#But the threat of being trans here can be a death sentence

[theatrekidenergy]

The trans FTM experience of not knowing how to feel about your detachment from femininity and growing up a woman

[best-transgender-character]

Hi everyone. I've been putting some thought into the best way to bring this up without making light of it, since this is a serious topic and this is a very unserious blog. I don't want to reblog a bunch of individual posts without context and explanations attached, but if I find posts that I feel are thorough and explain what is going on, I may reblog them. Here is a summary, for anyone completely unaware of what is happening:

A trans woman (Rita, URL was Predstrogen, now Cyprederone) has had her account falsely flagged as NSFW and banned multiple times as a result of a transmisogynistic harassment campaign against her. You may have seen people talking about how her transition timeline has been flagged mature content, multiple times.

Support have been unhelpful when it comes to the harassment, and dubiously helpful about restoring accounts until this latest event.

People reached out to Photomatt about the topic, who is the CEO of Tumblr. He decided to respond, claiming that Rita was personally harassing him and posting death threats about him. This does not line up with the official reason why Rita was banned, which was "sexually explicit materials". The "death threat" was a slapstick post about an exploding car full of hammers. Matt threatened to contact the police or FBI about the threat, used neutral pronouns for Rita despite being informed of her pronouns, and even referred to her as 'it' in one sentence. He referred to Rita as "pergstrogen" in one post, which may be a particularly unfortunate typo, but may also be an ableist slur. He also sent people direct messages about the topic. Matt denied any possibility of transmisogyny playing a part, and suggested that people who feel this site is not safe for trans women should just leave to a different site.

Rita has been banned for life. Several people criticising Matt for this have also been banned.

Please pay attention to this, read other posts about it, look at Photomatt's blog (archived as of 21/02) to see the way he has handled this and Cyprederone's blog to see Rita's statement.

Here are all of Photomatt's posts about the topic, please check the notes of them to see people's responses as well as people archiving his comments. Edit: These posts have been deleted. I'm unsure if there is an archive somewhere of the comments, but these links are now the webarchive links to these posts.

You gonna do anything or make any statement about the rampant transmisogyny on this hellsite (original post with they/them) (first edit with "the account") (second edit with she/her) (archive of most recent edit)

I love this site and I’m sorry so many people are determined to ruin it.

So, the terfs and neonazis are fine, but a trans women giving threatening you is where you draw the line?

You should really feel bad about how transphobic tumblr is

all you ever do is drop the ban hammer on trans women you don't like, while casually ignoring the harassment they face

can I report your beahviour, or?

it's been four hours and nothing you've said has made this decision look better

Why did you misgender her lmao

❤ (heart emoji) [I don't yet have an archive of this. Please reach out if you have an archive of this, although there wasn't much relevant in this post.]

I'm continuing to get harassment and death threats here

My Beliefs and Principles

Tweeting Rita's saved URLs

He is further arguing with people on Twitter.

[Edit] Staff have now made a PR statement about the topic.

Please give trans women your love and support, and remember that this is deeply serious transmisogyny, not just an excuse to joke about car hammer explosions.

[ghostboycharm]

"it's about the policies" well that's the problem. after watching the debate i still have no idea what the fuck any of biden's policies are because he utterly failed to communicate them.

that's understandable, it was a bad performance on his part. nobody is denying that. however, it is one night, and reading up on his policies, the things he has done for americans, and even listening again to the debate while trying to ignore the tapered off sentences and stuttering, can help to realise he actually has made quite a bit of positive impact. i personally did not have any trouble understanding him, for the most part. however, i am used to speaking with people who have speech impediments, and am also quite good at listening to and comprehending auditory information in general.

anyway, the very next day he was speaking at rallies and was much more forceful, much more vigorous, and much more clear. sometimes it's just a crapshoot --- people have bad days. i do public speaking and performing, and sometimes i am able to speak clearly and concisely, other days i feel like i can't even get a word in without stumbling. the thing to remember is that he is a human being, not a robot, and when dealing with so much pressure and scrutiny, it can be difficult to put on your best face.

it's important to remember that debates are not what being a president is all about. it's also the stuff that goes on in the background. but that's less entertaining than watching a public shitshow, and it doesn't get nearly as much media time. however, it happens to be the more important stuff.

and, for the record: i spend many hours every week in a retirement home, most of it on the second floor, which is reserved for clients with severe dementia. none of them would be even slightly capable of speaking the way biden did. many people are so out of touch with what dementia actually is that they sincerely believe biden exhibits it. no. what he is exhibiting are normal human reactions to pressure --- stupid mistakes, fumbling, and stuttering are all normal. and, remember, stutters are often worsened with stress. it was a shitty performance, yeah. but it was shitty for normal reasons.

people who jump on biden for misremembering the year of his son's death, for example, clearly don't understand loss. my father lost his brother many years ago, and i asked him what year he died, and he couldn't remember. just like biden, he remembered the day instantly. but the year disappeared. nobody would call this a sign of dementia in my father, but when biden does it, he's on death's door.

this is because people are constantly looking for another reason to accuse biden of being incompetent. there is little to no basis for this belief --- much of it is thanks to the pervasive campaign against him. yeah, he's old. we get it. the dude's ancient. but you need to remember that he's still the only thing standing against another trump presidency. and if you think that would be better, please remember:

there is a culture of listening not to the words people say, but how they say them. it's natural, it's instinctive --- often it's a defense mechanism. but you need to work against it. you need to force yourself to listen to the meaning, not how the tone is making you feel.

biden may not be a great guy. he may not even be a good guy. but right now he's the only chance to get america back on track, not even through his presidency, but through the people around him and the avoidance of trump. trump is the biggest threat against america right now. you cannot let him into office.

and here's your daily reminder: voting based on ONE issue (palestinian genocide) rather than looking at the bigger picture is a sign of extreme privilege. it proves that you don't care about palestinians at all. why? because letting trump into office is throwing women, queer people, trans people, AND palestinians under the bus. because trump hates all of those people. and he has enacted policies against all of them during his presidency, and he's confirmed that he will again if re-elected.

you gotta remember that the fight for bodily autonomy in america, for example, is a fight for bodily autonomy everywhere. whether we like it or not, the rest of the world does look to america, and last time i checked, palestinians are humans, and they have bodies, and those bodies are affected by the american struggle for bodily autonomy.

and as a final note, here's my favourite post on this issue. it explains it clearly, concisely, and probably better than i have.

i hope this helps. if you're an american voter, please vote for biden. it sucks, but there really is no better option right now. but hopefully, in the next four years, there will be.

and because i know people in the comments are gonna hit me with the "american dems" bullshit as usual: i'm literally not american. try again

[knarme-stray]

Trump also wants to cancel all Ukraine aid while Ukrainian lives are already being lost and ruined by the current sloppy support.

This can embolden Russia to attack Poland or the Baltics next. Russian army mass rapes, tortures and kills entire neighbourhoods in occupied areas. Everyone, children, women, men. It's insufferably disgusting and more of it happens every moment you take a breath.

I'm from Finland. My country also faces a threat from Russia and I don't want to see Russia emboldened to keep destroying Ukraine and others. I genuinely think on many days if I'll die in rubble of a building or at the hands of soldiers, these feel like potentially realistic outcomes to me on a level that isn't funny.

But they are reality all day in Ukraine, right now, and getting worse.

I'd also see my trans and disabled American acquaintances and friends face deportation, unjust sentences, displacement or death under Trump due to Project 2025. This is heartbreaking.

Far right parties in European countries would get a blood thirsty rise of motivation and support emboldened by Trump as well. Muslims, LBGT people etc. minorities in Europe face danger from the far righters. Don't show them that someone like Trump can win. Don't help them hurt people here.

Trump wants to end all climate protection restrictions for USA so the entire planet would... Quite literally speedrun into that "no livable planet for us" thing.

Mass famine. Mass displacement. Of entire cultures worldwide. On a level never seen before. Global ecocide and genocide.

Americans I swear to GOD if you don't vote for kamala tomorrow I will fucking GET you. You have no idea how much the American election affects forigen countries- particularly in this case, Palestine and Isreal

If Trump gets elected, I can garuntee you that the conservative party of Canada will be elected, which means my rights as a intersex trans woman will be taken away from me.

Even if you aren't a liberal (which I am not, im a leftist), you need to understand the importance of not having a literal fascist in office in probably the most influential country on earth.

[wirewitchviolet]

Gotta love that automation of moderation, don’t you?

So hey, it’s almost the end of the month, which means it’s time for my monthly tradition of making a little post over on that one website whose new owner is doing an amazing job of flushing it down the toilet, and look what I see:

Like nearly everything I post on that site, you will of course note that that’s clearly starting mid-sentence. I make a conscious habit of doing that specifically so that any time someone tries to take a single post out of context to defame me, it’s plainly obvious to onlookers that they aren’t seeing the whole thing. The full context for this for instance is here, if you’re curious. It’s part of a big post I made back in March on the Trans Day of Visibility, talking about how I don’t partake in the general tradition of posting a bunch of selfies and career highlights because stalkers are looking for ammo, you know, case in point.

So, first off it’s probably worth noting that this was actually flagged at 2:40 AM on November 23rd. A whole 8 months later, in the middle of the night, the day before Thanksgiving. So I’m going to make an educated guess that what probably happened here is one of the various foaming at the mouth bigots, probably living in England where it is neither a holiday nor a weird time to be up and looking to start crap, decided it was a good time to try and ruin my life some more, did a nice simple little search for my handle and the word “kill” and just punched through the “sending a death threat” form using a succession of burner accounts until the post stopped loading. Pretty standard tactic there.

This of course confirms my theory that while the entire staff of humans handling abuse reports is most likely no longer employed at Twitter, save for whatever skeleton crew is hyper-focused on permanently suspending people for making jokes at Elon Musk’s expense, the automated system that generates messages like this based purely on submission volume is still up and running.

So... here’s where this gets dicey. Before me are two buttons I can press. I can click that shiny blue text that says “appeal” at which point, as I understand all this, I will be given a little form where I can type a message along the lines of “hey, this was clearly sent in error. While part of what I was saying is cut off due to this being somewhere in the middle of a 50 or so post long thread, it’s still quite plain here that I am talking about being on the receiving end of violent threats, not making one myself.” At this point I would be locked out of touching the website in any way shape or form until this form is looked over by... someone who to my knowledge is no longer actually employed, nor slated to be replaced by anyone, plunging me into eternal limbo.

The second option is that I can click that big red “Delete” button, breaking this big long thread in half (which honestly doesn’t concern me too much, I’ve made much better versions of this sort of speech, and don’t really expect anyone to naturally find something from 8 months ago), but A- I’m pretty sure doing so would permanently flag my account as some sort of troublemaker, and much more importantly B- We have this little sentence above that button that says “By clicking Delete, you acknowledge that your Tweet violated the Twitter Rules.” Now aside from the raw pedantry of knowing damn well that it most certainly did no such thing, the rule it is erroneously claiming that I broke is... threatening to murder someone. Pretty sure, legally, that is not a thing you want to formally confess to doing if you didn’t actually do so. For that matter I’m also pretty sure that making a blatant false accusation that I did is libelous or something, but I dunno. If any lawyers are trying to round out their pro bono quota before the end of the year and want to explore that, let me know I guess?

So... I’m pretty terrified about what’d happen pressing either of these two buttons, and without doing so (or probably with doing so for that matter) I cannot post anything nor even look at anything on Twitter there for the foreseeable future. Which... is kind of a really serious problem financially. My two professions are journalism, which is just completely 100% tied to that site as the only way one can presently pitch stories to most editors, and game design, where freelance work is in the exact same boat where the only real way to get it is to pester editors on there. And it’s also kinda the place where I’d normally plug my Patreon, which aside from what freelance work I can find is literally my only financial lifeline, and is presently pretty darn low because people tend to unsubscribe to these sorts of things around the holidays to build up that gift money. And I am broke broke. Like, I have this last week of this month to find a little money somehow in a hurry or I won’t have enough to pay my rent and my electric bill. Next month, I won’t have rent covered even without electricity. Seeing as we’re heading into an unusually cold winter, there’s a chance I’m going to actually freeze to death because of this.

So if you’ve bothered reading all this... help? Like, share this blog post around, link to it on what’s left of Twitter and/or on whatever alternative you may have jumped over to? Pester whoever’s left on Twitter’s support staff about this clearly having been flagged in bad faith? Maybe try and get this in front of some media people? Or an editor willing to just commission me to write about it directly (or, you know, about anything else? There’s been a lot of recent stories in the news about transphobic laws and hate crimes and that’s explicitly been my beat for the past decade or so). Maybe throw some cash at that aforementioned Patreon to help buy me another month of barely scraping by? This is kinda life or death for me.

[sailormoonsub]

Now I want a paper or at least a live tweet from you on bug’s life

@thevvking Because this request appears in my inbox multiple times I don’t feel bad about taking up space on everyone’s TL to write about it. I watched this movie a LOT in my formative years [1998-2000] so it has seeped into my subconscious and lived in my mind rent free for 20 years. Whether it’s actually a good film is up for debate but that’s independent of the fact that I find it important. And communist.

I mean, I guess if you wanna talk about this movie, you have to talk about how it was inspired by The Ant and the Grasshopper, the Aesop fable. In a sentence: the grasshopper wastes all his time partying the ant works hard to store food and build shelter, so when winter comes around, the grasshopper is Shamed for Failing to Think Ahead. Whether he is merely humbled or is left out to die depends on the version you’re reading. Anyway it’s about how being boring is way better than getting lit.

A Bug’s Life takes this concept of the hardworking ant and the lazy grasshopper, but superimposes a power dynamic: the grasshoppers are physically stronger than ants, and they can leverage that power in the form of performative threats. Every now and then, they rough up an ant or destroy some infrastructure just to remind the ants what could happen if they don’t appease the grasshoppers. AGAB. That’s how they get food without working for it: exploiting the ones who produce it.

The ants work twice as hard to get enough food for themselves and their oppressors. Obviously, this system is Bad™ for the ants but they continue to participate in it because they are not immune to fear. There’s no rules besides life and death. Under this current system, they at least get some food and not murdered. They are constantly reminded: it could be worse.

Flik the protagonist ant believes that he needs to hire a force equally as threatening (like, a squad of cops that are on HIS side). So he tries to DO that but he accidentally hires a bunch of CLOWNS instead of HITMEN. He just ended up with more members of the oppressed class to take care of.

But! What this circus brings is a spark of ~creativity.~ They don’t need brute force to defeat the grasshoppers. They can leverage the exact same weapon that the grasshoppers have: FEAR. They plan to build a vague silhouette of a bird out of leaves and sticks– nothing that will hold up to close scrutiny, but enough of a warning to keep them in line. Just like the grasshoppers used empty threats and fear tactics to enforce their world order, the ants plan to use a hollow empty bird to get what they want.

I can’t help but read the bird as something religious, in a "what is a king to a god?" kind of way. The ants believe only way to meaningfully threaten the ruling class is from above; the grasshoppers will back down if they think something supernatural, cosmic, sublime in the capital-R-Romantic sense is coming for their asses.

The bird plan falls apart (literally) but, by now, they don’t need it. The ants quite literally seize the means of production. You can watch them unionize on screen.

The exploited workers all simultaneously register that they don’t owe the ruling class shit. They get pissed off and link their arms in an intimidating way that makes you remember that strength is not in power, but in numbers.

And then– a miracle from on high– the bird, that supernatural force that the ants were only pretending to invoke, shows up for real. The leader of the grasshoppers gets fed to a real-life bird. Literally, eat the rich. This, I think, it less "marxist allegory" and more "desired metaphysics of injustice." It’s nice to believe that even the universe itself is ultimately on your side in the long run, isn’t it? God said unionizing is inherently good and right and virtuous. Karma allows our heroes to walk away without blood on their hands. Though they could have saved a lot of time if Flik invented a bug-size guillotine!

At the end the ants throw a sick-ass party to celebrate no longer being indebted to an upper class they owe nothing to and owning 100% of the products of their own labor.

This is just the political/economic implications– I didn’t even get into the Luddite ant society or trans icon Frances. Join me next time when I talk about how Rainbow Fish is an allegory for wealth distribution.

"pretend it’s the proletariat"

"it’s a bug circus"

"I know it’s a bug circus but pretend it’s about the proletariat"

"so this bug circus… is going to defeat capitalism by siccing a bird on jeff bezos"

"you gotta work with me here"

[zippers-flowers-and-wine]

"Go visit family in Oregon, they said. It'll be a blast, they said!" You hiss, hustling a little faster through the light rain with your arms ineffectively attempting to shield your thick hair.

What a crock of shit.

What they didn't tell you about this fucking place was that it rained every.

Fucking.

D a y.

...

Okay, you may be exaggerating juust a tad, you'll admit to that.

But still! The high humidity sucked for your already frizzed hair, and the rain usually rolled in out of nowhere!

As if to prove your point - or maybe even mock you, Oregon was a little bitch like that - the sky rumbles threateningly, darkening to a near black. The few drops that had been landing against your neck, speed up and you wail a dramatic curse.

Throwing your comfy coat over your head, you start hustling your step a little more.

Moving here hadn't been that much of a mistake, despite what you may complain. It was really pretty, with so many mountains that had good hiking spots, and rivers that provided you with relaxing swimming pools. Plus the always chilly water was a definite bonus, a complete step up from the metallic tang that always permeated the water in some of the hotter spots you've lived in.

The only problem you really had with Oregon was...

A low, clicking rumble from above. Your hair stands on end, and you take the steps up to your apartment three at a time, barely pausing to pull out your keys. You hear him click behind you, closer than you were comfortable with. It makes you miss the keyhole a few times, but the sound of him landing roughly on the metal railing behind you gives you small bit of extra coordination and you swiftly shove your door open.

Slamming it shut, a nervous eye peeks out of the peephole, flinching when it clashes with an overly wide, slightly compound, black eye.

God-damn-it.

Fucking... The bug beasts that liked to hang around were another factoid about Oregon that... Well, they didn't piss you off. It was just a huge leap from your last home.

Those guys weren't as prevalent in the other places you lived, most non-mountainous places only really having the arachnid-type beasts. In fact, when you lived in Texas with your cousins, the only insect based one you had ever seen was this one fluffy, brown and black... Caterpillar? He'll, he may be a fully grown butterfly at this point.

But he was a kid who had a nasty attitude, dyed his hair blue - according to rumours - and was always yelling at the humans he usually stuck around.

This place though? Practically crawling with them, no pun intended.

Beastfolk weren't new, but they were very few and very far inbetween. In fact, a lot of people had been questioning if they could really be considered "sentient"...

Well, they were swiftly shut down by a feisty tarantula, that looked kinda like an Arizona Blonde, that had become a lawyer and completely shut down a court case.

Another soft clicking makes you jump, shooting a look at the door. "Chill your thorax, fuzzbutt."

An offended click, and you smirk.

The only thing that kept a lot of people from considering most beasts as sentient and free thinking people was... Well...

You hear him jump over the railing. The heavy, almost lethargic sound of his wings flapping makes you hop to attention, darting through the house to swiftly shut your window with smug whoop.

He's gotten you like that too many times.

You see, beasts haven't fully gotten over their base instincts, and the month leading into spring was were all anti-beastfolk arguments got their evidence. Said that beasts clearly can't be sentient, they succumb to those based urges so easily!

Not because the folk felt any urge to fuck like rabbits, as was the common misconception.

He chitters at you through the window, feet thudding against either side of the - now shut - window for mere seconds before he kicks back off. His clicks fades as you grin giddily, dancing in place. You might actually win this one!

The only reason most speciests would give for being so against beastfolks was the fact that they were "too base instinct" and it made them "feel unsafe".

And in a way, they were right.

Your grin fades when you realize you can't hear him anymore.

It's dangerous to get between any spider-types and their chosen.

The hairs on your body raise, your mind scrambling to figure this out.

It's foolish to keep a centipede-type away from their loved ones.

A soft shuffle has you whipping around, hands up in a comical karate motion.

It's down right ridiculous to separate ant-types from their mates.

Suddenly, you remember: you didn't lock the bathroom up.

"You're asking for a death sentence if you get between a moth and his love." The voice slides between you shoulder blades, accompanied by four large arms wrapping around you.

Screaming in delight, you curse, "Oh you sneaky fuck!"

Bruno laughs, allowing you to whip around and hit his shoulder. His hand comes up, wringing out some of his neck fluff while he flashes you a smarmy grin. "What? It's not my fault you didn't check the bathroom first. I didn't even land at your window!"

You gasp, pushing him away with a look of mock horror. "Yo-you..."

He leans in, large black eyes shining teasingly. "Come on, you can say it."

"I can't!" You cry in the most over the top, Trans-Atlantic accent possible, draping yourself across the bed.

Bruno huffs a laugh, antenna flicking as he quickly shucks his slightly damp over shirt. With a quick hop, courtesy of his powerful legs, he lands on top of you, grinning at you scream. "What, is it a bad word?"

"Yes! You foul man, begone He-Who- Says-Bad-Words! Begone!" His eyes light up, a near maniacal grin stretching across his usually serious features.

(You'd never say it out loud for fear of emotionally wounding him: but you kinda liked how he acted pre-spring. He was so goofy... Although serious, intense Bruno is just as pleasant.)

His wings flare up, engulfing the room in a shadow of white, black speckled wings. His upper set of arm catch your hands and you're, quite rudely, made aware of your mistake of allowing him to straddle you.

"Bruno..." You warn, wiggling to pull away from his grasp.

His grin stretches wider, fangs hooking just slightly over his bottom lip as Bruno teases back, "(Y/N)..?"

Whatever threat you were gonna say is lost as his second pair of hands - the wicked claws clipped precisely for this reason - dive in, wiggling furiously against your ribs.

Screaming, you thrash, kicking out and laughing. His hands hold you steady, with just enough give that you're continuously given hope that you can escape, but you know better.

"Saaaay iiit~" He croons, slowing so you can speak.

Wheezing a few wet coughs, you smirk at him. "N-Nuh uh. I-I don't cuss like you do."

His antenna flick up, shivering as his grin gets wider. "Me? Cuss? Now that's just slanderous talk my dear."

"N' slander, cuz' it's true."

"Hmm, I think you can speak far too well my dear." A part of you immediately regrets talking back, especially when he shifts both of your hands into one of his, the other migrating down to hold your chest down.

Flashing you a smirk, he wiggles his fingers near your kneecap.

"Now, what am I?"

You keep stubbornly quiet. Humming, the large moth brushes his fingers down the back of your calf, chattering at the full body jerk you give.

"Once again, what am I?"

"A liar, because you lied!" You squawk mid-laugh, playfully gasping in mock horror. Bruno chirps in laughter, releasing you to flip over.

"Haha, now you're a filthy cusser like me!"

You groan, rolling over to nudge his wings so you can snuggle beneath. He lifts it without fuss, purring when you nuzzle your face into his chest fluff.

"Mmmn, love you B."

His chest vibrates with a fierce purr, and you grin. Grumbling past the motor in his chest, Bruno mumbles, "You only love me for my purring."

"Well, the fuzz is a nice addition."

"I will throw you off this bed, don't try me."

"Bet."

You found yourself face down n the floor less than two seconds later and not at all pissed.

[headfullofstories]

Truly Monstrous Luck - part 1

   I didn’t think my day could get any worse. I lost my job after I got evicted when my landlord thought my testosterone was fucking heroine, my wallet got stolen - thanks, New York - and that meant my bus card and my money, So I have to walk from Manhattan to my brother's house in The Bronx, in the rain, without an umbrella. I thought this was the worst my day could get. Boy, was I wrong.

I was on 1st Avenue heading towards the Willis Avenue bridge, when I heard footsteps behind me. I didn't think anything of it for the first few minutes - it's New York, a lot of people live here. But these footsteps sounded like someone was wearing tap shoes, crisp and loud and menacing. It made me nervous, sure, but I didn’t think they were dangerous. The only thing of any value I had on me was my phone, this shitty old Motorola Droid X I bought used when I was 13. Even if I did get mugged, I don't think anyone wants a 9 year old smartphone, so the worst that would happen is I would get a little roughed up. Big deal, I've dealt with worse.

But as I crossed 86th Street, the footsteps behind me sped up, and as I crossed in front of an alley I felt a pull from behind me. Then I started to really panic. A thousand horrific thoughts flashed through my head then as I was pulled into the dark alley, but none of them come close to what actually happened.

The person who had been following me was a guy who looked a little older than me, maybe 24. He wore a 3 piece suit with a golden tie and a pair of dress boots, and he held a solid black umbrella. He held me by the throat, pinned against the wall and out of sight of passers-by. I was shocked for a moment, unsure what happened - this guy was really strong. Inhumanly strong. After the shock settled a little, my mind was clouded with fear. Bad things can happen in dark alleyways, and I wasn't about to become another fucking statistic. I pulled at the man's hand, desperately trying to break free. But the man in the suit had an iron grip, keeping me firmly in place, several inches off of the ground. My fight or flight had already kicked in, and I was kicking at this man with all of the force I had, which was admittedly low since I had walked 15 blocks in the rain with a binder on, not a healthy combo. Combined with the pressure on my windpipe, I could barely breathe.

The man laughed as he held me there, weak and pathetic, fighting for dear life and on the verge of tears.

"It's worthless, little boy." He growled, and I saw now he had a pair of long white canines. "There's no escape now."

Oh, fuck no. No no no no, those things aren't real. Monsters don't exist. they shouldn't, at least…

"W-what do you want?" I wheezed, tears pricking at my eyes. I started feeling an overwhelming sense of dread.

"I might kill you. Drain your blood, leave you here for someone to find you." He starts, nodding his head from side to side as if weighing his options. "Or maybe I could turn you. Curse you with eternal life, give you the thirst for blood… which would you prefer?"

"I… I don't wanna die." I whimpered, not fully thinking what I was saying, tears streaming down my face.

"Unfortunately that's not an option, dollface." He smirked. "But I'll give you the next best thing." And with that, he plunged his fangs into my neck.

Up until this point, I had tried to convince myself that this dude was just some fucked up lunatic with coincidentally long teeth. But as soon as he bit me, there was no denying it. This asshole was a vampire, and I was fully about to die. Fuck, what am I gonna tell Justin? I guess nothing, he probably wouldn’t believe me anyways, if I even survive.

I thought that getting bit would hurt a lot more than it did, but it felt a lot like getting a shot - not painless, but unpleasant. I could feel the life being sucked out of me, and the longer it went on the more hazy my consciousness became. I fully lost consciousness after 10 seconds. The last thing I remember is his breath on my neck as my humanity melted away.

I wake up as I feel someone grabbing me around the torso. My vision is hazy and I feel hungry. My mind is hazy, I can’t manage to think of anything but death. I do my best to focus on what’s happening, who’s grabbing me, and slowly my vision clears and I can see that I’m in the arms of a hulking humanoid with green skin and an underbite with two giant protruding from its mouth. I start to panic all over again. What happened after I passed out? How long was I out? I start flailing frantically, trying to escape the clutches of this green-skinned monster. It notices me squirming, and holds me out at arms length by my underarms. Its silver eyes look me up and down, and as it seems to notice the fear in my eyes its own expression softens.

“Wh-who are you?” I manage to say as my mind fills with thoughts of escape, get away, kill whoever stops you and I hold back the urge to bite this thing. “What happened? Am I dead?”

Its eyes fill with a look of hurt and grief. “God, you’re so young. Fucking monsters, doing this to a kid…” Its - their? - voice is gruff, but more in a butch lesbian way than an MMA fighter way. Their face lightens a little, forcibly, eyes still full of grief. “Sorry, where are my manners? My name is Yvonne, I work with a group that’s supposed to stop shit like this from happening to kids like you. Fuck, these assholes get so damn confident on rainy days…"

"Why did you grab me?" I ask slowly, suppressing the overwhelming thoughts of death as much as I can. "Why didn't you just leave me there?"

They take a deep breath and go down to their knees and set me on the ground, still holding onto my sides, so we're eye to eye. "Fledglings like you are often overwhelmed by their desires. I can see the bloodlust in your eyes, kid, and you're doing a hell of a job suppressing them like this. But by the time the sun sets you will have drawn blood, and that has caused a lot of good kids a lot of grief the day after. The group I work for works to prevent things like this - vampirism and lycanthropy and the like - from being spread, but sometimes shit like his happens, someone gets infected, and we have a responsibility to contain those kids, give them resources for dealing with their passive urges, help them get their fix in a way that doesn't put anyone at risk."

"I am dead." I mutter, going limp in Yvonne's arms and start crying. "Fuck, the universe won't give me a break, will it?"

"I'm sorry, baby." Yvonne mutters, pulling me back towards their - her? - chest and holding me in a tight hug. "Shit, 10 minutes and I would've been there, 10 minutes and this wouldn't've happened to you."

"Wh-why do you care about me?" I whimper, curling up in her arms. "I… I'm just some stupid kid."

"Everyone deserves someone who looks out for them, baby." She sighs. "I wouldn't wish what happened to you on my worst enemies. This area is my responsibility, this happened on my streets, I need to make sure you don't think you're alone in this."

"Th-thank you." Is all I can manage, before the thoughts are back at full force and I clutch my head, keeping my head between my legs, my mouth away from Yvonne and my eyes away from any people. I hiss as the thoughts invade my mind like a plague. All I can think about is death, of blood, of killing everyone, of killing this woman who has just shown me overwhelming kindness despite never having met me before. I start crying even harder, trying to make the thoughts go away, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I look up at Yvonne, a look of complete calm settled over her face - I wonder if she works in healthcare? - as she holds a small labelless juicebox.

"Cow blood." She says simply. "Helps with the urges."

I snatch the box out of her hand, poke the seal open with a fingernail, and chug the metallic liquid inside. It feels wrong, but my mind is so clouded with the need to drink that this seems like the greatest thing I've ever consumed. I feel a little dirty after doing it, but the thoughts are quieter.

“Can we leave?” I ask hesitantly. “I want to learn how to deal with this. And I don’t want to be here anymore.”

She nods, and stands up. “We need to get to Belvedere Castle. Do you have a way of getting home from there?”

I shake my head. “My brother lives in Mott Haven… and someone stole my wallet, so my only way of getting there is walking. All I have is my Motorola Droid.”

She nods sympathetically. “Do you want to go to your brother’s house first?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do two subway rides in a row. Plus, I need to figure out… how to tell him.”

She nods again. “You got a name I can call you, baby?”

“Uh, V-Victor.” I respond shakily, everything that’s happened in the past half an hour has me reeling and stressed and convinced that I must’ve just been pushed into oncoming traffic and this is a comatose nightmare, that a monster lady didn’t just have to explain to me that I’m a fucking vampire now. Monsters aren't supposed to be real, they’re not supposed to be able to walk through Manhattan totally unnoticed.

I’m not supposed to be one.

"Well, Victor, you good to walk the mile down to the park?"

I nod. “I… I have a binder on though… I can’t walk very fast.”

She looks confused for a moment, then realization flashes across her face. “That's good to know. We can get you connected to other trans guys at headquarters.”

“Th-there are other guys like me?” I’ve never heard of a trans vampire before.

“Nothing says monsters can’t be queer.” She reasons. “My girlfriend is a lycanthrope.”

I nod, a sense of lingering awe hanging in my mind. There are other people like me. This isn’t as much of a death sentence as I thought it was. It’s just another half an hour of walking to get to Belvedere Castle.

The rain is coming down even harder now, the clouds dark with the threat of thunder. I smile a little at that - I've always loved the sound of thunder. Vampirism isn't gonna fuck that over for me. Nothing can fuck up the pure joy the sound of thunder or sight of lightning gives me.

We head out, and I realize now just how hard it still is to breathe. My throat is burning, my binder is crushingly tight, and on top of that my legs feel like jelly. I do my best to keep pace with Yvonne, which is difficult to do without letting her know anything is wrong.

We get to Park Avenue before I have to pause and catch my breath. I tap Yvonne's arm as I wheeze slightly, leaning on a nearby building as I take as deep of breaths as I can.

"You good, baby?" She asks gently, and I nod in between breaths.

"Fine, just… drained." I mutter, not telling her about how tight my binder is. If she knows she'll make me take it off and that'll be worse than any broken ribs I might get.

"Take your time." She reassures me, leaning against the building and crossing her arms.

I mutter an unintelligible thanks, and take a minute or so to let my heart rate slow down and my lungs return to functioning normally.

"Alright," I sigh as my breathing returns to normal, "I'm good. Let's keep going."

She nods a little hesitantly, but makes no comment. I let out a tiny sigh of relief as we continue towards the park.

Lightning fills the sky by the time we reach Belvedere Castle. I smile wide as the flashes dance through the clouds, high above the highrise buildings of Manhattan. The water in Turtle Pond is constantly shifting under the barrage of the rain, warping the reflections of the trees and the castle above. Yvonne walks around the outside of the building, periodically knocking on stones as she goes, then walking into the castle and disappears as she rounds a corner inside. I trail close behind her, glad to get fully out of the rain. As I turn the corner where Yvonne disappeared, I find myself inside of a real, proper castle, walls lined with sconces fitted with lightbulbs and a giant chandelier hangs from the high ceiling. I run up to follow right at Yvonne’s feet, as the dozen or so people milling about turn to look at us. I can feel the creeping eyes of all of the people around the hall watching me, and I grab onto Yvonne’s shirt like a little kid following his mom. I have never felt less my age than I do at this moment.

“You don’t have to be so nervous, Victor.” She mutters, “Most of them won’t bite you.”

I snort at that, but her comment does little to stop the anxiety welling in my chest. Fuck, today is utter bullshit. It’s not even noon.

Yvonne leads us down a series of hallways, and everywhere we turn there are more people turning to look at me as we pass. I bear my teeth at a few of them out of fear, before remembering that probably has very different implications now that I have horrible vampire fangs. I keep my head down after that. I can still feel all of the eyes on me, but I do my best to ignore it.

“Arthur!” Yvonne yells as she guides us into an office-type room. “We’ve got a new infected!”

A man walks out from a sideroom and glares over at her. “This fucking early?” He hisses, then he sees me poking around from behind Yvonne. His expression shifts from annoyed to sad, and lets out a deep sigh.

“Where?” He grumbles, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“86th and 1st.” She mutters. “He showed a surprising level of self-control right after he woke up. But… I still didn’t get there in time to stop it. The FUCKING train was late and now this kid’s dead.”

“It’s not as much of a death sentence as you think, Yvonne.” Arthur sighs, then looks at me. “What’s your name, son?”

“V-Victor, sir.” I respond quietly. This man is tall, maybe 6’2”, with sharp facial features.  His cheekbones are high, and his nose is a little crooked, and his skin is deathly pale. He’s wearing a black leather jacket and a Queen shirt, and he looks like hasn’t slept in a while.

“Well, Victor, I’ve been living like this for 50 years, and I’m perfectly fine… as long as I remember to eat…” he looks at me a little closer, squinting his eyes. “How old are you, kid?”

“Um… I’m twenty…” I squeak, getting a little bit of sensory overload at this point. I pop my knuckles to try and ground myself a little. My binder suddenly feels a lot tighter again.

“Jesus fuckin christ…” he groans, resting his face in his hand. “those bastards love to turn em young, huh?”

I nod a little, then things start to go out of focus. The room is spinning, my vision blacks out, and before I know it I’m on the ground. Fuck this spandex deathtrap.

[prosshi]

I don’t know anything about you, idk why you thought I implied that you consumed that content at all, I was just replying to your comment on my ask. I didn’t assume that you’re against tags, I was just speaking generally that some people are gonna be uncomfortable with lolishota content no matter what. I’m not gonna bother reading the rest of your response because I thought the distinction between sexualities and pedophilia were apparent enough to draw the comparison between porn consumption because you can be any sexuality and be a pedophile because they’re not the same thing.

Hm... Yeah, I don’t know where I got that implication /s

Like... Do you not read you own posts or are you trying to be purposefully manipulative? I can’t tell anymore.

This ended up super long so I’m putting it under a read more:

You were the one who brought up that comparison, and you’re mad that I pointed out that it doesn’t even work. That sentence after the highlighted section is what academics like to call the “no offense” argument. Because you’re doing the equivalent of saying “wow, you’re ugly... No offense though :)” Basically it’s bullshit.

“I thought the distinction between sexualities and pedophilia were apparent enough to draw the comparison between porn consumption because you can be any sexuality and be a pedophile because they’re not the same thing”

Uuuugh... Okay, I’m really starting to question if you’re being purposefully manipulative or if you literally just don’t know what words mean... Comparing two things is still comparing two things, even if they are extremely different. For example, if a TERF says “TRAs are basically just fascists for forcing people to go along with their delusions!” they are still comparing trans people to fascists. Even though we all know that there is a huge difference between a trans person just wanting equal rights and a fascist. That’s still a comparison. Also! What I just did was a comparison! To my knowledge you are in no way a TERF and are nothing like a TERF, however I just used a TERF as an example, thus drawing a comparison. And if that comparison bothers you at all, then congrats! Maybe you can somewhat understand why I, a queer CSA survivor, got fucking pissed at your comparison.

You’re basically just amazingly hypocritical. You made a comparison, got mad at me for pointing out that your comparison didn’t work, tried to act offended by your own comparison, got mad that I pointed out your hypocrisy, and now have admitted you didn’t even read my response. And here I was pulling quotes from research papers in case you actually tried to make an argument... Once again I have wasted my time because the bar is just so low...

“I didn’t assume that you’re against tags” okay, I think I understand the problem here. You don’t understand that words change meaning depending on the context.

In this paragraph you use the word “you” both directly and generally. “You don’t have to lecture me” and “You can’t really explain” are both written as if they’re directed at me personally, since you’re directing this ask at me. Because those are in the same paragraph as “Alternatively you can tag your stuff” it makes it seem like a direct accusation that that is something I don’t do.

In the future I would suggest choosing different words that communicate that you’re switching to speaking generally. I would recommend “Alternatively people can tag their stuff” instead.

What was that about not reading the response? Did you actually not read it or could you not think of a good response and wanted to pretend you didn’t see it?

But ah yes, you’re right. I read that as saying that you understand why survivors would have rape fantasies.

I guess I’m just hopelessly naive and thought that you were showing compassion towards people who use dark fiction as a way of processing trauma./s 

Yeah, dark fiction can be triggering. That’s why people encourage tag usage? Like I said before, the problem is that people purposefully go into those tags and harass people for even making that problem. The problem is that people send death threats instead of just asking someone to tag something or black listing the tag.

I don’t even have anything more to say to that. I’m just... SO fucking tired... I have PTSD and I’m so tired of people using triggers as an excuse for harassment. Anything can be a trigger. There is a children’s cartoon that’s a trigger for me because one of my groomers used to send me porn of that cartoon. That doesn’t mean I get to blame the creators of that show, or the artists who made that stuff, or send death threats to anyone who rbs posts with that show. All I can do is blacklist that show and ask people to tag it.

At this point I just hope you don’t understand what you’re talking about at all. Because if you do that would mean you think that finding something disturbing/gross is enough of a reason to suicide bait teenagers. Like, that’s the context here. People aren’t just seeing loli/shota and thinking “Ew gross I’m gonna blacklist that” they’re seeing it and organizing harassment campaigns that ruins people’s lives. People aren’t seeing untagged rape fics and send the author an angry message asking them to tag it, they are going into the dubcon/noncon tags and then harassing the author until they attempt suicide and then celebrating that suicide attempt. Even if the author is a minor.

So yeah, either you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re an absolutely horrible person who’s using “thinking it’s gross” as a euphemism for “suicide baiting”

[ileolai]

rant about growing up queer and so-called ‘’queer baiting’’ and why the Discourse re: Good Omens is getting under my goddamn skin below the cut.

Ok. So listen. 

I grew up during, and my entire existence as a queer person is inextricably shaped by, the atmosphere of the early 1990s. and the peak of the HIV plague, homophobia, and the media and conversation sorrounding it. I was very aware of it, all the time, because of particular circumstances in my life. 

And when i was a kid, we still had those grim reaper AIDS awareness PSAs on the television. That was my very first introduction to the imagery people associated with queerness, right? 

The grim reaper. 

The message being: your queerness is a death sentence. For you. For the people you implicate by existing around them with your affliction.

and in the 1990s, the media in the forefront of the public consciousness re: queer people, were things like Philadelphia and Boys Don't Cry. That is, gaunt men dying slow horrible deaths. or young queer people violently erased for the crime of existing as themselves. Those were the depictions of queer people that won Oscars and praise. That was the entire conversation about us.

And they weren't actually for us, it was never for us. it was all torture porn for straight people.

The stuff that was for us, that depicted the joy and value of queer identity and queer love in and of itself, got rated R18+ and shoved into the ''niche interest'' section of the video store, you see. Like, cute glittery romcoms about lesbians and gays existed, and would otherwise be entirely mainstream, but they got the same rating as Boys Don't Cry, which revolves around and culminates in the violent destruction of a trans man. Only the latter was Legitimate Drama worthy of an Oscar speech and national mainstream conversation, because it made straight people sniffle in the theater.

So. I was very aware, from a young age, of being both queer, and that my queer existence was seen as a threat. and people either wanted me to not exist, or would exploit the erasure of my existence while patting themselves on the back for their ‘’earnest and sympathetic'' portrayal of it. Ultimately, my primary value as a queer person was not existing at all, either way. 

No one wanted to see how we lived, or god forbid, found joy in being alive despite all of this, right?

there were some blips of relief like Priscilla and Queer as Folk and But I'm a Cheerleader and Hedwig, that i dug out of the ''niche'' section when i was old enough to be sneaky. and  i watched them alone, in secret, and never dared mentioning the joy of experiencing them to anyone else out of fear. because the reprisal was real and the kind of conversation you can have on social media these days did not exist.

And now. NOW. 20 long lean years after coming out. my god. Good Omens comes along, has a platform on a mainstream and accessible streaming service, and they're talking about it on the goddamn breakfast telly! and there is this constant stream of adoration for it on social media! The half a dozen homophobes pissed off about it are a JOKE!

And it's all about two queer people-- not just token gays in the background as ‘’representation’’ mind you, but THEM specifically and THEIR STORY-- celebrating the value of themselves and being alive and loving each other and how that, in itself, saves the world.

it saves the world.

it saves the world.

Listen. I want people to understand how completely fucking incomprehensible this is to someone who grew up with those grim reaper PSAs, and the whole existential nightmare plague and oppressive atmosphere of the early 1990s. and who had to find their identity, during adolescence, filed in ''the weird shit'' section. where it was given the same MPAA rating as rape and murder, but none of the ~artistic or ~cultural legitimacy.

Like.

I just want the ''queer baiting blergh'' and ''bad representation blergh'' contingent of things to. like. just try and understand for a sec. why some of us are foaming-at-the-mouth ecstatic for something like Good Omens and everything that it is. Because it’s not ‘’internalized homophobia’’ or ‘’apologism’’. it’s this.

There is nothing being denied or withheld to toy with queer people here. it’s explicitly a romance, with all the beats of a romance. and the romance is the entire story. from start to finish. It is very deliberately crafted as two queer people who survive literally everything you can throw at two queer people, from the beginning of time, and they choose each other, and it is

SPECIFICALLY their level of intimacy

that saves

THE WORLD!!!

so for me, what i am seeing, is this: a love letter. to people who grew up being told they were harbingers of death. that we only had value in not actually existing. that our struggle to be alive and find joy in existing and each other was some weird nonsense for the ''niche interest'' section in the video store. 

you understand?

so like. I don't need to be sneered at until I understand why it is actually Bad and I am a Bad Bad Homophobia Apologist for liking it, because they don’t touch hands or something. as if that is somehow the be all and end all of queer existence. as if queer intimacy begins and ends there. 

I can see exactly what I'm looking at.

And it is the life affirming, joyous, two-middle-fingers-waving response to the people who tried to tell me, for three full decades of my life, I was the plague, I was the grim fucking reaper, and any virtue i found in existing-- the strength I had in continuing to exist, to love my own-- was irrelevant to anything said about me.

[spamzineglasgow]

(REVIEW) Tongues by Taylor Le Melle, Rehana Zaman and Those Institutions Should Belong to Us, by Christopher Kirubi

In this review, Rhian Williams takes a look at Tongues, a dazzling zine edited by Taylor Le Melle and Rehana Zaman (PSS, 2018), with* Christopher Kirubi’s pamphlet ‘Those Institutions Should Belong to Us’ (PSS). 

*I [Rhian] use ‘with’ here in homage to Fred Moten’s use of that preposition in all that beauty (2019) to ‘denote accompaniment[]’. This pamphlet was interleaved in the review copy of Tongues that I received from PSS.

> Onions, lemons, chilli peppers, fractals, hands, patterns, palms pressing, tears, avocados, pomegranate, mouths, finger clicking, deserts. Screenshots, flyers, placards, transcripts, textures, temporalities. Tongues is an urgent gathering in, a zine-type publication that works as a space where Black and Brown women (bringing both their intersections and the tension of distinction) enact memorial, exchange, jouissance, resistance, collaboration, support, listening. Edited by Taylor Le Melle and filmmaker Rehana Zaman, whose work generates many of the dialogic responses interleaved in this collection, this ‘assembly of voices’ was brought together in this particular format in the wake of Zaman’s exhibition, Speaking Nearby, shown at the CCA in Glasgow in 2018. But, as Ainslie Roddick explains, in ‘an attempt to reckon with the trans-collaborative nature of “practice” itself’, Tongues resists academic mechanisms that fall into reiterating the violence of individualism, moving around the figure of the single author/editor to seek to capture ‘a process of thinking with and through the people we work and resist with, acknowledging and sharing the work of different people as practice’ (p. 3). As such, ‘[Tongues’] structure, design and rhythm reflect the work of all the contributors to this anthology who think with one another through various practical, poetic and pedagogical means’ (ibid.). Designed and published by PSS, this is a tactile, sensory production: its aesthetics are post-internet, collage, digi-analogue, liquid-yet-textural, with shiny paper pages that you have to gently peel apart, gleaming around a central pamphlet of matte, heavier paper in mucous-membrane pink and mauve, which itself protects the centrefold glossy mouth-open lick of ‘I kiss your ass’ between the leaves of Ziba Karbassi’s poem, ‘Writing Cells’, here in both Farsi and English (translated with Stephen Watts). Throughout, Tongues reiterates the sensuous, labouring body as political, as partisan.

> Tongues’ multivalency is capacious, nurturing, dedicated to archiving that which is fugitive yet ineluctable; so, inevitably, its overarching principle is labour, is work. The entire collection of essays, response pieces, email exchanges, WhatsApp messages, poetry, transcripts, journaling, and imaginings are testimony to effort and skill, to the determination to keep spaces open for remembrance and for noticing within the ever-creeping demands of production. It is not surprising that this valuable collection is stalked by perilous attenuation, the damage of exhaustion. It is appallingly prescient of the first week of June 2020. Moving my laptop so that I can write whilst also keeping an eye on what I’m cooking for later, setting up my child to listen to an audiobook so that I can try to open up some headspace for listening and responding, nervous about how to spread my ‘being with’ across multiple platforms (my child, my writing, the news, other voices), I am taken by Chandra Frank’s meditative response piece to Zaman’s Tell me the story Of all these things (2017) and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee (1982), which vibrates with ‘the potency and liberatory potential of the kitchen’ (p. 9) and movingly seeks to track and honour ‘what it means to both feel and read through a non-linear understanding of subjectivities’ (p. 10). But I only have to turn the page to realise my white safety. I am at home in my kitchen; my space may feel like it has turned into a laboratory for the reproduction of everyday life under lockdown, but it is manifest, it is seen in signed contracts, my subjectivity is grounded on recognition and citizenship. For Sarah Reed, searingly remembered by Gail Lewis in ‘More Than… Questions of Presence’, subjectivity was experienced as brutalisation, manifested posthumously in hashtags, #sayhername. (Reed was found dead in her cell at Holloway Prison in London in February 2016. In 2012 she had been violently assaulted by Metropolitan Police officer James Kiddie; the assault was captured by CCTV footage.) For the women immigrants engaged in domestic work in British homes, as documented here in Marissa Begonia’s vital journaling piece and Zaman’s discussion with Laura Guy, subjectivity is precarity and threat, their dogged labour forced into shadows. Lewis’s piece pivots around a ‘capacity of concern’ generated by ‘the political, ethical, relationship challenge posed by the presence of “the black woman”’ (p. 18), urging that such concern be of the order of care by walking a line with psychoanalysts D. A. Winnicott and Wilfred Bion in recognising that ‘in naming something we begin a journey in the unknown’ (p. 19). If that ‘unknown’ includes understanding how the British state is inimical to the self-determination and safety of Black and Brown women born within its ‘Commonwealth’ borders (#CherryGroce; #JoyGardner; #CynthiaJarrett; #BellyMujinga), and further, how its ‘hostile environment’ policies – named and pursued as such by the British Home Office under Theresa May – are designed specifically to threaten those born elsewhere, by reiterating Britain’s historical enthusiasm for enslavement of non-white labour (see the 2012 visa legislation, discussed here, that, for domestic workers, effectively put a lock on the 2016 ‘Modern Slavery Act’ review before it had even begun), then consider Tongues a demand to get informed. This is a zine about workers and working. It is imperative that we come to terms with what working life in Britain looks like (see the Public Health England report into disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19 – released June 2 2020, censored to remove sections that highlighted the effect of structural racism, but nevertheless evidencing the staggering inequality in death and suffering that is linked to occupation and to citizen status, and therefore tracks race and poverty lines). It is imperative that we scrutinise how ‘popular [and, I would add, Westminster] culture perpetuates a notion of working class identity as a fantasy’ (p. 52) that literally spirits away the bodies undertaking keywork in the UK. The title of Frank’s piece here, ‘Fragmented Realities’, is exquisitely apt.

> Bookended by Roddick’s and Zaman’s radical re-orientating of the apparatus of academia – the introduction that resists assimilating each of the forthcoming pieces under one stable rubric, instead simply listing anonymously a sentence from each contributor in a process of meditative opening up, and ‘A note, before the notes. The end notes’ that counter-academically reveals weaknesses and vulnerabilities, is open to qualification and reframing, is responsive ­– Tongues constitutes a politics and aesthetics of ‘shift’. Collated after a staged exhibition, anticipating new bodies of work to come, and ultimately punctuated by a pamphlet that segues from reporting on an inspiring event that took place at the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmith’s University of London to imagining a second one in paper (the ‘original’ having been thwarted by bad weather), the entire collection has a productively stuttering relationship with temporality and with presence. As Shama Khanna writes about working groups and reading groups, workshops and pleasure-seeking in gallery spaces, this is the moving ground of the undercommons. It is testament to its intellectual lodestars – Sara Ahmed, Fred Moten, Stefano Harney, and, especially, the eroto-power of Audre Lorde. Along with Christopher Kirubi’s pamphlet, ‘Those Institutions Should Belong to Us’, which comprises a series of seven short ‘prose poems’ documenting the anguish of writing a dissertation from a marginalised perspective, the entire project of Tongues with Those Institutions is to upend academic practice, to recognise the ideological thrust of academic method, to stage fugitive enquiry. Kirubi’s plain sans-serif black font on white pages rehearses the anxious dialectics of interpellation and liberation (‘there is a need to see ourselves reflected in position of agency power and self determination in a world which does not really wish to see us thrive at all’ (part 3)) afforded by their academic obligations, but inarticulacy is a higher form of eloquence:

Even though I know at some point I am going to have to yield to these demands I feel I have to say now that I want to take in this dissertation a position of defending the inarticulate, defending the subjective and defending the incoherent, without having to arrive at a point of defence through theoretically determined foundations, but to feel them.

> Since its structuring principles are those of women’s work, and of Black and Brown experience, nurturing and shielding within the exhaustingly cyclical nature of toiling for recognition, respect, and protection, Tongues dances in the poetics of circles, of loops and feedback, of reciprocity and exchange. Recognising, however, that circularity is also the shape of repetitive strain, Zaman leaves us with a spiralling gesture, in homage to the Haitian spiral, ‘born out of the work of the Spiralist poets’ (p. 61). This ‘dynamic and non-linear’ form insists on the mutuality of the past and contemporary circumstances, is ‘a movement of multiplied or fractured beings, back and forth in time and space demanding accumulation, tumult, and repetition, adamant irresolution and open endedness…’. We are in that spiral now. Such demands must be heard, power must be relinquished, established forms of control – enacted in the streets and on our pages – must be terminated. Writing in early June 2020, this feels precarious; no one is exempt from giving of their strength.

Please pursue further information here. If you are able, these organisations thrive (given the paucity of state support) on donation:

Voice of Domestic Workers: https://www.thevoiceofdomesticworkers.com/

Cherry Groce foundation: https://www.cherrygroce.org/

BBZBLACKBOOK (a digital archive of emerging & established black queer artists): https://bbzblkbk.com/

Reclaim Holloway: http://reclaimholloway.mystrikingly.com/

~

Text: Rhian Williams

Published: 16/6/20

[cs-discourse]

hi mewlin! (and everyone else)

ya girl flower over here, ready to take apart and commentate on your submitted post. I would send a personal message but I realized there are things I want to tell this whole community as well. anyway im gonna get started.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not transphobic and I don't support transphobia. I'm going to put it out there before someone comes in and claims those things.

"I have slightly changed my views since the original post about me was made. Was it because of you guys? Absolutely not, don’t even try and think that you’re that special, because you’re not. [...] You don’t deserve anything for the shit you’re doing here."

Do I agree that educating calmly is better than being hostile? Yes. Do I think harassing and wishing death upon anyone is valid? No. This is the perfect example of why telling someone off shouldn't be paired with harass/death-wishing sentiments. Imagine yourself being attacked in a situation and being told to "die along with your beliefs", would you want to listen to the other party? No, right? I mean, why the fuck would you listen to someone who told you you were a stupid dumbass shit who deserved to die, right? Mewlin literally didn't listen to us because she thought we were hostile (although Mewlin, did you really read all the comments on Bailey's post? I know some were less aggressive than others but I doubt you read any/all of them and made the quick assumption that everyone on the salt blog is a piece of shit or smth).

"I’ve seen on MULTIPLE occasions people say I’ve said trans people don’t deserve rights, and they deserve to die. I would apologize in an INSTANT if you guys found actual, legitimate proof of me saying that."

post/182851960423 was the closest I could find to screenshots of your transphobia. while yes, based on the screenshots you didn't say trans people don't deserve rights or deserve to die, these were still proof of transphobia. (I do also remember there was a scenario where someone said you would want to tell a couple that trans people didn't deserve right or smth? I can't find any post on it though so don't take my word for it, I'd love if anyone had screenshots in the event I wasn't dreaming)

also in a later paragraph you say "Have I ever personally, now take note of that word, PERSONALLY, attacked a transgender person?" Does that assume that you have actually attacked a transgender before, albeit not personally? maybe online or smth? hmmmm.

((soz i don't have anything on your second point about mentioning gays, so I can't say anything about it))

"You can say what you want, oh, you’re normalizing transphobia, oh, your opinions hurt people so you can’t have them, oh, this and that. Shut. The fuck. Up. If you seriously think a different opinion about you sensitive, sensitive ass trans people deserves getting death wishes and threats, then ALL of you need serious help. Serious. Help. You disgust me. I am. One. Single. Person. Who doesn’t understand transgenderism and is confused and slightly disturbed by it."

First of all, Mewlin I,,, calling people sensitive over transphobia isn't helping you win anyone's side or proving your point sweetie hnngh. Good for you to admit being confused, but uhhHH trans people are obviously upset by transphobia. Also I'm confused, first you call out people who tell you you're normalizing transphobia, then you immediately move over to those who wish death upon you? Who exactly are you calling sensitive? Who exactly are you telling to "Shut. The fuck. Up."? The construction of your sentences make it seem like you want to blame everyone calling you out on your transphobia. Like,, you know, the people are right with you and your friends normalizing transphobia, if that whole point flew above your head. You say you're thankful for people educating you yet also tell them to stfu when they merely say you're normalizing transphobia and hurting people so um. are you really listening or just thankful there are people who aren't as angry as others are?

"Fourth, for those people who said I can’t wave the bi pride flag because ‘OhHhH sHe DoEsN’t DeSeRvE tO’- shut the fuck up. Alright? Alright. You do NOT speak for the whole fucking community, the flags don’t fucking belong to you, you entitled pieces of shit. [...] I am bisexual. I’m apart of the fucking LGBT+ community, so I get to wave the fucking bisexual flag all the fuck I want."

You can't be a part of the LGBT+ community if you don't support trans people. The 'T' is literally right there.

"Fifth, lol my life doesn’t revolve around this place of pure hatred."

What was the point of this whole paragraph? XD

"Sixth, you guys are disgusting for more than just demonizing me over a fucking opinion. You’re disgusting for also targeting my friends, who have done NOTHING WRONG, and giving them a bad name. What the fuck is wrong with all of you?? What makes you think it’s okay to do this to other people, but oh, nobody can touch you??"

Yall are honestly confusing the shit outta me. Bailey thought cancelling out transphobia with "a sweet personality" was alright when they're two separate things. What they said was completely wrong, so uh your friends have obviously done SOMETHING WRONG. I'm also not going to delve further with Bailey normalizing transphobia (see post/185601790264/: "Obviously I don’t agree with her beliefs, I think transphobia is nasty. BUT that doesn’t make her a bad person.") because you just mentioned that people calling you out on normalizing transphobia should "Shut. The fuck. Up".

"I’ve seen your comments about 'we’d stop if she stopped saying shit like this’. I would love it if you could give me an example of something I’ve said since the original post came out."

which original post? also there was the thing about you and terfs just the other day, right?

and lastly:

"NOT A SINGLE ONE OF YOU are doing anything good for your community. You should all be ashamed of the way you’ve handled this."

I'm not ashamed, but rather feel defeated for everyone who at least tried to make a point to you, Mewlin, without being hostile, me included. It feels shitty to constantly live like my time and effort trying to educate people is put to nothing but shit. Your hasty generalization that NOT A SINGLE ONE OF US is doing good for the community makes me feel so fucking terrible, and I hope you're happy with that. I understand where you're coming from but god, if this isn't the nail in the coffin for me then I really don't know what is. I personally live in the most conservative country in the entire damn world (yes, we are the only country without divorce) and I feel like I'm absolutely going no where spewing shit people won't want to even hear because all their brains can process is that they're being under attack and nothing matters but their own echo chamber. Sometimes it's tiring and though I don't advocate for it, somehow I understand how others have resorted to more "frustrated" approaches.

We're all tired of not being listened to.

On a last note: I was debating on posting this since I was scared but it's whatever at this point. Feel free to educate me on stuff if I got things wrong. I'm open for a talk.

- from a tired yet trying advocate of so many things, f1owercrown.

[antifaintl]

2017: A (Partial) Timeline Of Bigoted Violence

In 2018, we began trying to monitor news reports concerning significantly-violent hate crimes.  Here is a chronological list of the 100+ violent hate crimes we documented in 2017 (the dates link to the news source of each incident): January 2017: Over 40 Jewish centers in the U.S. receive bomb threats. January 1, 2017: 19-year-old Nathan Richardson encounters 67-year-old jogger Wenqing Xu and beats him to death in an unprovoked, random attack.  After committing the murder, Richardson texted his friends that he “fucked sum chink up. Bodied him. I think pure crime scene – his head’s gone,”

January 5, 2017: Neo-nazis bomb a refugee centre in Gothenburg, Sweden, seriously injuring an immigration officer working there.   January 20, 2017: A right-wing extremist shoots a protestor at a Milo Yiannopoulos event at the University of Washington.

January 25, 2017: An arsonist destroys the only mosque in Victoria, Texas. January 25, 2017: Neo-nazis in Gothenburg, Sweden plant a bomb at a refugee centre.  It fails to detonate.

January 28, 2017: a First Nations woman walking with her sister is struck by a trailer hitch hurled from a passing vehicle.  After struggling in hospital for several months, she succumbs to her injuries.   January 29, 2017: Alexandre Bissonnette walks into a mosque in Canada during evening prayers and opens fire, shooting 17 people and killing six of them.

January/February 2017: four men used Grindr to target gay men for assaults and robberies.  Pretending to also be gay, they would arrange to come to their victims’ homes, where they would hold their victims at gunpoint while they beat them, bound them, verbally abused them with with homophobic slurs, and stole property and vehicles. February 2, 2017:  27-year-old active white supremacist William Christopher Gibbs arrives in a Georgia hospital claiming to have accidentally poisoned himself with ricin.  The extremely deadly illegal compound, most popular with terrorist groups, has been used in attempts to assassinate U.S. elected officials in the past.  Gibbs’ hands and his vehicle tested positive for the presence of ricin. Gibbs was later charged with possession of ricin.   February 16, 2017: Inspired by Dylann Roof’s mass shooting of black church-goers, 28-year-old neo-nazi and convicted felon Benjamin McDowell goes online seeking someone to furnish him with firearms so he can commit his own mass murder.  Authorities, who had been monitoring McDowell after he threatened a synagogue, arrest McDowell after he buys a pistol from an undercover FBI agent. In 2018 McDowell pled guilty and received a ten-year prison sentence.

February 19, 2017: less than a month after a white supremacist shot seventeen people in a mosque, killing six of them, 35-year-old Florida resident Gerald Sloane Wallace calls several mosques, leaving threats to come and shoot their members.

February 21, 2017: a 24-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Chicago, IL.

February 22, 2017:  Adam Purinton tells two men from India to “get out of my country” then shoots both plus a bystander, killing one.

February 26, 2017: a transgender woman is shot and killed in New Orleans, LA. February 28, 2017: a mosque in Toronto is set on fire by arsonists.

March 1, 2017: a transgender woman is stabbed to death in New Orleans, LA.

March 3, 2017: A Sikh man is shot and injured in front of his Seattle house by a white man wearing a mask, who yells at him to “go back to your country!”

March 7, 2017: After repeatedly harrassing his Hmong neighbours, 81-year-old Wisconsin man Henry Kaminiski steps out of his home and fires a pistol at neighbor Mai Houa Moua as she worked in her garden.  Kaminski then fired twice more at Moua from inside his home, then fired at a deputy responding to the resulting 911 call.  During his arrest, Kaminiski made several racist remarks concerning the Hmong and his belief they were “taking over.”  Police also found child pornography on Kaminski’s computer.

March 12, 2017: a mosque in Ypsilanti, MI. is set on fire by arsonists. March 20, 2017: James Jackson arrives in Manhattan with a sword and stabs the first black man he sees to death.  He later tells authorities he “intended to kill as many black men as he could.”

March 22, 2017: a 38-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Baltimore, MD.

March 23, 2017: Two Liverpool sisters chase a Muslim man down the street, calling him a “fucking Paki” and demanding that he go back to his country, before knocking him to the ground, kicking him in the head, and biting him in the leg so hard that he was left with permanent scarring.   March 24, 2017: Yelling “I hate Muslims!” a man in Minneapolis stabbed a Somali man in an attempt to kill him.   March 26, 2017: A racist mob attacks a 15-year-old Polish boy in Gloucestershire and, when a local Asian shopkeeper tries to intervene, attack him as well with crowbars and baseball bats, then attempt to run him over with a car.

March 26, 2017: Seven or more members of the Jewish Defence League assault a 54-year-old Palestinian-American college professor.  The authorities lay hate crime charges against the assailants. March 31, 2017: A 17-year-old Iranian/Kurdish boy is nearly beaten to death by a mob of eight people in Croydon after he revealed to them that he was a refugee.

April, 1, 2017: Members of an extremist Hindu nationalist group physically assault people in Alwar, India who had purchased cows.  One of the victims - a 55-year-old Muslim farmer - died of his injuries two days later.

April 4, 2017: a 27-year-old man breaks into the home of 65-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman Sarah Halimi, beating her to death while calling her “Satan,” and then throwing her body out of a third-floor window.   April 6, 2017: A Charlotte store is set on fire by an arsonist who leaves a warning message for the shop owner that he “did not want any refugee business owners and that they would torture the owner if they did not leave and go back to where they came from,” according to police.  It was signed “White America.”

April 7, 2017: 24-year-old Scottish resident Connor Ward is arrested on terrorism charges after police accuse him of preparing a bombing campaign against mosques and Muslim centres in Scotland.  Police are forced to evacuate his neighbourhood when a search of his home uncovers explosives, bomb-making materials, a cache of illegal weapons, as well as neo-nazi flags and other materials.  A year later, Ward is convicted on all charges and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for six years. April 11, 2017: A 55-year-old Palestinian-American college instructor is hospitalized after being brutally assaulted while attending a Washington, D.C. protest against Israeli apartheid by a group of five Jewish Defence League members.  32-year-old Canadian Jewish Defence League member  Yosef Steynovitz and 23-year-old Canadian “Proud Boy” Brandon David William Vaughan are charged with assault with significant bodily injury while armed, among other charges.  

April 21, 2017: a 28-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Miami, FL.

April 30, 2017: A  white man storms a pool party in San Diego and shoots four black women, two black men, and one Latino man while allowing white attendees to leave.  One victim dies while the other six sustain critical injuries.

May 5, 2017: A man walking his dog on South Beach in Miami is confronted by two men who call him a “fucking faggot,” then attack him, beating him unconscious.  At one point in the attack, one of the attackers shouts  “all faggots need to die and we’re going to make sure they do!” May 14, 2017: Vandals spray-paint hate graffiti on the home of a black family in upstate New York before attempting to set the house on fire while the family slept.  Although the family escaped unscathed, their garage burnt to the ground and their house suffered some damage. May 14, 2017: 24-year-old lesbian Lerato Moloi is found raped, beaten, and stoned to death, her body dumped in a field and burned beyond recognition.  Two men are arrested. May 17, 2017: A homophobic mob break into the home of a gay couple and shoot and stab both men to death.   May 17, 2017: a 34-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Fresno, CA. May 20, 2017: University of Maryland student and member of the “alt-Reich” facebook group Sean Urbanski walks up to 22-year-old Richard Collins III, who is black and who Urbanski does not know, and stabs him to death in an unprovoked attack.  Urbanski is later charged with a hate crime.

May 20, 2017: A man begins screaming homophobic slurs at a lesbian couple riding the subway before attacking them both, beating one woman unconscious.

May 24, 2017: A barrage of doxxing, rape threats, and death threats received by trans comic book artist Sophie Labelle forces her to cancel an appearance and event at a Halifax book store, which also received bomb threats and threats of attacking the event.  Labelle is forced into hiding.

May 25, 2017: A black woman riding the train home is subjected to extreme verbal harassment by Jeremy Christian, who admits to being a neo-nazi and tell her he will kill her.  As she leaves the train, Christian hits her with a bottle, cutting her eye open.  When police arrive, they refuse to arrest Christian.  The next day Christian would stab three people, killing two of them. May 26, 2017: Three men intervene on a MAX train in Portland when they witness another man verbally abusing two Muslim women with an Islamophobic tirade.  The Islamophobe responds by pulling out a knife and stabs the three interveners, killing two of them.  

May 26, 2017: Two Muslim butchers are beaten by members of an extremist HIndu nationalist group in Malegaon, India after being accused of trading in beef.

May 27, 2017: A white man drives his pickup truck through a campsite, targeting the Native Americans camping there while yelling racial slurs at them.  He intentionally drives over two Native American men, killing one and injuring the other.

May 27, 2017: A 34-year-old Anthony Hammond lets loose with a flurry of racial slurs directed at a black man in a parking lot, then pulls out a machete and stabs the man before barricading himself in his apartment for several hours, until finally surrendering to police.

May 28, 2017: Two teenagers attack a Jewish couple and their five daughters at a beach.  

June 3, 2017: 38-year-old white supremacist Phillip Wade racially abuses a 57-year-old black man on an Oakley, CA. bus, then pulls a knife and stabs the man to death while the man is walking away from the confrontation.  The victim is the third racialized person Wade has stabbed in the past six years and the second person he’s murdered.  

June 6, 2017: A 15-year-old black boy cutting through a park on his way to see his girlfriend is hit from behind and beaten unconscious by a group of men yelling “Nigger!” and “Go back to Africa!” at him as they punched and kicked him.

June 7, 2017: a 23-year-old white man in a Chicago Starbucks spits at a black man, telling him his children are “disposable vermin” and calling a second black man a slave, then punches a black passerby, knocking him unconscious.  He’s charged with a hate crime three months later.

June 10, 2017: A mob screaming transphobic insults attacks three trangender women, stabbing one and sending two to the hospital.

June 18, 2017: two men armed with baseball bats attack a group of Muslim teenagers, kidnapping a 17-year-old girl, who they beat to death, dumping her body in a pond.

June 1, 2017: A Princeton professor and racialized woman is forced to cancel a three-city lecture tour to promote her book about the Black Lives Matter movement after receiving over 50 death threats. June 19, 2017: Shouting “I’m going to kill all Muslims!” 47-year-old Darren Osborne drives a courier van through a crowd of Muslims leaving a Finsbury mosque, killing one person and injuring ten others.

June 21, 2017:  an Islamophobe approaches a Muslim man and woman sitting in a car stopped at a traffic light and knocks on the window.  When the driver rolls down the window, the Islamophobe sprays the driver and passenger with acid, severely burning both.  

June 22, 2017: Three Muslim teenaged brothers on a train out of Delhi, India are attacked by other passengers who accuse them of not being Indian nationalists, abuse them with Islamphobic slurs, and then assault them, stabbing 17-year-old Hafiz Junaid Khan to death and injuring both of his brothers. June 23, 2017: After assaulting his wife, a drunken Britain First supporter and neo-nazi Marek Zakrocki drives off in his work van after declaring he would “kill a Muslim” “for Britain.”  Shortly thereafter, he tries to run down restaurant owner  Kamal Ahmed outside of his establishment.  Failing to kill Mr. Ahmed, Zakorcki does drive his van into the restaurant, shattering its windows. June 24, 2017: 20-year-old neo-nazi Ethan Stables is arrested near the New Empire public house in Cumbria.  Having learned that the pub was hosting an LGBT event, Evans - who was known to refer to LGBT people as “degenerates” and to deny the Holocaust - had purchased a machete and researched bomb-making - told acquaintances he was planning to murder attendees and was arrested during his final reconnaissance of the pub.  Stables is convicted of terrorism early in 2018.

June 27, 2017: A huge mob attacks a dairy farmer and his family in Jharkhand, India after a dead cow was rumoured to be found outside of their house.  The mob tries to burn down the family’s home with them inside and beat the entire family so badly that they all require hospitalization.  The father of the family is in a coma for eight days and spends two months in the hospital recovering from head injuries and various broken bones.

June 29, 2017: A 40-year-old butcher is pulled out of his car by an angry mob in Jharkhand, India and beaten to death upon suspicion that he was transporting beef.

July 2017:  A 39-year-old passenger in a Lyft car begins insulting the driver’s race and religion before pulling the driver’s hair, punching him, and choking him. July 2, 2017:  a 28-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Lynchburg, VA.

July 9, 2017: Britain First leader Paul Golding viciously attacks someone he befriended and had attended a “self-defence” training with earlier in the day in what the sentencing judge described as “a really nasty and vicious assault.”

July 14, 2017: Lane Davis, a 33-year-old “alt-right” racist activist and former unpaid intern for Milo Yiannopoulos,  starts a fight with his own parents.  After accusing both of being “leftists,” Davis grabs a kitchen knife and stabs his father to death.  

July 16, 2017: A man attempts to pull the hijab off of a Muslim woman waiting for the tube in London, then hits her when she resists.  He then pins her friend to the wall and spits in her face before leaving.   July 16, 2017: Arsonists set a mosque in Manchester ablaze. July 18, 2017: A NASA researcher of South Asian descent has her car windshield shattered by a rock thrown through it by an assailant screaming “go back to your country!”  She’s injured in the attack. July 19, 2017: Two men exit a car and attack a racialized pedestrian with their fists and an iron bar.  

August 2017: a gay man has his jaw broken by a man shouting homophobic slurs and a group of people outside of a fast food outlet. August 2017: After enduring eight different racist attacks, including having the front window of their home smashed in and their car set on fire, a Pakistani family is forced to flee their Dublin home of the past ten years.

August 2, 2017: Two men chase down and beat up a 29-year-old transgender women while yelling transphobic insults at her.

August 2, 2017: Five white men attack a black couple at a KFC drive-through, using racial slurs as they assaulted them and pointing a gun at them. August 5, 2017: A mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota is firebombed, narrowly missing killing & injuring dozens of members there for morning prayers.  Police arrest three white Three Percent militia members who admit to the attack, stating that they wanted to “scare Muslims out of the country.”

August 6, 2017: someone lights the car of the president of a Québec City mosque on fire.  His mosque is the same one where  Alexandre Bissonnette had shot 17 worshippers in January. August 8, 2017: A well-known Chicago neo-nazi starts an altercation at a concert, then pulls out a smuggled knife and stabs a man and a woman at the show. August 12, 2017:  A white supremacist in Charlottesville, VA. drives his car at high speed directly into a crowd of anti-racist protestors, killing one woman and seriously injuring 19 other people.

August 12, 2017: A self-identifed member of the white supremacist “three percenter” movement is arrested by the FBI after unsuccessfuly trying  to blow up a bank in Oklahoma City with a car bombed modeled after the one used by Timothy McVeigh.

August 14, 2017: A man boards a train in New York when he notices another man glaring at him.  Feeling uncomfortable, he moves to another car only to be followed by the glaring man, who kicks him in the face while screaming “death to all faggots!” before exiting the train and getting away.

August 20, 2017: A racialized man standing outside his own home is attacked by a motorist who, without any provocation, jumped out of his car and ran at him, shouting racial slurs, before physically assaulting him.  The victim is seriously injured in the attack.

August 20, 2017: While waiting in line at a food truck, a 22-year-old man is subjected to homophobic abuse and demands that he “go back to your country!” before 24-year-old Gregory Brzoza beat him unconscious.  The victim loses several teeth and has a broken jaw. August 23, 2017: A 37-year-old man and a 47-year-old man start a fight with a black high school student on a city bus, yelling racial epithets at him as they beat him.

August 26, 2017: Four white men attack a black couple  at a recreation center in Rustenberg, South Africa, yelling racial slurs at them as they beat them.  One of the accused was evading charges for a racially-motivated attack against three petrol pump attendants in 2014 when he was arrested for this assault.

August 27, 2017: yelling “ this should clean away the AIDS!” a 56-year-old man throws boiling hot water over a 21-year-old gay man before hitting him about 16 times with a metal bar.

August 28, 2017: Several white teenagers begin shouting racial epithets at a 8-year-old black boy playing in an adjacent yard before wrapping a rope around his neck and hanging him.  The boy survives but has to be airlifted to medical care for the injuries he sustains.

September 2017: an extremist Islamphobe group claims responsibility for a series of hammer attacks by masked men on hijab-wearing women and racialized people in Burgundy, France that left three people injured.  

September 3, 2017: Ally Steinfeld, a transgender teenager, is beaten, stabbed repeatedly, tortured, and mutilated before being murdered by a gang of assailants.  Police arrest three people, with more arrests forthcoming. September 7, 2017: A swastika-adorned neo-nazi assaults a Filipino-Turkish man in a Fullerton, CA. parking lot while yelling racial slurs at him.

September 12 and 14, 2017: 23-year-old white supremacist Kenneth Gleason drove through Baton Rouge, shooting black men he passed in his vehicle before jumping out and shooting his victims again at close range.  Bruce Cofield and Donald Smart are murdered.   A speech made by Adolf Hitler is among items recovered by police from the racist murderer’s home. September 14, 2017: A 40-year-old man begins spitting and repeatedly punching a 37-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman on the subway in New York.  When her 57-year-old mother tries to intervene, the man punches her, pulls her hair, and spits on her as well, yelling “dirty Muslims” as he escapes from the train car. September 15, 2017: A black Cornell University student returns to his residence to find five members of a white fraternity shoving and harassing his roommates.  When he asks them to leave, they attack and beat him while shouting racial slurs.  Two months later, one of the attackers is charged with a hate crime. September 15, 2017: A 29-year-old white supremacist covered in racist tattoos repeatedly enters a hookah lounge in Lake Forest, CA., threatening to kill the Iranian staff and patrons.   September 18, 2017: two men jump out of a taxi to racially abuse a teenage boy walking with his friends.  One of the men pulls out a knife and threatens to stab the teenager.

September 20, 2017: A man is charged with a hate crime after attempting to murder a Muslim woman and 12-year-old girl by deliberately driving his car into them in two separate incidents on the same day.  The woman is severely injured, with broken limbs, extensive cuts and other injuries requiring skin grafts. September 24, 2017: A 58-year-old surgeon on his way to his mosque is confronted by two men who begin shouting Islamophobic insults at him and then stab him in the neck.  

September 27, 2017: Police arrest six members of neo-nazi terrorist group National Action for plotting to murder a Labour MP.

October 2017: a gay teenager and her two friends are harassed and then beaten by a mob of 20-30 high school aged boys. October 2017: Two teenaged sisters - both hijab-wearing Muslims are approached by 32-year-old Christopher Beckham as they get off of their school bus.  Beckham yells “Allah Akbar” and “go back to your country!” at them.  When their father comes to their aid, Beckham produces a knife and tries to stab him and punch him, all while yelling Islamophobic slurs at the family.

October 6, 2017: A stranger starts an argument with a Syrian refugee outside the refugee’s home, making disparaging remarks about Muslims and refugees and then attempting to break into the home when the refugee flees inside for safety.  A few hours later, a mysterious fire is started in the refugee’s family’s backyard.  The fire quickly engulfs the home, completely destroying it.  Although the Syrian refugee family are able to flee, they lose everything but the clothing they were wearing when they fled. October 8, 2017: A 66-year-old black man is held at gunpoint in his own garage while two white assailants shout racist epithets and beat him.  The two leave only to return minutes later to shoot up the victim’s home.

October 17, 2017: 64-year-old Gerard Medvec is arrested after telling police of his plans to firebomb the home of his neighbours, who he erroneously believes are Muslim.

October 18, 2017: Three neo-nazis pull up to a Gainesville bus stop after the aborted Richard Spencer appearance at a local campus and proceed to taunt people waiting for the bus with pro-Hitler and racist verbal abuse.  After someone throws something at the car, one of the neo-nazis gets out, points a handgun at the crowd, yells “I’m going to fucking kill you!” and fires at the crowd, happily missing.  All three are charged with attempted homicide; one is charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a weapon. October 18, 2017: A white couple in a pickup trucks begin shouting racial slurs at a black woman in another car as well as black pedestrians.  At one point, the man claims that he “we kill niggers!”  Moments later, he reverses the truck at high speed, ramming the black woman’s car and totaling it before speeding away.

October 21, 2017: Two men board a train in London where they verbally abuse a gay teenager before strangling him and punching and pushing his female friend to the ground. October 22, 2017: 26-year-old white supremacist and card-carrying National Socialist Movement member Taylor Michael Wilson attempts to derail an Amtrak train and is arrested on terrorism charges after the train crew tackles him and holds him until the police arrive.

October 22, 2017: A 60-year-old black man standing outside his neice’s home is attacked by two white men who yell racial slurs at him as they beat and stab him multiple times, puncturing his lung and lacerating his kidney.  

October 22, 2017: After a string of attacks by vandals, an interracial couple and their young son are forced to leave Belfast when their car is firebombed and completely destroyed in a racist attack.  

October 28, 2017: Hours after a “white lives matter” rally 50 miles away, 20 white supremacists enter a Tennessee restaurant and immediately begin arguing with an interracial couple eating dinner.  When the white woman in the couple argues back, one of the men in the white supremacist group punches her in the face, splitting open her forehead.  

October 29, 2017: A 26-year-old lesbian is confronting in a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant by a mob of at least five people, who begin taunting her and her girlfriend and homophobic slurs before assaulting her.  The attack leaves her with broken teeth and a permanent injury to her left eye.   November 1, 2017: 47-year-old Scott Ostrem, best known by his neighbors for his frequent racist tirades, shoots two Latino men and a Latina woman to death in an unprovoked mass shooting in a Colorado Wal-Mart.

November 1, 2017: an immigrant family’s restaurant is completely gutted in an arson attack a few weeks after the restaurant was hit by vandals.  The arsonist spray-painted the words “GO BACK” on the restaurant before burning it down. November 2, 2017: a 52-year-old man murders his 14-year-old son after a lengthy, loud, and heated argument about the son being gay.

November 6, 2017: A black woman driving out of a parking lot is accosted by a man on the street.  When she exits her vehicle to find out why he’s trying to get her attention, he calls her “a black bitch” and punches her repeatedly in the face, dropping her to the ground and breaking her nose.   November 6, 2017: Two adult women in a London KFC begin throwing food at a 15-year-old girl eating in the restaurant with her friends.  As she stood up to turn around and face her attackers, they throw a hot drink in her face, pull her to the ground by her hair, and begin kicking and punching her while yelling anti-Asian racial slurs at her.  The two women break the girl’s arm before fleeing.

November 7, 2017: A mob of youths kick down the door of a racialized family and later that night attack another racialized family’s home with a barrage of bricks.   November 11, 2017: A group of men confront a man walking home and ask him if he’s gay.  When he confirms that he is, they beat him to the ground.

November 12, 2017: A Liverpool-area home is firebombed at 4AM while the Syrian refugee family of two parents and three toddlers slept.  No one is injured, but the family is forced to find a new home because of the extensive damage. November 13, 2017: A white man on public transit in San Francisco repeatedly tells a fellow passenger that he hates him, calls him a “Chinese nigger,” and punches him several times.  

December 1, 2017: FBI arrest Bernandino Bolatete for possession of an unregistered silencer after several weeks of investigation during which Bolatete described in great detail his plans to commit a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida.

December 2, 2017: A 41-year-old man enters a Jewish seniors’ residence where he hits an 84-year-old Jewish man with a fire extinguisher while yelling anti-semitic slurs, threatening to kill him before robbing him.  

December 3, 2017: after an altercation in a parking lot,  38-year-old Jeffrey Peters follows an African American driver home.  Once at the man’s home, Peters pulls out a loaded handgun, yells  racial epithets, and threatens to shoot him.

December 3, 2017: A gay man standing outside a London nightclub is attacked by two men yelling homophobic slurs, injuring him so severely that he requires reconstructive surgery afterwards. December 3, 2017: A gay married couple & their friend are drinking in a Provincetown, MA. bar when 49-year-old Scott Rego walks up to the group, smashing one of them in the head with a beer bottle, then kicking him on the floor and assaulting the two other men while yelling homophobic slurs at them.  A civil complaint is filed against Rego four months later for attacking the victims because of their sexual orientation.

December 4, 2017: An 18-year-old Muslim woman on a train is approached by a man that tells her he is going to kill her and all Muslims before he begins slapping her and trying to force her head to his crotch.  At the time, the man was awaiting trial after assaulting a 10-year-old Filipina girl on a train seven months previously.

December 6, 2017: A 50-year-old Muslim man Rajasthan, India is lured to a remote location by 37-year-old Islamophobe Shambulal Regar.  While Regar’s 14-year-old Regar nephew filmed, Regar severely beat his victim, then poured kerosene on him and burnt him to death.  Regar had previously posted videos condemning romantic relationships between Muslim men and Hindu women.   December 7, 2017: A Colombian immigrant is hospitalized after stepping between his 13-year-old son and a baseball-bat wielding attacker.  The victim, his son, his wife, and a family friend were walking across a parking lot while shopping when a man jumped out of a white BMW with the baseball bat, screaming about how the frightened family were “ISIS” and “terrorists” before swinging at the 13-year-old boy and repeatedly striking the father with it instead. December 7, 2017: A 48-year-old Muslim man is hacked and burned to death in a murder recorded by the perpetrator and posted on YouTube as a warning to Muslim men against marrying HIndu women.

December 9, 2017: After retired veteran Kevyn Fowler moves to a predominantly white Jacksonville, AR suburb, his dog is poisoned and his truck and trailer are stolen.  Then on December 9th, someone sets Fowler’s garage on fire after spray-painting “MOVE NIGGER.”  Fowler is African-American.

December 12, 2017: 21-year-old white supremacist William “Bill” Edward Atchison walks into a high school in New Mexico and shoots two Latino students, killing them, before turning the gun on himself.  It’s later revealed that Atchison was heavily-involved in the “alt-right” and was known to police.  

December 16, 2017: On his way to practice, Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling is subjected to racist insults by an unidentified man who goes on to kick Sterling.   December 17, 2018: A 52-year-old neo-nazi who had previously been convicted of murdering a man who had called Adolf Hitler a criminal detonates a nail bomb on the platform of an S-bahn train station in Hamburg, Germany, injuring one commuter.

December 22, 2017: After convincing their daughter to break up with her 17-year-old neo-nazi boyfriend, Scott Fricker and Buckley Kuhn-Fricker are shot to death in their home by the neo-nazi.   December 22, 2017: A 45-year-old man leaving a gay club in Ohio is immediately assaulted by an assailant who fractures his skull, breaks his nose, and leaves him with a black eye and concussion after screaming homophobic slurs at him and stealing his phone. December 25, 2018: A 31-year-old trans woman is attacked from behind by a 40-year-old man in a Brooklyn homeless shelter, who hits her with a chair while yelling transphobic slurs at her.   December 27, 2017: A 51-year-old Muslim woman in a Brooklyn Panera Bread is accosted by a mob of teenagers, who call her a terrorist, spit on her, and then begin punching her. December 31, 2017: Responding to a noise complaint, police in Colorado encounter a man who, after barricading himself into his apartment, engages them in a firefight, killing one sheriff’s deputy and wounding four others.  37-year-old Matthew Riehl was a self-described “libertarian” who frequently shared Islamophobic and alt-right posts on social media.   2017 = twenty-one shootings, fifteen arsons, sixteen stabbings, seventeen mob beatings, over 41 bomb threats, one bombing, three thwarted/failed bombings, one thwarted train derailment, a foiled political assassination, an acid attack, a hanging, and several other miscellaneous assaults by bigots, Islamophobes, nazis and racists which took the lives of forty-nine people and seriously injured eighty-four others in the countries we looked at (Canada, France, Honduras, India, Ireland, Malta, South Africa, Sweden, the UK, and the US).  And those are just the ones that we found media reports for.   Here’s hoping in 2018 we’re all more effective at undermining bigoted extremism and the horrific violence that comes with it.

[blue-dream-rhapsody]

On Kugo Ginjo, Part 4/?: Duality of a Man

[First] [Previous] [Next]

It turns out Kugo’s “false” past wasn’t so false; let’s talk about why he’s so different when he’s bookmarked.

To begin with, we need to make sense of what Book of the End actually does.

Tsukishima’s Fullbring has the ability to manipulate the past experiences of whatever it cuts. It’s just as Kugo says to Ichigo, that this isn’t simply a manipulation of memory—in its most basic form, BotE doesn’t alter psychology in any way. After all, what brain did the floor of Yukio’s pocket dimension have when Tsukishima was fighting Byakuya? Or how would rewiring Ichigo’s neurons to believe that Yhwach hadn’t destroyed his zanpakuto allow Orihime to restore it in the physical plane? Neither instance would have been possible if BotE didn’t have an actual, tangible effect on reality, where something that happened in the past of a target could carry over into the present.

There is often a psychological impact on a person bookmarked by his ability, but that’s because Tsukishima chooses ways to use it in order to deliberately cause those impacts. He can put himself into a position of importance in somebody’s life, but the emotions that they develop for him are entirely their own, coming from who they are and how they already think about the important people in their life. Typically, the more advantageous roles are those that bring on positive feelings, but he can also choose one that inspires hatred.

With Kugo, that’s exactly what he did.

When Ichigo finds out that Tsukishima is targeting him, Kugo explains:

“Tsukishima was once our leader. …But when the Deputy Soul Reaper we finally found received a few of our members’ powers, he suddenly changed his mind. He killed the Deputy Soul Reaper. Killed those that give him their powers. And disappeared.” [Vol. 50, Viz trans.]

Of course, at this point in time, Kugo’s been affected by Book of the End. This is a past Tsukishima put into him deliberately, to give Kugo a reason to see him as an enemy while he dealt with Ichigo. As it turns out, however, there’s far more truth to it than the end of The Lost Agent would lead you to believe.

Because, before Xcution as we know it existed, there was a previous group of Fullbringers who had gathered around a previous Deputy Soul Reaper. And while it wasn’t Tsukishima turning on them as their former leader, those Fullbringers were brutally massacred.

Tsukishima’s ability didn’t create a false event in Kugo’s past, full of fake people that had never really been there. He altered a real component of his history. And while this moment was certainly targeted as the starting point for their animosity because killing your own allies is, to put it elegantly, a Dick Move, the change goes well beyond Kugo’s relationship with Tsukishima and even leeches into who Kugo is as a person.

Think about it. Kugo’s drastic change once he’s been returned to his unmarked self—going from a calm, easygoing dude, to a manic and sadistic terror. From someone who aims for abandoned buildings in battle to protect complete strangers, to someone who tells his ally to kill his loyal subordinate once he’s no longer useful. From taking literal swords to the chest to protect a friend, to showing no grief for his closest comrade’s impending death.

Tsukishima didn’t simply target the best point in time to make himself a villain. He changed perhaps the defining moment in the life of Kugo Ginjo—the day, minute, and second that sent him on his vengeful path—and as a result changed who he’d become in the time since then.

But wait. How could it have made such a drastic difference? After all, the Fullbringer massacre still happened, and should still be as horrific to him no matter who the perpetrator was, shouldn’t it?

And that’s right. The horror of it should weigh about the same if measured in a vacuum. But the thing is, even with Tsukishima having merely tweaked, and not entirely rewritten, events, neither version of the massacre does exist in a vacuum. The perpetrator matters, yes, but the context matters, too.

Here’s the real version of events. Kugo, at the time a Deputy Soul Reaper, has become involved with a group of Fullbringers. Many of them, if not all of them, dislike their powers due to their Hollow nature or the sense of alienation they bring; luckily, as a Deputy, Kugo is able to extract their Fullbrings from them to free them, while he gets a boost to his own power.

Kugo is aware that the “Combat Pass” the Court Guards had given him is actually being used to keep tabs on him, but while he’s not necessarily in love with the idea or the fact that he wasn’t told as much, he is willing to put up with it.

Then, without any warning, a Soul Reaper shows up and kills the Fullbringers that had been in contact with Kugo. This is an agent of the very Court Guards Kugo was supposed to be an ally of, and who he knew were constantly monitoring him. Meaning he, by interacting with them in the first place, had led the Court Guards to their location; meaning he, by getting involved with them, had drawn the Court Guards’ attention to them; meaning he, having for whatever reason incurred the wrath of the Court Guards, had cost them all their lives as collateral damage.

Compare to the altered version of events. Tsukishima, leader of this group of Fullbringers, inexplicably turns on them. Nobody, not Kugo (nothing but a regular Fullbringer here) nor the others who survived, know what his motivation was. He could’ve lost his mind or he could’ve had some personal ambition, but ultimately he is the one responsible for his own acts of violence. All the survivors can do is take it as it was and try to move forward with their original intentions. After all, Tsukishima is just one person gone rogue (none of them knowing about Shishigawara yet), and as their acting leader, Kugo proves both confident and capable enough of holding his own against him should he attack them again. As long as they proceed with caution and look out for each other, they should be fine.

When the killings were done by a Soul Reaper, with Kugo aware of his own existence as a Deputy Soul Reaper, it doesn’t just stop there. There’s his status as one of them to consider. A sense of guilt and responsibility he may feel, multiplied for every individual who fell victim. The unprovoked betrayal by not only the Court Guards, as in, the authority of the afterlife, but by Ukitake, who he had been led to believe he could trust to be fair and just more than anybody else.

At least when it’s Tsukishima, it’s just Tsukishima. Someone with a terrifying ability, yes, but ultimately only a Fullbringer like they are, and ultimately only one man. At most, one could wonder if they could’ve seen his betrayal coming, but that’s a missed sign on everybody’s shoulders, not just Kugo’s—and it was an action against all of them by the leader of all of them, not a wolf one man unknowingly brought to the door.

Tsukishima is a threat Kugo can understand, and probably one he feels he can handle should the need arise. A betrayal by the Court Guards, on the other hand, is all but a death sentence; he’s earned the hatred of an entire army, doesn’t know why, and got a lot of people he cared about killed as punishment for sins of his own that he can’t even identify. He’s easily outclassed should they find him, and even though he knows there’s somewhere to go after death, that place is under their control, too. He has to fight, or he has to run, or he loses. Game over.

I think that would be enough to drive anybody to insanity.

[zolaliz]

Trans v terf discourse:

Hey so I wanted to make a post of my own about the whole terf discourse thing I stumbled upon yesterday and the post I made out of spite today (which I took down, because it was a mistake, and if you saw it I truly, genuinely apologize) and explain a little bit more calmly about the whole thing, about where I'm coming from

Basically I happened upon the account belonging to @/redkatherinee and saw some art that really.. had me shaken up, I guess. It was disturbing, and i felt sick in a way I haven't in a long time. Now I myself am not trans. But I'm going to come out and say that I support trans women, because 1.) I am not ashamed of this, and would never be, and 2.) it's gonna be kinda vital to my whole conversation here. If you are a terf, (trans exclusionary radical feminist for anyone who doesn't know) you might read the sentence before this one and immediately think of my opinion as invalid. You're might (or might not, I don't know) not even bother to read the rest of this. You might start gearing up counter arguments before I even start with my point. That's okay. I am not looking for a fight here. I just want to explain my point of view. If you don't want to listen, if you don't care, if you think I'm wrong, I'm going to politely ask that you don't let me know about it. If you're looking to talk, I'm going to be cautiously open to that. But keep in mind I know the difference between the approaches of someone looking to talk and someone looking to fight. So if you want to send hate or anything else, please refrain. Just as I am going to try to refrain from insulting anybody with this post. Because that's not my intention here. And if I do, I'm sorry.

I'm going to talk about two of @/redkatherinee's art pieces in particular. One displays a witch with a cauldron, with hands reaching out of the boiling liquid, with trans flag bracelets on their wrists. The other displays a women holding a bloodied pie, with eye balls inside it, and a caption that says "terfs literally eat transwomen". Both are drawn in satire. I do believe they were drawn for the purpose of satire, and upon further reading, found out they were drawn because the artist wanted to illustrate how trans supporters and trans people view terfs. Even if they were drawn for satirical purposes, it does not make these images okay. Far from it.

I've always disagreed with terf's stance on transwomen, how they treat them and view them, but I've never seen this hate so openly displayed. Because it wasn't the images that disturbed me, not exactly. It was how I imagined a transwoman stumbling upon them. Maybe this isn't something a terf can empathize with, as some terfs don't see trans women as worthy of empathy, but please try.

If I were a trans woman I would feel beyond despised, I'd feel scared and panicked over how much hatred someone could have to construct those images. To put time and effort into them. The whole thing feels wildly out of hand, but if I had stumbled across those posts as a trans woman, especially without any context provided in the captions, without any context of why the artist drew those (and honestly, even with the context), I'd feel like hiding. I'd feel scared of how someone could have so much hatred towards me. I'd feel angry and start hating in return.

Terfs argue that not all transwomen are good people, and therefore should not be supported. But the truth of this is people can be bad, regardless of sexual orientation, identity, background, opinion. Not all people are good, but that shouldn't mean we stop supporting the ones that are.

For those who say that terfs get hatred and death and rape threats, I am here to say that none of that is okay. Your beliefs do not give others the excuse to be nasty to you. Me included. But you must understand that when you tell others you believe transwomen are rapists and murderers and horrible people, people that don't deserve respect, their first instinct is to lash out (as was mine). It doesn't excuse the behavior, merely explains it.

But you have to understand that this behavior is provoked by someone telling them that their existence is invalid, that it automatically makes them something they may not be. And telling a trans person that they shouldn't exist, that they are wrong, that they are something they aren't- that behavior is inexcusable too.The same way you may feel about people hating terfs, sending them death threats, rape threats, and worse- is what others feel like when they see you excluding trans people and telling people that they don't deserve to exist in the gender they identify with, that they are pedophiles and rapists and murderers themselves. It makes them angry and defensive and scared. It makes them sick and cruel and irrational. It continues the cycle of hate.

But you see the biggest difference between the hate terfs receive and the hate trans people receive is that terfs receive hate because of their beliefs, while trans people receive hate because of their identity. You can change one's beliefs, but no one can change who they are . Trans women are hated because of who they are, their existence, and by excluding them, by targeting them and discriminating against them, you receive hate for your beliefs. Because your beliefs harm others.

Please understand, if you are a terf, in the same way you most likely cannot change your opinions of trans women, these women also can't change who they are. That's right, these women can not change who they are. They aren't men in skirts. They aren't monsters. Because monsters can be monsters regardless of identity or gender, so saying that they are a monster because they are trans is absurd. I wouldn't insult a whole religion for the few who use it to promote hate and ignorance. The actions of some don't speak for the actions for everybody. Everyone, in their own way, is only trying to get by. To live their life as they identify.

Now to people who violently hate on terfs, I was you about six hours ago. Through writing this and after writing this I realized hate isn't the way to approach this. Hate should never be a way to approach anything. Because how on earth do you expect people to even consider your opinion if you approach it with hate? So the telling them to kill themselves and jump off a bridge and die and all that horrible shit, that needs to stop. These are humans, no matter how different their opinions are. No matter how harmful their opinions are. Hurting them back won't help, even if that's your first instinct (as it was mine.)(to be clear though I've never sent a terf a death threat or anything similar). I get it, okay, I really do, but that's not the right way to go about this. This isn't saying that terfs are in the right, or that the hate they receive is anything compared to the decades of discrimination, violence, and worse that trans women have received, but sending them hate won't make the situation any better.

It's exhausting going about it this way and anger and anonymous hate is easier and quicker and makes you feel better- but it won't solve anything.

So to everyone, trans supporters and terfs and trans people themselves- we're all so eager to go at each other's throats, but to take a step back and talk, that could accomplish a lot more. Terfs; maybe a trans woman won't ever be a woman to you, but the least you can do is try and remember that they are a human being. That they aren't defined by anyone else's actions except their own. Trans supporters; you aren't doing the trans people you support any favors by telling terfs to go kill themselves, by calling them disgusting. It comes off badly on the people you're trying to defend. And trans women; I know it's difficult, and I know some terfs won't even give you the time of day- or worse, they do, and they target and harass you. They hate you for your existence, which isn't something you can change (or ever should have to change). So I'm not going to tell you you have to be understanding of people who want you gone, who don't respect you. Talk to them as you see fit, and if they can't talk to you like you're a human, that's on them, and I'm sorry that it being on them doesn't mend the damage done to you by talking to them or being targeted by them.

Respect goes a long way on either end. Stop the death threats, rape threats, suggestions of suicide, exclusion, targeting, and worse.

Hate really doesn't give anyone the high ground. But talking? Talking can help some people reach a middle ground.

[offbrand-valk]

Making good of my threat with another chapter of Sylvanas and her wife from the warbringers short

Read on AO3

"Beloved." A sultry voice whispered in her ear, as the smell of spring flowers reached her nose.

Sylvanas grunted loudly and sat straight up in her chair, to the confusion of the assembled war council. An angry glare stopped the questions in their track, and made Lor'themar return to outlining his plan as he awkwardly tried to pretend nothing had happened.

A worse time for her to be stuck reminiscing could scantly come. The Alliance was marching on Tirisfal, forsaken were once more losing their homes, and the horde was relying on her to safely weather the storm.

Yet all she could think about was a voice like summer rain, and a girl who loved to dance more than anything else in life.

After her death she had made an effort not to think about her wife and daughter. They were in a better place, and she would never be able to join them because of her curse. Grieving achieved nothing, this much she knew.

The meeting adjourned, Sylvanas having only registered every third word. This wouldn't do! Now most of all, she needed to show the horde strength and determination, not a foolish woman pining for love long lost.

Her outburst by Teldrassil had been the start, provocation, anger, and fear had all formed together into a desperate gamble, and resurrected an old flame in her memory.

She had been foolish back then, arrogant, egoistic even. She hadn't seen the bigger picture, had tried to win a war on half-measures, and for what? Rabbit and Dragonhawk stew? Some long steamy nights? The illusion of Highelven sensibilities?

She grabbed a dagger off the war table, and flung it at a nearby pillar, burying it halfway to the hilt in the wood. It made her feel better, if only a little bit.

Sylvanas pulled the dagger from the wall and started pacing around the room, surely there was something useful she could spend her time on. Running her finger along paths on the map, she tried to put herself in the thoughts of a boy king on his campaign, and all she found was nostalgia.

  The sun was bearing down on Sylvanas from above, her brand new ranger cloak turning the heat from horrendous to nearly unbearable.

She had no idea where she was other than: hopefully still somewhere in Eversong woods. Their captain was a firm believer in teaching people to swim by throwing them in a river, and just for fun she had decided Sylvanas should participate in the day’s exercise without a team or map.

The teams had been left in different parts of the woods, and told to track down a fictional monster based on clues left by the captain. If they didn't find the monsters' "lair" by sundown they would spend the night doing push-ups. Considering how it had gone so far for Sylvanas, she was already conserving energy in preparation.

"Hey there miss ranger ma'am" A voice spoke out from behind her, Sylvanas screamed and flailed undignified as she fell off the tree trunk she had been sulking on.

The voice behind her giggled, and Sylvanas instantly forgot to be angry that she had snuck up on and embarrassed her.

When she turned around to face the voice Sylvanas also forgot her name, the task at hand, and about 95% of the Thalassian language. "I'm... uhm... I'm.... Girl."

"I can see that" The woman laughed again a little louder this time, and Sylvanas was certain: she was going to die, right then and there, her heart simply couldn't stand the sight of a smile that pretty.

Realizing that her heart had not in fact burst open from seeing a pretty girl, she became hyper aware that she was lying on the ground with a stupid expression on her face, and scampered on her feet.

"I mean, I'm Sylvanas Windrunner, aspirant to the ranger corps, how can I help you citizen!" She hadn't meant to yell, and now she was quietly hoping the ground would open up and devour her before she had to say another word.

"Oh nothing, I just saw you sitting there all by your lonesome and got curious. Usually when you guys are out here on mission or whatever you call it, you're in groups with your heads buried in maps, not sulking on tree stumps." Sylvanas listened deeply as she tried to adjust her uniform to make herself presentable.

"I may have, ahem, gotten slightly lost." Sylvanas was not trained to show weakness, however she also hadn't been trained to maintain composure in front of pretty ladies with round noses and brown-black hair.

"Well lucky for you then that you know a local girl." The woman that was likely to be the death of Sylvanas said, and offered her arm in a poor imitation of a noble girl asking to be chaperoned at a ball.

"I am almost certain that would be against the rule lady?.." Nonetheless Sylvanas took her arm, and started walking forward.

"Oh uhm Sharpvale, Velline Sharpvale, though I firmly believe this is the first, last, and only time anyone will ever call me a lady."

"Why might that be lady Sharpvale?" Where Sylvanas had found the courage to tease this ethereal beauty she did not know.

Velline looked down, and ran her fingers self-consciously through her hair. "Well first and foremost there's the matter of my noble birth or lack thereof, not to mention my inability to curtsy, or go more than a few hours without talking about boogers, and of course the..." She stopped mid sentence and nervously giggled to herself. "The, uhm, the sharpness of my ears."

Sylvanas deferred to her court training to hide the few seconds she spent processing. She wasn't bothered by Velline being trans, not in the slightest, it just surprised her due to how well she passed, which Sylvanas quickly realized said more about herself than it did Velline.

"Well I think your ears look perfectly feminine just the way they are." Was that the right thing to say? Sylvanas wasn't sure, but Velline did perk notably up on hearing it.

"Why thank you lady Windrunner. Now about this quest of yours, what exactly are the rules." Velline sent her a conspiratorial grin.

"Exercise actually, but same difference I guess."

The pair walked together in no particular direction, Sylvanas outlined the rules of the exercise, and together they looked for loopholes. They parted ways only when they absolutely had to, Sylvanas feeling like she had left a part of heart behind, and promising she would visit as soon as she next had leave.

It was with no small amount of glee Sylvanas entered the clearing a full hour before any of the properly equipped team. When her captain asked how in the world she had got there first (the part about her disadvantages went loudly unmentioned) she calmly explained:

"I realized that since the monster has been troubling the area for some time, my time would be better spend interviewing people local to the area than try to look for broken branches. Turns out the monster has returned to camp in this exact clearing around this time every year for the last 14 years. Most curious wouldn't you say."

  Sylvanas grinned to herself, Velline had always been good at making her misbehave, even though she herself had been the picture of good behavior. She knew she should be happy Velline and Liera was spared undeath, yet right now, Sylvanas thought she could really use her council.

Velline had been many things but never a strategist. Maybe that was why she kept haunting her and distracting her from tactics, because the answer wasn't to be found in troop movements and supply chains.

It was little more than trying to excuse a gut feeling Sylvanas could admit as much to herself, what was the harm though? The war council had been adjourned for the night, and she didn't need sleep.

Without an escort she walked the streets of Undercity, she didn't have a goal, only the vague notion that she thought better while walking.

She passed by a forsaken man sitting on a bridge and fishing from a sewer. Sylvanas recognized him as a carpenter by the name Marius Winther, he had been with the forsaken since they first joined the horde, and had been very helpful in making Undercity hospitable. If her memory wasn't far off he had retired following the defeat of the lich king, many forsaken had lost their fighting spirit after their great revenge.

On impulse Sylvanas sat down next to him. "Dark lady." he greeted her with a nonchalant tip of his bucket hat. "Marius." She replied with a nod, and he continued fishing in silence.

"Do you give lessons?" She asked apropos of nothing.

Marius scratched his chin in thought. "Truth be told, there isn't much of a trick to it, there's still blight in these waters and it's clouding the fishes judgement. All you have to do is wait until they think they've won, and take it home."

That was the strike of inspiration she needed. "Marius Winther, the horde owes you a debt of gratitude." She said and rushed off to gather the war council.