny driving away angrily with Miguel, Daniel banishing Robby from the house and the dealership, Sam storming off to her bedroom in tears, and Daniel also being banished to the couch by Amanda.

Episode 10:

At the LaRusso house, everyone broods over the events of the previous night. Amanda puts Daniel in his place and calls him out on his behavior towards Robby and Miguel, with her saying "You really want Sam to shut you out again?" He apologizes to Sam and Amanda for losing it, and reluctantly agrees to sit down and get to know Miguel after the tournament.

Everything at the tournament is the same up until the conversation Sam has with Miguel right before the finals. She apologizes for her dad's behavior, and tells him that her dad wants to get to know him. Miguel accepts her apology, thanks her, and agrees that they'll talk after the tournament.

Subsequently, Sam stays for the finals rather than go home early. Miguel doesn't threaten to hurt Robby, and wanting to make the best impression for Daniel, he chooses to fight cleanly rather than exploit Robby's injury, an act that baffles Miguel's fellow Cobra Kai students. Even though the match ties at 2-2, Robby's injury puts him at too much of a disadvantage, and Miguel earns the winning point not by attacking Robby's shoulder, but by using the Crane Kick (to which he subsequently gives Daniel a bow of respect).

See the full post

59 notes • Posted 2021-04-20 21:00:43 GMT

#3

New set photos from season 4 of Cobra Kai

See the full post

76 notes • Posted 2021-11-09 18:46:22 GMT

#2

Daniel LaRusso's experiences with Terry Silver and how they affect him in Cobra Kai

One thing that is often overlooked in Cobra Kai, because the show fixates so much on the events of the first Karate Kid movie, is how much Daniel LaRusso's behavior is influenced by his time with Terry Silver in The Karate Kid Part III.

Season 1:

Daniel's handling of Kyler: Kyler is actually a lot like Terry Silver. He was going out with Sam, putting on the act of a nice guy to get her to go out with him. In reality, Kyler is a bully towards Miguel and his friends, and is only interested in Sam because he wants to get in her pants. Kyler puts on this nice guy act while having dinner with the LaRussos, and manages to fool both Daniel and Amanda. Then he lies about Johnny attacking him in defense of Miguel, prompting Daniel to confront Johnny. Daniel goes to Johnny, finds out the truth, and immediately does a 180 about Sam going out with Kyler.

Considering their history, Daniel has no reason to believe Johnny instead of Kyler. For all someone in Daniel's shoes ought to know, Johnny could be lying through his teeth (as Amanda points out). But because Daniel's been told that this nice guy might be anything but, he now has to question if Kyler really likes Sam or he has ulterior motives...because again, Silver approached Daniel pretending to have good intentions for him. Amanda at one point in episode 3 tries to assure Daniel that Sam will be fine with Kyler at the Halloween dance because Kyler seemed harmless to her. Daniel says, “Yeah, I’ve known plenty of guys who seemed harmless that were real pieces of crap behind the scenes." He's talking about Silver.

That's why Daniel insists on chaperoning at the Halloween dance: it's to keep an eye on Kyler if he does anything sketchy. Sure enough, he sees Kyler take Sam into an empty classroom and try to get her to take off his belt, and this is when Daniel intervenes and pulls Sam out of there. A good thing, because Kyler was going to date rape Sam (this is made clear in their next scene. Before they beat up Miguel, Brucks tells Kyler that "you had [Sam] in the palm of your dick" and talk about how the bracelet trick worked on another girl at a different school, showing Sam is not the first person Kyler has done this to).

Sam's attitudes towards her boyfriends: A related consequence to this is that after Sam finds out that Kyler is a jackass (between seeing him bully Miguel and his friends in the library, and him trying to date rape her), she is much more guarded and reserved when it comes to meeting new people. This is probably a good thing because it prevents her from getting burned like Daniel did by Terry Silver. This is the reason why she's so hesitant to enter a relationship with Miguel, and is quick to dump Miguel when the Cobra Kai teachings get to Miguel's head and he turns into an asshole, then goes back to him once those asshole tendencies disappear. And while never said out loud, this also contributes to her relationship with Robby falling apart, for while Robby treats her well, he withholds from her the fact Miguel returned Miyagi's Medal of Honor so he can keep Sam for himself (because he knows full well Sam would have second thoughts about being in a relationship with him once she had proof that Miguel wasn't a bully like his fellow Cobra Kai peers).

Johnny's speech to appeal Cobra Kai's ban: Daniel has a very bad reaction when Johnny makes his speech to appeal Cobra Kai's ban from the All-Valley, in which Johnny claims Kreese is dead and his Cobra Kai is different, a place for bullied kids to seek refuge. Thing is, Daniel clearly isn't convinced of any of Johnny's words, because these are almost the exact same words that Silver said to Daniel. Silver approached Daniel claiming that Kreese had died, and at the All-Valley gave a speech proclaiming that his chain of Cobra Kais would be a place for kids to practice the values he [Silver] learned, a speech that Silver wasn't sincere about.

Daniel's reaction to learning Robby is Johnny's son: Daniel's reaction to finding out Robby is Johnny's son is an angry, “You lied to me! Was this all just a con? Some kind of sick mind game you tried to pull off on me?!” It's very telling what Daniel's word choice is, because Terry Silver played a long mind game on Daniel, pretending to be his friend while actively sabotaging him so he'd take a humiliating loss to Mike Barnes in the All-Valley tournament. And when coupled with the fact that Daniel was drunk and had just been attacked by Johnny in his own home after just inviting Johnny in for a friendly fight, his anger is more understandable.

People calling Daniel "Danny Boy": Any time someone calls Daniel "Danny Boy," whether that be Kreese or Tom Cole, Daniel's composure briefly falters, because that's what Silver called him. In fact, Kreese has to know this, since he was there for when Silver revealed his true colors to Daniel.

Season 2:

Daniel's reaction to finding out Kreese has returned: Daniel goes to Johnny intending to inform him about Robby's living situation (in light of Shannon leaving for Cabo)...but immediately decides against it when he sees Johnny with Kreese. Johnny claims to Daniel that Kreese is a changed man...and Daniel warns him not to trust Kreese. Kreese was complicit in everything Silver did to Daniel in 1985 to get revenge for him, so Daniel has every reason to believe Kreese is up to his old tricks again so he can worm his way back into Cobra Kai.

Indeed, Daniel is right: Kreese gains Johnny's trust by claiming to be atoning for what happened in 1984 (by fixing Johnny's second place trophy, and lets Johnny see him as down-on-his-luck so Johnny will take pity on him). It's all a calculated act to undermine Johnny's authority in Cobra Kai and steal the dojo away from him.

Daniel even calls out Johnny for not listening to him when they're arguing in 3x08 while waiting for Robby to get out of juvie. He says, "What did you think would happen when you summoned that devil back to Earth?"

Season 3:

Catching Sam and Miguel together: When Daniel catches Miguel and Sam making out at Miyagi-Do, Sam says to him, "I know it's been a lot. But can you please try to remember that I'm still your daughter, and that you can trust me?" and Daniel replies, "It's not you I don't trust, Sam." Having prior experiences with people who claimed to have changed but didn't (Silver and Kreese) is the reason why learning "Miguel's changed. He's a good person. He's not Cobra Kai's number one bully; he's not even in Cobra Kai anymore!" is a pretty hard pill for Daniel to swallow because any impressions Daniel has had of Miguel up to this point are not very good.

Daniel's impressions of Miguel up to this point are as follows: Johnny had Miguel use Daniel's signature Crane Kick to open the tournament as a way of mocking Daniel, then Miguel fought dirty against Robby. This is combined with whatever Sam said to Daniel about her breakup with Miguel, which probably was that he was an asshole. So seeing Miguel's speech at the town hall to save the All-Valley, and finding him making out with Sam, Daniel is on guard because while Sam has had plenty of positive interactions with Miguel since bumping into him at school, Daniel only has the filter of whatever Sam told him about Miguel to go off of.

Seeing Robby being trained by Kreese: Daniel's reaction to seeing Robby training with Kreese seems very telling. If Daniel is Mr. Miyagi, then Robby is 1985 Daniel, and Kreese is 1985 Silver. Daniel realizes Kreese is going to do with Robby exactly what he and Silver failed to do with Daniel 33 years ago. He'll certainly see the cycle repeating even further when he finds Silver has been summoned back to town by Kreese.

And I would bet he'll possibly realize in season 4 that Johnny's neglect of Robby throughout season 3 left Robby open to manipulation from Kreese, much like Mr. Miyagi's neglect of Daniel in 1985 left him open to manipulation from Silver.

89 notes • Posted 2021-06-02 14:19:49 GMT

#1

Deleted scene from 3x10.

223 notes • Posted 2021-06-16 01:57:35 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

Rick! also the Graham Reaper

Hello again!

Rick Pratt

Sexuality headcanon ~ This boy is very, very gay. I think we all agree on that. 😂

OTP ~ Vyvyan. As I've said before, I love Rivyan. I think Vyv's the only person who could deal with Rick, anyway. 😂 He knows how Rick works, he knows how to get him to give in when he's being annoying. Rick could do with hanging around Vyvyan anyway - someone's got to stop him becoming the middle class Tory voter he was destined to end up as.

BrOTP ~ Rick has no friends, next ques- I'm joking, I'm joking! 😂 Though they get very little screen time and Rick isn't particularly nice to them, Sue and that other guy from his sociology course seem the people he should have some kind of rapport with. Maybe all the sociology students go out for drinks now and then. Rick's obviously the hanger on of the group - the one no one really wants there - but maybe Sue and that guy have more patience?

NOTP ~ I don't really ship CoolPoet. Rick sucks up to Mike far too much for him to end up anything but heartbroken and I don't want that for this little shit, this bastard for whom I hold affection. 😂 That said, I'm not anti-CoolPoet and you lot should know by now that Rick and angst are my favourite ingredients to combine.

First headcanon that pops into my head ~ My first thought was the headcanon about Rick liking The Smiths but I'm far from the first person to headcanon that. There's also the extended family of Riks headcanon I have and the arguable subtext of Rick fancying Dr Morrison and Cliff Richard. But something fresh? I always, in the back of my mind, headcanon Rick's birthday as being in August. That's because August is the last month in the academic year in the UK and I need Rick to be the youngest of the four in every sense 😂 he just is. Astrologers amongst the scumbags might agree with me if it means Rick is a Leo.

Favourite line from this character ~ It's not possible for me to say definitively but this is a contender: "I HOPE YOU'RE SATISFIED, THATCHER!"

One way in which I relate to this character ~ I think... The desire to be a creative and a force for social progress rather than a hindrance to it, though I promise I don't just want to look cool like Rick does. And also I know, I'm cheating 😂 we both have an interest in sociology and politics. Actually, Rick being a sociology student was one of the first things that drew me to him and amused me. I will be arrogant now though and say I know more about both sociology and politics than our beloved prick.

Thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character ~ Rick is so attention seeking and antagonistic almost on principle. I mean, these two things are part of why I find him so funny and I wouldn't change them. I just think we should be allowed to reach through the screen and shake him every now and then. 😂 Thank Cliff for Vyvyan, eh?

Cinnamon roll or problematic fave? ~ Aha, I pose a third option: sinnamon roll. 😏

Graham Reaper (The scumbags gave Death from Maurice Dobbs Makes a Movie a name... Although since Death is actually just meant to be a man playing Death, I guess Graham has become his own entity?)

Sexuality headcanon ~ Asexual? I feel like supernatural immortal deities would probably either be sexless or sex mad.

OTP ~ His scythe.

BrOTP ~ The other three horsemen of the apocalypse, specifically the ones from the TYO episode Interesting.

NOTP ~ Maurice Dobbs. I'll admit, I only actually watched the last few minutes of the film featuring Rik but I got the impression that Maurice is a bit of a pillock.

First headcanon that pops into my head ~ I like the headcanon that he is somehow responsible for the existence of Alan B'Stard. 😂

Favourite line from this character ~ I only watched the clips once. From what I remember, he was a bit like Fred. I'll take the loophole and go with his hysterical laughing from the credits.

One way in which I relate to this character ~ I like Halloween. He seems like that would be his scene.

Thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character ~ Nothing really. He is originally a minor character in a niche film I haven't even watched in full yet. 😂 As for the fanon version, the fact he's responsible for Alan - that's got to be pretty #embarrassing. Rather him than me, ammarite?

Cinnamon roll or problematic fave? ~ That entirely hinges upon whether he is generally a benevolent or malevolent deity. Knowing Rik's characters' record, it's likely the latter so he's a problematic fave. The original guy seems like a cinnamon roll, though.

Thanks for the ask!

#asks #postpunkpoetcomrade #rick pratt #the young ones #tyo #graham reaper

[formulatrash]

hi so you don't have to post this but i just needed to get this off my chest. i saw your tweet about carlos' unfunny anecdote. the 'punchline' wasn't even what stood out to me, but it was the xenophobia of it all. it was so bizarre. he's literally a foreigner visiting china. and he was like 'we went to a restaurant that was TOO chinese. it was not westernized enough'. like what the fuck did he expect? he's literally IN CHINA. as a chinese person that whole thing just....AGHHH

No this is totally legit. I am now annoyed at myself for not being harsher about it earlier tbh (in my defence I’d just woken up and was deep in a ‘I can’t believe I am seeing this with my eyes’ bit)

I really, really hope both he and Estrella post an apology. It was not acceptable (I believe it was pulled after other people saw it) and it was outright racist. Especially at a time when sinophobia and anti-Chinese bullcrap is raging across the globe and people are literally getting beaten up for even being perceived as Chinese on like, the London Underground.

I know Carlos has problematic tendencies; tbh, all the current-or-former Red Bull lot do and he in particular has some serious Spanish Tory tendencies (sorry, idk what the actual Spanish equivalent of the Tory party is - whatever Alejandro used to be a politician for) but. I’m so mad at him. This wasn’t like ‘oh I said something dumb at a party’ or even a heated gamer moment or something this was like 

Estrella Galicia 0.0: Hola Carlito, our favourite little pilot, please make us the funny video content for Instagram!Carlos: haha yes, here is a hilarious story, it is funny actually that it is about China, speaking now!Estrella Galicia 0.0: perfecto, we will subtitle this! so funCarlos: I repost the translation for everyone to understand my racism!Me, having worked in motorsports PR: [eyes bulge]

Like if he has to be an ignorant-as-balls in private then I guess that is something that has somehow happened despite his broad international travel and privilege but man at least. Not on a sponsor video that production and thought has gone into because that isn’t just careless it’s deliberate and bluntly, somewhat heartbreaking from one of the ones I thought was growing out of his more thoughtlessly fuckboy stage.

A lot of them have terrible friends who they sort of go along with because they live in these weird, sheltered bubbles and so you could catch them saying things they don’t really think to fit in, in a group. That doesn’t make it more forgivable really but it at least means they’re just dumb But this was a rehearsed thing where he could have said anything and chose that.

I’m so mad at him. In all fairness, I think McLaren or at least, someone else who is interested in Carlos’ PR activities are also very mad at him given the speed with which it was pulled after UK wake up time.

Also this is an incredibly minor point but he is 100% not allowed to take the piss out of Lando for not knowing anything about food, going forwards.

(For anyone who missed this and with a 12-foot-high !!!racism!!!! warning: he implied a restaurant in China served him cat as chicken because he ordered some chicken and it was a “very Chinese” restaurant and then a cat went into the kitchen and didn’t come back out which might, to you and I, with our working human brains, seem not very good PR)

#F1 asks

[carewyncromwell]

Next installation of the POTC AU, at long last! Sorry for the delay...RL has been a bit of a hindrance, and I also had to kind of restructure some things in the storyline to help with flow and such, and that resulted in me having to draw another drawing, and yeah, blah blah, Tory lost her sense of rhythm and pretty much daily update schedule in the process. XD; Mea culpa!

In this part, we’ll have focus on both sides of the “divide,” with both Carewyn and her new ally Davy Jones/Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws and Charlie Weasley (pictured above in an even more pirate-y coat and hat than we saw last) and his sloop’s passenger Chiara Dalma. Will our pirate friends be able to reach Shipwreck Cove before they’re cut off by our non-pirate ones?

Interestingly enough, there was a pirate called Moody in the 1700s, though this one was Christopher Moody, not Alastor. Not much is known about him aside from his brutality (refusing to take prisoners), his unique Jolly Roger flag (which was red and gold rather than black), and his death by hanging in 1722. Pirate!Mad-Eye is going to be much more like his book/movie/game counterpart, but I just thought it was a fun coincidence. (Particularly his red/gold color scheme for his flag, which of course are Gryffindor colors!!)

Jules Farrier-Weasley belongs to @cursebreakerfarrier, last part is here, and whole tag is here! Hope you enjoy!

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Carewyn knew there was no way she would be able to get Jones’s heart as long as her men were guarding the Chest -- yet, at the same time, she couldn’t just order them to abandon it without cause...and she’d need that time, if she wanted to unlock it without stealing the key from Rakepick. And so she’d need a proper diversion.

Davy Jones himself came up with a solution. If the Flying Dutchman was engaged in battle, then the soldiers might have to jump in to help defend it. All they’d have to make sure of was that the enemy they engaged in battle was one Cutler Beckett would approve of -- namely, one of the more wanted pirates in the Caribbean, and someone who could end up being one of the Pirate Lords.

“I do not know any of the pirates’ current list of so-called ‘Lords,’” said Jones, “but if I were to guess, I would say your brother’s a viable candidate.”

Carewyn shook her head. “Rakepick blew up the Tower Raven. Jacob managed to escape, but he only has one other person with him and he won’t have a ship.”

“Not his flagship, perhaps, but the rest of his fleet would have still survived,” pointed out Jones. “And the more ships there are, the most justification there would be for your Navy reinforcements. Once I have my heart returned, I can always call off the attack -- there’s no need for me to capture or kill them, aside from following Beckett’s direction.”

And so it was very reluctantly that Carewyn agreed to let Jones covertly seek out the remainder of the Tower Raven’s fleet while supposedly looking for Shipwreck Cove. Little did Carewyn know that the Tower Raven’s fleet was likewise headed for Shipwreck Cove, and that they were on a collision course with a tiny red sloop steered by Charlie Weasley.

When Charlie came upon the fleet of pirate ships, he initially wasn’t too worried. Yeah, naturally, they dwarfed his vessel easily, but he presumed that they were heading for Shipwreck Cove as well, and they didn’t have much reason to attack a small sloop like his. What Charlie hadn’t factored in was that the captain of one of those ships -- Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody -- had gone through his fair share of trauma when he used to be in the Navy and was something of a paranoid sort...and so within minutes, the little sloop Charlie and Chia Dalma were on was soon pursued by Moody’s much larger galleon, called the Phoenix.

Fortunately Charlie was more than talented enough of a sailor to keep his head. Using the advantage of his boat’s size, he weaved expertly through the remainder of the Tower Raven’s ships to evade the Phoenix’s cannon fire.

“Oi!” Charlie bellowed up at one of the ships he was hiding behind. “Tell your mate to bugger off! I’m not with the bloody Navy!”

Chia made no move to help Charlie: instead she stood on the other side of the sloop, watching the seas with a wary eye. There was something troubling on the wind -- something in the air...

A pirate from the Phoenix came up to the railing to look down at Charlie and Chia on their sloop as Charlie sailed it around his galleon. He was a broad-shouldered man about Charlie’s age with dark red hair under a black bandana and small emerald green eyes, and he was dressed in a burgundy-colored coat.

“Hey -- you!” the pirate bellowed down at him. “Down there! Shout up your name!”

Charlie hesitated at first. He knew it was unlikely that most pirates would recognize his name as being that of a pirate -- if anything, the name “Weasley” was associated more with the Navy, even if he, Jules, and Bill had recently been branded criminals.

‘Even so,’ he thought, ‘I’m never going to be able to build a reputation as anything other than a Navy veteran if I don’t use my name. And well, these guys answer to Carey’s brother -- it should be safe...’

“I’m Charlie Weasley!” he shouted back. “Quartermaster of the Revolution under Captain Jules Farrier-We -- ack!”

Before Charlie could even finish, both he and Chia had gotten a net thrown over them and they were hauled aboard the Phoenix.

As Charlie had feared, the name “Weasley” made everyone on the Phoenix tense up with suspicion. Charlie’s “twin,” it turned out, had been swept up by Cutler Beckett, who was now flaunting the fact that the famous, brilliant young Commodore Carey Weasley was answering to him and helping him with his new anti-piracy campaign. Charlie knew full well the only reason Carewyn could be associating with Beckett was to try to sabotage him, but the Phoenix’s Captain Moody seemed doubtful of that explanation. His First Mate, Barnaby Lee -- the young man who had first demanded Charlie’s name -- seemed noticeably less suspicious, but wasn’t half as assertive or articulate as Moody, so the Captain’s conclusion won out among the crew.

Charlie and Chia were soon hauled down to the brig with the thought that once the fleet arrived in Shipwreck Cove, Moody’s superior, Black Jack Roberts -- were he still alive -- would be able to discern how best to deal with them. Charlie hadn’t been too surprised that Jacob hadn’t told everyone in his fleet that “Carey Weasley” was really his sister, but he couldn’t help but curse the fact that Jacob had merely ordered that his men not “damage anyone with the name ‘Weasley’ and immediately bring them to him to deal with.” Even if he had to keep up a “tough guy” image, it would’ve been nice if Jacob had factored in the possibility that he wouldn’t be leading his fleet.

Unfortunately Moody’s suspicion had a real cost. Because of his focus on Charlie and Chia Dalma, he wasn’t focusing on the turbulence of the seas and skies that Chia picked up on -- and so had no warning whatsoever when the Flying Dutchman attacked. Soon the entire fleet of ships that once sailed under the Tower Raven was hotly engaged in battle with the infamous ship of the damned, pirates facing off against both cursed sailors and Navy officers.

While Davy Jones, his crew, and the Navy’s officers were fighting on the upper deck, Carewyn had stowed away below deck to where the Dead Man’s Chest had been left. After sending the remainder of the patrol above deck to help with the sea battle, Carewyn immediately got to work picking the lock on the Chest. Although it was a bit trickier to do it on her own than it had been with Percy, that hindrance was counteracted somewhat by her having unlocked the Chest once before. Within fifteen minutes, Carewyn had unlocked the two-sided lock and opened the Chest.

But when she opened it, she found it completely empty.

“It seems we truly are as alike as I thought.”

Carewyn whirled around.

Rakepick was leaning her shoulder against the door frame. She’d discarded her tricorn hat just as Carewyn had since they were no longer on deck, and her dark blue eyes were locked on the Commodore’s face as though it were a target.

Carewyn immediately pulled out her pistol, pointing it right at Rakepick.

“Where is the heart?” she said very coldly.

“I confiscated it,” said Rakepick simply, “back when I checked to make sure Jones’s key works.”

“On Beckett’s orders?” asked Carewyn.

Had she truly not fooled Beckett, after all? Had Rakepick been sent to watch her as well as Jones? Her face blanched at this thought.

“For my own benefit,” said Rakepick. “Just as I daresay your attempt to steal the heart also was.”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not stealing anything.”

”I don’t know what else you’d call picking the lock on a Chest that’s in the custody of the British Navy,” said Rakepick with a rather cool smile.

Carewyn clicked her pistol and pointed it right at Rakepick’s head.

“Hand over the heart,” she murmured, “now.”

Rather than looking the least bit intimidated, however, Rakepick almost looked more pleased. She eased herself off the door frame and took a few steps closer to Carewyn.

“You intend to kill me, Commodore?” she said.

“I would prefer not to,” Carewyn answered icily. “But I suggest you don’t push me -- I can still shoot you in plenty of places that would be extremely painful or deadly, if left untreated. And no one would come to help you with your wounds -- there’s more than enough noise above deck to muffle any gun shots that might come from down here.”

Rakepick’s lips spread into an even fuller, satisfied smile as she came to a halt just a foot from Carewyn. “I see. If I’m dead, you won’t learn where the heart is. Very astute, Miss Weasley.”

Carewyn stiffened sharply.

“I knew it as soon as I saw you,” said Rakepick softly. “I daresay because your family is poor, you didn’t have enough prospects to just marry into money. Probably were too independent and self-sufficient to settle for that, as well....so you joined your brothers in the Navy by dressing as another son. I suppose ‘Carey’ is just a play on your real name -- is it Cara? Or Carina?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carewyn whispered.

She tried to obscure her fear with anger, but it was proving difficult -- her face was as white as a sheet.

Rakepick couldn’t fight back a scoff. “Now, really, Commodore -- do you truly think you’re the only woman who realized how few opportunities there are, for us to get ahead in this world run by men? I dressed as a man and joined the Navy myself during the War, fighting the French off the coast of Africa as a privateer for his Majesty’s Navy.”

She started striding in a leisurely circle around Carewyn, even as the Commodore kept a beady eye on her.

“‘Patrick Rakepick,’ I was called then. I probably would’ve continued that way too, had privateering not been outlawed with the end of the War. Suddenly all of the skills I had learned -- just as with all privateers -- became illegal and therefore useless. I was at the bottom once again, even worse off than before, thanks to the time lost and the injuries suffered. So I did what many other privateers did -- I became a pirate, so I could continue using those skills the Crown had taught me to support myself -- ”

“By pillaging merchant ships and attacking innocent people,” Carewyn spat. She wished she’d been able to keep her temper, but the mental image of this woman shooting Jacob in the back and pushing him overboard had rippled through her mind and it was a knife to her heart she couldn’t bear.

“We all have to do things we’re not proud of in order to survive, Miss Weasley,” said Rakepick very quietly. “That’s the reason you’ve stayed in line with Beckett yourself, is it not?”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. Rakepick took her silence as an excuse to press further.

“I saw the way you treated the prisoners from Tortuga. You did not treat them as Jones would, or even as any other officer would. You insisted they be fed and watered consistently, despite their large numbers and their shortened lifespans. You gave one a Bible, on request. You even moved a woman into a different cell so she could be with her husband for the rest of the voyage back to Port Royal, without even being asked.”

Rakepick’s dark blue eyes surveyed Carewyn with something interested, almost admiring, as she came to a halt just behind the shorter young woman.

“You have the heart of a guardian, Miss Weasley. Something not frequently seen in any line of work I’ve ever been part of -- privateering, piracy, or pirate hunting...and something never found among men like Cutler Beckett. It makes you want to protect others as well as yourself. It makes you a natural leader -- one that anyone would be foolish to deny their proper place.”

“I don’t need your flattery, Rakepick,” Carewyn said coldly, turning on her heel to face the older woman once again.

“This is not flattery,” Rakepick answered just as coldly. “It’s advice from someone who has been in your shoes. It’s not easy for anyone without money and status to get ahead in this world, but it’s even harder for a woman. Even when she’s able to acquire those things, there’ll always be a man attempting to clip her wings, so as to make him feel more powerful -- more in control. Even the tale of the goddess Calypso herself proves this. She ruled the seas, until the Pirate King and his Brethren Court ‘bound her’ into human form and stole control for themselves. They were powerless in the face of the Crowns of Europe...and so they exerted power over someone they could hurt.”

“Yet Cutler Beckett hired you, regardless of your sex,” said Carewyn, raising her eyebrows.

Rakepick crossed her arms over his chest. “Cutler Beckett will clip anyone’s wings, female or otherwise, if it benefits himself. Hence why I need this leverage over him.”

“Seems like the leverage is much more over Jones, considering you hold his life in your hands,” Carewyn cut her off harshly. “Now enough stalling -- give me Jones’s heart.”

Rakepick gave a half-frustrated, half-exhausted sigh. “Miss Weasley, do you truly think I wouldn’t have handed the heart over to you already, if I could? I’ve already made it more than clear I trust Beckett as little as you do. I’m not in this fight for him. I have no more love for either the Navy or the pirates than you do. I assure you -- we’re on the same side in this.”

‘Doubtful,’ Carewyn thought spitefully.

Nonetheless she could tell that she’d been outmaneuvered. Rakepick wasn’t going to hand over Jones’s heart, whether because it wasn’t on the ship or Rakepick was just too brave to give in to any threats she might make. She’d lost the element of surprise completely...and if force wasn’t going to work, then a new strategy was clearly needed. She needed to find out the heart’s new location. So, very reluctantly, she tucked her pistol back into its holster.

“If you’re so out for yourself,” said Carewyn coldly, “and you believe me to be just as out for myself...then we can’t be on the same side, Rakepick.”

Rakepick’s eyebrows rose over her narrowing dark blue eyes.

“I never said you were out for yourself, Miss Weasley -- merely that we are alike.”

She swept past Carewyn and headed for the door. When she reached the door frame, however, she paused. Turning her head back toward Carewyn, she spoke a bit more seriously.

“The battle between the Navy and the Pirate Brethren Court is going to be a fierce one. It would truly be in your best interest to get and stay off the Dutchman, before that fight begins.”

Carewyn shot a suspicious look over her shoulder without turning around.

“What battle?” she asked lowly.

“The place where all pirates will have to make their final stand.”

“You’re so assured of that? We haven’t even found Shipwreck Cove,” Carewyn pointed out. “Come to think of it...shouldn’t you know where Shipwreck Cove is, since you were a pirate yourself?”

Rakepick’s eyes flashed.

“I’m afraid not,” she said, her voice noticeably icier than it had been previously.

The question seemed to have gotten under Rakepick’s skin, and Carewyn suspected she knew exactly why. Only pirate captains were generally told the the location of Shipwreck Cove -- since she hadn’t assumed captainship through “Code-sanctioned” means, Rakepick couldn’t have been told by anyone else on the crew of Howell Davis’s ship where Shipwreck Cove was.

‘Serves you right, for what you did to Jacob,’ Carewyn thought, and she couldn’t completely fight back a small smirk.

“Regardless,” said Rakepick, “it won’t take long to find it. You saw the map Beckett designed, in your office -- it’s been finished, since you last saw it. The world’s edges have been drawn and charted, and so too have all of the places pirates could’ve once hidden. Now that they’ve been fenced in and the British Crown has allocated its Navy to the East India Trading Company’s war on piracy...it’s only a matter of time before all pirates face extinction. Those in power will not surrender it peacefully...least of all to those they’ve decided to treat as inferiors...so they’ll use every bit of that power they’ve accrued to try to quash any resistance. Those remaining pirates will have to either adapt to this terrifying new world their rebellion has molded...or perish.”

Rakepick turned away.

“And you, Miss Weasley...should not remain on the Dutchman. You don’t belong on a ship like this.”

Even as Rakepick left, Carewyn remained where she was, standing straight-backed in the center of the room with her fists clenched. Then, after a long moment, she brought a hand up to the lid of the empty Dead Man’s Chest and shut it with a harsh SNAP.

The sea battle up above raged. Captain Moody, it seemed, was truly a force to be reckoned with, despite his age and wooden limbs. When Navy officers and Dutchman pirates found their way onto the Phoenix, he fought four of them off single-handed, even going so far as to yank a blunderbuss out of his pants and shoot one of them right in the head before smacking two of the others with it as if it were a club. It was just fortunate that Charlie -- newly escaped from the brig thanks to a charm of Chia Dalma’s -- was able to block the sword belonging to the last of them with his own dragon-hilted blade.

Despite this, the Phoenix and the rest of the Tower Raven’s old fleet was severely outmatched, since Jones’s crew couldn’t die. Many ships had already started to flee, only for the Flying Dutchman to cut them down with cannon fire. Even though the Dutchman was no larger than the pirate galleons, it seemed to have the supernatural ability to heal any damage dealt to it within the span of a few minutes -- an ability not shared by Captain Moody, when he swung over to the Dutchman and pursued Jones with singular, irrational focus, only to finally be overpowered and killed by Jones himself.

“NO!” bellowed Barnaby.

Charlie straightened up sharply, his eyes widening in horror, at the sight of Moody falling to his knees, Jones’s blade stuck right through his chest.

Jones regarded the old man with a grim expression.

“Alastor Moody,” he murmured, “do you fear death?”

Moody glared up at Jones with his one good eye, but was clearly too badly injured to speak. So instead he spat at his feet.

Jones looked almost jaded by the reaction -- the way any embodiment of Death would likely be, whenever anyone got mad at them for doing their job.

“Clearly not.”

With this, he rather callously tossed Moody back over onto the deck of the Phoenix and whirled back to his crew.

“Ready the cannons!”

Barnaby immediately rushed to his captain’s side to help him up.

“Captain -- Captain, are you -- ?”

Alas, Moody was still too injured to speak clearly. When he opened his mouth, all he could do was cough up blood. Charlie rushed over too.

“He’s hurt bad,” he muttered. He turned to Chia. “Is there anything you -- ?”

Chia shook her head, her gray eyes very solemn. “I’m sorry, Charles Weasley. There’s no more time I can give him.”

Charlie was startled by the sensation of someone grabbing the collar of his shirt. Moody pulled him down closer to him, trying to whisper into his ear.

"You -- ” he choked through the blood in his mouth, “ -- have the Pacific Ocean’s Piece of Eight -- ?”

Charlie blinked in surprise. He glanced down at the anchor-trimmed “S” button Chia gave him, which he’d pinned to his vest for safe keeping until he could properly sew it somewhere more secure.

“...Yeah,” said Charlie. “Chia Dalma gave it to me.”

Moody squinted up at Charlie.

“...Shipwreck Cove -- is due west, of here. Fifty miles -- through the D-Devil’s -- Throat. Take -- the crew there.”

Charlie was completely blind-sided. “What?”

“Lead them. Take them to -- Shipwreck Cove. To the rest of the Court. To -- Black Jack.”

Charlie’s brown eyes rippled with sadness, seeing how much difficulty Moody was having talking. He was out of time, as Chia had said -- and yet, here he was, putting his crew first.

‘For all of his faults,’ thought Charlie, ‘Mad-Eye Moody is a good captain.’

The second-eldest Weasley took Moody’s wizened hand in both of his and gave it a squeeze.

“I will,” he said firmly. “I promise.”

Blood streamed from Moody’s lips as they curled up in a pained smile. “That’s a good lad...”

He coughed, trying hard to take another breath. This time, however, the blood blocked his throat enough that no oxygen could reach him. And so Moody, in the last shreds of his life, bravely raised his eyes to the sky with a smile.

Barnaby had brought his two large fists up to obscure his face as he started to cry. Charlie hung his head respectfully over the fallen captain of the Phoenix. After a moment, he brought up a hand to close Moody’s eyes and then rose to his feet, his eyes blazing with determination.

“ALL HANDS, PREPARE THE CANNONS!” he bellowed. “We need all the explosives and smoke bombs we have -- we’re getting the Hell out of here!”

Charlie’s strategy was to assault the Flying Dutchman with two waves of attack. The first would be to damage the ship enough that it would need a few minutes to repair itself -- the second would be a smokescreen, so as to hopefully put enough distance between the Phoenix and the Flying Dutchman that the second couldn’t actively take down the first with its cannon fire. When Charlie ran to the edge of the Phoenix beside Chia Dalma to make the order to fire, he was startled momentarily by who he saw coming up onto the deck of the Dutchman.

It was Carewyn.

Jones confronted her immediately, his eyes narrowed sharply as he barked something to her -- Carewyn looked rather frustrated herself, but Charlie couldn’t make out what they were saying. Within seconds, however, both Jones and Carewyn turned their focus to the battle -- and they both caught sight of the two people at the railing.

Jones’s eyes flickered with shock, disbelief, and something oddly more vulnerable. He’d never seen the human woman on that ship’s railing in his life...but he knew those gray eyes...

“Ca...lypso...?”

Chia Dalma’s hands clutched the railing as her eyes filled with tears and a weak smile prickled at her features.

“Finn,” she breathed.

Carewyn, meanwhile, had met Charlie’s gaze straight on. Her eyes were very wide at the sight of him, just as much as Charlie’s was at the sight of her.

“Carey!” cried Charlie.

His heart felt like it was fit to burst, seeing his surrogate twin again. Part of him just wanted to throw himself over his ship’s railing over to her and pull her into the biggest hug, and yet --

She was on the Dutchman -- the Flying Dutchman, the ship of the damned --

Carewyn’s eyes flooded with fear as she shot her head around, taking in her soldiers fighting off pirates from the rest of the Tower Raven’s fleet on the deck of her ship and the Phoenix’s cannons being turned into the proper position.

Her gaze then shot back to Charlie’s face with urgency.

“BECKETT IS COMING!” she mouthed to him desperately. “BECKETT IS COMING! GO!”

She then yanked her pistol out of her belt and purposefully shot right over Charlie’s head, to make her point. Clenching his jaw, Charlie nonetheless nodded firmly, blinking back some traces of tears as he whirled on his crew.

“FIRST WAVE, FIRE ALL!” he roared.

With the Dutchman effectively hampered by both waves of attack, the Phoenix was able to successfully put a respectable distance between it and the Flying Dutchman. Carewyn tried to keep their focus on the rest of the fleet and on capturing prisoners from those vessels, but Rakepick contradicted her, ordering the Dutchman to shadow the Phoenix in case it was heading to Shipwreck Cove. What Carewyn did not expect was Jones agreeing with Rakepick.

“I want everyone on board the Phoenix locked in my brig,” said the captain of the damned icily, his gaze flaring with raw emotion as he glared at Carewyn. “I will not let them escape me.”

Carewyn knew she’d been outmaneuvered again. There was nothing more she could do, to protect everyone now. It was all up to Charlie now, to warn Bill, Jules, and Jacob...to warn Orion...

The memory of the pirate captain’s calm, dark eyes made Carewyn’s heart clench with longing and pain. He’d always made her feel so much stronger, whenever she felt most useless and hopeless...but right now, more than anything, she longed to have him at her side -- to feel his shoulder resting against hers and see his soft smile once more...

Rakepick was right -- the final battle was coming, sooner than anyone could’ve ever predicted. It was all up to Charlie to warn the Brethren Court now.

#potc au #au #pirates of the caribbean #my art #my writing #charlie weasley #carewyn cromwell #chiara lobosca #Mad-Eye Moody #barnaby lee #finn mcgarry #jules farrier #bill weasley #patricia rakepick #damn it rakepick! #sadly we couldn't afford to set finn free just yet though #gotta get closer to shipwreck cove and reunite him with chia :3 #but yay captain charlie weasley of the phoenix! #he may or may not change the name to something more dragon-like later XD #but yeah technically you gotta be a captain to be a pirate lord #one reason moody gave charlie captainship #and also because as great as barnaby is I think he makes a better First Mate than a Captain #just like bill does XDD #I love putting rakepick and carey in a room together #wonder if you guys can guess who the brethren court members are... #hint: two of them are mc's who have done content for the au #(another mc is the keeper of the code >:3) #four are hphm canon characters #(one of those is charlie of course) #and the last is one of my kiddos >:3