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Trans lesbian feminist Beth Elliot’s response to TERFs who attacked her at the West Coast Lesbian Conference, 1973 (x)

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So you know how in Shen Yuan's plant body he looked like a mix of Shen Jiu and his old body? And one of the brothel ladies thought he was Shen Jiu before taking another look and saying oh nevermind

And then immediately afterwards she started singing regrets of chunshan?

Anyway since the brothel ladies never knew about the qi deviation and transmigration, they had no idea why Shen Qingqiu stopped visiting. So headcanon that they all thought the peak lord found true love and gave up on prostitutes. Then when they heard about Shen Qingqiu dying for his student and Binghe refusing to give back his corpse, they went ah. That's who

Brothel pipa player meeting Shen Yuan: ah you look like our old customer who turned gay and died. Let me sing the song rn

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This week, I read a fic that was around 20 years old, which had originally been posted on the author's personal website and which she added to AO3 a few years ago. She listed her email address with the fic, so after I finished reading, I sent her an email saying how much I enjoyed the story, how much I appreciated the work and effort she obviously put into it, and thanked her for uploading it to AO3. She responded the next day and thanked me for my message, then said she had a few more stories in the same series that she hadn't gotten around to uploading. I checked this morning--she added a 35,000 word novella and thanked me in the summary.

👏 comment 👏 on 👏 old 👏 fics 👏

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DNI lists on this website are fucking insane

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she is now suing him for sexual harassment. she initially was totally willing to stay quiet about what he did as long as it stopped for the rest of the shoot—which it did! it could have ended there!—but he was so afraid of her going public that he launched a preemptive smear campaign, which....caused her to go public. talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

i would only read the second article after you read the first, because the first will give context when the second mentions accusations against Lively of bad set conduct, being tone-deaf in her promotion of the film, and being mean to a journalist. If you've read the first article you know those accusations were heavily ginned up or outright fabricated by the PR firm trying to ruin Lively's reputation.

Non-pay walled link to the best article I’ve found on the It Ends With Us potential lawsuit

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'yet another dodge'? have we ever interacted before? i can't find any indication we have. why would you walk up to a complete stranger and say that unless you wanted to start a fight?

if you're so unwilling to read pro-abolition posts in good faith that you resort to misreading standard english grammar just to pretend the only possible interpretation of what i wrote is something counterfactual, there is no point in me talking to you.

like. we already agree on the one single claim i made! you could've opened with something like "while i agree that the vast majority of rapists go uncaught and unpunished under the current system, wouldn't it be better to work on increasing the number who end up behind bars rather than committing to a system in which none of them do?" and then we could've had a conversation about the plausibility of a carceral system gaining the ability to keep rapists off the streets in a useful way. or perhaps we could've talked about the damage of the carceral approach to victims relative to the assumed value of taking a very small percentage of rapists off the streets. or a whole bunch of things. abolitionists aren't a monolith! "what are you going to do with the rapists and murderers" is a fairly specific policy question, so asking that is akin to asking a USian proponent of universal healthcare "how will you handle religious hospitals/elective plastic surgery/drug shortages/experimental treatments/assisted suicide/etc?" and expecting a pat, satisfying answer every medicare-for-all supporter agrees on off the top of their head.

anyway. certainly there's lots to talk about. but if you just want to fight, don't pretend you want to talk.

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No idea the source, but here have this.

Edit: Source is Pretendo Games. Thanks to @happilyeveraftereveryday for finding them!

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checked in on two or three terf blogs to see if they had any reaction to that radfem shooting her school up and all they got is going “erhm ackshually she wasnt a radfem she was a neo-nazi” which like

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not to be anti-religious but i do wonder if teaching children that they are innately flawed and sinful is, perhaps, not a healthy worldvi

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Got jury duty coming up? What better time than now to learn about the extremely cool and good things you can do on that jury if you get empaneled? (because learning about them after you've been empaneled is a crime)

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How to begin a sustainable way of life

This is a draft of something I've been writing for a couple months. It is mainly focused on the culture of the USA. Feel free to repost or otherwise share, with or without credit.

Do not tell people what to do—help them do it! 

Give the gift of relief from being forced to engage in society’s unsustainable ways of life. 

“People need to eat more plant-based foods.” ->Talk about your favorite recipes, give others recipes, cook for them, and grow vegetables and plants in your garden and give them away as gifts. 

“People need to repair their clothes.” -> Offer to repair others’ clothes, and teach people how to repair their clothes. 

“People need to buy less clothes.” -> Give them old clothes that you don’t want, help them repair their clothes

“People need to buy less plastic stuff.” -> Learn to make things that can serve the same purpose, such as baskets, and give them as gifts. Let people borrow things you own so they don’t have to buy their own. 

“People need to stop using leafblowers and other gas-guzzling machinery.” -> Offer to rake the leaves. You can use them as compost in your own garden. 

“People need to be more educated about nature.”-> Learn about nature yourself. Tell people about nature. Be open about your love of creatures such as snakes, spiders, and frogs. Do not show awareness that this could be strange. You are not obligated to quiet down your enthusiasm for creepy crawlies to demonstrate awareness that it is weird. Point out at every opportunity how these animals are beneficial. 

“People need to use cars less.” -> Offer rides to others whenever you must go somewhere. Whenever you are about to go to the store, ask your neighbor or your friend who lives along the way, “Is there anything you need from the store?” 

You cannot control others’ behaviors, but you can free them from being controlled. 

If you think to yourself, “But this would be so difficult to do!” ask yourself WHY? Why does your society coerce you into less sustainable ways of living, forcing you to consume excessively? After thinking about this, consider that it is less simple and easy than you thought to make more sustainable choices, so why would you judge others for not doing it? 

Do not act alone—act with others! 

Environmentally friendly behaviors that can be done alone, without collaborating with or consulting another person, are the least powerful of all. Whenever an “environmentally friendly” behavior is suggested, figure out “How can I give this as a gift?” or “How can I make this possible on the level of a whole community?” 

“Personal choices” do not work because every single person has to make them individually. If you are focused on making your own personal choice, you are not focused on others. If you are not focused on others, you are not helping them. If nobody is helping each other, most people won’t be able to make the “personal choice.”

You inherently share an ecosystem with your neighbors  

            Start with your neighbors, the people physically close to you. You live on the same patch of land, containing roots from the same plants and trees. You can speak to them face to face without traveling, which means you can easily bring them physical things without using resources to travel. 

            Always talk to your neighbors and be friendly with them. Offer them favors unprompted and tell them about how your garden is doing. Do not be afraid to be annoying—a slightly annoying neighbor who is helpful, kind, and can be relied upon for a variety of favors or in times of need is a necessary and inevitable part of a good community. If you make the effort to be present in somebody’s life, they will have to put up with you on some occasions, but that is just life. We cannot rely on each other if we do not put up with each other. 

Simply spending time with someone influences them for good 

Every hour you spend outside with your neighbor is an hour your neighbor doesn’t spend watching Fox News. Every hour you spend talking with someone and interacting with them in the real world, eating real food and enjoying your real surroundings, is an hour you don’t spend only hearing a curated picture of what reality is like from social media. 

            Isolation makes it easy for people to become indoctrinated into extremist beliefs. When someone spends more time alone, watching TV, Youtube, or scrolling social media, than they do with others, their concept of what other people are like and what the world is like comes more from social media than real life. TV and online media are meant to influence you in a specific way. Simply restricting the access these influences have to yourself and others is helpful. 

A garden is the source of many gifts 

If you grow a garden, you can give your neighbors and friends the gift of food, plants, and crafted objects. This is one of the foundational ways to form community. When you give food, you provide support to others. When you give plants, you are encouraging and teaching about gardening. It is even better when you give recipes cooked from things you grew, or items crafted from things you grew. You can also give the gift of knowledge of how to grow these plants, cook these recipes, or craft these objects. 

More on gift-giving

            Some people are uncomfortable with receiving items or services as gifts. They want to feel like they are giving something back, instead of having obligation to return the favor hanging over them. 

            It can help to ask a simple favor that can be easily fulfilled. People generally like the feeling of helping someone else. 

When you give someone a gift, it can help to say something like “Oh, I have too many of this thing to take care of/store/eat myself! Do you think you could take some?” This makes your neighbor feel like they are helping you. 

When allowing others to borrow items, you might not get them back. Don’t worry about that. It just means the item found a place where it was needed the most. You can ask about the item if you think it might have been forgotten, and this can create an opportunity for a second meeting. But don’t press. 

If the person you give to insists upon some form of payment, this is a good opportunity to negotiate a trade. 

Ask to be given compostable or recyclable things 

Ask your neighbor to save compostable scraps, biodegradable cardboard and paper products, and any other items that might be put to use. Use them in your own compost pile. Or, start a compost pile at the edge of the yard where you both can add to it. Remember that “wet” compost like vegetable and fruit bits needs to be mixed with twice as much of “dry” and “woody” compost like cardboard, leaves, small twigs, paper and wood bits. 

Use the front yard for gardening

Overcome the cultural norm that the front yard is only decorative. Use the front yard for gardening so you can be seen by others enjoying your garden, and others can witness the demonstration of the possibilities of land. In the front yard, anything you do intentionally with your land can be witnessed. It also makes you a visible presence in your community. 

Grow staple foods 

Don’t just grow vegetables that cannot be the core component of a meal themselves. Grow potatoes, dry beans, black eyed peas and other nourishing, calorie-dense foods. Grow the ingredients of meals. You could even build a garden around a recipe.

Invite neighbors and friends over to eat food made from things you grew 

Be sure to send them home with leftovers.  

Grow plants for baskets 

Containers are one of the fundamental human needs. If we had more containers, we wouldn’t need plastic so much. You can learn to make baskets, and to grow plants that provide the raw materials for baskets. 

If someone rakes their leaves, ask to have the leaves  

If you see someone putting leaves in bags, don’t be afraid to ask if you can have the leaves. More likely than not they will be happy to agree. 

Collaborate with neighbors to plant things in the no-man’s-land of the property line 

In the border land between your neighbor’s yard and your yard, it is almost always just mowed grass because no one can plant anything without it affecting their neighbor. But these border lands add up to a lot of space. It would be much better if you talked to your neighbor about what would be nice to plant there, and together created a plan for that space. 

Give others the freedom to wander 

Make it clear that you will not get mad if the neighbor’s kids play in your yard or run across it. Invite the neighbors onto your land as much as possible. Tell them they are allowed to spend time in a favored spot whenever they would like.  

The power of the hand-made sign 

If there is a yard sale, you always know about it because of the hand-drawn signs placed around. Therefore, a cookout or unwanted item exchange can be announced the same way. In rural areas I have seen hand-made signs that say: FIREWOOD or WE BUY GOATS or EGGS. This is one of the few technologies of community that remain in the USA. If someone who looks to buy and sell can put up a hand-made sign, why shouldn’t you?  

Religious people or people with strong political opinions like to put signs everywhere. If they have the confidence and courage to do so, why shouldn’t you? 

So if there is a message you would like everyone to see, use the simple power of the hand-made sign. Proclaim “BEE FRIENDLY ZONE!” above your pollinator garden with all the confidence of a religious fundamentalist billboard. Announce to the world, “VEGETABLES FREE TO ALL—JUST ASK!” “WE TAKE LEAVES—NO PESTICIDES.” Instead of YARD SALE, or perhaps in conjunction with YARD SALE, you can write, PLANT EXCHANGE or SEED SWAP or CLOTHING SWAP. Who can stop you? 

Someone has to do it for society to change  

Some of these ideas might be eccentric, strange, or even socially unacceptable, but there is no way to change what is normal except to move against it. Someone has to be weird. It might as well be you. 

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what super expensive indulgence would u get for urself if u suddenly came into a bunch of money?? assume all bills/mortgages paid, all friends helped: what treat are u buying just for u?? for me it would be a quilted lambskin chanel bag in iridescent pink

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my working definition of conservatism is "the belief that there should be a group the law protects but does not bind, and a group the law binds but does not protect." and that, too, lends itself very well to stories about protagonists who bend the rules to get things done while the narrative makes it clear it's okay because they're the good guys.

fiction in general lends itself very well to a kind of exaggerated 'fundamental attribution error'—we're inside the protagonist's situation and understand why they make the choices they do, we're rooting for them to manipulate the system or get their well-deserved revenge or whatever, but when enemy characters get ahead or get revenge on the protagonist etc etc, they inevitably come off as less deserving of our empathy. when the poor character suddenly becomes rich and can now ruin the lives of the service workers who looked down on her, we aren't stopping to think "hmm, this system where rich people get to order others around is pretty fucked up, nobody should be allowed to do that to service workers," we're just cheering because the correct person now has the power in the situation.

naturally in the moment it feels great! we know for a fact this is The Protagonist, the good character! she won't misuse the power, just threaten people with it a little when they really for sure deserve it! she's a perfect candidate for a law that protects and does not bind! buuuuut of course that designation doesn't exist in real life. which makes "reward the Good Characters" a spectacularly shitty way to run a country.

in real life, hurting someone doesn't become good just because you can point to a reason they deserve it. in real life, having one set of rules for the 'good guys' and another set of rules for the 'bad guys' is how you get boeing executing its whistleblowers while luigi mangione is charged with terrorism.

ok. so we're accustomed to this baseline level of good guy-bad guy double standard in our media, and that makes room for conservative messages. then what's the difference between media with a conservative message and Conservative Bad Art?

my theory is that when the basic underlying assumption of "empathize more with the protagonist and their cause than you do with the antagonists" becomes "empathize ONLY with the protagonist, everyone else is just trying to destroy the status quo for no real reason", as it does in conservative media that's trying to be conservative—especially religious conservative media where progressive belief is indirectly (or directly!) attributed to Satan!—it tends to ruin the audience's suspension of disbelief.

"sure global warming is bad and is killing the planet, but these environmentalists are trying to fight back by stealing alien technology to blow up chicago! they've gone too far!" is a conservative message in a mainstream movie plot. by contrast, "the environment is totally fine actually! these environmentalists are stealing alien technology to blow up chicago simply because they hate how much Americans love capitalism!" is a conservative fever dream. trying to turn a conservative fever dream into Art That Owns The Libs will not work. the disconnect from how motivations actually work in real life is too great and everything will inevitably feel forced and unsatisfying.

plenty of people with conservative mindsets are still good students of character, good enough to model human behavior fairly well in fictional works—even when they're coming to the wrong conclusions about the causes for that behavior, even when they don't really see their marginalized characters as equal to their privileged ones. as long as they're paying attention to real human interaction, real human history, etc, and trying to capture it as best they can, they'll turn out compelling works.

it's when your commitment to your ideology supercedes your commitment to modeling the reality of human behavior that the quality of your work begins to degrade noticeably.

There's currently a few videos going around tiktok trying to answer the question of why conservatives can't make good art and I think that the premise there isn't necessarily true. Lots of conservatives have made good art, and a lot of that art even has pretty blatant conservative messaging it in. But I think people who say this are getting at something in the sense that whenever a conservative idealogue makes art that is designed specifically to reinforce their conservatives views to a similarly oriented audience, those works are almost universally abysmal dogshit. Like the first Ghostbusters movie works better as conservative propaganda than like... Idk, God's Not Dead, because the people who made Ghostbusters didn't sit down to be like "hmmm how can we really own the libs with this one" like that instinct is what actually destroys the quality of a work

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There's currently a few videos going around tiktok trying to answer the question of why conservatives can't make good art and I think that the premise there isn't necessarily true. Lots of conservatives have made good art, and a lot of that art even has pretty blatant conservative messaging it in. But I think people who say this are getting at something in the sense that whenever a conservative idealogue makes art that is designed specifically to reinforce their conservatives views to a similarly oriented audience, those works are almost universally abysmal dogshit. Like the first Ghostbusters movie works better as conservative propaganda than like... Idk, God's Not Dead, because the people who made Ghostbusters didn't sit down to be like "hmmm how can we really own the libs with this one" like that instinct is what actually destroys the quality of a work