#And I'm supposed to be LGBTQ+ despite what some believe

[sunsetovertheocean]

Some of the many things that truly suck about being a high masking autistic person with a high IQ is that I'm never "autistic enough" to be "truly autistic," never "disabled enough" to be "truly disabled," that there are no accommodations I "actually need" because I do well enough in school so why would I need any help whatsoever right? (Wrong, very very wrong.)

And yet somehow at the same time, despite how hard I try, I'm never "normal enough," I'm always "weird" and "odd" and it doesn't matter how much time and energy I put into trying to learn how neurotypicals communicate and social cues and tone and facial expressions and everything else because it never works.

But somehow, despite the way everyone thinks I'm weird, no one believes me when I tell them I'm autistic. It's always "no, I don't think you are," or "but you don't look autistic," or "you can't be autistic," or "but you're so normal," or "everyone's a little autistic," or any of the other ableist things people always spew out.

You can't possibly know if I'm autistic or not if you don't go to my brain. You can't. You just can't. What is autism "supposed" to look like to you? A rich white five year old boy who's your nephew or something that has a special interest on trains? (And autistic people who fit that exact description definitely do exist and are just as valid) Because an afab LGBTQ+ Asian teenager "can't possibly" be autistic. I appear "normal" (despite the fact that my entire life you've been telling me the opposite) to you because I've learned how to mask from a really young age because people like you taught me that everything about me was inherently wrong. That everything about the way I actually am is something to be ashamed of, something to lock away in a vault behind bars out of sight, something no one can ever know because who would like me if they did? Because now that you've said that, you can be sure that I'm not going to feel safe enough around you to even begin to try to unmask. Not everyone is "a little bit autistic" you can't be "a little bit autistic" you are or you're not. Not everyone is autistic. If everyone was autistic it wouldn't be a diagnosis, if everyone was autistic then the world would be a more accepting place for autistic people (not to say ableist people won't still exist).

I know this is largely a "complain-y" post that doesn't really touch that much on the challenges that autism itself can bring and mainly just on the ableist people that I've had the displeasure of interacting with and this definitely doesn't touch on everything (not in the slightest), but on the other hand, why do people find it so weird that autistic people (and all people with disabilities) can and do (although not everyone does and that's completely ok too) feel proud to be autistic? Even though I hate some parts of being autistic, even though it's hard a lot of the time, why can't I be happy too? Why must I always have to be suffering in your eyes? What if I love obsessing over my special interests, what if I love stimming and the way it makes me feel, what if I love the way my brain works sometimes? What if even the things I hate I sometimes love and the things I love I also sometimes hate? And what if everything (whether I love it or hate it or both) is all a part of me? And everything is a part of me that I can't change or be "me" without, and why can't I be proud that despite the way some things are really really hard I'm still trying? That I'm still doing everything I can. Why can't I be proud that I'm a part of a community that has done incredible things and that has incredible people? I don't understand.

It's always either "you can't possibly be autistic because you're so smart" or "you can't possibly be smart because you're autistic" or both at the same time because for some reason that makes sense to people. It's either "let me infantilize you because you clearly can't do anything" or "let me except way too damn much from you because you must know everything" or both at the same time and none of it makes sense. Why can't I have both strengths and weaknesses? Why can't I both struggle and succeed? It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense.

I'm a person. I'm an autistic person. Why is this so hard for neurotypicals to understand?

I just started ranting about the things at the top of my mind which then kind of spiraled into.... whatever this ended up being.

[manysmallhands]

Top 10 Albums of 2023!

This was all supposed to work out differently. As i recall from the now long distant past, my original plan was to do a countdown where i put up one post a day throughout December. However, I got Covid on December 1st and that plan immediately became lame and useless. After that, my assumption was basically that i wouldn't be able to do any of this, but i got better more quickly than i'd anticipated and found myself working on these reviews in bits as the month has gone on. So, having rushed through all the the song blurbs that i wanted to do, here i am on New Year's Eve with a more or less finished Top 10 albums to put up.

The only problem is that there are ten quite lengthy reviews here and the vibe is already pretty tl:dr. But tbh that's fine: there really is only my girlfriend who ever reads everything (and i believe her, trust is what love is all about after all) so for anyone looking at this and thinking blimey, that's a lot of text, my advice is: you don't have to read any of it. Just look at the albums, scan thru to see if it sounds like something you might like and give one or two of them a listen if that looks like the case. The words are really just to keep me occupied but i'd like to hope that someone likes some of the records.

I said yesterday that i would reveal what the best one is and so I am now delivering on that important promise. The best one is Scarlet by Doja Cat. Anyone who follows me on whatever platform already knows that the best one is Scarlet by Doja Cat. Don't make me say it again.

Barbie - The Album

Few people have seemed much interested in the Barbie soundtrack, other than the punters who kept it atop the compilations chart for four months. I, as ever, channel the spirit of the populous. The sound is basically 80s synth pop updated for a modern audience  - the likes of Haim and Ava Max slot in predictably well - but its the extra dimensions created by how the artists interact with the film that provide some of its more interesting aspects. Sam Smith’s Man I Am reflects a surprisingly LGBTQ Ken despite protestations (certainly its "I'm not gay bro, but..." T-shirt is prompting a lot of questions already answered by the shirt), while Billie Eilish dwelling on life as a manufactured product makes for interesting and uncomfortable parallels in What Was I Made For. Mark Ronson’s plasticky production suits its subject to a tee, further cementing the conceptual unity of the project.

Star turns abound throughout the album as A-listers like Dua Lipa and Lizzo bring their best games alongside some terrific and unlikely downcard cameos. What Was I Made For? and Dance The Night were both deserved #1s, but the pacey pop punk of GAYLE’s Butterflies and Dominic Fike’s breezy, hook laden Hey Blondie are as much highlights as any of the bigger names here. Special mention should be made for Ryan Gosling’s I’m Just Ken, a blockbuster 70s rock number that, whilst puncturing the wider stylistic template, is batshit and hilarious enough to more than justify its place as well as netting him a surprise hit too. The quality lapses once or twice (Tame Impala in particular are bloody awful) but by the time Ava fires the final laser I’m generally happy to go back and start all over again. With banger after banger here, my verdict is in: the Barbie soundtrack is *Charli voice* HOT!

Claire Rosinkranz - Just Because

While this has been a year that I’ve gotten more fully into pop, it took a while for me to find many new albums that I’ve been interested in. This may partly be to do with me clinging to an idea that LPs ought to be substantial beyond having good hooks and charm. In truth, all I needed to do was revert to my indiepop training, where bands have never knowingly been fussed about having any great weightiness. But even so, it took Just Because to make it clear to me that no, you really don’t need any grand vision at all: a high number of great if frothy pop songs will do just fine. It’s a record which bounces from banger to banger in an endearingly sunny style, with each tune so catchy that their lightness becomes a strength rather than a weakness.

Rosinkranz’s voice seems to mark her out as one of the many Billie clones who populate the current pop scene but her musical ambitions are both simpler and more instantly engaging. Not yet 20, her songs have an element of schoolyard whispers which add a welcome silliness here and there, but she also plays with the intensity of youthful emotions to make them a little heartrending even as she goofs off. Highlights include Dreamer, a break up song where the vocal makes it clear that she’s far from as done as she says she is, and Wes Anderson, which offers some sombre advice but packages it in a song so sweet that you’d never know. But in spite of all this it makes no end of year lists (well, maybe just the one), being merely a lovable set of songs that are very hard to forget. Need it be more? I don't believe so.

Doja Cat - Scarlet

Mired in discourse throughout the year, Doja Cat still found time to make a chart topping single (Paint The Town Red) that took the world by storm and a cracking album which, sadly, did not. Scarlet was in my opinion the better of the two: largely ditching the afrobeat pop of Planet Her, Doja staked her claim as an old skool rapper and brought it off pretty well, mixing hard rhyming with her more scattershot pop delivery and sounding entirely comfortable wherever she landed. While flitting musically between modern RnB and neo-soul grooves, her subject matter was largely taken up by how much she hated her fans, a bold strategy that found her shedding support even as blistering tracks like Fuck The Girls shaped up as some of my favourites of the year.

Whilst I’ve found myself uncomfortable with both the company that she keeps and the views which she may or may not subscribe to (i feel safe in saying that she's a right wing edgelord but i suspect that’s the least of it), Scarlet is such a good album that I’ve found myself, if not making excuses for her, then at least deftly navigating around my distaste in order to keep listening to it. While Agora Hills often reminded me how serious she is about her scumbag of a boyfriend, it’s still a song that can submerge me in its beauty entirely; while some of the complaints from her online audience are less easily dismissed than others, it’s more comfortable just to think about the morons calling her a devil worshiper, especially when she mocks them so wickedly on the elegant Skull And Bones. Am I the problem? Maybe I am: it’s a place I often find myself in with hip hop, where faves are frequently problematic and exceptions beg to be made. As such, I can not wholeheartedly recommend this record to people who might want to take a principled stand against some of her bullshit. I can only say that, as a musical talent, there was no one better all year.

Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard?

After 2021’s fairly middling brace of albums, Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd always felt like it was going to be a return to form and this time the faithful were not disappointed. It was another epic and sprawling record which unfolded like a cross between The Bible and a 50s musical. While changeable in style, ranging from hammy country ballads to trap beats and beyond, the thing that springs to mind most often is the Great American Songbook, as Lana takes the melodramatic grandeur of those standards and soaks them in her own messy and complicated worldview. This draws in family, romance, the future, her relationship with religion and how it all scrappily fits together, ranging widely and wildly across 75 extraordinary minutes.

Much of the album feels like it’s being broadcast from a kind of dreamworld, although one that overlays with reality neatly enough. Lana’s dismissive “if you want some basic bitch go to the Beverly Centre and find her” line undercuts the mood on the otherwise lush and evocative Sweet but the impact is hilarious rather than jarring, a perfect marriage of the strange and mundane. In contrast, the brooding A&W initially brings that realism to a far more uncomfortable level, before goofing off wonderfully in the second half in a way that only Lana ever really dares to do. Much of the record feels like it's creating its own language, as key phrases (“let the light in”, “when you know, you know”) are repeated and musical themes come back around in strange modulations. All in all, while perhaps less satisfying as a pop record than Norman Fucking Rockwell, Did You Know… feels like her most complete statement on a personal level yet, whilst still working well within the broader world that she’s spent over a decade constructing.

Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We

Despite liking the odd song or two, I have until now been largely immune to Mitski over the full length of an album. But The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We has a much more organic sound than I’m used to hearing from her, well adrift from the polished guitar rock of her big 10s records. Instead, it takes many of its cues from classic folk and country, occasionally lush and expansive, often determinedly sombre but always at a distance from the areas where she’s generally been at home. Opener Bug Like An Angel is a brooding scene setter, where Mitski unveils the terse and grumpy presence we will grow familiar with over the next half hour. The main elements of the album are already in place - the spare instrumentation; Mitski’s extraordinary voice, hard and intransigent but still full of yearning; the occasional, overwhelming interjections from the wings. It all creates a distinctive atmosphere, extremely intense but intimate too: we’re allowed into Mitski’s world but there’s a lot to take in.

Lyrically, the songs are both heavily allusive and extremely personal, like hearing ancient parables told by the characters from the story. Surprise hit My Love Mine All Mine seems to sit apart as a relatively standard love song but a closer listen reveals deeper layers; the placing of her love as something independent from its object makes it feel more of a piece with the album’s other enigmas. At a time where Mitski seemed to be cooling on being a rock star, The Land Is Inhospitable adds a new twist to her long musical journey, seemingly presenting a more intimate portrait while in fact retaining most of her essential mystery. As an album, it really is quite something: what that is I’m less certain of but I like it regardless.

Olivia Rodrigo - Guts

Tho I wouldn't have called myself a hater (I don’t think I would have been bothered enough), I don't really like Olivia’s all conquering debut Sour, which I thought a bit too one-note and overpopulated with slushy ballads. But by the time Guts came around I was open to listening again, drawn in by its excellent singles and primed for a different experience. Vampire, the best of them and more or less of this year, was a fantastic example of taking something that Olivia is clearly very accomplished at (the grand piano lament) and then, rather than running that into the ground, instead using it as a springboard for an entirely different idea. Get Him Back and Bad Idea Right hark back to earlier guitar based tracks like Brutal, but on Guts they form a much more substantive part of the album, cementing its brand of addictive pop grunge and working up a much goofier version of her messy teen persona.

Elsewhere, the ballads did in fact return. Some have speculated that this may have been a bad idea (right?) but for me they’ve been growers, particularly the likes of Lacy and The Grudge, where Olivia explores the bitterness of youth and uses it to tear holes in the people who’ve wronged her. But if I’m honest, it’s the rockers that I’m usually waiting for: whether the new wave pastiche of Love Is Embarrassing or autumnal Cure homage Pretty Isn’t Pretty, each one feels like a mini-revelation and it’s the style that I hope she leans on most in the future.

Palehound - Eye On The Bat 

Palehound have been around for a while now and every so often I’ve given their records a try and haven't really managed to connect with them properly. Eye on the Bat has been the first exception, though whether that's because it’s any better than the others or I just made more of an effort with it I don’t know. Its template is certainly well worn in the indie world - country rock with varying degrees of aggression or melodic sweetness - but there’s still a lot here that grabs my attention, especially in the charming indie pop of the title track and the heart-rending melancholy of Route 22.

But the thing that caught my ear the most was Ellen Kempner’s disarming honesty, with much of the album spent documenting what sounds like a deeply messy break up. Whether she’s bitterly picking through the fall out on Independence Day or remembering some hilariously embarrassing bedroom scene on opener Good Sex, Eye On The Bat's almost diaristic view is mesmerising throughout, making you warm to Kempner even as she works thru some of her own worst traits. And aside from anything else, her understanding of relationships underlines her strengths as a lyricist, as she dissects their complexities with wit, sympathy and occasional anger to capture all the stuff that transcends whatever we were hoping for in the first place.

Poppy - Zig

After the wild ride that commenced with 2020’s extraordinary pop/metal mash up I Disagree, Poppy has journeyed thru indie rock, goth and punk to wind up back where she started, only not quite. Zig may represent a return to pop - indeed it’s produced by Weeknd affiliate Ali Payami - but it’s one that’s filtered thru all of the places she stopped off along the way.

The crepuscular grind of Church Outfit and Knockoff sound like more danceable versions of the I Disagree sound, while the crunching title track suggests that she can still go as hard as ever. But there are nods to a lighter side here as well, particularly in the strong trio that wind up the album: The Attic recasts her sound in a euphoric drum n bass clatter whilst closer Prove It kicks up a remarkable blend of manic hyperpop and gentle electro-balladry, whilst still working in the rich emotional palette that she’s developed in recent years.

In one sense this is a huge departure from the frenetic punk of last year’s Stagger EP but the vibes here stake out territory that you’d still find oddly familiar. Some of the gothy ballads are less immediate than other songs but nothing on Zig is boring, just varying refinements on her ever evolving musical journey. The critics were split, occasionally rattled and sometimes just plain baffled, but that’s only to be expected by now. Poppy follows her own plan and rarely sticks to the same tune: in truth it’s a privilege just to be a witness to the chaos.

Sweeping Promises - Good Living Is Coming For You

One thing that I find missing in a lot of modern guitar based music is snappy songs with good catchy hooks. While Sweeping Promises appear to place their focus elsewhere - their high concept sound is best understood as someone broadcasting direct from 1979 through a wristwatch speaker - their second album still finds time to deliver fully on the tunes. Good Living Is Coming To You is steeped in bubblegum melodies and memorable choruses, with songs that become earworms before you’ve even registered how catchy they are. 

More than anything, it's dominated by Lira Mondal’s imperious vocals: whether it’s in the cascading harmonies of Throw Of The Dice, the fierce yells and hisses that close out the title track or her sweet voiced switch-outs on Ideal No, her character springs out of every song in a way that few singers ever really manage to impose. While you might think that the post punk era has been mined to death by now, Sweeping Promises drag new life into it by going back further: their sound may be heavily rooted in a specific moment but the elements of songcraft often have more in common with 60s girl group classics than gnarled art rockers. Ten bangers and no filler: Good Living Is Coming For You is everything I wanted from it and more.

Wednesday - Rat Saw God

While the queasy vibes of 2021’s Twin Plagues are still high in the mix here, it was the welcome injection of melody on Wednesday's third album that managed to alert the media. That lightness was more apparent in Karly Hartzman's lyrics than you might notice on a passing listen too: though often praised for her grimly amusing takes on middle American backwaters, the key to them was her deceptively soft touch, casting a sympathetic eye over grisly scenes even as she retained their gnarlier undertones.

Single Chosen To Deserve, with its crunching chorus and heartwarming romantic turnaround, feels like the designated big moment from the record but in reality Rat Saw God has an embarrassment of riches. Quarry in particular, with its Waterloo Sunset-esque signature and matter-of-fact dissection of grim local gossip, is an almost pop version of the most haunting aspects of Hartzman's craft, while the washed out bounce of closer TV in the Gas Pump pitches a lonelier scene in a similarly gorgeous manner.

This is not to forget that Wedneday can still rock extremely hard when they want to, especially on the brutal 8 minute Bull Believer, an ambitious multipart epic that ends with Hartzman screaming “FINISH HIM!!!” repeatedly over the chaotic finale. But while Rat Saw God brought this kind of sawtoothed sound back to widespread acclaim, its real trick was how it sugared the pill just enough to get it past even the most determinedly sweet tooth.

[themineknight]

Not at all, I'm mostly currently just learning where exactly you stand. What exactly you feel like I'm saying.

Yes, I am invoking a feeling of nostalgia from within myself, I suppose, but it's for a time much more recent than most of what you're describing. Going back in History: Yeah, there's better, and worse societies. Both globally, and locally. It's also not exactly a sense of loss in me, more that, when I listen to the stories my parents, and my older friends tell, it all ends up coming down to similar things.

Yes: No-Fault Divorce being illegal, or "We'll just live here because it's all we can do" kinds of community aren't great. I also have nowhere near enough experience with them, or memory of anything even closely resembling that, to want it back. What I feel like I want back is a sense of integrity.

When I was younger, News sources actually mattered. If a source of information wasn't verifiable, it wasn't generally believed. This was before the commercially viable/available internet. Honestly, you could probably even dial it up to before mainstream social media, and make it shorter ago. But nothing feels REAL anymore. Reality goes as far as what people say it is... and it terrifies me that it really is that easy.

Sure, Needing to make a community for yourself because any other way sucks is terrible... but we seem to be back there, in some ways. Reproductive rights for Women are scaled back in a lot of places. Trans and LGBTQ+ rights are being stripped down. People starve, when across the world, billions of tons of food are wasted every year. Money rules the world, but fewer people are getting enough of it to even just scrape by. Hatred for people who are different, in whatever for that takes, has become readily available. Misinformation is rampant, and there's enough people who don't care that it's becoming more and more difficult to even understand what is happening anywhere that might matter.

And then there's the other things I mentioned: While many things from the past century were necessary at the time to make survival easier, those things should not have been left. Knowledge of herbs and normal plants, both medicinal and edible, has eroded to a point that most people don't know it ever existed, despite these things still being in the books of some of the people that yet live.

I wasn't implying you might be tearing into my argument with what I said before. I have simply grown tired of telling people that there is simply too much. We ask for more convenience, and give up tangible things. We ask for security, and give up freedoms. We ask that things stay affordable, and yet fewer people can afford to have their own sanctuary that cannot be taken from them than there's been in my entire lifetime. More and more people live in fear of the same things that caused so many to die not even a century ago.

And I'm just... tired. Tired of being Afraid. Tired of knowing I may never have what my parents had, even if I should work harder than they did. Tired of not being able to turn my head without a sensationalized headline, that boils down to absolutely nothing but hate, or only a grain of truth that may not even matter.

Society is alive. Humanity as a species is thriving, with numbers that could not have been possible without all the advances we have made over the many many centuries. With an understanding of physics, mathematics, engineering, agriculture, and every kind of science under the sun and stars... but it all feels hollow. We aren't changing anything to affect our climate. We aren't making sure that every person can live a dignified life. We aren't taking care of the people that got us here, nor the people of the future. We aren't exploring further into the cosmos, the Moon was all we ever saw. And while we may not be stagnant, it feels like division is winning, and communities as a whole are losing.

Honestly, it's an emotional argument more than anything, and as such barely even really matters on the grand scale of society as a whole... but in the decades I've been alive, I've felt like more and more hate is seeping from the pores of society. Like truth is something that has ceased to matter. Like helping one's neighbours is further and further from people's minds. And it scares me. Because I don't know what the future holds anymore. I can only watch it get made.

A thing I love to do is telling prepper dudes that one of my disaster readiness skills is making stuffed animals. They never get it. Like, my dude, when things get very bad and we're all sharing overcrowded shelters, you're gonna want the power to comfort children. Trust me.

[lord-rosenth0rne]

Long Rant ahead. Scott Cawthon debacle.

I hate the whole black and white outlook on life. This 'for or against' crap is going to destroy everyone and everything. Those who follow a black or white mindset tend to not know what they are talking about considering if they did, they'd know that very rarely, situations are black and white. It's void of critical thinking and common sense. It can be defeated by not jumping on the bandwagon, stepping back, and taking in the situation.

-Sexuality is not black and white.

-Gender is not black and white.

-Mental illnesses are not black and white.

-Religion is not black and white.

-Relationships are not black and white.

-Intentions are not always black and white.

What the hell makes anyone think anything political IS?

Take Scott Cawthon for example. How he is as a person vs. the whole donation thing does not add up unless you realize he did not donate for the reasons the majority of Twitter and some here on Tumblr think. It doesn't take a detective to connect the dots. Were making those donations wrong? Personally, I think donations to any political party are wrong and people do it regardless, but for the sake of the argument, no. Candidates should win with their policies, not for who uses the most money. Policies are another thing that's never black and white either. It would be fun to see how far each candidate could get on a set amount, but I digress.

Note: tl:dr: READ IT before commenting. We'd all be in a better position if people didn't comment on shit they didn't read. "Oh I didn't read BUT-" Get out of here with that. I believe if you do not read someone's stance on a subject, you don't have a leg to stand on in a conversation and just like the sound of your voice.

Scott Cawthon is a straight white male who is Christian and a Republican. Apparently, people have it in their heads that he cannot be a good person because of it. However, he is not a bigot nor does he hate the LGBTQ+ community as he has LGBTQ+ people on his team. He would not openly hire them if he was a bigot. He also has a history of donating to pro-LGBTQ+ charities (I've already seen people try to dismiss this because of the Republican donations and they're also very wrong in doing so. It's the biggest "I STILL WANNA BE SALTY" I've ever seen. Yeah, people have a right to be angry and upset, but they do not have a right to throw out evidence).

Putting that together should tell you what his intent was with those donations. He doesn't agree with the anti-LGBTQ+ crap, but he saw something else that held potential. He votes for economic well-being first and foremost which isn't bad for any of us. Imagine believing if you vote/donate to a candidate that you back everything about them 100%. We'd all be in trouble in that case since you are no different every four years, supporting one thing your favorite candidate believes but ignoring the rest. Oh, they could be for LGBTQ+, anti-segregation, and women's rights, but they could also be for something that could hurt you or your family in other ways and you either ignore it or don't realize it. Most people aren't very well informed on candidates anyway. There's no such thing as a good politician or a perfect one. You'll suffer one way or another for backing a candidate 100%.

Also, for those who say "donating to people who want me dead", stop being dramatic. If someone wants you dead, you would be dead already. They will not wait for laws to be passed for the ability to kill you. Considering murder carries some serious consequences in our society, they would not care for laws in general if they're willing to commit murder. It's like stricter gun control only affecting the law-abiding: If someone wants a gun bad enough, they'll ignore laws to get it. As for any laws, laws can always be appealed with enough pushback from our communities. Protesting wouldn't be used if it did nothing.

And those calling Scott a coward for retiring, if you were smart, you would too with these circumstances. His family has been harassed and threatened with harm by deranged people. He has a pregnant wife who is being directly targeted. For her sake and the rest of his family's sake, he's pulling out of the spotlight in order for all of this to blow over and the disgusting behavior to disappear. To continue to be in the spotlight would encourage those with harmful intent to follow through with it. You would either be stupid or arrogant to stay.

You can sit there and disagree until you're blue in the face. It doesn't negate the facts at hand. People talk about acceptance and being tolerant but the moment something comes up that they don't like, they toss it all away and go feral. No empathy. No understanding. No thinking for themselves. They just jump on the mob mentality bandwagon and bolt with it. Maybe later they'd see the error of their ways but by then it's too late.

I didn't play FNAF but I did enjoy watching people play it. I've watched interactions between Scott and other people and I know he isn't a bad guy, just someone with opinions I do not agree with but I don't agree with a lot of people. "Misguided", a word many people who are defending Scott like to use, isn't the case. He had reasons for his donations whether you like it or not. There are the worst people out there who haven't been called out properly on their shit yet everyone decided that this was enough to dogpile him. It's actually kinda gross, considering Trump is no longer president AND the donation wasn't recent.

I'm honestly surprised no one has questioned the intent of the person who leaked old news, especially since Trump is no longer in office. I do not believe them to be some innocent party who 'happened' across this VERY PUBLIC information. I think it was being held onto for a slow news day and a way to get a lot of clicks for their article. They most likely got what they wanted the first time considering they doubled down for a second article to fuel the fire while also knowing Scott's family was being targeted. I don't support people who start blatant witch hunts either. There was no reason for this to go as far as it did and no excuse for the harassment. You can still be angry and upset with him but you are not allowed to send death threats and harass them.

Congrats, Twitter. I deleted my account after this debacle. Should have deleted it a long time ago with how toxic it's been but I forgot I even had one. Kotaku, you're also put on a "do not visit" list with Chick-Fil-A and Burger King.

If I went into the political and personal background of every creator I liked and boycotted them over it, I would have nothing, and neither would you. There's got to be a time you have to separate the art from the artist or you're going to have nothing.

If you want to be angry and upset with him, you do have a right to be. If you don't want to support his projects, whether he comes out of retirement or not, more power to you. If you want to just leave the fandom, no one's forcing you to stay. But don't approach this with a black and white mindset and think that's how it has to be. That's not true. It will never be true. Few things in life are black and white and you're better off making informed decisions after weighing the situation.

[golden-redhead]

My experience with spop was this - I knew nothing beforehand. saw how the Internet exploded over their kiss and thought "cute LGBTQ couple endgame? I'm in." started binging and I just kept waiting for them to grow closer but all I got was more abusive behavior? Then I finished s5 and just couldn't believe that that was it? That's how they ended up together? That's what got the Internet celebrating? I think knowing the endgame and how people raved over it made the experience worse for me tbh.

Oof, I honestly can’t imagine watching the show knowing how it ends, excited about getting some wlw rep we crave so much and then... that. I think some of the shows issues must get glaringly obvious if you actually watch it all as opposed to those of us who had to wait months before a new batch of episodes and had time to hype themselves out and just enjoyed the contents of s5 in this slight disconnect from the previous seasons. I am not entirely opposed against catradora (although I do not like it and do not ship it, I just dislike this kind of dynamic, it’s very clearly not my thing even if you completely erase the element of abuse and ignore the fact that they don’t hold the same beliefs or values like, at all), but the dedication with which the show did everything to avoid addressing all the shit that they should have addressed in order for the ending and Catra’s redemption to work is just... astounding, really. 

Like, imagine going SO OUT OF YOUR WAY and still not getting it right. 

For one, Catra never apologizes, not really, because I can hardly count her saying “I’m sorry for everything” as an apology. One of the rules of sincere apologies is that you actually acknowledge what you did wrong, apologizing for unspecified ‘everything’ is lazy and disrespectful and makes it look like some way to just take it off the list and be done with that part of Catra’s redemption. 

Two, talking with other fans really made me wonder how the supposed target audience, so kids aged 7 and older, perceive that ending, because I have an impression that they might have a hard time wrapping their head around it. I’ve heard that some kids are actually scared of Catra? And, honestly, I can see that, yeah. Not to mention just the message that all your abuser needs is for you to prioritize them and stay... Yeah. Um, nope. 

Three, my biggest issue as someone who genuinely loved the shows and the characters, my biggest complain is how everything had to be tossed aside in order to make catradora happen. Everything. Quite literally.

Scorpia getting over Catra, getting friends and appreciation she deserved? Accepting her role of a princess? Forming meaningful and healthy friendships and finding her place in the world? Fuck it, let’s chip her for like, half the season and ignore her conflict with Catra entirely. THE FUCKING DISRESPECT OF THAT.

Adora and Glimmer’s argument? You know, the driving force and main conflict of the entire 4th season? Yeah, yeah, let’s have Adora dismiss Glimmer’s apologies and never address that ever again, shall we?

Angella? Pff, who? Never heard of her!

Micah interacting with Glimmer for like, all of 2 minutes. 95% of that time fighting her while chipped by the bad guy. Um... okay. So much for the reunion with a daughter you didn’t see since she was, um, 5 at most?

Glimmer’s powers? The ones she’s been mastering and being insecure about episode one? Which were a huge part of why she even trusted Shadow Weaver in the first place? Yeah, they’re useless 3/4 of the season and then given to Melog. You know, that new character who is ridiculously overpowered and is basically Catra’s glorified moral support cat, despite being a sentient, intelligent being, the sole survivor of its planet. Of-fucking-course.

Oh, speaking of Shadow Weaver! The fucking HYPOCRISY of having a full season of Glimmer and Adora arguing over Glimmer choosing to work with her only to... Have Adora work with her. The entire season. And never mentioning it again. SURE. BECAUSE THAT MAKES SENSE.

(btw, I love how the show framed their conflict as something where Adora is basically 100% in the right... but when you think about it, Glimmer actually made much more solid points that actually turned to be true. the more you know!)

Mermista lost her entire kingdom because of Catra? Yeah, better let’s get her chipped too, before she has a chance to question why they’re working with the kitty lady who was about to murder them only 2 minutes ago. 

Adora spent 4 seasons trying to learn more about her past? Let’s drop it. Just because. Don’t question it, folks. Seriously, don’t.

Adora was about to die? Well, now she doesn’t! Why? Uh, um, what do you mean why, don’t you know that magical gay kisses fix everything? Smh. 

I just... This is bad writing, okay? 

And it feels like such an insult, because up until the last season I think the writing was really solid, the themes of abuse were handled very well, with respect and realistically, Adora’s conflicted feelings about She-ra, her destiny and her choice in all of this were interesting and believable, Glimmer was a great female character allowed to be (and do) things that female characters aren’t usually allowed to be, the supporting cast was strong and loveable and Prime... God, the way Horde Prime was set up as this intimidating, scary, bigger than the universe villain was genius. Hell, even at the beginning of s5 I had chills every time he was on screen. I was so excited about him, but every episode he was getting worse and worse until he became so meh I felt like crying.

And don’t even get me started on Catra saying that she saved Glimmer for Adora. This? This is when I knew there’s no saving this season. This was a slap to the face and the clearest sign that it was never about properly redeeming Catra at all, just getting her what she wanted.

And it’s a shame, too, because in a lot of ways Catra is a very interesting and compelling character who, despite what it looks like, in a lot of ways got the short end of the stick, because instead of telling a realistic, mature story about personal growth, they chose what was basically a instant forgiveness route and never showed Catra actually dealing with both what she’s gone through and what she’s done. Which is a shame and a huge disservice to Catra’s character.

So... yeah. Sorry about that rant, you are so valid, Anon, and I’m sorry. 

[norgestan]

SPOILERS!!!!! // i actually despise the route they've taken, i really do. if they really wanted dani and amira, and if they were endgame, i actually wouldn't have minded - i would've sighed a little bit sure, but i'd be ok.... but what they're doing with kassim... i'm just ... wow. disappointed and frustrated is a huge understatement. if they wanted representation it would've been great, but making that representation someone who could've been a really amazing love interest for amira? smfh.

uhhh i tried to put a “read more” but it’s not working???

yeah like i really like how the show has handled the first steps on the damira relationship, where there’s a lot of communication and you can see that they’re both negotiating. my biggest complaint is still that dani is a white man taking the spot on what originally was the place of a muslim man of color. and in that sense, i won’t give eskam a pass. while skamit pretended that they “ethnic-looking” white non-muslim female actress was a hijabi teenager of color, and that’s something i don’t think eskam would do, eskam is the second remake that has taken away one of the spots of that couple with two people of color, so they go to a white actor/actress.

but i agree with you: the worst this has got to be the kasim subplot. i DESPITE it with all my being for the following reasons:

perpetuates the notion that all muslim people are homophobic, something that they show has fought before in cris’ season and in the video lucas filmed with amira.

actually, let me go back to that video. because i feel like the eskam writers didn’t look at that video when they were writing this bullshit. both amira and lucas make points about how homophobia is not inherent to islam, that one can be gay and muslim because it depends on how people interpret their religion and how they feel their faith, etc etc. but then kasim spews out the same bullshit amira was fighting in the first place: that lucas, who lives in a christian environment, will have the support of his friends and people around him, but because kasim is muslim he’s deeply scared and doesn’t want to come out. it’s not because lucas is white while kasim is a brown man, it’s not because kasim has had particular experiences with his sexuality outside his religion. no. it’s because lucas is christian and kasim is muslim. and of course christian people are waaay more open minded than muslim people, right? that’s how LITTLE NUANCE was put in the whole thing. the entire story is written like any youtube comment under a clip of las labass, saying that they will punch cris for being bisexual and other islamophobic bullshit.

this kinda shits on the entire religious subplot of og s3. in og, isak’s mother insistence with showering his son with the word of God(tm) was what held him back from coming out to her and part of his internalized homophobia. the season also made points how what isak believed in, aka the evolution, could also lead into homophobic rationalizations of the presence of gay people in the story of humanity, while sana made sure to tell isak (and the audience) that hatred came from fear, not from religion. isak suffered because he was in a white and christian environment, where people were either disgusted by him (his parents at first), completely okay with outing him because “it’s 2016, get out of the closet” (emma, vilde at some extent, bunch of other people who spread the rumors in school), casually calling him slurs (magnus), fetishizing him and even (the dance girls, the skam fandom), and then people who were supportive of him (admittedly, not all of these things were called out in the show, but people got the point with the first two groups). the only muslim character in the show had absolutely no problem with isak being gay, and supported isak and even’s relationship: sana even got mad when she thought the balloon squad hit isak bc he was gay, when they actually hit him because he fought them first out of jealousy - and back then it was the white girls who insulted sana in the bathroom and who theorized that the balloon squad were homophobic. so, like, absolutely all of that is gone here. and in the last dani/amira clip, dani says how his parents aren’t actually “good christians” (hmmm the christian cult survivor in me absolutely loathes that term) because they’re intolerant and homophobic, but the fact that it’s kasim, the muslim gay guy, who says he’s in a bad environment, means that the show wants us to believe and empathize with him, right? UGH. very progressive of you eskam. i’ve never seen this before.

let me expand real quick on that last point. so far it’s only been amira, a straight muslim girl, who has told us that homophobia is not inherent in muslim spaces. HOWEVER, we have an actual muslim gay character say to out faces that he feels oppressed and that his circles will never understand him the way lucas’ christian circles understand and accept him. and because he’s the gay muslim guy, we’re supposed to believe he’s right over amira, who has never experienced being lgbtq+ and muslim. WOW. I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT.

yet again other western stereotype of a gay guy nonchalantly asking amira to play as his beard. WOW. WOWOWOWOW. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK. but what i hate the most about this is that amira is clearly SO disgusted by this, the narrative wants us to be on her side and demonize the closeted muslim guy of color for this. all while we were supposed to take dani’s al qaeda joke as a funny thing that amira adds to the list of why dani is the funniest guy she knows and why she likes him. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

moreover, i hate this entire conversation: because amira has had two people come out to her. cris and kasim. and when cris, white christian cris, told her she liked a girl, amira was immediately okay with all of that. but when kasim tells amira that he likes a dude, amira’s reaction it’s just SO baffling: she accuses him of FOOLING and LYING to his family and the people around him. but she never once questioned why cris hadn’t told anybody this yet, much less call her a liar for not coming out to everybody. what the fuck is this!!!!!!! not only this is yet another way that the show demonizes kasim, but it’s purposefully writing amira ooc to do so. wow. i absolutely hate it. i don’t think i have said that yet?

and to close this huuuuge rant off lmao, i just really dislike that everything about kasim’s sexuality is misery porn: begging for the white guy he likes (loves?) to understand him and be with him, the pressure of being the only man on his family, the pressure of his sister trying to find him a good muslim girlfriend, how oh so homophobic muslim people around him are... even if at the end the show ends up saying (again) that coming out as a muslim is Not That Bad, all of this is just, immediately gonna make white/non-muslim people look at this and think: “yep yep yep, muslim people are sooooo intolerant, not like Me, raised in a good Christian environment, where we’re Open Minded not like those arabs”. and i already hate all of that, no matter what the resolution is. this is SO catering of western audiences only. terrible writing choice and i won’t let eskam get out of this one. even if they found a way to say the right stuff at the end, what they’ve done for now it’s enough for me to step away from the remake. but i’ll be here to criticize it when the entire episode is out, you bet.

[de-cryptid]

Behind the curtain.

I’ll cut to the chase and simply state outright who I believe, and am almost certain, is behind the social media presence of Simon Alkenmayer.

Kristina Meister.

Kristina deleted her blog yesterday as of posting so I can’t link directly to it for the posts I am going to discuss and showcase here. I will be providing links that preserve their existence, however, so you don’t have to take me at my word alone.

For context: In Simon's world (which is how I will refer to the unreality that is his existence and supposed life), Kristina was his editor for The Creature's Cookbook and also the foot-in-the-door that is the publishing industry. She pitched the autobiography on his behalf, bringing it to Tapas media.

They maintained a friendship, both outside of the internet and here on tumblr. However, one day a fire was set in Kristina's driveway, leading her to what can reasonably be described as hysteria.

Here is an archived link to her reaction.

TL;dr is that she believes @simonalkenmayerisdead to be the only person in the world who could have possibly made a connection between her and Simon (despite the fact they actively engaged with each other on multiple social medias, that and there are far more people on tumblr that know of Simon than his critics) and threatened a multitude of legal action.

Here, The Fool explains the issue with the accusations levied against him and his followers.

Reading the exchanges between Simon, The Fool, and Kristina is what made it clear to me that Simon is Kristina. A lot of those posts are long gone due to Kristina's blog deletion, and are otherwise far too tedious to hunt down on Simon's blog, but they are quite similar to that which is linked above.

You can probably tell there's a level of irrationality (an understatement honestly) in Kristina's posts regarding the fire and her general demeanour.

As she and Simon have each other's personal contact information, which she herself showed a screenshot of, I think it's strange for Simon to respond publicly in the way he did. She's clearly not in a good mental state to be online, discussing a traumatic event, throwing accusations, cussing at and threatening her dissenters.

He's a long-lived observer of humans, in his world, and instead of recognizing this to be the behaviour of someone who isn't in the right frame of mind to be speaking about their circumstances to a substantial audience of presumably a few ill-intentioned people, he endorses everything she says and encourages her to continue on her rants.

Is it not obvious that this isn't accomplishing anything but potentially harming her more? She's shown the suspect that their tactic succeeded. She revealed her vulnerabilities in regards to her child and marriage. Simon, as a friend and the supposed cause for all this, should know better than to further feed into the anonymous attacks on his associate and instead handle it on a personal level.

But that isn't what happened.

The only way for someone to respond in the manner Simon did is for them to be as equally emotionally involved and irrational as Kristina herself is, which is clear from the notes where Simon's loyal audience reacts in a similarly distressed and irrational voice.

That's human behaviour, not that of a people-eating centuries-old non-mammalian monster who has watched famine ravage civilizations, killed countless individuals, and adapted despite it all.

But moving on, as I'm sure that in and of itself isn't enough for some people.

Let's turn our attention to The Creatures Cookbook itself. It's framed as a diary, meaning it was written in real-time and built upon over years, not as an autobiography. This is suspect for reasons I'll discuss further on.

I'd like to begin with the book's publishing history. It was first in print thanks to Fuse Literary, as can be seen in this post from their website, then moved onto the Tapas app (where it remains to this day).

Simon himself says that his book is "out of print", which is why it's not available as a physical copy outside of second-hand nowadays. This is not exactly true; fuse literary dropped the book. He isn't being represented by them anymore. Tapas, which is more of a pulp app where anyone can publish most anything, is not just the new medium he selected dutifully to act out the experiment more effectively; it was a last resort for a book people simply weren't interested in.

The Fool explains this quite well here.

I'd also like to reiterate something touched upon in that linked post; Simon lied about meeting his publisher, either in 2014 in that incredibly descriptive post about his agent and their experience with Tapas, or to that anonymous asker. Why is this? If the original post was incorrect, or no longer what Simon wanted readers to believe, wouldn't it make more sense to delete it? That or he, likely, forgot what was originally said about his publisher and simply made up a response for the asker. His memory spans centuries, and clearly that experience was a vivid one, given his description, but he couldn't keep consistent on his public social media. I find this suspect for many reasons.

Going back to Fuse Literary, we have articles that directly state Kristina is "writing as" Simon, which he has stated in the past was out of necessity to preserve his identity (which is somewhat contradictory, seeing as he claims that the government is aware of his species and him specifically, and also his aim is to convince people he does in fact exist).

Needless to say, a lot of little things just don't add up. Instead, they point to Kristina using Simon's character and presence as an outlet of sorts. He is an identity she assumes.

Here is another clue I stumbled upon, regarding Kristina's other writing endeavours.

Let's talk Cinderella Boy.

So Kristina is both a freelance editor (as Simon states she was for him) and a writer herself, with several published books. Easily her highest reviewed and most popular is called Cinderella Boy, a story about LGBTQ struggles from the perspective of a high school boy. I went through the reviews a while back and a lot were positive! But I noticed that many of those positive reviews were people who knew Kristina through Simon and already liked his character, his voice, his style.

And Cinderella Boy is very much the same.

I linked the Goodreads page above and recommend you go through reviews yourself to better understand what I mean, but below I will show one of the negative reviews that is... Very telling. (Click and swipe through, it's a long one)

And this wasn't the only person saying these sorts of things, either. Again, I recommend seeing for yourself. Here's another excerpt from a different review:

I want to focus in on the "70 year old philosophers" bit. The other review above said something similar about the overly deep and philosophical dialogue.

Sound familiar?

It appears Kristina's writing style happens to be that old-timey philosophically-bent verbose kind, highly reminiscent of Simon himself.

I found this rather funny. You'd think writing a modern YA would have a skilled writer attempting to make the character interactions more relatable and... Well, realistic.

It appears Kristina only has the one setting, however. And that happens to sound exactly the way Simon talks.

I will be going in-depth with the factual errors in Simon's historical assertions in the future, so I'll hold off on those for now, but a previous post of mine shows a clear miscalculation on the part of Simon's creator googling something and applying it to Simon's world, without realizing it was factually incorrect. You can see that here.

To conclude this very long post, I want to make it clear that I do not hate Kristina nor Simon, I am not posting this to harass either of them. I am only interested in making it clear that Simon is not an all-knowing cryptid and is not a reliable voice. Simon is a human creation and his readers should be aware of that. Seek real, professional help if you are looking for some advice. Do not think that an elaborate roleplay is an appropriate substitute.

[struwwelzeter]

So I read your reply to Nyarisu's comment on Lionheart and I'm really intrigued by your comments about how people understand punk compared to what it was initially. Could I possibly ask you to expand on this? Pretty please?

Yes you could! This is a very (very?) personal point of view and I know a lot of people will disagree, but here goes nothing, I guess. If you disagree with me (and somebody will), that’s fine, but I will not engage with anything that’s not a constructively put argument. I’ve spend too much time thinking about this for a “I don’t like what you’re saying and that’s why you’re wrong” anon to change my mind. Just putting that out there - with love 💜.

The thing is, especially on tumblr but I think just in generally aswell, the idea of punk is presented as this ... Robin Hood kind of thing. Beat the system, stand up to bullies, live your own truth, all of that, but it always is presented as something that is supposed to come from a ... dare I say, nice place? Like those pictures of people in studded and sprayed leather jackets rescuing puppies. All of that, you know? And I don’t want to say that is wrong, because it isn’t, and I love the idea of that, it’s just not the entire truth.

Especially in the early to mid 70s, when arguably punk started, there was a lot of fatigue between an old and stuffy establishment and the lovey, dovey peace and love “let’s all be happy” movement of the hippie scene. I was at Force Attack in 2006, which is a punk festival (and possibly dirtiest place in the world) that got established in the early 90s and went on til 2008 (?), and even then some of the “death to hippies” sentiments ran pretty deep. And I know the counter argument to that will be a well meaning “well, that’s not real punk,” the problem is that I think it actually partly is. (Please keep the partly in mind for the rest of this argument.)

The problem with having the exact choice between “get a good job, built a nice house, think of what the neighbours will say, and don’t ask me about what I did in the war” and “we’re all a big part of one human family, and isn’t nature beautiful, lets all make peace, and btw we would have never done what our parents did” is that both models aren’t a sustainable life style for everyone. That’s why you get alot of people saying this is all fake bullshit, and they start being purposely offensive. This is why you get alot of Swastikas around the sex pistols, you get all these artists singing about suicide and incest and rape. It’s not that uncommon for some of those early acts to play with Nazi imagery, or claim that homosexuality is disgusting (despite the scene always being full of LGBTQ+ people), or idk, thinking it’s fun to piss on someone while they’re asleep. It’s alot of outcry, of saying life actually is this shitty and disgusting and I am gonna be that because in a way you will hate me either way. And it’s not always nice. Disdain and hate and petty selfishness are common human emotions and many of them are low and unhealthy, and honestly not nice or helpful or inclusive, but they are there, and I think alot of that early spirit was just about stopping to pretend that they don’t exist.

I think a reason for why we don’t think of the scene that way anymore is that many people very quickly outgrew that, and said “actually, we’re better than that, that’s not who we actually are. I sadly can’t find that interview right now, but Die Ärzte are actually a good exemple of that and they even admit it themselves, that there was a sense of “enough with the happy hippie bullshit, let’s disgust them” and then later going “uhmm - maybe that went a bit far.” I mean offensive or not, but ultimately a scene that is centered around artistic expression always ends with that question of creation, maybe like “if the world isn’t like what we want it to be, how do we make one we like?” - and then you end up with having to come up with answers that are more than just destruction. And then it turns into something else - something that I think is alot more like what tumblr seems to think punk is. And that’s a wonderful thing. Still - a side of punk, whatever that is, has always been what people like GG Allin (please read the wiki for context) have taken and pushed to the limits, and it just - isn’t nice. And here is where things get a bit tricky.

Because against that backdrop, things like John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) suddenly being a dirty old Trump supporter aren’t that surprising anymore. And then you get these 20 year olds “cancelling” the Sex Pistols, and I think there is just a bit of ... missing the point going on. I’ve read a comment on here recently, that basically said something like Richard should stop supporting the Sex Pistols (because he has that album in the back of the studio), and it’s just ... asking for a history to be erased that has rightfully been made obsolete but has still happened and was necessary at the time. You can take any of these early bands and pick their lyrics apart and find something that from our perspective now is disgusting, mean, exclusive, or outright racist. Songs about Fucking? Part of that record is a mysogynisy shitshow, something they were very aware of even at the time, and they still did it anyway because being disgusting was part of the point. The thing is though, the Sex Pistols were hugely influential, and alot of the positive things that grew out of that wouldn’t have been possible if kids like young Richard, or any of the bands you love that were influenced by them, wouldn’t have gotten that moment of “finally a place where I can put all of my petty hate”. It matters, and just because that moment is overcome, it doesn’t mean it should be forgotten, or stops existing in the people that lived through it.

I understand that the question of how much we should justify things with “it was the time” and how we deal with the result is an ever ongoing debate and their are many good arguments for why maybe we shouldn’t try to defend the wrongs of the past that way, and I want to point out that while I rarely agree on that in the first place (because I understand history as a natural learning curve where people aren’t perfect at the first try and it’s doing a disservice to humans just doing their best, but I digress and that’s a bit of another duscussion), I want to point out that I don’t want to defend anyone, rather I want to say “actually, being that horrible was often calculated, part of the point, and if you don’t like it, just leave it, fight it or debate it, but don’t pretend like it was a “missstep” or just a few black sheep of a scene that was never as nice or perfect as you want it to be.” You don’t get to erase half of a movement simply because you wish it wouldn’t exist the way it does - or well. I guess in this case mostly did - past tense.

The ugliness is part of the story to me, and it’s actually the bigger part of why I love this scene. I don’t need “punk” to define my politics, I need it to soothe my soul, and so did many, I think. The Sex Pistols breaking happened 20 years before my time, but I still feel connected to that world, and in particular the ugly parts of it. I often feel like I look at the world, and there are people that seem honestly shocked by the idea that maybe sometimes I find doing the right thing really hard, that I want petty, self serving revenge, that I don’t find it easy to not be selfish and unkind or sometimes want to hurt people because I am hurting myself and see an opportunity to do that. Obviously those aren’t nice things and I don’t want to be that way, but are you honestly telling me you don’t feel that? I find that hard to believe, and it leaves me with an ongoing question of if I am just worse than most people or if most people are just more fake. Both scenarios are equally shit. The ugly side of punk provides - not an answer to that - but maybe a partial solution, at least for me.

Another discussion we have all the time is about how what we consume or allow in artistic expression is influencing how we act as people in real life and how we want the world to be. Where do we draw the line? What is still ok? If I put me entertaining ideas about murder on a canvas, is that still good? what if it’s racism? What if it’s rape? We argue alot about how providing a safe space in art for those feelings is actually preventing us from acting on it in real life, how it’s an outlet of something we would never actually want or do, but then where is the limit to that? I am putting this intentionally controversial, but if we admit that most of us grow up with internalized racism and mysogyny, by that logic, why can’t I paint something that is blatantly hateful if I have those feelings? Maybe that is my way of fighting it, you don’t have to look at it? Not saying that’s what I am doing or would want to do, but what if? For some people Rammstein singing about not wanting to be Angels is crossing that line, for some of us that line is drawn alot later. Who is right? Isn’t that just personal sensitivity? Can you honestly rationalise that? Isn’t it just processing our different levels of petty hate in different ways? I don’t have the answers to any of that, it’s just questions I often have and that I think have to do with this, because alot of the nasty bits in punk will justify it exactly that way, as artistic expression. Alot of it isn’t as political as this scene is made out to be, it’s simply asking those things. I personally relate to that alot, as someone who arguably would draw the line of “we should stop doing this” in art very, very, very late - and certainly later than my own personal comfort zone.

I’m not sure if any of this makes any sense at all. I hope it does - and if it doesn’t it’s probably because I don’t know either, or because I don’t want to fully blow this up into an essay (sorry, too late?) or because I suck at making a point, or maybe because we simply disagree. All I know is that I sometimes see these posts of “what is punk and what isn’t” and it leaves me with this taste of “you’re describing a utopia and it’s cute and I want that too, but it’s not everything punk as I know it is, and it feels like you don’t want to see something that mattered too - even if it was brutal and disgusting.” And everytime I see it I feel alien, like something that mattered to me so much as a teenager and young adult gets taken away from me and made into something so sleek and pretty it becomes something unattainable to be that I simply don’t manage to live up to in the way I would like. I guess that is a petty, selfish way of looking at it too.

«It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest.»

- John Lydon

[cllynchauthor]

On Aspie Supremacy and the Aspergian

CW: bullying, suicide, aspie supremacy

I feel the need to talk to you guys about what has been happening on autistic twitter lately surrounding the autistic website The Aspergian. I write for The Aspergian. Here are some of my articles:

https://theaspergian.com/2019/05/04/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/

https://theaspergian.com/2019/04/19/person-first/

https://theaspergian.com/2019/04/05/7-cool-aspects-of-autistic-culture/

While I am white, cishet, and speaking, I am in the minority at The Aspergian.

The majority of contributors are mostly either LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, or high support needs.

Here are some of their contributions:

https://theaspergian.com/2019/10/10/stopping-the-stigma-against-people-with-disabilities-interview-with-sbsk/

https://theaspergian.com/2019/09/09/10-signs-i-was-transgender-but-didnt-know-it/

https://theaspergian.com/2019/08/08/the-cage/

Despite this, the name The Aspergian makes many autistic people uncomfortable. Several ASAN members have spoken out condemning the name.

In these days of #AltAutism, the autistic dark web and other aspie supremacists have turned the word Aspergers into a borderline slur.

Aspergers and “Aspergian” are becoming dog whistles for function labels, white supremacy and incels.

The founder of The Aspergian knows that. That’s why she named it The Aspergian.

With every pro-RPM, pro-Neurodiversity, feminist, intersectional article The Aspergian publishes, it gets left wing values all over Aspergers. If you google Aspergian now, all you will find are social justice articles.

And the AltAutism folks HATE IT.

But so do a lot of autistic advocates, for whom “Aspergers” conjures up a lot of trauma.

The founder has trauma from it too, though.

https://twitter.com/theaspergiancom/status/1185068296636375040?s=21

Image Description: screencap of a tweet from @TheAspergianCom reading

When I first told my closest living friend about being autistic, it was the first person I'd told other than my husband. This was her response:

Below is a screencap of a text conversation. The friend is talking about her autistic son saying “at this point I’ll be fucking happy if he ever calls me mom and stops trying to attack me.” Then she says “I think your autism is fucking bullshit.”

Image description: screencaps of more tweets reading:

Though she knew I was going to be tested, she'd continued to use the word Asperger's. I'd been helping her through the process of understanding her son and autism. I loved her deeply. I still do. But she blocked me on social media and told everyone before I was ready to come out.

So instantly all my social media was flooded with all these speculative and veiled comments I could only see portions of, and I was humiliated. I was a new mother struggling and lost my support system. She thought it was sinister I used the same label as her son. Minimizing.

Autism was my diagnosis. She didn't know that I was made to believe I was possessed by demons in my youth or all the hell I'd endured and all the struggles I had like being the last person in my school who learned to read six years late. She knew an articulate adult.

Image description: the next person I told, things went even worse. She outed me in local Facebook groups where I was the admin and parent groups. I had postpartum anxiety and severe breastfeeding aversion but my child wouldn't eat food. So it was BF constantly or a feeding tube. And no meds for me.

So I thought maybe the problem was me saying autism instead of Asperger's. My husband was aspie and always identified that way. I'd been a teacher with largely autistic classes for years. Those with that diagnosis were often intellectually disabled.

Image description: My best friend and one of my oldest and closest friends, both autistic, had committed suicide, and the two living best friends I had blew up my whole social circle. I was afraid to seek help, afraid to go in public, and brutally reframing my whole life and reliving traumas.

I needed help. I joined about 20-30 autistic groups and made the mistake of saying that I was aspie. I didn't want to be insulting and have another incident like what happened the first time I told someone. It didn't go well. I had no idea of the stigma at the time.

And I had no idea why I was being called a supremacist, shiny, a Nazi, ableist, etc. I argued against those claims because I'm definitely not those things. I thought I'd entered a den of extremists. I got booted. Then another group I entered started with, "Oh, there's the Nazi."

In that tweet thread, Terra goes on to say that it occurred to her that her best friend who had recently committed suicide might have sought out the autistic community before he died. And she went to look and found that he had posted and been dogpiled in the same manner. The day before he died.

Terra Vance is desperately anti supremacy. But she is also desperately anti bullying. And she felt that if people couldn’t say “I’m autistic” without losing loved ones and “I’m aspie” without being called a supremacist, then autistic people were being put in a very tight corner.

Especially since Aspergers is still an extant diagnosis pretty much everywhere but North America so people are getting shunned from the autistic community because of their DIAGNOSIS.

That’s why she named it The Aspergian.

And you know what?

The aspie supremacists HATE IT.

They hate that their dog whistle is now a popular and booming hub of Neurodiversity, anti-ABA, and intersectionality.

They hate that The Aspergian is republishing deleted Wikipedia articles of autistic nonspeakers, which the autistic dark web worked hard to get removed.

They hate that we promote FC and RPM and other AAC. They hate that we keep claiming that autism and Aspergers are the same thing.

They don’t want to share space with nonspeakers and black women. They’re a bunch of altright white incels and The Aspergian is getting autism and neurodiversity over their shiny high functioning boots.

Worst of all, we’re reaching PARENTS.

Our most popular articles are not aimed at fellow autistic people. They are aimed at NTs, parents, laymen, trying to educate them about autism.

My article on ABA went viral and made so many ABA therapists angry. It was beautiful.

Imagine description:

“And by some strange magic, we took off suddenly, going from like 100 views per month to over 100k, then 200k, then more and more. We heard a lot of stories that were not being heard. There are parents who read our site to learn about their children posthumously after suicide.

One mother told me that if she had found our site earlier, she would have known that her son's "aspie" diagnosis meant that he was fully autistic. She is filled with regrets. We hear from lots of people who had no idea that they were supposed to have these autistic struggles.

We hear from people in lots of non-white majority countries where autism acceptance and awareness is years/decades behind what a difference our site has made because they had no idea. They weren't reading other blogs and now they are. Now they are understanding autism.”

Understanding autism from a neurodivergent, autism-acceptance, Autism-Speaks-Is-Bad, anti-ABA, pro-AAC website.

The ADW HATE that.

So what do they do?

They stir up shit about the name. The autistic dark web have a bunch of sock accounts which they use to deliberately stir up shit among the #ActuallyAutistic tag on twitter so they can screenshot stuff and repost it out of context to further discredit autistic people.

So they know the ND crowd resent Aspergers. So they deliberately stir up crap about The Aspergian’s name and everybody eats it up.

They also spread lies like that we are racist and don’t have any contributors of colour (they block the BIPOC contributors who argue against this lie).

Image Descriotion:

Tweet from Riah Person (a black autistic advocate) saying

“The .@theAspergianCom has writers

• with I/DD

• that are nonspeaking

• with research background

• that are deaf

• that are blind

• with physically limiting disabilities

• that are autistic BIPOC

• that are autistic LGBTQ+

• with no formal writing skills

The list goes on”

They claim that we plagiarize. But in fact each contributor owns their own content and is free to publish in other places and often they do.

But mostly they bitch about the name.

And I get it. I do. Aspergers brings up a lot of bad feelings and associations, especially since the anti-ND movement started pushing the “Asperger was a Nazi” stuff in order to discredit Steve Silberman’s book Neurotribes.

But we can’t make Asperger’s a slur. It’s still an existing diagnosis all around the world. Happily it IS being removed from the ICD 11 in 2022 but it’s going to take decades to change the assumptions around that word.

Terra wants “Aspergers” to become synonymous with autism. No difference. No barriers. No judgements. Not because she loves or even identifies with Aspergers. Her diagnosis is autistic and she calls herself autistic. But she doesn’t think autistic people should be bullied over a label. It smacks of exclusionism.

The founder of The Aspergian feels that no autistic person should be bullied to the point of death or near-death because of their diagnosis, or because they have been trained to say they have Aspergers so NTs won’t pull the whole “you don’t look autistic” crap.

The autistic community, of ALL communities, should be the most understanding of misunderstanding. We should be the most able to understand that people don’t always mean what it sounds like they mean.

“Aspergers” is not a slur. It is not a supremacist term. At worst it is an outdated functioning label. At best it is a synonym for autism.

And it won’t become a dog whistle. Because The Aspergian won’t allow it.

[kellys-book-corner]

Title: When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

Prompt: Astronomy: Read a book entirely at night time.

Page Count: 273 Pages; DNF at 198 📚

Rating: 1.5 Stars

Synopsis: To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

---

"They're expected to forget everything they knew about being anything other than what they're supposed to be."

---

I loved Anna-Marie McLemore's novel Wild Beauty. I was surprised at how much I like it, since 1) magical realism just isn't really my thing, and 2) I don't get on with overwritten and flowery sentences. But, despite that, I loved it. I went in with low expectations, so maybe that effected my enjoyment of the novel because my expectations for When The Moon Was Ours where incredibly high. When BooksandLala not only put this book in God Tier, but as a Libra read as well, I knew I had to read it for the OWLs.

But I just...couldn't...do it to myself.

I save 1 stars for books I despise, so this isn't quite on that level, but I think it's fair to say, that me and this book are not friends. It did some things right though; I loved it was a lose retelling of the Wheeping Woman ghost story, I loved the LGBTQ+ rep with it mosty focusing on trans issues, and I liked the Bonner sisters as 'villains' of the story. But that's where my enjoyment of this book ended.

I was just so drawn out.

Whole paragraphs dedicated to the colours of the moons that one of our main characters, Sam, hides around town. Just over and over and over again. Miel would grow flower after flower from her wrist, described in excruciating detail. The Bonner sisters hair was described with so many synonyms for red that I actually wanted to bang my head against the wall. Glass pumpkins sprouted for no reason across fields, long chapters assigned to dispelling the love from someone...

I lost the actual plot of the novel in the description.

Was there even a plot?

This book also uses one of my most hated tropes on novels, and that's when one character makes a decision for another character without talking to them about it. It really irritates me, and it would solve everything. There would still be a story, the author just has to come up with a different way of telling it instead of having me believe that two characters who love each other very much, would be this uncommunicative about something as important as this?

In all the magical realism that floats around this book, of the wrist-roses and the dispelling of love and the glass pumpkins and the forever slightly damp skirts, that was the most unbelievable element to the whole story.

I couldn't suffer through anymore and I had to officially DNF it. I wanted to like this book so much, but we didn't get on. I think they're a wonderful writer and I'm not opposed to more of their novels. One got 4.5 stars, one got 1.5 Stars...the third time will let me know for sure where I stand, and I am eager to find out.

[spierfics]

Can you do spierfeld and the "step back I think I'm gonna vomit" vine

No Sweeter Innocence - Spierfeld Fic

AU in which Bram didn’t attend Creekwood and they meet at university. Based on this vine.

Bram stepped out into the courtyard of the university campus and immediately noticed the crowd that had rallied outside. He supposed it must have happened while he was still in his morning lab, and wondered what it was about.

As he approached the large gathering, he realized that they were distinctly separated into two groups and Bram could see why. There picket signs and the offensive images on them made it clear that the larger majority were a group of homophobic protesters. Why they were on campus was still unclear to Bram.

Bram knew he had a class in half an hour, but this was considerably more important than a lecture about medieval British literature. He stood his ground alongside the members of the on-campus LGBTQ club, recognizing what a long way he’d come since being closeted in high-school.

Eventually, Bram recognized a few students who were in some of his classes, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw Simon Spier. Simon was in one of his first-year communication arts lectures, a compulsory course for many freshmen. He’d only spoken to Simon a few times in class discussions, which was enough to make Bram want to know him more.

He made his way towards Simon, lightly tapping him to get his attention.

“Bram!” Simon smiled at him, and Bram noticed a slight reddish tinge near Simon’s eye.

“What happened?” Bram pointed to Simon’s face.

“Oh you know how these things go,” Simon shrugged.

Bram nodded, not exactly sure what Simon meant, but certain that he was not going to leave his side for the rest of this fiasco.

“But it’s good to see you, especially on this side. You wouldn’t believe how many of our classmates are over there,” Simon gestured over to the group of protestors.

“That’s disgusting,” Bram shook his head. “But what started this?”

“Professor Drew was fired a few days ago,” Simon began. “She’s in the Physics department, and the administration did it because they found out she was married to a woman,”

“They can’t do that,” Bram said fiercely.

“They did,” Simon shook his head. “Her niece attends the school and organized the rally. Eventually, some assholes found out about it and arranged a gathering of discriminatory pieces of shit,”

Bram looked over to the other side once again, shocked to see his Economics professor angrily spewing some vile words against students.

“Oh my god, that’s Professor Peterson,” Bram exclaimed, immediately making the decision to drop his class.

There was a continuous back and forth between the two sides, and Bram found himself and Simon pushed towards the frontlines. It felt like each hateful remark was directed specifically at him. Each word was meant to tear him to shreds and with one look at Simon, Bram knew that Simon felt the same.

At that moment, he had a crazy idea. He didn’t know what would be the reaction, or if it would put himself, or worse Simon in some sort of danger. But he didn’t want to think, he’d done that for years.

He leaned over towards Simon, and quietly said: “Do you trust me?”

Simon nodded a quick yes, and Bram took his hand and led him right in the center of everyone’s attention. He made sure that Professor Peterson had a good view and proudly stated: “Hey professor!” before kissing Simon Spier.

If cloud nine was a real thing, Bram could have sworn he was on cloud ten. Kissing Simon felt like a revelation he had waited his whole life to receive. Despite the fact that he was in front of the people who wanted nothing more than to kick him down, Bram had never felt safer. 

When Bram opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Simon smiling up at him and for a moment he forgot where he was. The next thing he felt was someone trying to push him away, but Simon held him steady.  

Peterson dramatically yelled, “I’m going to vomit!” before embarrassingly dry heaving in front of everyone. The result was a roar of laughter and applause, with Peterson becoming a joke in front of the student body.

The two of them were ushered out of the way and Simon held onto Bram’s hand the entire time. They made their way to a bench nearby and took a seat, revelling in what they had just done.

“That was genius,” Simon said breathily. “And a really smooth move, if I do say so myself,”

Bram could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks, he hadn’t intended to be that obvious, hoping it would just slide by as a decision made in the heat of the moment. But Simon could see right through him.

“I’m sorry,” Bram apologized. “If you didn’t want…”

“I very much did want…” Simon replied. “Being a daring revolutionary was just an added bonus,”

[gothhabiba]

hey najia! i'm new 2 ur blog so sorry if u've answered this before but what's your opinion on "allies?" straight/white allies are apparently a thing but personally that whole concept is annoying to me?? like the only voices i want to hear in the lgbtq+ movement/in regards to racism are NOT straight white ppl lol. to me, if you want to be an "ally" just treat ppl like a decent human being and LISTEN to those who are oppressed. idk, whats your take on this??

we need more than listening and we need more than allies, we need critical engagement with all of the complexities of our experiences & positionalities and we need race traitors.

Anyone who concerns themselves with anti-oppression struggles and collective liberation has at some point either participated in workshops, read ‘zines, or been parts of deep discussions on how to be a “good” ally. You can now pay hundreds of dollars to go to esoteric institutes for an allyship certificate in anti-oppression. You can go through workshops and receive an allyship badge. In order to commodify struggle it must first be objectified. This is exhibited in how “issues” are “framed” & “branded.” Where struggle is commodity, allyship is currency.Ally has also become an identity, disembodied from any real mutual understanding of support.The term ally has been rendered ineffective and meaningless.

“Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing The Ally Industrial Complex, an Indigenous perspective & provocation”

On Nonprofit Certified “White Allies” and Privilege Theory:

Communities of color are not a single, homogenous bloc with identical political opinions. There is no single unified antiracist, feminist, and queer political program which white liberals can somehow become “allies” of, despite the fact that some individuals or groups of color may claim that they are in possession of such a program. This particular brand of white allyship both flattens political differences between whites and homogenizes the populations they claim to speak on behalf of. We believe that this politics remains fundamentally conservative, silencing, and coercive, especially for people of color who reject the analysis and field of action offered by privilege theory.

“Who Is Oakland: Anti-Oppression Activism, the Politics of Safety, and State Co-optation”

[W]hite activism, especially white anti-racism, is predicated on an economy of gratitude. We are supposed to be grateful that a white person is willing to work with non-white people. We are supposed to be grateful that you actually want to work with us and that you give us your resources. I would like to know why you have those resources and others do not? And don’t assume that just because I have to ask you for resources that it does not hurt me, pain me even. Don’t assume that when you come into the space, that doesn’t bother me. Don’t assume that when you talk first, talk the most, and talk the most often, that this doesn’t hurt me. Don’t assume that when I see you get the attention and accolades and the book deals and the speaking engagements that this does not hurt me (because you profit off of pain). And don’t assume that when I see how grateful non-white people are to you for being there, for being a “good white” person that this doesn’t hurt me. And don’t assume that when I get chastised by non-white people because I think your presence is unnecessary that it does not hurt me. Because all of these things remind me of how powerless non-white people are (albeit differently) in relation to white people. All of these gestures that you do reminds me of how grateful I am supposed to be towards you because you actually (or supposedly) care about what is happening to me. I am a bit resentful of economies of gratitude.

“The White Anti-Racist Is an Oxymoron: An Open Letter to ‘White Anti-Racists’,” Tamara K. Nopper

see also:

“White Purity,” Asad Haider“Identity Crisis,” Salar Mohandesi“Tokens of the White Left,” Adolf Reed“Not All Politics Is Identity Politics,” Kenan Malik

[abnahaya]

How I Deal With Conservative Environment

"Surprisingly, Donald Trump just made a good call..." my mum said out of the blue when we were driving back to our house from a choir rehearsal for a church colleague's holy matrimony last night. I almost couldn't believe what I heard.

"What did he do?" I asked her, mixed between curious and pessimistic.

"He banned LGBTQ (transgenders people to serve in military) and brought the policy for schools to start the day with prayers again," my mum answered. Again, I couldn't believe what I just heard. I wasn't surprised about Trump's decision, because, oh well you know... But my mum actually thought it was a good, no wait—wonderful decision; this was new.

"He did?" A lady from our church who drived with us joined the conversation, "Despite of his bad image, he's a respectable Christian, no?"

"A fanatic, actually." I tried to correct her.

"Well yes, he's a fanatic, but don't you think that was what brought him to win the election? He's trying to bring back Christianity to the land of the red and blue," my mum replied.

I just stared at her with a I-can't-believe-you-just-support-Trump look on my face, with a dropped jaw too, because it was just ridiculous.

And no, I didn't say it at that time because I didn't want to start a long argue about Christianity and conservatism, plus LGBTQ and the state's stand towards the people's religion, etc. I was too tired for all of those.

Instead, I spent the last 15 minutes of our drive to think about how tf my mum thought it was a good freakin idea to take freedom away from LGBTQA community? I mean, starting the schools in morning prayer was more understandable for her to support since Indonesia had always been a country that holds (too) tightly to religions too, and it could be more difficult for her to comprehend US' liberality—also more complicated to explain otherwise, although still, it was Trump we were talking about.

I would talk about how the policy of "starting the school with prayer" was actually not exactly a neutral decision for a government to make, despite of whatever religion the country/school believed in. That would need a whole different discussion with acoountable references, so let's just drop it right there for now.

However, what I wanted to to talk about from the first place, and it was exactly the reason why mum supports Trump on that particular policy was something called conservatism.

If we don't see it politically, conservatism means the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change (Merriam-Webster). So for conservatives, tradition is a vital capstone to asses situations, aside from how much things have developed since the first time the traditions were found. They are also tend to look up to one institution as a basis of their preservance, such as religion, culture, or even law. So yeah, as you can easily conclude: my mum —and probably most of my family are conservatives.

My mum's conservative view on Christianity lead her to oppose LGBTQ, and sex before marriage, and the idea that a woman should still get married and "get a man" to complete her life, and that elder people are supposed to be served by youngsters, and so on. I'm not implying that being conservative is a bad thing, I guess some people hold on to it and have a good life still. However, as someone who is not a conservative, living among many conservative people (re: my family), extra efforts are needed to cope with it and not becoming insane.

Trace back

The closest and oldest conservative I can trace is my grandmother from my mom —actually from both parents but the granny from my mom's side is wayy more talkative and stubborn, so yeah, I'm gonna pick her and her daughter (aka my mum) as the example in this discussion. When my fiance and I went to her place on Easter, he put his head on my lap while I was cleaning his black pores (talking about relationship goals!) and my granny yelled from accross the room, freaking out, I couldn't hear what she was talking about so I didn't do anything. A few hours later, when my fiance was aready asleep, she pulled me and gave some love advices: never let a man who is not your husband to touch your bare skin, esp on chest and thigh area, for men are easily deceived by the devil and women are weak towards men. (No kidding, it was the literal translation to what she told me) Again, I had my jaw dropped, but no rebuttal because I couldn''t afford to have another endless argues.

On another occasion when we were alone, my grandmother told me old stories aout how she grew up; then suddenly her conservatism felt less intense. So she basically grew up in a home with a lot of children, real siblings and cousins and even distant relatives lived together —which was a common thing back then; and she had been burdened with houseworks since early age: she bathed a newborn baby when she was in the 6th grade, she cooked for literally everyone, she did all the chores, and the best part was that she wasn't permitted to meet and talk with ANY guy other than relatives (even not all relatives) and forbidden from enrolling school activities beside the regular study. My first responses? 1) Jaw dropped; 2) Thinking "where the fuck all the adults? How come there are only all children and probably two adults at home?"; 3) How did she get through all of those without getting nuts?; 4) No wonder she's so strict about everything, sometimes to the point that it doesn't make sense to me.

The fourth point is probably the most important one.

Respect

Well, after I heard how my grandma was raised and then how my mum was raised (which was pretty much the same, but more understandable), it became easier for me to understand them; like why they made such rules, responded to a particular issue in a particular way, what they would like and what they hated the most, etc. I didn't think out loud like "why tf would you....?!" As much as I used to, probably because I already knew the answer to that question, which was: because they were raised like that, genius!

So I tried my best not to be a huge asshole towards them, and respect their principal; not only because I am a nice bitch who digged to someone's past and understand their reasonings, but also because I would want my values to be respected too, and how else I would be able to get that if I didnt start respecting others' values as well?

Find Your Rebel Stance

I always hated old teachings to "respect" elders which often misled to "be a servant when you're younger" and got a label of "the rebel child" for it. But again, when understanding my elders, I know that our definitions had differed from the start, and then I thought again, weren't we all rebels to our elders?

I gained so much weight that all my pants were too tight, some were even tored apart (on the crotch, yikes!), and all of my shorts became even shorter until some couldn't even cover my legs anymore—practically they looked like bikini shorts. So one day, my grandma came to our house and I was wearing my lazy short–which had become super short-lazy shorts by that time; and again, she freaked out. She told me that I might as well go around the house naked because I had showed so much skin and that —this was also the best part– it was the reason why women got raped (re: wearing revealing clothes). My mum was in the room and raised her voice, defending me, saying that it wasn't true that women (wearing revealing clothes) to be the reason of rapes, and women were free to wear whatever they want. I was like:

At that point, my mum was a rebel towards my grandma too, just like how I was a rebel towards both of them. We all have the rebellious part in us, somehow, even though some were too small to be recognized and some are too obvious to ignore. Why you ask? Generation gap. If you noticed it as much as I do, there was a progress between my grandma's values and my mum's, and of course mine. Values and ideas are constantly changing along with new eras. And these changes are getting easier to access. I have always been a feminist, but I didn't know what actually being a feminist should be until only recently; when women's era to speak up came and supported by all of the social media campaign which were all a lot easier to find.

Accept and React

My mum stopped following the changes of this era at some points: she didn't want to learn to use complex technology devices (she couldn't even change the TV channel!), didn't read the news created by youth—because they weren't her 'taste' anymore; not to mention my grandma. And I feel it too! This is basically still my era, but I'm getting closer to be a grown adult and when I look at today's teenagers—I just don't get them, you know what I mean? I probably stopped following teenagers' interests (and burried them deep down somewhere) a while ago, and that could make me a teenager conservative. I feel sorry for my future children already. LOL

So the cheesiest thing I can advice you, which may also make you question why you kept on reading this post when it finally reaches an anti-climax point instead of a groundbreaking suggestion; is that we just have to accept those conservatives motherfuckers (including us, maybe, in some ways) and use the greatest gift mankind ever has (re: brain) to react. I love my family, but when their conservative side is popping out, I feel like slamming my head off the wall and go berserk—but that's just my emotional side, the heart; so instead, I use my brain and chant a typical mantra that everything's gonna be alright and nothing's gonna bring me down, I just gotta be a good daughter/granddaughter/friend/neighbour for now, but it's not gonna shake my own belief on...(fill in what's the case) while choosing what's the best reaction for it. If my grandma who thinks women wearing miniskirts aren't respectable can accept her grand daughter and her spouse having loads of tattoos (despite of how she keeps nagging abt it), then why can us do the other way around?

I mean, there's no exact formula of what we're supposed to do; this ain't math (and that's why I'm good at this!). It's always contextual. There are times when I choose to follow what the conservatives want to avoid long, painful and tiring arguments (which I most likely would lose, because I'm still young!—sarcasm intended) but there are also occassions when I just couldn't accept the conservative thinking and let them know what my opinion towards the case is (mostly whilst praying they could respect it and not making a bigger fuss). However, if there is one exact thing to do regarding this issue: that is to keep learning.

Yeah a person with a firm principal is cool, but have you heard about a person who builds their own principal based on facts and deep knowledge of things?

You don't have to go to school and get another degree to be a person with sharp mind and deep understandings. Life is our greatest teacher, well actually life is that one teacher who does whatever they please just to make you get the lesson—the asshole teacher, but hey; life teaches us for free! You just need to be open minded and humble enough to acknowledge that you'll never know everything and you have to keep learning for the rest of your life.

At least it's fun—most of the times!

And that's kids, is how I met your—I mean how I deal with my conservative family and environment which do not support my life values and principle but I can't tell them to fuck off as I like because somehow they are supposed to stay in my life for good.

Cheers!

[songsforfelurian]

I'm laughing so hard. I made a goddamn typo. Queer! I didn't think this possible, but I feel even more stupid now XD

I apologize for the delay inresponding to this, but I really wanted to give the question the considerationit deserves. It’s a complicated issue, and I’ll try my best to do it justice. For those of you who missed the previous ask, this anon is wondering what the word “queer” means.

WARNING: If you are triggered by slursthat are commonly used against members of the LGBTQ+ community, proceed withcaution. I have done my best to use these terms in an informative way, but Iknow they may be triggering to some, even in this context. If you’re interestedin my perspective on slurs and labels within the LGBTQ+ community, read on!

I should start by pointing out that I am by nomeans an expert historian when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community. I identify asa member, have done some basic research, and have degrees in linguistics andphilosophy that afford me a basic working knowledge of language, logic, andliterature in a historical context. I am not an authority on gender identity orsexual orientation, just a community member doing my best to be helpful andsupportive.

I personally love the word ‘queer,’though I respect and understand that it is triggering to many. The wordoriginally meant “strange, peculiar, or eccentric.” (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=queer)I came across this word often in classic literature. “She was feeling ratherqueer” would have been a common phrase to describe someone who was slightlyill, or emotionally unsettled. But in the late 1800’s / early 1900’s, peoplestarted using it as an offensive term for people in same-sex relationships, or forpeople who deviated from accepted gender conventions of the time (for example,men who were perceived as “effeminate”). Then, around the 1980’s, members ofthe LGBTQ+ community “began todeliberately use the word queer in place of gay or homosexual, in an attempt,by using the word positively, to deprive it of its negative power.” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/queer)

Despite this, the word “queer” absolutelycontinues to be used as a homophobic slur that many LGBTQ+ people have had toendure, which is why the term remains so controversial. I personally haven’thad a lot of exposure to the term as an offensive slur, which may be why I don’texperience it as particularly triggering, the way “fag” and “faggot” mostcertainly are to me. I heard those words so often in such a vicious, damagingcontext growing up, that they became dealbreakers for me: I wouldn’t date men orwomen who used them, or keep up friendships with people who found themacceptable. I won’t play online video games with a group of people if I hearthose terms floating around. I still have an immediate anxiety reaction when Ihear those words used, even by someone who identifies as LGBTQ+. So I do understand that slurs can beincredibly triggering to people, even if the community has made an effort toretake them and give them new meaning.

The reason I personally view the word “queer”differently from “fag” or “faggot” is because I think that “queer” performs asemantic and linguistic function that I find pleasing and necessary. In itscurrent definition, as reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ community, it means, “Denoting orrelating to a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond to establishedideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms.” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/queer)

If you’veread any of my writing or seen previous posts from me, you may have deducedthat I find labels to be problematic. Sexual orientation and gender identitycan be fluid and difficult to define. While some people feel a sense of reliefand community when they finally find a label that suits them, others feelstressed or even further isolated and frustrated, faced with another set of “norms”they still can’t quite conform to. And then there’s the pressure to defineevery aspect of your sexuality and gender identity to the world – again, somethingthat is comforting and community-affirming to some, but can be stressful,invasive, or downright unsafe for others. I see discourse daily on Tumblr aboutwho should and shouldn’t be “allowed” within the LGBTQ+ community, with manypeople claiming that certain identities simply aren’t “gay enough” to belong.

I don’tsubscribe to this attitude. I don’t think I should have to thoroughly define orexplain my gender identity or sexual orientation in order to feel accepted andsupported by other LGBTQ+ individuals, and I don’t think people who are difinitively gay or lesbian deserve to be accepted moreso than people who are bixesual, pansexual, questioning, etc. I don’t conform to stereotypical normsand standards, and identifying as “queer” is a way for many people tocommunicate a similar, vague sense of identity without getting into specifics thatmake them feel uncomfortable, or confused, or frustrated, or downright unsafe.We don’t owe each other that level of intimacy.

As ateen in the early 2000’s that identified as bisexual only with my closestfriends, I had faith that things would progress. I imagined that I would enteradulthood and find that times had changed- that I would feel more free toexperience and express my identity, and that I would feel support from acommunity of people that understand how confusing, and isolating, and painfulit can be to be LGBTQ+. And while I have seen glimmers of this, I’ve also seen thehorde of the self-righteous, many of them painfully young, immature, andinexperienced, who find it necessary to police the borders of the LGBTQ+community, as well as the language we use to describe and define ourselves.

As anadult, this is not the kind of community I want to belong to. Yes, I understandthat the word “queer” is triggering for some people, and I’ve done my best tobe respectful of that in this post. But I amqueer, for lack of a better word that encompasses the nebulousnonconformity many of us experience along our journey. And we should allow eachother to be nebulous. We should allow each other the use of vague language, andthe leeway to evolve, and to change our minds, and to change our looks and our beliefsand our preferences. It was easiest for me to identify as bisexual as a scaredfourteen-year-old, because I felt pressure to identify as something.

So canwe try to take that pressure off? Can we make it okay to not be sure? Can we bea community that embraces uncertainty and privacy as much as we encourageconfidence and conviction? Can we support people in their twenties or thirties or fifties who areexploring their queerness for the first time, just as much as we support ourgay and lesbian friends who’ve been certain since they were twelve?

If you followthis blog, these are things I believe, that I want you to know:

It’s okayto not be sure about your gender identity.

It’sokay to not be sure about your sexual orientation.

Embracethe uncertainty. You don’t need a label to be whole. You don’t need to name andcategorize everything you think and feel. Give yourself room to breathe andgrow. Give others the same room.

It’s okayto change your mind.

It’sokay to express yourself as vaguely or as specifically as you like. You don’towe anyone any kind of information about your identity or preferences that you’renot comfortable sharing. You shouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone inorder to belong to this community.

You canuse labels, if you think they fit. You can also change them. You can alsoreject them. You still belong here, regardless. I still care about and supportyou, regardless.

You canuse the word “queer” to help identify yourself.

You canbe respectful of people who use the word “queer,” even if it offends you. Have a conversation before you judge or attack.

As afinal note, I’ve seen a term floating around that I would love to see gain moretraction: SAGA, which stands for Sexuality and Gender Acceptance. It occurs tome that it could also stand for Sexuality and Gender Alternative, which couldbe used as an actual identity term (“I’m SAGA”). Regardless, I can see how thiscould be a nonspecific umbrella term, much like the word “queer,” but withoutall the controversial connotations. I’m all for this- as I stated before, Ithink a lot of people use the word “queer” because it’s useful and meaningfulto them, and because they lack a synonymous alternative. If a term like SAGAstarted to catch on, I would be happy to make the switch. However, I’ve foundvery little literature on it, and have very rarely seen it used in LGBTQ+ spaces.If you have more information, or have seen it being used more widely, pleasecomment with your perspective! I would love to give credit where credit is due.And if this term resonates with you, use it! Spread the word!

I can’temphasize this enough- I’m not anauthority here, but I see plenty of people speaking on this subject with muchmore conviction than they ought to have, so I decided to give it a go. Ifanything, I hope some of you might read this and feel validated in your uncertainty,and encouraged to reach out, and maybe to be more flexible and accepting of thediversity in this community.

Diversity. Isn’t thatsupposed to be the point?

[privilege-archives]

VIOLA PEARCE ➝ FIRST SIBLING

I'M YOUR BIGGEST FAN

❖ FULL NAME: Viola Faith Pearce. ❖ PRONOUNS: She/Her. ❖ AGE: 25. (August 17th). ❖ BIRTH ORDER: First. Twin to Second Pearce. ❖ GRADE: Masters (1st year). ❖ MAJOR: Women’s Rights & Public Speaking. ❖ SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Fluid. ❖ ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Fluid. ❖ FACECLAIM: Brittany Snow.

I'LL FOLLOW YOU UNTIL YOU LOVE ME

If you would like to see a perfect mixture of both Bob and Lavender Pearce, you have to look no further than their eldest daughter. The first born into a political family, there was always a lot expected of Viola, and from plenty of different people. Her father would’ve loved for her to follow his lead, though would’ve never pushed her, while her mother would spend many a night telling stories about empowerment to her daughter, and drilling it into her head that she could do and be absolutely anything she wanted to. Lavender made sure to instill the idea of following your dreams into the child’s mind from as far back as Viola can even remember. Her maternal grandparents, of course, were a whole other story. They belonged to the DuPont family of Atlanta, Georgia, and were a pretty big deal in their town. They were also the only ones who really referred to her as Viola, with most people opting for Vi. Fortunately, Viola saw them very rarely, but when she did, they were legitimately the type of people who would have her balance a hardback edition of some big book on her head and keep it from falling to perfect her posture. To them, she was supposed to be perfect, so that a respectable man would want her some day. Perfection started from childhood.

Fortunately for the youngster, not only had she inherited her father’s argumentative, diplomatic attitude, but she’d been blessed with the carefree spirit her mother secretly harbored. She’d go along with her grandparents’ orders with a bright smile upon her face, then poke her tongue out at them behind their backs, which would have her parents laughing behind their hands. Viola had always been the type of person who could steal focus in a crowded room, and knew how to keep an audience hooked, whether intentional or not. Despite a little misbehavior here and there, nothing too terrible, she did incredibly well in school and actually quite enjoyed it. She loved to read and write wild stories, but never fell into the nerdy category. If anyone tried to brand her as such, Viola would be the first to tell them that there is nothing nerdy about a person being educated, and to come at her again once they were working for her. It would generally shut them up. She was always surrounded by friends of all backgrounds–though, in private schools, the students were much of the same–and once she hit her teens, she was known for her crazy parties and firecracker personality.

As far as Viola was concerned, she’d grown up in a loving, happy home, so it came as a shock to her when her parents sat she and her siblings down to explain they would be getting a divorce. The whole thing seemed to be pretty amicable, though, and although it upset her a little bit, she never cried about it. Her parents’ happiness was a big deal to her, so if separating was going to bring them that, then she had no problem with it. Despite having been very strong willed her whole life, her mother’s courage in ditching the lifestyle she’d become so accustomed to to go out and take the acting world by storm served as a great deal of inspiration for the teen. Even now, with Lavender not in the best of places, she is still Viola’s main inspiration and motivation to do and be everything she wants to be. In fact, she’s so passionate about it that it became something of a goal to her to make sure everybody got to live out their dreams. Viola had never known for sure what her own were, but seeing the joy breaking out of her chains had brought to Lavender, Viola instantly knew what she wanted out of life. She wanted to be as inspirational to others as her mother was to her. She wanted to be the change that so many, herself included, wished to see. She wanted to motivate people.

Yet again, her grandparents had other ideas. With their daughter having disgraced them in her divorce and less than desirable antics, they felt it was down to her first born to repair the damages. Unlike most people who would be thrilled to learn that their children and grandchildren would be furthering their education, they didn’t see things that way. Instead, they wanted her to marry a respectable man, wait on him hand and foot and start popping out babies as soon as possible. She didn’t need a job, since that was the man’s responsibility. Duh. Viola was only sixteen when she begun dating her first serious boyfriend, and rather than worry about her being too young, her grandparents were thrilled. He was from a respectable family, and the DuPont’s would make constant comments about how perfect the two were for each other. It was all kinds of intense and weird, and they seemed more upset than he and Viola were when they eventually split amicably right around their high school graduation, as they would both be leaving for separate colleges. They tried their best to talk her into bailing on her college plans—she’d be going to Brown; something most grandparents would be proud of—and to follow him to New Hampshire where he’d be attending Dartmouth. Their efforts went to no avail, though, and Vi was off to Rhode Island in the fall to begin her first semester as an Ivy League student.

Luckily for her grandparents, it wasn’t long before Viola met another boy. His name was Raymond, and he seemed way too perfect to be true. It wasn’t like Vi needed a man in her life; in fact, she would’ve much preferred to have been alone, but feelings were a natural thing, after all, and who was she to deny herself of them? It was just a thing that happened, and Vi chose to go with it. She would’ve been the first to put an end to things if he’d gotten in the way of her studies or goals, but fortunately, he didn’t. As previously stated, Raymond was basically perfect. He was sweet, kind, compassionate, generous, and above all, he practically worshipped the ground Viola walked on. That was where, unlike most would, Vi drew a line. She didn’t like that kind of treatment, nor did she like the way he wanted to do everything for her. Viola had always been incredibly independent, so to have someone wanting to wait on her hand and foot just wasn’t her thing. It was impossible to ditch him, though. She tried, which didn’t justify the fact that she ended up cheating on him with her high school boyfriend. But, when she did and came clean the very next day, telling him it wasn’t fair of her to stay with him after doing something like that to him, and he begged her to stay and told him he forgave her, that was kind of the last straw for her.

Or so she thought, anyway. Somehow, both Raymond and her grandparents managed to convince her to stay with him, but Viola wasn’t happy about it. Evidently, Raymond was; so much so that during her graduation party, thrown at her grandparents’ house out in Georgia, he got down on one knee in front of all of her friends and family and proposed. Viola thought he was kidding at first, but seeing the ring and the hopeful looks on her grandparents’ faces, as well as the mental image of herself playing the part of the perfect 1950’s housewife, she freaked out. Naturally, her response was a firm no, and Viola didn’t even stay for the rest of the party. She packed up her things, hopped on a flight, and headed out to California to join her mother, who was anything but surprised by the whole thing. Lavender was willing to bet that her parents had encouraged the whole proposal, and Viola had to agree. Either way, she was eternally glad to be out of there.

As terrible as Viola felt about leaving the way she did, she was firm in her decision. She’d let herself slip off track a little bit, getting caught up in silly things like relationship drama, something she’d never cared about before, and now she needed to get things back in order. She was in California just in time to enroll at PSU to begin her masters in Public Speaking and Women’s Studies, two things she’d always been incredibly passionate about, but the latter more so lately than ever. Given everything with Raymond and her grandparents, Viola has pretty much sworn off dating for the time being, and is very much focused on being the change she always wanted to be. Most recently, she has participated in the political Women’s March, something that turned quite a few heads given who her father is, and spoken at a bunch of LGBTQ+ events across the West Coast. She is known for how outspoken she is, and often referred to as Girl Boss. Viola’s activism is her biggest passion, and her need to inspire and motivate others her greatest; that’s something that, despite any old distractions, never has, and never will change.

BABY, THERE'S NO OTHER SUPERSTAR

Standing at a modest 5'3, the William Shakespeare quote, “Though she be but little, she is fierce,” is basically the story of Viola’s life. Naturally beautiful, she doesn’t put much extra effort into her appearance, with heavy makeup being a foreign concept to her. That’s not to say she doesn’t wear light makeup most days, but the need for seemingly flawless skin and long, thick lashes is just not her biggest concern. Viola dresses pretty casually, wearing things such as skinny jeans and shirts or off the shoulder tees. There are plenty of casual day dresses among her closet, as well as a whole bunch of slogan tees promoting the different things she speaks out about and believes in. Viola’s hair is naturally light blonde, though she dyes it an auburn color, and generally wears it wavy. She has two ear piercings on each lobe, and a cursive tattoo across her ribs that reads, “To be inspired is great, to inspire is incredible.”

YOU KNOW THAT I'LL BE YOUR PAPARAZZI

Born to a well to do family in the heart of Atlanta, Georgia, Lavender DuPont was never going to be given the freedom to choose her own path. The DuPont men were all expected to be successful and powerful, while the women were supposed to marry into wealth and know their place in the background. Lavender had big dreams of becoming an actress or a pop star, but her family would’ve never even entertained the idea. Like all DuPont women before her, her suitor was chosen for her, and just happened to be everyone’s favorite politician, Robert “Bob” Pearce. He was a little older than her, but Lavender felt she had no choice but to marry him, move out to his larger than life home in Washington, and then begin to pop out babies just like she was supposed to.

Bob wasn’t the world’s most serious of men, and was actually quite likable as politicians went. He never treated his wife with anything but respect, and turned out to be a wonderful father to his five children, working his way up the political ladder. Lavender did a good job at keeping up the act of the perfect housewife, until it all became too much for her. She’d learned to love her husband enough to not want to tarnish his reputation, so had the curtesy to divorce him before going completely off the rails. She just couldn’t deny herself her dream of becoming the performer she’d always wanted to be. Now divorced, Bob has just finished his term as Vice President, while Lavender is known more commonly as her stage name of Vinny Pearce; the stage and big screen actress, whose name is constantly in the tabloids for her wild partying, DUI’s and alleged (but very much true) drug use.