#Fight Homophobia

[iamnotshazam]

Linked Universe fandom: here are some age old internet truths we may need to go over collectively.

It is okay to be LGBTQIA+. This is a very queer fandom, and I feel safe saying that even as an on-again-off-again fan.

Maybe you are a young person who feels unconnected to anything remotely queer or queer-adjacent. It is okay to not be LGBTIA+. If you are unfamiliar with how dangerous it is in many, many countries to be queer, including risking life and freedom, then it may seem unnecessary, or an issue of the past. People from homophobic cultures are on Tumblr. It is not an issue of the past. If you accept that queer people have a right to exist, then be aware that their needs as subjugated people are sometimes express-able only through online channels.

1. Accusations of grooming based on inappropriate actions, messages and invitations between an adult and a minor are serious and should be treated as such.

Even a minor having a weird "feeling," that the conversation is "off," should be addressed. No, it is not fair that evidence is required for the situation that a real victim does not have the evidence. It is up to everyone, working together, to have communities that are safe and not exclusionary. It is the responsibility of everyone to communicate how uncool taking advantage of anyone, anywhere is! No bueno! If someone thinks it's not necessary, even after being reminded, think twice before interacting with them!

2. Accusations of grooming based on being queer without also evidence of inappropriate actions, messages and invitations is HOMOPHOBIC.

Crucially, it may not be worth your time or energy arguing with people online, unless they have specific and actionable evidence that inappropriate grooming has occurred (or God forbid, is occurring). Self-admitted homophobes can be victims of a groomer that also happens to be queer, unfortunately. It is not your responsibility to "fix" anybody's homophobia.

I have no better advice than state these two facts and wait for evidence.

[trevorme]

Drag Is Not A Crime

[blutraene]

Hallo ihr lieben Menschen. Ich sammle seit ein paar Monaten immer wieder Bands und Solokünstler:innen, die man meiner Meinung nach boykottieren sollte in dieser Liste. Vorwiegend sind es klare Nazi-Bands, einfach weil ich zu denen sehr viel finde, aber eben auch andere Bands, die ich teilweise auch früher gehört habe, deren Mitglieder unverzeiliche Dinge getan haben oder die politische Ansichten vertreten, welche mit meinen Wertvorstellungen unvereinbar sind.

Ich versuche immer den Grund kurz dsrzustellen und Quellen zu verlinken. Anschließend werden die Bands noch in Kategorien eingeteilt.

Nutzt diese Liste gerne, wenn ihr bspw. bei Black Metal Bands unsicher seid, ob sie vielleicht rechts sein könnten. Die Liste deckt nicht alles ab, aber sie kann helfen einiges rauszufiltern. Ich musste im Zuge meiner Recherchen auch schon ein paar Playlists aussortieren.

Meine Bitte an euch: bitte weist mich darauf hin, welche Bands und Künstler:innen auf dieser Liste fehlen (gerne auch mit Quelle). Auch strukturelle Verbesserungsvorschläge für die Liste nehme ich gerne an.

[pettylgbt]

[basilepesso]

"Les quatre collégiens de Golbey (Vosges), poursuivis pour le suicide de Lucas en janvier, ont été reconnus coupables de harcèlement, mais le tribunal pour enfants d’Épinal n’a pas retenu de lien de causalité entre ces faits et le suicide de l’adolescent de 13 ans. Des mesures éducatives provisoires ont été prononcées à l’encontre des quatre collégiens en attendant la prochaine audience qui décidera de leurs sanctions, fixée au 22 janvier 2024. Ils encourent jusqu’à 18 mois de prison, une peine maximale qui aurait été beaucoup plus sévère si le tribunal les avait reconnus coupables de harcèlement scolaire ayant entraîné le suicide : la peine encourue aurait alors été de cinq ans de prison. (...) "Les proches de l’adolescent avaient dénoncé des faits de harcèlement, révélant les moqueries et insultes à caractère homophobe dont il s’était dit victime de la part d’autres élèves de son collège." (Aussi sur Fb, 5 juin 2 023) Article d’Actu.fr : “Suicide de Lucas dans les Vosges : quatre collégiens reconnus coupables de harcèlement“

[stephanieviolet]

Today I had a great day, with a terrible experience from another parent at my kids' school.

I wore my favourite new t-shirt:

And as I was walking to the school picnic, another parent was walking toward me, with her two young kids (preschool aged) and commented:

"I should have worn my straight shirt."

I laughed until I realised what she said (my brain takes a minute to process) and as I walked away I managed to say (hopefully loud enough)

"At least we'd know you're a bigot."

Overall, I wish I had said it louder and faster, on the other hand, everyone I told this story to was offended on my behalf on how hateful this parent was.

I live in BC, Canada. Hate is real. Canadians have a duty to be loud and proud, to drown out the hate. We are not immune to the influence of narrow minded people. And we owe it to our kids to help make the world a safer place.

[raffaellopalandri]

Happy Pride! A Month of Unity, Visibility, and Action

June bursts forth with vibrant colours, a spirit of joy, and love – it’s Pride Month! A time to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community, their rich history, and their ongoing fight for equality. But Pride Month is more than just parades and parties. Photo by 42 North on Pexels.com It’s a chance to learn, to stand in solidarity, and to be a true ally. A Look Back: The Roots of Pride Pride Month…

[thedesertpenguin]

I go on Twitter for like two seconds and im already seeing people go “Michael was one of my fave characters how dare they change that??” And like babes…they’re the same character. Their story is most likely going to be the same, they’re still going to be them. Just say you don’t like sapphic romances.

[razberrypuck]

okay but fiddleford was raised christian, is from a small town in the bible belt, AND lived in the 80s do you understand how much internalized homophobia this man must've had. like yeah he was super obvious about his feelings for ford, but god knows he was never gonna SAY anything -- how could he??

he's a married man. he's a father. willing to go out-of-state for work, sure, but he'd never hurt them like that. he never could. and even aside from everything previously mentioned, ford was his first and likely one of his only friends, he wouldn't wanna ruin that for some dumb fantasy. no, fiddleford just has to focus on being a better partner. that's all this is, and that's all it ever will be. he just needs to get that through his skull, and stop thinking about ford so damn much.

thankfully, he's gotten over most that stuff by now. ain't nothing gonna make mcgucket be ashamed of being himself anymore, but you sure as hell can try.

[apollos-olives]

"go to palestine and see how they treat you" okay. i did. they treated me like normal. i'm palestinian and queer and they treated me just fine. but you know where i was treated like shit for being queer??? the u.s. of fucking a.

[vapidsoup]

yosuke p4 exists in this really interesting limbo where his entire character is amazing and nuanced if you see him as queer, and complete and utter ass if you see him as straight

[ananxiousgenz]

pssst. pssssssst. hey guys. look at what i got y'all (IT'S MORE JARTHUR COWBOY AU)

this one comes with several pieces of info you need to know first:

@percymawce-arts and I are writing this fic together!!! we have entered into writers matrimony for this fic and we are super excited about it!! I wrote the bare bones of the scene you're about to read and he added almost all of the flavor and spice (while i was laying on my bed in the family guy dead pose bc of how good he made it). make sure to go show percy some love for this too!!

this scene takes place after one where john and arthur chase after larson, but arthur refuses to shoot him, and john is more than a little pissed off about it.

and some trigger warnings: this scene contains some fighting (both verbal and physical), child abuse, religious trauma, homophobia, and some suggestive themes

and finally, i will tag @ellamenop and @izel-reblogs bc i have a feeling you will both enjoy this :)

“What,” John snarled, slamming the cabin door shut behind him, “the fuck. What was that?!”

“None of your business,” Arthur replied, ever so prim and fucking proper. He kept his back to John, maybe to hide his face, so John couldn’t read him. Maybe because he was too much of a coward to meet John’s eyes after that stunt. John didn’t care what the reason was. It was only pissing him off more.

“No. Fuck that. It's all my business.”

“I didn't fire a gun. How is that making you upset?”

“You had him right in front of you,” John rumbled, his voice as low and dangerous as thunder on the horizon. Arthur shivered. “And you let him go. You had the opportunity to kill him. To end this, all of this. And you let it slip through your fucking fingers.”

“Maybe I didn't want to kill him.”

“What the fuck does that matter? He's too goddamn dangerous to be left alive!”

“It's not that simple, John-”

“The hell it is! I’m sorry you feel conflicted or whatever it is that’s going on in that head of yours, but this isn’t about you! All you had to do was fire the fucking gun. He was right in front of you, and you didn't shoot!”

“No, I didn't!”

“Why?!”

“You want to know why?” Arthur shouted, whipping around to face John, at last. “Because I can't kill another person! Even someone as awful as Larson! I’m not like you! This isn’t easy for me, alright?!”

As soon as the words had left his mouth, Arthur’s face fell. John could see the regret wash over his face like a cloud over the burning sun, but it only lasted a moment before he was collecting himself. Putting on that same mask of polite-until-you-fuck-with-me he always wore around suspects and targets. John had never had that face turned on him before. He hated it.

“So that’s what this is about,” John murmured, his tone dark. “You think it’s easy… You think I’m a monster, and you’d rather let Larson go free than be like me.”

“No, John, that’s not-”

 “Who do you think made me that way?” John snapped. Arthur’s mouth closed so fast John heard his teeth click. “It was him, Arthur. It was Larson. And thanks to you, he’s going to go and do it to another lonely, scared Native kid with nowhere else to go!” John chuckled humorlessly. “Christ, Arthur, If that’s what you thought of me, why didn’t you just say it at the start?”

Arthur threw up his hands in frustration. “That’s not what I think of you, John. Jesus, am I not allowed to have a minor moral crisis over shooting a man?!”

“He’s not just a man! He’s a gangster! A robber! A killer! You told me so yourself!”

“So are you, John.”

“Yeah, and you shot me for it,” John reminded him. 

Arthur growled and slammed his fist down on the mantle of the fireplace beside them, hard enough that John could feel the vibration travel through the floor. “Jesus fucking Christ, John, I wanted to let the law deal with him! Is that so hard to understand?!”

John took a step in Arthur’s direction. “Oh yeah? The same law that ripped me away from my family and home? The same law that turned me into a monster? Too little and too much for everyone all at the same time? The same law that drove human beings off of their lands and into reservations? That killed thousands of people like me?”

“The criminal law would have placed Larson in jail. Like he deserved.”

John scoffed and crossed his arms. “You think the law cares that he deserves it, Arthur? The law is punishment for those who don’t deserve it and ignorance for those who do. There’s no justice in it.”

“What, so that means it’s your job to deal it out?”

“Yes!” John yelled. “If it means he can’t hurt anyone any longer, then yes. And vigilante justice works a hell of a lot faster than the court system will ever manage!”

“I thought you were trying to be a better man, John.”

“I was trying to be like you,” John said venomously. “My mistake.”

That was the final straw. Arthur took a step forward without warning and swung his fist as hard as he could. It made contact with John’s ribs (he could feel them shift beneath Arthur’s fist), and John made a soft oof sound as the wind was knocked out of his lungs and he was knocked into the fireplace mantle, the corner of it digging into his shoulder. 

The fight that followed was chaotic and messy in a way John had never experienced before, and when he tried to think back to it, it would only be preserved in blurry snapshots, like someone moving in the middle of a photograph. Arthur grabbed John’s braid and pulled. John clawed a deep gouge into his arm. He drew blood. Arthur twisted John’s arm. John cracked Arthur’s rib. Arthur knocked John’s legs out from under him, causing them both to go sprawling onto the floor. Arthur punched. John slapped. Arthur bit. John pinned. And then paused. And then…

In the midst of the fighting, John had ended up on top of Arthur, straddling his waist while pinning both wrists with one hand and grabbing a fistfull of Arthur’s shirt with the other. Both of them had frozen, the only movement the rapid rise and fall of their chests. Their noses were nearly touching, and John could feel Arthur’s breath fanning across his lips, staring into those dark, dark eyes. They weren’t so dark, John realized as he looked into them. They were brown, lovely and warm, with scattered flecks of gold and green nestled deep inside. Hidden gems, wide and wild with adrenaline, flicking back and forth across John’s face without any point of focus.

John’s eyes flicked over the rest of Arthur’s face. Freckles smattered across his nose and cheekbones. Loose strands of auburn hair falling messily across his forehead. The crooked corners of his nose from being broken one too many times. Smile lines beside his tired eyes. Lips like flower petals, soft and pale. Slightly parted and inhaling, exhaling. At some point, John realized he had let go of Arthur’s shirt and was cradling Arthur’s face oh-so gently as he examined it, dragging his thumb lightly over his cheekbone, caressing it. Down the bridge of his nose to his lips, his perfect lips. Arthur remained as still as stone, barely even breathing as he stared blindly back at John.

Somewhere behind the haze of the moment, John wondered subconsciously what would happen if he kissed Arthur. Because, the truth, he realized, was that deep down, in the pit of his stomach, he wanted. He wanted Arthur, in a way he had never wanted anyone else before. He wanted to be close to him, close like this. Closer than this. To be around him always, to hold him, to kiss him. 

What would happen if he took what he wanted instead of what he was told, for once?

He hesitated when he heard Arthur’s breath hitch.But then, when no resistance came, he leaned his head down ever so slightly (there was barely any bridge to gap, by that point), and then he was kissing Arthur. And it was like the world had been set ablaze.

As he pressed his lips against Arthur’s, every nerve in John’s body was alive. It felt like a jolt from a live wire, like a burst of fireworks that would light up the sky on the Fourth of July, like the sparking tang of gunpowder before the shot rang out. It felt like energy, pure and bright and hot and lighting him up from the inside. He felt Arthur’s body respond in kind, arching up to create a line of contact that started at their hands and continued all the way down to their tangled legs, making John shiver. He tasted like whiskey, sweet and sharp beneath the campfire smoke and aftershave, and John marveled at how such a strange and sinful combination could taste like it had just come down from heaven.

He kissed harder, chasing the taste. He nipped at Arthur’s lip hard enough to draw blood, adding a coppery tang to the kiss and eliciting a small moan from the back of Arthur’s throat. It only made John want more. He kissed him again, and again, and again, Arthur’s lips and tongue moving against his with a practiced skill that made John dizzy. He kissed him until his lips were swollen and his head was swimming with nothing but Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. He only pulled away when his chest was burning and there was no choice but to come up for air.

Arthur’s face was flushed, his eyes wide and twinkling. “Oh God.” His voice was hoarse. “Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, John.”

And an unbidden memory surfaced in John’s mind. 

He was back in boarding school, sitting for a mandatory midnight mass in the chapel, his posture ramrod straight. The priests had always been so particular about those masses. There was to be no slouching or fidgeting, and God alone could help you if you dozed off. John had been kneeing in one of the pews, focusing all of his attention on keeping his posture perfect and his eyes open and remaining somewhat alert. 

In the midst of silent prayer, one of the priests, a Father McKenna, had thrown open the doors to the chapel, and dragged another boy up before the altar by his ear. 

The boy had tears streaming down his disheveled face and his nose was red from crying, but the thing that struck John the most about him were his eyes. He just looked so… tired. Not the kind of tired that John was fighting, the kind where a seductive sleep was lingering at the corners of his vision, waiting for him to blink or close his eyes in “prayer” for a second too long. This boy looked like the kind of tired that shot through his bones and grew like rot and rust with every passing day, the kind that only shuffling off this mortal coil a bit too soon could cure.

Father McKenna said the boy had been caught ‘with’ another, with a fury in his eyes that made John wonder in the back of his mind if he had been possessed by the devil. He’d been too young to know what it meant to be ‘with’ another boy at the time, but he knew it must be evil. Father McKenna threw him down in front of the altar, and the boy- John vaguely recognized him to be a child named Alexander- just knelt with his head bowed, like he had accepted his fate before Fate came to dole it out.

Father McKenna was not pleased by this. He smacked the back of Alexander’s head. Hard. He didn’t respond. He picked up a hymnal and smacked him harder still. And still, nothing. 

The priest was trembling with barely concealed fury now, and there was a steady pit of dread opening up in John’s stomach as he began to eye the doors, the windows. Any potential escape from the devil and the punishment that awaited him.

But there was no escape, there never was. So John sat, quietly, and watched as Father McKenna began to beat Alexander.

It was horrible, but somehow John couldn’t tear his eyes away, not even as Alexander’s screams tore through his ears and began to echo off the vaulted ceilings, pleas to stop and promises to never do it again ringing in John’s mind. Not even as the boy’s blood began to stain Father McKenna’s hands and drip onto the marble stairs, as vivid and crimson as sacramental wine. Not even as two of the altar boys had to drag Alexander’s barely conscious, barely breathing body down the aisle and out to the hospital wing.

John was trembling by the end of it. He felt like he was going to throw up. He dreamed of that moment for weeks afterward, never able to sleep without witnessing another religious sacrifice, another crucifixion, another martyr behind his eyelids.

Suddenly back in the present– but not really, never fully out of the past– John scrambled back off of Arthur and pressed his back against a wall, wide-eyed and sweating in sudden, sickening fear. In another life he might have missed the feeling of Arthur beneath him, his waist between his thighs, his lips against his. But nothing could permeate that fear. Nothing would ever be bigger than the fear.

“Wha– John?” Arthur asked. There was fear in his eyes too, but it was different. It wasn’t fear of hell or Father McKenna or whatever had become of Alexander. It was fear for John. It was concern. John closed his eyes against it. “John, what’s wrong? What–,” “Shut up.”

“What?”

“Just, be quiet!” John snapped. “Please, please, just–,” his voice broke. He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his fingers, trying to stave off an oncoming headache. 

“Okay…” Arthur said, quietly. Gently, so cruelly gentle. John could feel the beginnings of tears burning behind his eyes. He squeezed them shut tighter. “Okay.”

“This…” John started. He didn’t want to say it. He knew there would be no coming back from it. No more fireworks, no more whiskey on flower petal lips. Never again would he be so close to Arthur Lester if he said it. But that was the point wasn’t it? Make distance.

Take what he was told, never what he wanted.

“This was a mistake,” John said, firmly. A lie, of course. Inside, his very soul was shaking. The strings of his heart were trembling in a tragic vibrato, a song with no recipient. But he’d always been good at lying. He stood, tossing his braid over his shoulder and brushing the dust of his shirt (his wrinkled shirt, stained with a speck of Arthur’s blood). “It never happened.” He didn’t look at Arthur, because he was a coward. He was everything Arthur thought he was, so he didn’t look him in the eye when he said:

“If you ever so much as mention this, to anyone, I won’t hesitate, Arthur.”

He opened the door to the cabin, ready to step outside, leaving everything he’d never known he’d wanted behind. 

“I’m not you.”

[basilepesso]

"Quant au président américain Joe Biden, dénonçant une « atteinte tragique » aux droits humains, il étudie les conséquences de cette loi sur « tous les aspects de la coopération entre les États-Unis et l’Ouganda », notamment l’aide et les investissements, selon un communiqué de la Maison-Blanche".

(Aussi sur Fb, 30 mai 2 023) Article du Parisien : “« Déplorable » : en Ouganda, une loi homophobe suscite l’indignation de la communauté internationale“

[gabs-magical-abs]

Queer women who have never seen Xena before are gonna be in for such a treat when they finally watch it