#and the censorship is insane right

[oobbbear]

Me standing here watching Americans praising China like it’s heaven on earth like you do realize the system is beyond fucked there right it’s important to me that you know that 🧍‍♂️

[baby5fanclub]

so how come i always liked acesan even after i realized they barely interacted when i read the manga, and now i’m watching alabasta and ace is just?? there???

honestly obsessed with the ace filler + simple ace presence and if he’s gonna have a yaoi moment with sanji in the process you know what so be it.

[mobiustoyourloki]

Freedom is life's greatest lie

- Loki, 2012

[aeide-thea]

thinking abt (1) that post abt how most censorship is preemptive self-censorship¹ (2) bras²

⸻ ¹ wow, tumblr search actually worked for once??? ² i do understand and respect that for many people bras serve an actual structural function wrt support/comfort! however, for many other people (hi!) they do not, at least in everyday non-sports contexts, and that's the set of concerns i'm speaking to here.

[blackwolfmanx4]

TikTok Ban!

You live in the land of the free ... unless the government says otherwise.

[extraaa-30]

nah we're not losing these tags or comments y'all are too funny & right

The way good omens fans post like they are being paid by the anti gay sex lobby. Like at this point there’s so little separating them from a Florida PTA meeting

[whiteowl-18]

Dear Americans, get a VPN right now. I promise you, the orange man is going to mess with online privacy. Censorship and surveillance are going to be insane. Protect your privacy. This post explains the importance of a VPN quite well (it's from 2017, but it still holds up). Do some research on which VPN you should get. Do not get one from any of the countries in the 14 eyes alliance or those that cooperate with them (read the post linked above for more information). I'm not American, but I use Proton VPN, which is located in Switzerland (I use it mostly for torrenting). Protect yourselves. Times are going to be tough.

[fullhalalalchemist]

URGENT: Congress about to pass a mass censorship and surveillance bill under the guise of "protecting children"

May 13 2023

The Senate has been in a "do something!" mode regarding children's online safety. They're using this as an excuse to push for widespread internet censorship and surveillance. The EARN IT Act, has a slimmer chance of passing with widespread opposition and some senators saying they won't vote for it. TLDR;The real threat is actually KOSA (s.1409), the Kid's Online Safety Act, which will mass censor and surveill the entire internet by giving all 50 state attorney generals the power to remove content that is "harmful" for kids, and force you to upload your govt ID online to access the internet. I'll explain how it works below the action items but it's absolutely urgent that anyone who likes having a free and open internet fights back. It's all hands on deck, because this has so much public support it's insane:

HOW TO FIGHT KOSA

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES & THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE

This is a link to the Senate Commerce Committee phone numbers and a call script to read off of. (202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline

Opposition is getting drowned, and these upcoming weeks will be heavy for lobbying and they're using young people to do it. We NEED to show these senators that young people are actually opposed to this and don't want it.

2. Sign these petitions

Open Letter Against KOSA

Petition 1

Petition 2

Petition 3

Petition 4

Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409

3. Spread the word.

The opposition is getting absolutely drowned online. Dove has nearly 100k signatures to push for KOSA. Influencers on tiktok are pushing for this without ever having read the bill. Fucking Lizzo is sponsoring it. If you have twitter, reddit, tiktok, are in any community, SPREAD THE WORD, PLEASE.

Here is a linktree with all the above petitions for easy shargin: Link to linktree

HOW KOSA WORKS

First, KOSA pressures platforms to install filters that would wipe the net of anything deemed “inappropriate” for minors. This means instructing platforms to censor. We saw how these filters impacted websites firsthand with tumblr in 2018, with not only blocking all adult content but also sfw queer content such as suicide hotlines, art archives, wiping out entire blogs because they had queer fandom related posts, etc. Places that already use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ support groups. KOSA would spread this kind of censorship to every corner of the internet. And who gets to decide what is and isn't harmful for minors? Oh don't worry, just every single state attorney general and the FTC, which is appointed by the president. You know, the same attorney generals that just banned gender-affirming healthcare under the guise that it "ruins mental health" of minors. This is why the Heritage Foundation was one of the first to sponsor the bill because they can use it to censor trans content, and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is it's co-author.

Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by forcing websites to use age verification and parental monitoring tools. Yup, that's right. Now every single person who wants to access the internet has to upload their govt ID online to third party apps that get hacked all the time. You queer in a red state? You undocumented? You an activist? Have fun getting all your online activity and metadata attached to your govt ID.  

Over 90+ human and LGBT rights groups agree that KOSA is dangerous and updates to the 2023 version won’t and can’t address the big problems with the bill. This bill has MASSIVE bipartisan support, and the authors Blumenthal and Blackburn (yes, that Blumenthal that's pushing the EARN IT Act, and who also sponsored the RESTRICT Act and SOPA/PIPA if you remember) are using the tragedy of mothers who lost their kids to online harassment and young adults who've been traumatized online to lobby for it, and got Dove the company to use a bunch of influencers to push for this under the guise it prevents eating disorders...I wish I was lying. There are already 30 co-sponsors.

It is all hands on deck. I'm dead serious when I say if this bill is passed it is the beginning if not end of the open and free internet.

[clytemnestradidnothingwrong]

how exactly did the trans movement help trump get elected

Short answer: Because they killed all progressive movements.

Long answer: Trans activists hijacked and colonized the women's movement and the gay community, and even other movements such as BLM and disability rights, so now every protest has to be about "trans" people. No group can protest, fund-raise, or advocate for just themselves without pasty Gen Zers with neon hair and creepy middle aged men in wigs screaming about how they're the most oppressed people ever and it's their right to rape and kill anyone they disagree with.

"Trans" people and their allies have spent the past decade bullying everyone into submission, ostracizing and threatening anyone who questioned or criticized them, making every march, movement, and slogan about themselves, and destroying women's rights and the gay and lesbians communities from the inside.

This left the door wide open for conservatives to come in and finish us off. If it wasn't for "trans" people and their allies, we would've likely still had a solid defense (class/female/gay solidarity) against the rise of the far right, and Trump may not have been elected a second time.

But instead we have tribalism, insane amounts of violence, hate, and censorship, struggle sessions, and fractured movements that are mere shadows of their former selves, and it's all thanks to "trans" people and their allies.

They tore our communities apart, stripped us of our hard earned rights, spaces, and resources, and then mercilessly beat us until we lay on the ground, unable to defend ourselves from the MAGAs, who finished the job by simply walking up and setting our bruised and bloodied bodies on fire.

And instead of putting the fire out, "trans" people and their allies are watching us burn while insisting they're actually the ones on fire.

That's how they contributed to Trump's election.

[wilwheaton]

Musk has become a transnational vector for far right political violence. NYT doesn’t mention that. And finally, most insane of all, NYT doesn’t mention that Elon Musk has, more than once, joked about assassination and Kamala Harris. After the Secret Service reached out to him the first time, Musk repeated the claim in the last week, joking with Tucker Carlson. NYT calls this — repeated “jokes” about assassinating Kamala Harris — “insult[ing the Democratic Party’s] candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.” Elon Musk isn’t helping Trump get elected, NYT’s excuse for posting this puff piece. He’s helping Trump stoke fascism. And rather than explaining the risk, NYT simply buries it.

NYT "Censors" Elon Musk's Jokes about Assassinating the Vice President and His "Censorship" of JD Vance Dossier

[yumejiqued]

" Well, tell your parents you're proship! "

Tell your parents that you harass and leak personal information over fiction. Tell them that you think this is okay. Tell them that you're telling people to kill themselves over things that aren't real. Tell them that. Tell your parents you support censorship.

Your parents are going to think you're fucking insane. They're likely going to punish you. Rightfully. Because y'all aren't the ones in the right. Never have been or will be. Hell, they might fucking take legal action. I HOPE THEY DO.

Nothing that Proship, Comship OR darkship folk ship or support (in FICTION.) is illegal. Doxxing is! Harassment and cyberstalking/cyberbullying is!! Pushing someone to suicide is technically murder!! Murder is illegal!

Maybe when proshippers tell people about how it actually is, like therapists and whatnot... normal people don't say: " Yeah, you need to commit self-oof. "

Maybe, just maybe! Hypothetically! We might actually be the normal ones! No matter how much misinformation you spread, there will never be a point in time where you are right. At all.

Also, if your morals are so fucked that fiction can sway it:

Get off the Internet. You're not in a good enough state of mind to be here.

[ajaxbell]

Fangs of Fortune (Bai Ze Ling): perfect on pure aesthetics alone, but also it will tear your heart out while being very gay.

I was lured in to this show by Tumblr gifsets and friends on Bluesky talking about how queer and poly this show is. I'm old and I've been in fandom more than half my life. I know how to read queer subtext. I'm also pretty well versed in cdramas, so again, I know how to read subtext. So I went into this ready to, well, read the subtext.

But no this show is just puts the queer it right there in the text. The vague information we have about Chinese censorship repeatedly left me asking, 'wait how are they getting away with this?' Like some of these jokes and implications are just so blatant it seems incredible this show ever made it to being broadcast. It just feels very much like queer media made for queer people even if t's more subtle than something western like Queer as Folk.

Even without the heavy coloring of gay this show is incredible and so much more than I expected from the title and the promo. The premise is essentially the death of the goddess, who governed relations between humans and demons, leads to an influx of demons in the human world. This brings together the goddess's disciple, Wen Xiao--seeking to restore the goddess's power. WX's childhood sweetheart, Zhuo Yichen--seeking to restore the demon-hunting bureau after the powerful demon Zhu Yan killed his father and brother. It opens on Zhu Yan, in human disguise as as Zhao Yuanzhou, volunteering to help the imperial court restore the demon-hunting bureau to quell the chaos. They are joined by Pei Sijing, a retired female general from the rival demon hunting sect, and a very young doctor (and comic relief) named Bai Jiu. It starts off as a sort of monster-of-the-week with a grim Scooby gang doing detective work and fighting monsters. Each major demon has a mini arc that relates to the larger case (restoring the power of the goddess to balance the realms), and they are repeatedly blocked by either the demons or the rival demon hunting sect. Each mini arc also acts as a mirror or parallel story to slowly revealed backstory of all the main characters as well. In true cdrama fashion it's a mix of adventure, intense emotional drama, romance, and comedy. And queer and poly jokes and romance. It also has a kind of manga vibe in the way the comedy is woven into the more serious story, and in the fantastical depiction of the characters and how the story unfolds.

It is also just insanely beautiful. Every single shot is lovely. The costumes, make up, and hair are incredible. The casting director made all the major demons inhumanly beautiful. The sets are spectacular. The effects are nicely done. Every bit of has the vague surreality of a fairytale. The perfection of each shot ads to the manga vibe, as if we're seeing each critical storytelling panel come alive. There's recurring water-based special effects that are just gorgeous. Based on aesthetics alone this show would be worth watching to me. That it is combined with a complex, very emotional story is a spectacular gift to the watcher. A lot of the negative reviews of this complain about the staginess or that it's overly contrived in how each scene is shot. But I think it's gorgeous, works perfectly with the storytelling, and if we criticize art on whether it achieves the goal it intended then this show is doing exactly and perfectly what it means to do and doing it beautifully.

Additionally the acting is also very good, but Neo Hou is the stand out for sure. I enjoyed him in Back from the Brink, especially the later part of the story, but in Fangs of Fortune he's transformed, utterly embodying the role, the way Dylan Wang is Dongfang Qingcang in Love Between Fairy and Devil. Neo Hou has the right look, a slightly uncanny beauty perfect for a gorgeous immortal not of this world. The show does incredible things with his styling between the various looks and personas the role requires. But in acting he somehow manages to utterly transform his face and demeanor to manifest each aspect of the character as story demands changes from him.

There is a lot of crying in this drama. Like early on I joked that there was going to be a character crying a single perfect tear in every ep. Lol nope. Multiple single perfect tears per ep and many outright full on sobbing scenes. This show is just waiting to rip your heart out and you see it right from the beginning. But it was such sweet pain all the way through. Just a truly engaging and utterly wrenching set of intertwined stories.

My only criticism is that the pacing falls apart in the last 3 episodes. But overall the story is solid through the end, though like so many cdramas, it's saved by the epilogue.

You should absolutely watch it if you want the chaotic bi polycule (it's her, her girlfriend, her boyfriend, her boyfriend's boyfriend who is also her boyfriend, their two idiot sons, and her boyfriend's ex-who is also eventually sort of his boyfriend again), or if you want your heart torn out and stomped on. Or even if you just like really gorgeous cinematic things. Also if you watch, please don't skip the ending credits, as they change as the arcs change, and the radiant joy Tian Jiarui has as he dances is an excellent antidote to the emotions of each episode.

[formulatrash]

sorry to like, keep going on about this but as a (former?) media professional: seeing so many comments on @wearewatcher's video saying "I would fire people so I didn't have to charge for content" and accusing WATCHER of being capitalist about it is actually insane.

you used to have to pay for content. you had to pay like £16 to watch one whole movie on DVD. this is because it cost money to make and people were supposed to be paid for it. remember the writers' strike because streaming now only benefits executives with no equanimous income distribution model for the people who create the stuff you love?

you are meant to root for the independent creators. you are not meant to want all content to be beholden to an algorithmic nightmare that ransoms what creators can make or monetise for its own arbitrary censorship. you are not meant to root for a platform that works to silence and limit people under oppressive regimes. you are not meant to demand that you get content only on something that platforms and promotes right wing prejudice.

employing people is good!!!!!!! you are meant to want people to be fairly paid for their work even and especially when that work goes into creating things you love and get enrichment from

yes you are also meant to share your subscription with your friends. OUR login details. THAT'S fucking socialism.

[worlds-worst-ships]

Do you seriously, actually ship it?

Okay. Lets talk. Because apparently some of you are defending... well... "that" (under the cut)

"He's autistic! It was a stim!"

If you genuinely think that this has ANYTHING to do with autism, you are an objectively stupid person. Like, your brain is so fucking smooth, it puts the surface of freshly tempered glass to shame. You're a barely functional reprobate with subhuman intelligence who has no idea how to form thoughts so you let a 50 year old billionaire who spends too much time on his phone decide your thought process for you.

"He was throwing his heart out to the crowd!"

Now, I don't really play baseball, basketball, netball, or any sport where you throw anything other than sometimes darts, but... is that how you throw? You perfectly extend your arm at that angle? Twice? After spending years posting tweets that very much align with Nazi viewpoints? Do you throw a pitch in baseball and scream SIEG HEIL as the ball hurtles towards your opponent? No. Stop being a fucking idiot. This was deliberate. He did it twice.

"He's autistic! He doesn't know better!"

Please comment if you actually think this so I can personally call you a stupid cunt and block you. We absolutely do know better. Autism and Nazism aren't mutually exclusive.

"You're inhibiting his free speech!"

1st amendment only applies to censorship from government positions of power, which I am not, as should be obvious from the fact that I have no power to censor him. Though I shouldn't have to explain that.

"Well, he's gonna get away with it so stop being so sensitive!"

Yes. He is. But that's not a flex, that's A FUCKING MASSIVE PROBLEM. Call me sensitive if you want, but absolutely every single one of you should be offended by this. Did you pay attention in history class, or were you too tired after a long night of being fucking railed raw and bone dry by propaganda on Twitter? Moron.

"Well, he's rich and you're not, so there!"

Yep. Got me there. He's rich, and I'm not. Yknow, Hitler and a lot of Nazi officers were pretty minted too. So was Epstein, King Leopold, Stalin, Jimmy Saville, every MP currently serving in parliament... but sure, they're great people because they're rich, right?

"You're just a stupid offended libtard!"

Google "The Holocaust".

"Well, you're still using his app!"

His app? You mean the one he bought, then fucking ruined because he has no idea how to run it, right? And you because its basically impossible to find mutuals as a vtuber without it, you knew that, right? "His" app, please, you probably think Ronald McDonald makes your burger when you order McDonalds, you moron.

"If we punish Elon for this, then that's a violation of the first amendment!"

You mean like banning tiktok, removing any and all talk of election rigging, then putting it back up the next day? Or maybe like deleting any criticisms of you and your nazi salutes under your recent tweets despite it blowing up everywhere else? Or does that not count because its something you agree with? Yeah. You've been cucked harder than Sneako and you don't even realize it. Elon and his government buddies are leaving your free speech rights looking like this

Aaaaanyway

I find it well and truly laughable that so many people like Elon will say all this insane shit and do all these fucking heinous things and people will defend them. Like how that gun woman who shit herself says stuff like "I'm not homophobic, I just think gay people are disgusting and that they should die" or that comedian nobody finds funny anymore spends hours whining about trans people but says he's not transphobic.

Lets all be on the same page for once and have the balls to say what we actually think. Elon got so close, but being a spineless edgelord who doesn't have the balls to just say what he thinks out loud is quite the weakness.

[suchawrathfullamb]

Fully a believer that Hannigram did it but censorship so they went for symbolism and image play instead. Will being so insanely hurt in season one, not for everything Hannibal did, but for lying to him...Meanwhile he seemed more buddy-buddy with Alana or even Beverly and Jack. To me that screams lover. Will driving two hours in the snow to tell Hannibal about kissing Alana sounded so "I'm not sure what we are but I feel weird about having kissed her and now I need to tell you about it" and Hannibal being passive aggressive was top ten gay ass moments, then literally deciding right there that he would send Will's ass to the killer lmao. Will touching Hannibal's forehead in the scene after the Tobiah's fight, on the script, but then they removed it, to me, in my own little gay world means Will and Hannibal were fucking so they were weird about touching each other in front of Jack who did not know of the nature of their relationship, so even though helping a friend out after he almost died would be perfectly normal, for them, it was weird because they had to pretend they weren't close like that. Headcanon their first time was on the same day they fucking giggled about serial killers in Hannibal's office cause wtf? So gay. Then 100% had angry sex at some point between prison and salmon shirt. Then honeytrap, nice, sensual, husbands sex after the horse episode, lots of sex in the bird eating scene, then super duper tender emotional sex on the night Will refused to run away with H. Then super sex between Will getting shot by Chyoh and Hannibal sawing his head, then again before Will broke up with him and one thousand percent in Wrath. I accept no arguments against my thesis.

[szhmidty]

One of the things driving me insane about the tiktok ban is the basic thing with civil rights: when they erode, they always start eroding with assholes you don't like.

Yeah, tiktok is bad! That's trivial, it's a social media site. But maybe it's worse than usual. Whatever, I'll accept that for the sake of argument.

You should still, on principle, reject any attempt at government censorship that doesn't come paired with a very strong, compelling, principled justification. Like, fuck guys. This is basic rights 101.

I don't care how much you dislike tiktok. It sucks, whatever. I promise you hate it less than I do, by which I mean: if you've even formed a stereotype of "tiktok content" in your head, you almost certainly hate it less than I do because you've been able to stomach tiktok enough to form a stereotype.

Your reaction to states attempting to ban platforms they dislike wholesale should be to worry, for the extremely obvious reason that if you accept censorship then the state will continue to do so, as much as it can get away with.

I cannot express how baffled I am.