#and activists that Criticize

[liketolaugh-writes]

The other thing about Sam being such a teenager - a headcanon that is nonetheless supported by many canon elements - is that her being a baby activist is... not necessarily a good thing.

It's very promising in the long run! It shows that she cares about other people, she cares about ethics, and she is trying very hard to think about her impact on the world, and those are all good things.

But she's also extremely bossy, extremely self-righteous, and when you're a fourteen year old with two best friends that just... aren't very good at asserting themselves, it makes it really, really easy to hurt people by accident. I think, given what we see about Sam and how she interacts with them, it would be easy for her to dismiss them as Boys™️ and therefore The Oppressor Class.

Because Sam... kind of reads like a terminally online Tumblr kid. And that wasn't an archetype that existed in the 2000's, obviously, but Sam fits it to a T. She seems like someone that would know all the terminology, who would know who all the 'oppressor' classes and all the 'victims' were, who would be really into identity politics in the way where she weaponizes them, because she's fourteen and nuance is still hard for her.

She seems, in other words, like someone who would chew Danny out for using the word 'dysphoria' if he wasn't trans (but was maybe trying to find a word for why his body post-portal felt so bad sometimes.) Like she would demand room to express her emotions without remembering to give Tucker and Danny room for theirs, because they're Boys (even though Tucker is black and Danny is abused and getting space for their emotions is just as hard for them.) Like she would have a list of Social Justice Facts that she applies uncritically, and won't realize what she's doing for years.

And to be honest, I think this would be a really fun character arc for Sam! The sort of thing I would have loved to see in canon. Where she realizes, suddenly, how much she talks over people, how much she talks over her friends, and that maybe sometimes she's... not right, even though she knows All The Right Words.

(But until she realizes that, I also think that Sam could do a lot of damage to Danny and his guilt complex in particular.)

[its-terf-or-nothin]

Is having a son really worth the risk? I don’t think so. Go 4B, don’t contribute to the cycle of suffering, be unwilling to birth an oppressor or a victim. We don’t need any more babies in this world, whether they be boys or girls.

[lem0nademouth]

so what i’ve learned from reading comments and tags by people who hate Jeffery Goldberg is that 1. they are completely unserious, 2. they genuinely expect journalists to risk and/or sacrifice their lives (and potentially the lives of their loved ones), 3. they hate journalists who don’t violate laws or the code of ethical journalism and think presenting information without editorialization is bootlicking, 4. they are horrifyingly antisemitic

[yourdailyqueer]

Virginia Mathews (deceased)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: 9 March 1925 

RIP: 7 May 2011

Ethnicity: Native American (Osage Nation)

Occupation: Writer, activist, librarian, book critic

Note: Helped develop Sesame Street while serving as a consultant to Children's Television Workshop, and she promoted activities to support literacy through libraries.

[starryalpacasstuff]

Fire (1996): A Mostly Spoiler Free Pitch Because You Should Watch It Immediately

It's time for "An Indian QL bulldozed past my expectations and I am reeling in awe", Part Two!

A few days ago, @neuroticbookworm told me about Fire, an old lesbian Indian movie she'd been wanting to watch. Me being me, I promptly tracked it down and settled in to watch it.

Very loosely based on the 1942 short story Lihaaf, the movie follows Sita, a newly wed bride who is settling in with her in-laws, which is how she meets Radha, who is married to her husband's brother. Both in unhappy marriages, they find solace and company with each other, quickly falling in love. Length: 1 Hour 40 Minutes TWs: Homophobia, C-word mentioned once, some depictions of domestic violence Release: 1996

The is almost entirely in English, and while one generally expects Bollywood movies to be in Hinglish, it's definitely a conscious choice here, which does make me wonder if the movie was supposed to be promoted to a greater international audience. You can find it here on Youtube, most of the (very few) Hindi dialogues have hard subtitles. I think it's also available on Prime? It wasn't available in India though, which is odd, but I didn't bother investigating. Let me know if anyone can figure anything out about this!

Going into this movie, I expected a melodramatic, emotional movie with a bittersweet tone. I did not expect a biting, incredibly engaging movie with excellent satire, symbolism, discussions of chastity culture, and an incredibly sweet, beautifully written romance. And I was certainly not prepared for how incredibly horny this movie is??? Both in subtle tension and overt sex scenes. There's also partial nudity, which again, completely unexpected. If you're going taboo, go taboo all the way I suppose. It's also very well directed, and while I'm not nearly as good at identifying details like that as some of the people on here, I did pick up on some colour coding and interesting framing. It's just overall packed with little details that I think a lot of us would have a field day analysing.

Honestly, I could talk about the cultural nuances in this movie for hours. Contrary to my assumption about the reasoning behind making the movie fully in English, the movie seems to rely on the viewer's understanding of North Indian customs to deliver a lot of it's messages, particularly with its satire, more on that below. While I don't think it's necessary to enjoy the movie, it definitely does add some meat to the story. Then again, I'm a biased party, so it'll be hard to determine just how many messages may be lost to someone from outside of India without someone to compare notes with (this is me shamelessly trying to get you to watch the movie). Honestly, I'd be 100% down to write a more detailed, spoiler-including post that goes into the implicit nuances if people are interested.

There's two main selling points for the movie; the incredible way it shuts down purity and chastity ideology and the absolutely adorable relationship between Radha and Sita. The movie is set on ruthlessly tearing down and emphasizing the ridiculousness of purity culture. A lot of the messaging is indirect and uses metaphors, but there's also several explicit scenes addressing the issue. It's one of the main themes of the movie and I'm almost convinced the real reason it's titled 'Fire' is the sheer number of burns it dishes out on this subject. The romance portion of this movie is one of the thing's that completely defied my expectations. It wasn't sad and dramatic, it was heartfelt and silly and adorable. There's several scenes of the two subtly flirting, laughing together and just being lowkey in love. But that's not to say there's no emotional depth—they're also there for each other and are quite vulnerable with each other.

The movie used a lot of metaphors, but my favourites were the almost satirical representation of mythological stories. In a religion as diverse as Hinduism, every holiday has two dozen stories behind it and each story has two dozen versions, so it's to be expected that you'll find a number of problematic or otherwise kind of ridiculous stories in the mix. The stories were told completely seriously, but the context of the movie highlights their absurd facets in a truly brilliant way. I'm not going to give too much away, but I will say, it was a delight to watch the juxtaposition of the myths and the storyline of the movie, particularly it's ties to the purity culture discussion. You'll understand when you watch it. I'm not turning this into a Hindu mythology lesson (yet) but one interesting tidbit is that Radha and Sita are both names of mythological figures; namely the partners of two of the most worshipped avatars of the god Vishnu: Krishna and Rama respectively. And I was overjoyed to find that their names do have relevance to the metaphors in the story, particularly Sita's.

When the movie was first released, there were massive protests against it, I'm talking hundreds of people storming into theatres to destroy them and drive away audiences. I don't know what to say here beyond this, but what I will say is that I think Fire is an amazing movie that absolutely does not deserve to be lost to the sands of time. I hope you give it a shot, and if you do, tag me in any posts you make about it!

Tagging people who seemed interested in recs from my last post, let me know if you'd rather I not tag you!

@lurkingshan @impala124 @bengiyo @letgomaggie @winnysatang

@watertightvines @nutcasewithaknife @blorbingqls @twig-tea

@waitmyturtles @cryingatships @benkaben @usertoxicyaoi

@befuddledcinnamonroll @flyingrosebeetle

[mrbrainworms]

im so fucking sick of capeshit where the main message of the story boils down to "status quo good and anyone who tries to change it is an evil terrorist"

[pokemonisbeast1999]

Every single time some idiot says that Batman has the most queer family in DC a Wonder Woman fan implodes and self-immolates. It’s me. I’m the Wonder Woman fan.

[ryukisgod]

Man who believes males should be imprisoned with women, is revealed to have committed crimes against women

[remotewatch]

jack is on a mission to make me pity usha vance of all people 😭

[solimavi]

I haven’t seen this brought up much, so I’ll say something. I love Spy x Family. But this part is so off-putting to me.

This feels like something that would be right at home in a right wing comic strawmanning leftist activists. I’m not really reading Spy x Family for its politics, but this is uh. Not great.

[yourdailyqueer]

Dejan Nebrigić (deceased)

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: 29 December 1970  

RIP: 29 December 1999

Ethnicity: White - Serbian

Occupation: Activist, film critic, writer

Note: Was known as the initiator of the first trial of homophobic discrimination in Serbia. He was one of the founders of the LGBT movement in Serbia.

[daystarvoyage]

Well you heard it this week ladies, gentleman and pronounsETC,

I felt this was one example of how toxic fandom & bad business can effect projects, the woke/Dei agenda from video gaming can carry to animation can effect one's passion, show rep or merch.

after critiquing this show being bullied from the fandom, this is prime example of fans destroying others interest, I talked about this on my previous video months ago how fandom should be calm down and not let this become the next Steven universe or Voltron and look what we got.

This exact situation plays on both sides let’s comment positively (don’t hate appreciate) also working on Nick November of the nostalgia topics and discussions too.

[rabbitmotifs]

"saying that both democrats and republicans are bad options led to trumps victory" im going to eat your face off like a wild chimp, unsuspecting european

[fortycds]

always find it insane when usamericans become the harshest critics of leftism in other countries, especially if they’re under some far more concentrated form of government violence (i.e., years of imprisonment for nonviolent protests, etc). like “this group is actually worthless performative liberalism because they can’t even get their government to stop shooting people” YOU LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! WE VERY FAMOUSLY CAN’T EVEN ACCOMPLISH THAT!

[edandstede]

btw if you think nobody can or should care about one thing while there are other worse things going on, or that nobody should give money to one cause because you could give it to something else “more deserving” I’m gonna need you to grow up and touch grass. I thought we learned that we can care about multiple things when we were kids??? I thought we knew that donating to A doesn’t mean we can’t also donate to B and C and so on, and you will never know who has donated what because we don’t owe each other our bank statements? Piss on the poor website never changes lmao