#and also it's like fucking blatant reactionary shit

[miraclemaya]

it is always interesting the way the conversation repeatedly slips to like "hey this trans women is a pedo so saying you don't support all trans women being banned is bad" and it's like hey man, do you understand what selective enforcement of rules is. because anyone can type a few words into tumblr search bar and find like hundreds upon hundreds of tme people writing rpf about child youtubers or whatever the fuck and they are not currently being banned on mass.

[lazyscience]

so there's something I feel like young leftists are not getting at all when they rail furiously about how "we keep voting for Democrats but they keep just pandering to the right, what are we supposed to DO to get them to change OTHER than not vote for them?"

It has to do with fundamental assumptions about what "governing" is supposed to mean in the modern era, and this is a conversation that has to happen culturally in and around what is happening at the ballot box in a lot larger sense than it is. putting in a readmore because this gonna get long and also ranty.

It also means I'm taking another Tumblr break because I can not, I CAN NOT with the current political discussion any more and even with terms blocked I'm seeing it, and I don't want to spend my evenings alternating between rage and depression, I get enough of that from the news.

This conversation was happening even earlier than this, but the timepoint at which it was first coming to a head and when I became familiar with it was 1994 and Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America". Prior to this point, the ethos on both sides of the aisle (in public) was that in general, a congressperson's job (especially in the House, a little less so in the Senate maybe) was while you were under the umbrella of one of the two parties, you were mostly looking out for the particular agenda of your state and only secondarily working towards a national agenda. And secondary to this idea, most of them agreed on basic principles that gridlock was bad (wouldn't produce anything useful/re-electable for your state), civil service employees and appointees weren't supposed to be blatant political operatives (there were, of course, but that was considered more sleazy and corrupt than "elections have consequences, hurr hurr") and that for the stability of the country, things like the debt ceiling were best mutually avoided.

So for the better part of the 20th century, the Democrats were more the party of regulation, the social safety net and the reality and use of powers on a federal level; the Republicans were the party of "leave these decisions to the individual states" (this is obviously a grotesque oversimplification, people have literally written dozens, probably hundreds, of scholarly books about this shit). And Newt Gingrich, ambitious little shit from an at the time deep red Republican state, said "you know what, we need to embrace a national party and federal control the way the Democrats have--because until then, WE can't control it." So the Contract With America was born - and the goal became instead of "well, whatever, as long as I can weasel out concessions for my state/special interests that hired me" the game ALSO became "demonstrate that federal government doesn't work by MAKING it not work." By using all the procedural stupid dirty tricks that a reactionary old bunch of white dudes that had just been through a war put into place to make any point of settled law that had happened basically as hard to change as fucking possible.

Now, the Democrats couldn't/didn't WANT to play by those rules, because their biggest and most popular successes (qualified, imperfect, but still) - Social Security, Medicaid, the civil rights movement, antitrust, worker protections, environmental protections - are all contingent on a federal government apparatus that actually fucking works. And now that the Republicans can win either by getting what they want OR by yelling "look, this process is clearly broken and doesn't work!", the only way Democrats can make sweeping changes without having to fight tooth and nail every step of the way is to have a majority in both houses of Congress, control the Presidency, and the Supreme Court.

Because again, the reactionary old white men who had just lived through a butt ton of social upheaval wanted to make it hard for one group of (rich white, male enfranchised) people to control another - and they literally at that time could not have envisioned the way the country would grow into both a far more unified AND polarized place that would take these safety rails and exploit them to block every achievement their opponent might make, whether or not it was actually in the best interests of the people they're representing.

(I mean, they should have, political parties and all that toxicity were not new to the British Empire before the colonies even existed, but well, I think we all know by now there's a lot of things they couldn't have imagined. See also: the second amendment)

So here's the deal - if you punish Joe Biden for being a confused corporate-friendly war-hawkish atrocity-enabling weenus - which he totally is sometimes! - you are kneecapping any actually progressive congressional candidates you elect unless you can also deliver 67+ solidly Democrat/Green/whatever the fuck Angus King is votes in the Senate, and 290+ equally staunch Democratic representatives. Because otherwise, that Republican President's just gonna veto everything they legislate that isn't what he wants. And yes, the Senate has to approve any federal judges or Supreme Court justices he wants to appoint - but again, the Republican party sees the federal court system being slow, backed up and impossible to use as a totally acceptable compromise in return for being able to block any significant Democratic legislation from going forward.

Since 1789, do you know how many vetoes have been overridden by supermajority? 109, out of 1,484.

Now, if you could GET that supermajority in the Senate and the House? You could amend the Constitution! You could make mail-in votes mandatory, and/or mandated paid time off for voting. You could mandate ranked-choice voting, so that leftists could vote for the candidate they actually want without splitting up the bloc to the advantage of the fash/fash-adjacent. You could do things like mandate that a Presidential election isn't valid until a minimum threshold number of votes has been achieved that's actual a majority of eligible voters, not just whatever fanatical minority shows up that day, so some asshole who won with 20 percent of eligible voters can't claim to have "a mandate from The People."

BUT WITHOUT THAT SUPERMAJORITY, VOTING TO PUNISH ELECTED OFFICIALS FOR NOT DOING THINGS THEY CANNOT FUCKING DOOOOOO MEANS NOTHING BUT LOSING FOR ALL OF US!

Especially when the other fucking asshole candidate wants to make it legal for the National Guard to LIVE FIRE WITH ACTUAL MILITARY BULLETS ON PROTESTORS, and the Supreme Court has just made it possible for him if elected to order that and have it not be illegal! If he wants to start deporting all Muslim immigrants like he was trying to push for last time he was elected, or round up LGBTQ people and put them in re-education camps, if he gets elected, he could do that now! Because crimes committed as "official acts" are no longer crimes!

So you want to not have to regularly make shitty compromises in the voting booth any more? Great, neither do I. Here are the only ways I see this going forward:

Get 2/3rd of the states of the union to call for an Article V constitutional convention - and be willing to have the process potentially hijacked by fash nutjobs at the state level if those 2/3rds aren't all Democratic-controlled. It's possible - I mean, the system was specifically designed to work that way - but the fact that a) an Article V convention has not successfully been called in the history of the US, and b) the only people advocating for that in the year 2024 are the actual fucking Heritage Foundation of the infamous Project 2025, Ben Shapiro of "but pussy doesn't get wet" fame, Greg "the solution to Uvalde is arming teachers" Abbott and similar nutjobs make me think that's not the safest way to get the outcome we want here.

Hold your noses and get 67 Senators and 290 Representatives elected that are either Democrats or who will reliably caucus with them like Socialists or Greens and have them pass a law to require ranked choice voting for the presidency - there's a chance it'll get a constitutional challenge from the Supreme Court, but there's not a solid precedent either forbidding or encouraging, and by the time it's an issue hopefully we're back in 5/4 liberal court territory if Alito and Thomas either retire or get canned. That will mean a lot of mid corporatist conservative Dems who will make decisions you don't like and don't want to support, but with an endgame of someday getting to stop doing that. This is honestly probably the most achievable, so it is also the one Republicans are fighting against hardest with gerrymandering and voter suppression, and they have banned it on the state level in Florida, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee and Idaho.

Let Republicans get elected to prove a point. This will result in an unknown but presumably acceptable to you number of deportations, convictions, legal abuse and deaths among people the Trump administration declares undesirable, including Muslims, Palestinians, trans people, anyone working in gender studies or race studies, the unhoused, potential child labor, and people of childbearing potential among others. This is not a threat to get you to fall in line. It is a prediction based on the previous behaviorand stated policy positions of Mr. Trump, the Republican National Convention, and the decision of the Supreme Court allowing his administration to carry out what would otherwise be crimes but for a president are "official actions" now apparently. It will also at the very least make easier the capture of the Supreme Court for another two or three decades during which no effective challenges can be brought for voter suppression, gerrymandering, and violent suppression of protest.

honest question: how, exactly, if it becomes an illegal act to talk about racism, queer liberation or police reform, are you proposing to get your better, more leftist candidates elected? I am so serious right now, why do you think after another four years of Trump provided he doesn't just immediately declare martial law like he already almost did once, do you think people would be willing to stick their necks out to identify themselves as enemies of the state? Think about the stranglehold Joseph McCarthy had on this country from 1947-1957.

[eliluminado7]

im writing my broad opinion on AI art now that im on an autistic tangent about it. im kinda cooked from yesterday so sorry if i dont make much sense

my issue with (serious) A‎I art is not because of moral or ethical implications arising from the technology itself, but rather from the general userbase itself. like i believe most of us can fucking tell if something's ai generated when we see it right. Bear in mind i said serious AI art. you know i love a good sei‎nfel‎d screenshot of je‎rry and kra‎mer going into the void or geo‎rge dressed as a coss‎ack

anyways generally speaking the kind of people generating those serious illustrations are all either 1. recycled nftbros 2. porn freaks or 3. children. And im gonna be real i do not like that kind of AI art even if its just a harmless illustration of a pokemon or whatever. to me it feels like those ppl are either kids who i Do Not Think should be on the net, or basement dwelling deviantart incels who are like 'Computer generate se‎xy gard‎evoir vo‎re infla‎tion fe‎et pics'. the kind of people who wouldve had no problem stealing others' art. just sayin.

well actually theres a fourth category and those are companies and public institutions that use AI art (often as some sort of money laundering scheme, if i may add) and those are the ones ACTUALLY hurting artists because You See you could be actually hiring someone instead of using fucking midjourney or bing. this is a very common practice here in spain even if it ends up looking like literal shit, see:

also theres this yearly art contest in either val‎encia or cata‎lunya where ppl submit illustrations of snails and this year's winner was a very blatantly AI generated pic created by some turkish individual who is rumored to not even exist. its a rabbit hole but looking up bedhiran akagündüz (or, likewise, rubén lucas garcía) should set you on the right track

Now let me be clear: i vehemently hate anti-ai luddites and picrew fandomites and ive always been very vocal about this. and quite frankly im tired of the moral panic steeming from anything AI-generated as if it was the antichrist!!!!! you all just sound reactionary as fuck. AI art is certainly not stealing from you and the only exceptions to this rule are very very very blatant copies, and you almost never see those unless were talking about nft-adjacent ponzi scheme websites. would you consider collages theft? music samples? AI just draws "inspiration" (for lack of a better word) from the illustrations that it is fed because its like a tabula rasa and it needs knowledge, just like us human beings are inspired by other people's artstyles. the end product is something that doesnt even look similar to the data it is fed because it is an amalgamation of different styles that create something unique. is that theft? be for fucking real

this stupid myth about the brutal energy consumption of AI art generation as well as the whole ‘did you know that every time you generate one picture youre wasting an entire bottle of water????’ argument... im sorry to say none of that is true. ai isn't even the most water-intensive sector if we're comparing it with other industrial sectors like petroleum/coal factories or wineries or paperboard mills. training datasets IS resource-intensive but its normally a one-time process, inference (which is what you use daily) is not any less efficient than looking something up on google for example:

this whole 'carbon footprint' bullshit that has been sold to us is just a tactic to divert attention from the actual polluters which are corporations like coca-cola or exxon or bp. You know this you get your praxis from this website.

regarding the whole 'AI is theft' argument, im just going to share these tags that someone left in another post i made:

like a clear example of anti-ai panic actively hurting artists is the backlash that oka‎me-p, a voc‎aloid artist, got for using AI generated illustrations as the ACCOMPANIMENT for his songs:

and to be honest this is a huge problem regarding western voc‎afans who often have the emotional maturity of a peanut. youre so so so hellbent on demonizing others just for using a technology that is widely available to everyone, that youre willing to throw them under the bus and delegitimize everything they do just because it hurts your feelings well im not going to fucking stay quiet about that

who do you think youre talking to you stupid fucking bitch. god this person makes me so mad.

Anyways my point is: ai is like acupuncture; just like the latter can be used to treat or alleviate different ailments but it cant completely treat cancer like modern medicine would; AI can be complimentary, but it can NEVER replace actual labor. its merely a worktool! its merely meant to automatize daily tasks!!! its not your enemy i promise. Ok im tired of writing goo buh buh

[askgothamshitty]

"Why would a straight woman date a bisexual man? You wouldn't force a straight guy to date a bisexual man."

And I sat with that for a minute. I think this is what the kids call poetic justice and tight logic. That second part really challenged my logic and thought process.

Why don't we demand men that are only attracted to women to date men, but we demand women that are attracted to men to date men? How selfish and anti feminist of society.

I never realized how misogynistic it was to tell women that thinking all bisexual men are dirty cheaters that give women AIDS and STDs is biphobic and homophobic. Unfortunately, I was born and raised a "pick me" so my desire to defend men of marginalized community is not as a result of compassion or the fact that I am also apart of that community but rather because I hate women and I want them to give their bodies to every man on the planet.

Sure, I live in a very sex-negative country and work day in and day out to protect all marginalized communities (including female sex workers and queer women) from the spread of HIV but i only do that because I am obsessed with men and prioritize their wellbeing over women's.

I am so grateful that Twitter terfs decided to clear this up for me during Christmas of all holidays. What will we do without them and their wisdom. I can't wait to see what other insight that isn't just regurgitated old-school bigotry but with random feminist jargon thrown in to pretend it's for women specifically they have to share with us.

To be clear, I am 100% being sarcastic. i hate when people use vague feminist thought to defend blatant bigotry. Please leave me out of this

Speak on it!!!!

TERFs are so miserable. Like, it’s Christmas, the fucking holidays, time off work and school and their idea of a good time is talking like Ronald fucking Reagan on the internet. And then they move on with their day sincerely thinking they’re enlightened feminists resisting patriarchy. It’s fucking shameful.

I’m so sorry you had to see that shit. IMO it can hurt harder to see it from fellow bi/queer people. It makes me think of how powerful reactionary sentiment is.

[theculturedmarxist]

I also think that the Left should look with skepticism on whatever methods the state is using against current out of favor elements of the Right, because those are the same tactics that these capitalist institutions are going to use against us when the time comes.

"Free Speech shouldn't mean freedom from consequences!" is a really pithy fucking line, until it's Pinkertops burning down your house in the middle of the night because you tried to organize a union. "The First Amendment doesn't extend to private enterprises like Twitter" sounds reasonable when Trump supporters or Qanon get banned for whatever stupid shit they're on about now, but it's going to be hell when they're purging people opposed to whatever imperialist venture is currently happening. "Freedom of speech doesn't mean the freedom to spread misinformation" is all well and good, until the people that decide what's "misinformation" decide that what you have to say is "harmful" or "dangerous" or "corrupting the narrative."

There is definitely an effort to establish a regime of censorship and information control on the internet and society at large on the part of the bourgeoisie. That regime, in all seriousness, will never be employed against the Right in any meaningful way. Ukraine's magical disappearing Nazis presages what's to come on that front. Well known and documented facts, like the US's interference in Ukraine's government, the presence and prevalence of reactionary and neo-Nazi groups cultivated by the US and that government, their very active and blatant campaigns of Nazi rehabilitation and ethnic persecution, and the complex 30 year history of everything leading up to the war, were all just memory-holed as soon as the war started. Suddenly Nazis weren't so bad. They were applauded in Congress and hosted at Stanford. Even the ADL got involved in running cover for neo-Nazis.

Just keep in mind when you see the Boogaloo Boys or whatever the fuck getting stomped on, who that boot is really intended for.

[rosethourn]

Let's try using reading comprehension skills over "gotcha" tactics, ok? And then maybe you'll see why what you said is a blatant misinterpretation of what I said. I know it might be tough, but being a part of the "how dare you say we piss on the poor" population of this website isn't a cute look. You got this!

Anyways! For the rest of y'all! I know people are scared, and when we're scared we want simple, swift solutions. But we have to be vigilant not to fall back on reactionary thinking. The 4B movement reduces the idea of the patriarchy to men vs women, and not a systemic issue that anyone can uphold and fall victim to, regardless of gender. And because of that, they have very strict rules on What Is A Woman and What Is Not. News flash, it's the same transphobia and TERF rhetoric we've been fighting so hard in the states.

There can't be a trans-inclusive version of this movement because to do so, you need hard lines on who's a man and who's a woman. If we're excluding men, that means trans men will either get gendered correctly and marked as the enemy, be misgendered in order to be included, or the language shifts to people with uterus' versus people with penises, which is just extra steps to disguising transphobia/bioessentialism/transmedicalism. And trans women will continue not to be taken seriously and labeled as a threat despite how vulnerable that group already is. There is no safety here. (Note: Going forward I'll be using "men" and "women" moreso in the context the people in the 4B movement do, but again, this goes beyond sex/gender)

You also have to think about what happens next. The, "Then What?". What changes will it bring, how will it end the patriarchy? So you're not interacting with men anymore - To what end? This is a huge problem with certain activist movements, especially in the US, and especially with white people. You have to think it through. What happens to society if you exclude 50% of a population, indiscriminately, over something they have no control over? Probably not good! No not probably, definitely not good! That sounds like the nightmare y'all are trying to avoid! But as an individual, it's easy for these people to say, "too bad! They deserve to suffer!" But that is not a community mindset. Like it or not, we share a planet with men! And if you actually are trying to break free of the punitive system of justice, if you actually want to work towards restorative justice and leave behind the Incarceration State of Mind, then you need to take a step out of your individual point of view and do what's best for the community as a whole. Look out for one another, support the women in your community for sure, that's great! Call out people, yes I said people not just men, for upholding patriotic standards. And this goes for other men too! If you have a shitty misogynist guy friend, they're gonna listen to you before they listen to a woman say the same thing. Sucks to hear, but it's unrealistic to think change is gonna happen overnight, and it definitely isn't gonna happen if he already doesn't respect the people yelling at him about how he's wrong. He has to know he's wrong first. It also means calling out your friends who are dating/married to Republicans/misogynists/racists/homo/transphobs. There's nuance to everything obviously and there's no one right answer on how to approach this, but let your friends know it's fucked up to be with someone who doesn't respect their human rights. Help them out if it's an abusive situation, but if they're just giving them a pass, let them know that shit's disgusting, call them out on hypocrisy, make them actually consider what it means to be with someone like that. Keep each other accountable. It's not your job to fix every fuck ass dude who comes along TO AN EXTENT. And maybe on a personal level, it's not something you're good at/have the capacity for. And that's ok, but as a whole, we can't just give up on men and let them fend for themselves, because someone will find them and radicalize them against women further. That's what's already happening, we can't afford to make it worse!

And I know more blogs like the one above are gonna hit me with different strawmen arguments or take what I say out of context or just completely misrepresent what I've said, so I'll say this. There's nothing wrong with being choosy about who you date/sleep with/marry/have kids with. Be choosy about who you're friends with! In most cases I think it's best to be. But if you think you're gonna avoid toxic relationships, abuse, misogyny, etc by changing your only metric to Women™️, you're gonna fail. Personal choice is one thing, activism is another.

Sorry if this is rambling, but I'm scared, I'm depressed, and I'm pissed off. It hurts to see people I know care about queer people and community building forget the dog whistles and fall into cultish radical groups. Cults and other radical groups wait for a victimized population to be vulnerable and swoop in with a solution dressed up with all the right words to make it seem like it's a good thing for you when it just isn't. Stay safe, stay smart, stay alert. Not all that glitters is gold yada yada yada 🫰🏻

and American women i am being SO serious when i say we need to learn from our South Korean sisters and follow their steps with the 4B movement. the house of representatives, the senate, the supreme court, and the president are ALL red now. if american men want to control our bodies and choices so much then let’s give them HELL!

read about the 4B movement:

[garetthawke]

the first ever pride was a protest because gay sex was illegal. kink was a big part of it bc subcultures like leather bears got out there, even though they could be arrested, and said they deserved to feel pride. it was not intended to be some coporate sponsored, sanitized-for-safe-marketing event where your family can pretend its basically disney world. the reactionary "ew gross kink at pride what about THE KIDS" is 100% homophobic and fully detached from the community and history.

yes, there are more kids now who identify within the community because of our achievements and progress in destigmatizing, but that doesn't change the fact that pride has always been associated with sexuality. the horror over exaggerated strawman scenrios people parade around social media is a complete tool of capitalism, because coca cola and bank of america and whatever other fucking corporation also does not want anything sexual associated with their endorsements, and you do their dirty work for them. shut the fuck up.

pride is a legacy event where we celebrate ALL aspects of our identities, starting with the historically most stigmatized and criminalized aspects. respectability politics has always tried to seperate queerness from sex to appeal to our oppressors and make us more palatable, and pride stood as a blatant opposition to that shit.

if you're a minor who's scandalized by a drag queen in a bikini or thrown into utter shock at seeing a leather harness, maybe wait to go to pride until you've grown up a bit, and read a book on queer liberation in the 20th century instead. if you're too young to see what people bring out there, you're too young to be sharing the sentiments of what pride is about, bc it absolutely involves sex and kink, always has, and that does not need to be divorced or censored from the concept of queerness.

[robzombies-hotwife]

Women's rights are vital but allying yourself with a far-right reactionary hate movement because you share a common hatred of trans people is not the girlboss progressive move you think it is. You're a useful dancing monkey for them but trust and believe, the christofascists despise you too and will turn on you the second it becomes convenient. Believe me, they think gay and bi people are pedophiles too, but we're not the most low-hanging fruit right now. They are coming for you too and it has already started. There are genuine issues with transgender politics, yes, but unchecked reactionary hatred stemming from a fear and disgust of what you don't understand does nothing to open up a productive dialogue and the majority of takes that I've seen online essentially boils down to "man in a dress is inherently gross and perverted and CORRUPTING THE CHILDREN." Sound familiar? It should and that should raise alarm bells.

I am begging y'all to wake the fuck up and escape the ouroboros-like paranoid cult you are in. Realize that the people you choose to associate yourself with hate women, hate homosexuals, and hate gender non-conformity. Like, allying yourself with pro-life woman haters because they also don't believe in gender identities? Are you fucked in the head? It is not my place to speak about race, but the amount of blatant unchecked racism that runs through The Cult and their far-right allies should disgust you too. The number of actual, unabashed Nazis I met in 3 years associated with The Cult would send a chill down your spine.

Leave. The hatred you are stewing yourself in is poisoning your brain. I bought into that bullshit from when I was about 16 and could find no other "support" as a butch lesbian other than the almost fetishistic praxis of that cult, then woke the fuck up at 19 or 20 and realized I had let myself be turned into a hateful propaganda tool for conspiracy-prone people that didn't actually give a shit about me. I am nobody's tool.

There is a better way. There has to be a better way. Please wake up and maybe we can build an actual feminist movement that is built on love and real justice, not reactionary hate.

[devilith]

can we not fucking spread around blatant misinfo with absolutely no evidence or proof? god damn

theres also a lotta stupid bullshit in the notes about "wuaawahhh nightbringer is such a bad game because of xyz" and like. lets not take your personal opinions and state them as objective facts okay dawg?

anyway solmare has said before in q&as that they do not use any kind of generative ai in their games. we went over this a little while ago when some new card artists has their work debuted in the game and people lost their shit because they were too stupid to understand that a new/different art style wasnt the same exact thing as ai. a whole bunch of reactionary jackasses needed to be shut down and explained what art styles are.

solmare has clarified that they dont use ai.

(if it turns out in the future that they were lying, then sure go fucking nuts. i will too. but as of right now the company has stated that they do not use ai and it would be making false claims if they were lying about that. so until actually proven otherwise, shut the fuck up. if you are so sure its ai just go to literally any one of the dozens of official accounts, message them, and ask)

so, this is disappointing. (screenshots taken from the smile in bloom devilgram story)

notice anything weird?

they 100% used genAI in making the backgrounds (clarification in rbs)

i know this may sound nitpicky considering they're just throwaway backgrounds for a devilgram story, but this'll set a precedent for what comes next. first, it's backgrounds, next thing you know, we'll get an entire card set using genAI. i know obey me in general is slowly dwindling in users, but it's still no excuse. this'll just put a sour taste in the mouths of its users going forward.

so, yeah. i'm disappointed.

[queenlua]

salty hugo nominee 2020 reviews: short stories

under a cut because long, etc

ranked roughly from “shit that made me the most annoyed” to “shit that made me the least annoyed”:

A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde

God did this ever not work for me.  It must’ve worked for someone, I guess?  To be nominated?  But, what?

Look, the story was already on thin fucking ice when I was halfway through and I noticed the narrative wasn’t going much of anywhere.  Then the storms started getting names like A Leaving and A Grieving and A Loss That’s Probably Your Fault and I rolled my eyes so far back into my skull that I had to wait a while for them to re-correct themselves so I could finish reading the damn thing.  AN OVERWROUGHT AND NOT-EVEN-THAT-EVOCATIVE METAPHOR IS NOT A STORY, I want to nail on the office door of A Certain Subset Of Acquisitions Editors.

Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island by Nibedita Sen

Sigh.

Look, I know why everyone wants metafiction to be good.  I’m a sucker for the meta and the contrary and the self-referential and the circuitous.  In college I convinced some poor sucker of a professor to let me submit some horrifying 80-page metafictional thing about Andrew Johnson being a piece of shit, told via (among other things) histograms, MSN Messenger group chats, excerpts from a 2100 reactionary Civil War novel that does not exist, strangely erotically-charged letters between Johnson and various southern governors, excerpts from an anthropology textbook published in 2400 that also does not exist, and so on and so forth.  That shit was delightful to write, so I get it, I do.

But I also don’t ask anyone to read my 80-page metafictional thing (except that poor professor, bless their soul), because when I reread it later, it wasn’t a story.  Parts of it were an excuse to show off my own cleverness.  Parts of it were almost a story—but I either couldn’t be assed to fill the full thing out, or I didn’t quite know how to full the thing out, or I just didn’t have the ballsiness to do so.  Alas.

So, okay.  In waltzes this particular story, a metafictional thingy told via excerpts from various books and websites.

And while this one didn’t enrage me with its mediocrity the way, say, STET did last year (an angry Facebook post that was only barely pretending to be a story), it also just isn’t much of a story.  Weird spooky cannibal shit happens.  Feminists be fightin’ with each other about intersectionality.  Sure.  But I feel like that’s just Tuesday afternoon on my Tumblr feed, not a proper story.

(I would be delighted to read a metafiction-y story that does manage to work for me, by the way.  Hit me up with your best quirky metafiction-y shit.  But this one wasn’t it.)

And Now His Lordship is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas

It’s like, fine.  The prose is good.  The right motions are made, mechanics-wise.  There’s just not that much to the story.

This is actually a problem with most of the stuff I’m reading in SF/F zines these days.  The prose is good, the prose is always reasonably good, and sometimes it’s so good I’d chop off my left pinky to be able to write some of the phrases they do.  But the story part, too often, ends up being a nothingburger with nothingsauce.  It’s obvious from the start that the colonial government is going to be horrid; it’s obvious from the start that Apa’s going to use some trick to get her vengeance; the only question is how.  And the how wasn’t especially evocative or thrilling, to me.

Blood is Another Word for Hunger by Rivers Solomon

Y’know, this one is weird.  You get a lot of points for being weird.  It’s not quite Philip K. Dick levels of weird, and it could’ve benefitted from that level of weird.  Like, if Sully’s gonna give birth to a bunch of previously-dead folks, I’d expect them to do some kinda weird shit, rather than just some amicable homesteading and then some Sully-planned murder, right?

What’s here is reasonably fun but I ache thinking about how much weirder and cooler it could’ve been.

Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix. E Harrow

This one was actually pretty solid adventure fantasy.  Actually, it sort of gets me in a mindset of wondering—do I ask too much of SF/F short fiction?  Like, I look at the Hugo nominees each year, and I’m always hoping to have my mind blown, my world rocked, and so on.  But I dunno, the English-speaking SF/F world is only so big, my mind can only be blown so many times, and maybe something can just be a good romp & that’s perfectly deserving of an award on its own.

It does some stuff with gender, sure, and that bit’s pretty fun, but mostly it’s a cool story.  Recommended if you’re into warrior chicks and/or healer chicks and/or those dating each other.

(BCS, as a venue, seems to select for a lot of this sort of thing.  It’s not always revolutionary but it’s also always a story and I appreciate the shit out of that.)

As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang

So we have a blatant ethics-of-nuclear-war metaphor going on.  Lil’ trite and/or unsexy now that the Cold War’s over, but, well, the horrible threat of nuclear war never really went away, right?  We just decided to ignore it in favor of other looming apocalypses.  So sure, let’s ride.

I liked Tej in this story; I liked Otto Han; I liked how full a sense of their characters was evoked in such a small space.  Something about Nyma didn’t quite land for me, though, and I can’t put a finger on why.  I get why she’s relatively non-agenic, I understand the concerns and fears that drive her, but I just wanted something... more?

I dunno.  Maybe I’m nitpicking.  It was alright; I wanted more than alright.

Also, an ending like this is like when pop songs do that radio-edit lazy-fade-into-silence ending.  C’mon, commit!  The only time you get to do an ~ambiguous~ ending like this is when you’re writing “The Lady or the Tiger” and you want some middle school English class and/or some book club to argue ferociously over it.  But endings are what elevate things from thought experiments to real stories; it’s the moment you gotta say, yeah, this is a thing about the world that I know and believe to be true.

[minetteskvareninova]

Where I come from, “Slavic brotherhood” is used mostly by idiot Putin simps as a phrase meaning “uncritical love of Russia, or rather their imaginary version that is completely devoid of immigrants, LGBT+ people, Jewish people and in general anyone they don’t like, and has never done anything bad ever in its entire existence, yet is perpetually persecuted by the USA, the anglo-saxon nations (whatever the fuck that means), the Jewish cabal, what have you”. Like at some point it’s just so blatant that these people just project their reactionary ideas on Russia (which Russia is certainly supportive of) and would twist themselves into knots defending it if that would make them feel like they are winning some imaginary culture war. That’s what “Slavic brotherhood” looks like right now. The ultimate irony, of course, being that Ukrainians are ALSO a Slavic nation. What’s more, there’s a significant Ukrainian minority in Slovakia, and has been since the days of Habsburg monarchy. We never had anything but good relations with Ukraine and Ukrainians. And yet, when they are actually victimized (instead of eternally playing the victim like Russia), it’s as if the fact that they are Slavs too didn’t matter. At best, they will excuse their support by shit like “Ukrainian government is a Western puppet, that’s what Russia fights against, not ordinary Ukrainians” or “well, REAL Ukrainians are welcoming Russians as their liberators, but the corrupt mainstream media won’t show you that”. Some of them can be almost hillarious, as right-wing nutjobs sometimes are, but most of the time it just makes me sick.

For the 1736717128th time, "slavic brotherhood" is an imperialistic myth invented by the russian propagandists during the times of russian empire to justify conquering their neighbouring "brothers". It is not scientific nor culturological, and god forbid it doesn't mean that you can do whatever harmful shit and cover up it with "but we're brothers/sisters!!"

[queernuck]

i shouldnt get involved with drama but like...this is just above and beyond like you are seriously looking at someone who I think is incredible, who has gone through a whole lot, who has been DIRECTLY victimized by Amerikkka (as a result of the OG 9/11, not the Good One) and yet you think you get to talk shit about her because...of normal-ass blogging. not even anything she did, just a callout of someone associated with her, sketchy behavior of someone in the same sphere that is connected to various others and also overblown in that criticism and just...yall just really hate trans women! thats it!!! when we have leninist v primmie debates, you look at the trans women and target them in the most reductive and violent of ways. when we discuss Foucault, who’s problematic for reading that? trans women! the hyperscrutiny of trans women creates an environment where the exact same action or even more blatant ones can just be passed over. it is just the absolute worst, it creates that kind of like, plausible deniability when awful trans women ARE outed and there ARE awful transmisogynist understandings of their actions rather than ones that look at how women abuse trans women, how gender non-conformity and race and gendered experience of the body (and the gendering of race and racialization of gender!!) are all combined into this fucking awful reactionary politics FUCK

[kittywildegrrl]

MAMA CAT AND THE CRAZY IDEA

In Which Mama Cat Decides to Commit A Revolutionary Act of Theatre for All to See.

“I've been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine. So men say that I'm intense or I'm insane. You want a revolution? I want a revelation So listen to my declaration: "We hold these truths to be self-evident That all men are created equal" And when I meet Thomas Jefferson, I'm ‘a compel him to include women in the sequel! (Work!)” -- Hamilton, The Schuyler Sisters

You’ve got to understand, darlings, I just got passed over for the one huge leading-lady role I have been longing for -- nay, READY FOR -- lo these many years, and I am in A Mood. 

You should also know that I like to watch the movie, “1776,” every year on this date – most years, anyway – and it rather gets to me. Partly, because it’s just really good, and it seems to become more timely each year. Partly, because I have always wanted to do the show, but I’m neither a Martha Jefferson nor an Abigail Adams. 

I’m John Adams.

These are troubled times, my loves, you don’t need me to tell you that. And I for one am feeling the patriotic urge, the call to action, more and more each day; personally and professionally. I am an unlikely candidate to run for office or reinforce barricades, come to that. But there is one thing I can do that might have an impact in some tiny corner: I can sing the shit out of that John Adams music, like it was written for me; and I can act it, too. (So is that one thing? Or two?)

Like many girls and women for many years, I have been wanting to do the show and asking why? Why not? There is precedent: https://www.mtishows.com/news/all-female-cast-of-1776-revisited.

I began to speculate on the Social, just to get it out of my system. Perhaps not surprisingly, I have since had friends, acquaintances, and women members of the theatre community nationwide, who I do not even know IRL, coming out of the metaphorical woodwork in support – many of them volunteering to play certain roles! I have touched a nerve, seemingly. I have at least two Jeffersons now, and at least one of them has asked to be considered for another Founder as well; as if to anticipate that there are going to be an awful lot of women who are into this. And they’re pros, cats & kittens. I have professional colleagues, both the onstage variety and the offstage variety, coming forward to offer their services. For a production that does not yet exist, at a venue we do not have, on a budget that is not extant.

So today I declare this:

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for artists to conceive and mount their own stuff just to get it on the stage already;

And when in the course of the run-up to the 2020 elections we find some really strong women rising up to declare themselves, and to prove themselves electable;

And when in the course of still trying to prove, after 243 years, that all Persons are created Equal and Free and some of them are inexplicably endowed with theatre chops; I will stand up in my own little corner and begin to write my business plan.

In the past several years I have met, worked with, and seen work done by, women directors, actors, dancers, stage managers, lighting designers, sound designers, stage technicians of all varieties, music directors, pit musicians, casting directors, agents, and independent producers. Many of them, truly and amazingly good. All of them, my colleagues at some level or to some extent, even at the vaguest and most tenuous association. And while I have huge love for all my cis-men in the business, I beg their understanding that this is absolutely NOT a fuck-you to them. It is a Thingy we wish to do. We welcome your ticket money, and your support for our seemingly foolhardy mission. To the men in drag who have done Auntie Mame, the Golden Girls, or whatever expresses your art and craft best, we likewise have huge love for you, and this is absolutely NOT a fuck-you to you, either.

This is not a fuck-you to anyone. It is a blatant act of theatre. With joy and groove and professionalism.

Perhaps it’s a response to, a Yes-And for, that moment when we saw Ali Stroker make history as the first actor in a wheelchair to win a Tony Award. Maybe I’m feeling personally reactionary in the wake of a disappointment that gut-punched me a few days ago. Or maybe I’ve actually completely taken leave of my senses since that awesome break I told you I had in May (yeah, yeah, we’ll get to that, it’s a great story). Or maybe MamaCat is just really vain and she can’t tell because she has the temerity to use the third person in reference to herself in her blog. Whatevah. 

But I make the case that we can, and perhaps should, have ourselves a production of #AllFemale1776In2020, with every person on the stage, in the pit, in the booth, on headset; every man Jack of us, women. Trans sisters welcome.

Oh, there will be negativity. There will be disbelief and anger. Probably haters too. And as I have inadvertently gathered almost an entire cast already, I see that the flaming arrogance of the thing is that I will no doubt be talking Creative Control or directing it myself or some equally unlikely scenario. And wouldn’t that be just like John Adams? If you’re a woman who has directed this before and would be willing to entertain my Ladies’ Volunteer Army of Talent, reach out. 

But remember how I was telling you about my friend Shannon? And how I sleep on her & her husband’s couch when in the City? We started tossing this idea around a while back. How I’d love to take a crack at Adams & she’d be the perfect Ben Franklin… and there IS precedent. The thing CAN be done.

So, we may be talking some little black box somewhere with one piano and a staged reading. Or maybe some kindly theatrical company with whom myself or Ms. Haddock have worked will offer a legit slot in a season. I don’t think you’d have to be a woman to be the Artistic Director who takes a chance on us. Or perhaps I risk defeat entirely. But today, on Independence Day, I say this thing: I want to play John Adams, and I have almost everyone you need, including Ben Franklin, the Courier, and others (a potential Lee or Rutledge who will knock yer eyes out whichever role she does), and we need to do this thing. #AllFemale1776In2020.

What if you were to inadvertently STEAL this idea? And there were TWO OR MORE productions of an #AllFemale1776In2020 springing to life? What if you just up and STEAL THIS IDEA, O my sisters??😉👍🎭✌💙

Happy Independence Day, darlings.

[asleepingwindow]

Ace Discourse Masterpost (Rebloggable Cut Version)

Here is a master list of arguments in the ace discourse over the years against the notion that cishet ace/aro people are members of the LGBT community, because they are cis and straight. Furthermore why calling asexuality an oppression (while not denying the existence of prejudice against asexual people and the need for their own community) leads to very homophobic and transphobic understanding of what it means to be LGBT. I have been involved in “the discourse” for over five years, making arguments of my own and promoting others on this blog. But now it is time for me to move on and leave this masterpost as the culmination of this blog’s purpose.

Some of these posts are mine but for the most part this is the product of a lot of other people’s work: their words, their thoughts, their experiences and their research all compiled into one place to help people understand the ace discourse and to track its record of ahistory and blatant homophobia and transphobia. I have made sure to use links on my blog so they don’t get lost in any name changes or deletion, but I do not take any credit for their posts and content. So thank you to everyone who contributed to the discourse, and ultimately this post. I hope this will be great resource for discoursers young and old and help people form their own arguments and to help young LGBT people from falling into the trap of denying their sexuality because of the homophobic and transphobic rhetoric of the Ace Community.

So without further ado, The Ace Discourse Masterpost:

Why Asexuality is Not Oppressed

A comparison of asexuality to racism and why it does not meet the definition of systemic oppression

A Debunking of the study often cited as proof of Asexual Oppression and Acephobia

Another response to the oft cited study.

And denying oppression is not proof it exists

Oppression is systematic, not individual

Asexuality does not need to be oppressed to still be valid

Gatekeeping

The LGBT community was created to combat transphobia and homophobia

Gatekeeping doesn’t mean what you think it does

“The LGBT Community is meant to be inclusive!!”

Safe Spaces are meant to be exclusive

And thus excluding cishet aces protects LGBT people

On Oppression Olympics

If not LGBT, where do asexual people belong?

On the assumption that some LGBT people live happy homophobia free lives and should be called “not queer enough” too.

The emergence of REG, “ Reactionary Exclusionist Gatekeepers”

REG is just another version of using “it’s the same as ___” to gain legitimacy

The Queer Identity

The history of “queer” as a slur and why its not an umbrella term

Insisting “queer” is an umbrella term for abnormal/deviant people is classic homophobia

Queer is also often used to intentionally erase an individuals distinct identity and relation to oppression

Queer can never fully be reclaimed

On queer theory and the true history of the term

A is for Asexual

How AVEN started the A for Asexual, fully aware that it was also being used for allies. (Arguing the origin of A as Ally is pointless now, this post explains it all from the horse’s mouth)

Why trying to use MOGAI instead does not work.

Ableism and The DSM

A thorough argument on why hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in the DSM is not proof of oppression against asexuals, and is in fact a homophobic and ableist claim.

More on HSDD and the absurdity of claiming it targets asexual people

More on the history of the slur homosexuality and how it was used to medically torture gay people.

Autistic people are often assumed to be asexual (And are not meant to be ace representation)

A Complete Guide to How the Ace Community has lied about the Pathologization of Asexuality and Fearmongered Young Aces into thinking Anti-Ace Conversion Therapy is a Thing

Split Attraction Model (Asexuality is not Straight!)

Why the split attraction model is bad and people hate it.

It makes gross assumptions about non-asexual people who do not use the model, and conflates sexual attraction with sexual orientation

Sectioning personal thoughts on sex and using mogai labels are ultimately useless

The -sexual prefix has always meant gender not sex

Attraction cannot be so evenly split into Romantic or Sexual

“You must be cisgender, heteroromantic, and heterosexual to be Straight!”

Also “Homoromantic” is a terrible word

The History of the word Straight

Allosexual & Allosexual Privilege

Why Allosexual is a terrible term

The word makes sweeping assumptions about someone’s private sexual feelings for vast number of people. (tl;dr version)

The person who coined the term now opposes it’s use.

There is no such thing as sexual privilege.

SGA people have a relationship to sex based on our oppression that straight asexual people cannot understand or experience

The failure of liberal analysis of power structures

Refuting the idea that LGBT people don’t face homophobia or transphobia even in more liberal places.

A cringe-worthy comic that assumes “allosexual” people easily know their sexual orientation because sex

Can you all just stop with this shit, really?

Monosexism, allosexuality’s evil cousin, has many of the same issues.

TL;DR Another brief argument against Allosexual

Corrective Rape

The term “corrective rape” has been appropriated from a very specific homophobic hate crime in South Africa to mean any kind of rape that punishes the victim.

The UN updated it’s terminology guidelines to refer to it as homophobic rape to “note the deep-seated homophobia that motivates the hate crime”

Often used as a gotcha argument than concern for rape victims.

Supporting Rape Culture and Pedophilia

Discourse about ace people having sex is often thinly veiled rape culture

Claiming rape is worse for asexual people again, and again, and again, and again, and again

Is the discourse becoming too “inclusive” of pedophiles?

The troubling trend of protecting pedophiles and calling out victims

On Sex In General

How capitalism affects our perceptions of sexual culture

Asexuality is about sex in a way being Gay/Bi is not (And how it relates to explaining sex and sexuality to children)

Aces need to talk about sex too!

Erasure and Visibility

Visibility directly contributes to the violence LGBT people face

Visibility is not always positive and is often stereotyped and not good for LGBT people

Accepted versus Respected

“At least you have representation!”

A History of Ahistory

Arguments that the Spinster Movement was about asexuality cherry picks history

Another post about the Spinster Movement

Assuming Boston Marriages were about asexuality

Asexuality is based on western/eurocentric ideas of sexuality

New terminology lacks historical context of “homosexual”

And is often appropriating language from LGBT people

Even recent history gets rewritten

The Ace Community really needs to just stop.

Pushing LGBT People Back into the Closet

Homophobia wants gay people to be asexual

Ace discourse has promoted sexually regressive and classic homophobic ideas about sex that has prevented LGB people from fully admitting to themselves their same-gender attraction. (Proof)

Ace discourse against same-gender PDA in LGBT safe spaces is classic homophobia

As well as dangerous to our sexual safety!

PDA is not applied to straight and gay people equally

AIDS/HIV and Serophobia in the Ace Community

“We’re Here, We’re Queer” - was created in response to the AIDS Crisis   (Source)

Joking about the crisis to complain about gatekeeping

Resenting AIDS activism so much as to imply no young gay man today could possibly be affected by the AIDS crisis

Assuming no one alive during the crisis is speaking now about seraphobia (The AIDS Crisis is Not Over!)

Imagining sexually transmitted plagues that won’t affect asexuals

“Ok but that was like 40 years ago and homosexuality is now widely accepted”

Homophobia in the Ace Community

Will comment on topics of violent homophobia with “at least they know you exist” so they can kill us

Ace tumblr or conservative republican?

Claiming people who hate aces are “Sexually Deviant”

Masterpost of some really terrible homophobic shit

“Gay people are obsessed with sex!” Edition of Ace Homophobia

This entire tag of fucked up shit ace people have said

Please feel free to reblog and add any arguments I may have missed.

(Uncut Version)

[deodatasslawson]

REALLY not fuckin' surprised that the scumbag who lynched Jordan Neely was from West Islip (aka White Islip) considering how fucking white and segregated that place is. Long Island in generally has a pretty bad segregation problem and there are unfortunately a lot of fascist scumbags on Long Island, especially in the super white areas like West Islip/White Islip, Massappequa/MAGAppequa, Bellmore, Smithtown, Levittown, Seaford, Bohemia, etc.

The communities listed are some of the worst when it comes to blatant racism and reactionary politics on Long Island btw but in general Long Island has a huge problem with racism, classism, and reactionary and fascist politics.

Also the scumbag who lynched Jordan Neely apparently has a dad who is a fucking cop (like head of NYS PD type shit) so that, plus being from White Islip/West Islip, and being an ex-marine makes it REALLY not surprising that this scumbag wanted a fucking excuse and opportunity to lynch a black person in public light.

Daniel Penny is the Subway Strangler. This monster killed Jordan Neely in cold blood and the media provided cover for him. Plaster his name and face everywhere until he's arrested.

Whoever exposed him thank you for doing the lords work

64.media.tumblr.com

64.media.tumblr.com

Hey, this is the son of a bitch who killed that poor man Neely on the train in New York. Don't let him walk away from this.

this is where he currently lives at the moment just in case you need to run up to his place and protest there

Update Current address: 108 Milligan Rd West Babylon New York 11704

Number: (631) 661-5952

[witty-diagnosis]

Witty Diagnosis #69: <-- I mean this title quite literally writes itself

So I've been gone for ten days, and it's one o'clock in the morning when I realise this, I apologise. Anyway I hope you've been good, I've been alright, booked in for a tattoo on my shoulder and down the top of my arm that cost £200 but I'm 18 so I may aswell, so now that's out the way I promised I would do a 1000 follower special on... Oh dear, feminism. And yes that's what I'm about to do. Hopefully the reputation of tumblr feminists as being man hating radicals doesn't shine through in my feedback, but as you know I don't enjoy toning myself down, and I may or may not have an a level in sociology, although my exam went well, wish me luck and let's go. So, there are numerous camps of feminism with a couple being prevalent; liberal feminism in which equality is the focus and they're pretty cool to speak to, strange penchant for coffee though, radical feminism which is similar to third wave in it's quest for matriarchy rather than patriarchy believing that, no shit hasn't changed and looking at a women the wrong way is rape, despite this being england and making a fuss will certainly get you looked at. There is also black feminism, eco feminism, marxist, probably something to do with animals and menimism, a miserable attempt for winey little man bitches to not suck it the fuck up and get on with their miserable fucking lives. So let's focus on liberal first, now I'm not much of a feminist since I'm working class and I wasn't the best student in school, being looked down upon is my fortee, but these guys believe that some stuff has changed for women, a march of progress so to speak, more rights, better pay and more life choices for women. Things that can be identified pretty much everywhere. And although there may be some oppression still around when referring to the man known as the "cunt" it's very much got better. I mean look at the shift from fixing women's rights to gay rights and you can see the positives. Radical \ third wave feminism is the Gary Busey of sociological theories, slightly unhinged. Now when you see the label of feminist on 9gag or 4chan or wherever the fuck you look this is the type of feminist you usually see. Believing that no change or March of progress has occurred and that we are still stuck in some sort of patriarchal stone age, radical feminist usually choose to remain ignorant to the fact that women now have; national recognition as models in such things as the Olympics, much more open discussion of rights and that sort of stuff, greatly successful careers as business people and the one I personally find my favourite, Asuka kicks very fucking hard. Believing that achievement of goals comes through complete irrationality, ridiculous social movements such as the free bleeding thing which was as disgusting as it was incredibly unhygienic, you could catch so many infections, and as I will most likely be called out on, that all men are criminals and we couldn't possibly understand the struggles, despite being brought up with 3 sisters. As you can see there is a stark contrast between the 2 differing views, one completely reasonable and understandable point and one that is still written by highly middle class women who believe that being oppressed is receiving the wrong coffee, view video games as promoting the male fantasy, which yes I do want a big fuck off suit of mjolnir mark V power armour because who wouldn't, and have never had such things as the threat of losing their house at the age of 13, being unable to afford education and having been turned down from 25 job applications because "you're not suitable" and "you don't look suitable" despite having 11 GCSE's, 2 AS levels and 2 A levels and being more than qualified to stack your frozen fucking peas, yknow actual oppressive stuff. But I'm sure the wrong coffee is just as fucking tough. So a few final points, I'm not a feminist as I've said if I was I'd be liberal but surely equality is common sense now. That whole fat shaming thing is real, but there's difference between calling someone a "fat bastard" and saying "that way of eating is self destructive, maybe try some exercise" also fit shaming is bollocks, it's just blatant jealousy since I'm sure being able to curl 30kg per arm for a chick is pretty damn impressive, and there will always be a stigma against femisnism because radical man haters and fucking buzzfeed's miserable bollocks like that pedantic manspreading thing give you a bad name, we just do it, it's just reactionary. Finally, this is my opinion, this is my blog it says in the description my frustrations and you don't like it fuck off, it's 1:41 GMT which means I need to sleep. Hope you enjoyed the 1000 follower post, I know it lacked swearing for a bit but I tried to present both sides truthfully as to what I see. Well thanks for following and I'm sure I'll post a bit sooner than 10 days for the next one, see you later.